Monday, April 13, 2020
Sanders Says Congress Must Stop Trump From Exploiting Covid-19 Crisis to 'Bankrupt and Privatize the Postal Service'
"Now, more than ever, we need a strong and vibrant postal system to deliver mail 6-days a week. Congress must act now to save it."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/12/sanders-says-congress-must-stop-trump-exploiting-covid-19-crisis-bankrupt-and
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday urged Congress to act immediately to stop President Donald Trump from using the novel coronavirus outbreak "as an opportunity to bankrupt and privatize the Postal Service," a longstanding goal of the conservative movement.
"Now, more than ever, we need a strong and vibrant postal system to deliver mail 6-days a week," tweeted Sanders, a senator from Vermont. "Congress must act now to save it."
Sanders' call comes as the Postal Service is warning that it will completely run out of cash within the next several months if Congress doesn't act swiftly to provide relief. The USPS has been hit hard by the sharp decline in mail volume caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Postmaster General Megan Brennan told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a briefing Thursday.
"At a time when America needs the Postal Service more than ever," Brennan said, "the reason we are so needed is having a devastating effect on our business."
The Postal Service is calling on Congress to provide $75 billion in cash, grants, and loans, but President Donald Trump is standing in the way of any relief funding for USPS.
As the Washington Post reported Saturday, the president "threatened to veto the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, if the legislation contained any money directed to bail out the postal agency."
"We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it," an anonymous Trump administration official told the Post. "I don't know if we used the v-bomb, but the president was not going to sign it, and we told them that."
During a press briefing last week, Trump went on a falsehood-filled tirade against the Postal Service and said the independent executive branch agency should simply "raise prices" by "a lot."
Ronnie Stutts, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, told Yahoo News Sunday that he believes Trump's attacks on USPS are part of an effort to "privatize Postal Service."
"Everything was going good with this until they got to the White House," Stutts said of the congressional push for USPS funding in the previous stimulus package. "There's no two ways about it. And when it got there, he killed it. They said no. He was not going to give us any money."
Analysts argue that the Postal Service's financial crisis was manufactured by Congress, which in 2006 passed legislation requiring USPS to prefund its retirees' health benefits through the year 2056.
As the New York Times reported last week, "the Postal Service has not taken federal funding in decades, running instead off revenue raised from stamps and other postal products. But since the 2008 financial crisis, it has struggled to stay in the black, weighed down largely by a congressional mandate to prefund its retirement benefits programs."
"The agency has stopped making those payments in recent years, running up billions of dollars in debt, while its mail delivery business has otherwise remained profitable," the Times noted. "Lawmakers in both parties have proposed overhauls to the service along the way, but none have taken hold."
In February, the House of Representatives passed legislation authored by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) that would repeal the prefunding mandate. The bill stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump's refusal to assist the Postal Service, warned in a tweet Friday that "a progressive response to this pandemic is not possible without USPS," pointing to proposals such as nationwide vote-by-mail, more direct cash payments, and prescription drug deliveries to the vulnerable.
"This isn't just another squabble," said Connolly. "This is at the core of all we've fought for."
#FireTrumpNotFauci Trends After President Goes After Trusted Infectious Disease Official
"Trump could well get tired of being contradicted by Dr. Fauci, and we know he fires people at the drop of a hat."
by
Jon Queally, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/13/firetrumpnotfauci-trends-after-president-goes-after-trusted-infectious-disease
After President Donald Trump retweeted a message Sunday night that declared #FireFauci, it didn't take long for the #FireTrump and #FireTrumpNotFauci hashtags to emerge overnight as an immediate and popular response.
Just hours after Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on CNN Sunday morning and confirmed the U.S. federal government "could have saved more lives" if it had acted earlier and more urgently to address the coronavirus, Trump issued an ominous threat against the widely respective infectious disease specialist by retweeting a post that declared "Time to #FireFauci."
The attack on Fauci was just one of many Trump posted to the social media platform Sunday night that attempted to defend his management of the outbreak, deflect criticism, and blame others.
Fauci had appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper where he was asked about a "bombshell" New York Times article published Saturday that detailed Trump's failed response to the virus. The president, according to the reporting, "was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials."
What Fauci explained to Tapper did not appear controversial, but Trump's Sunday night tweet—in which he called the Times reporting "Fake news" and included the very public jab at Fauci—makes clear that Trump took it as an affront. While Fauci has become one of the nation's most trusted voices from within the administration when it comes to the coronavirus outbreak—having served six presidents as a health advisor and known for his adherence to evidence and sound policy devoid of partisan politics—Trump loyalists and members of the right-wing media have been trashing Fauci for weeks as an enemy to the president.
Despite the enormous amount of in-depth reporting and public record that documents a "botched" response on numerous fronts, Trump has continued to claim that he acted swiftly and appropriately to the pandemic. Trump repeatedly turns to his decision to close off travel from China in early February as one key example, but numerous experts and news outlets have reported that while the president restricted travel into the U.S. by foreign nationals who had recently been to the country, it was nowhere near to a full shutdown and far from the only kind of action that was needed to prepare the nation from the virus' coming onslaught. As the Times reported Sunday night:
Mr. Trump did not "ban China," but he did block foreign nationals who had been in China in the past 14 days from coming into the United States starting on Feb. 2. Despite the policy, 40,000 Americans and other authorized travelers have still come into the country from China since then.
[...]
Mr. Trump has repeatedly pointed back to those travel limits to defend his handling of the pandemic, but experts have said the limits were useful mainly to buy time that the administration did not then use to ramp up widespread testing and impose social distancing policies before infections could begin growing exponentially.
Will Trump actually fire Fauci? Historian Juan Cole, in his Monday morning column, certainly thinks it's possible.
"Trump could well get tired of being contradicted by Dr. Fauci, and we know he fires people at the drop of a hat," writes Cole. "Trump is perfectly capable of installing some suck-up crony as head of the coronavirus task force, someone who would be all right with declaring the pandemic over. Trump has an irrational dislike of the large scale testing and contact tracing method South Korea used to get back to work, and without Fauci there to champion testing, it could fall be the wayside, condemning us to waves of outbreaks and 18 months of on again off again shutdowns."
What recent history shows, Cole added, is that even top-level officials around the president "have to suck up to him frequently and publicly, or they won't be around after a while."
Brazil Minister Urges Unified Voice as Bolsonaro Downplays Coronavirus
Reuters. April 13, 2020
SAO PAULO — Brazil's health minister urged the government to speak with a unified voice in its fight against the new coronavirus, calling out President Jair Bolsonaro for downplaying the threat ahead of what are likely to be the two toughest months for the outbreak.
In an television interview airing late on Sunday, Health Minister Henrique Mandetta also criticized people for gathering in public without referring directly to Bolsonaro, who hit the streets over the weekend, drawing crowds and greeting followers.
"I hope we can speak with a single, unified message, because otherwise Brazilians end up doubting. They don't know whether to listen to the health minister, the president. Who should they listen to," Mandetta said.
Although the minister dodged what many expected would be a firing last week, he and the president remain at odds over the outbreak, with Bolsonaro criticizing isolation policies and suggesting the worst may already be past.
Brazil's death toll rose to 1,223 people on Sunday, 99 more than the previous day's tally, while the number of confirmed cases hit 22,169, according to Health Ministry data.
Still, the far-right president, a former army captain, told evangelical Christian leaders in a video address on Sunday that "it seems the matter of the virus is starting to go away."
In the interview airing later on Sunday, however, Mandetta warned that the hardest days of the outbreak will be felt in May and June.
"The behavior of society is what will dictate the coming weeks," the minister added. "When you see people entering bakeries, supermarkets, queueing one close to the other, this is clearly wrong," he said.
Bolsonaro dragging Brazil towards coronavirus calamity, experts fear
Tom Phillips and Dom Phillips. The Guardian. April 12, 2020
Medical experts have said they fear that Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, could be hastening the country’s march towards a devastating public health crisis like those to have hit northern Italy and New York by undermining social distancing measures.
Bolsonaro is one of just four world leaders still downplaying the threat of coronavirus to public health, alongside the authoritarian presidents of Nicaragua, Belarus and Turkmenistan.
Over Easter, Brazil’s far-right leader repeatedly sniffed at his own health ministry’s distancing recommendations by going out for doughnuts, glad-handing fans and proclaiming: “No one will hinder my right to come and go.” During one outing, Bolsonaro was filmed wiping his nose with his wrist before shaking an elderly lady’s hand.
Specialists in public health and infectious diseases believe such behaviour is eroding the only measures standing between Brazil – which has suffered more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths – and a healthcare calamity.
“It’s as if everybody’s on the same train heading towards a cliff-edge and someone says: ‘Look out! There’s a cliff!’ And the passengers shout: ‘Oh no there isn’t!’ And the train driver says: ‘Yeah, there’s nothing there!’” said Ivan França Junior, an epidemiologist from the University of São Paulo’s faculty of public health. “My sadness stems from seeing avoidable deaths that we are not going to avoid.”
Marcos Lago, an infectious diseases specialist at Rio de Janeiro’s Pedro Ernesto University Hospital, said Bolsonaro’s reckless conduct was confusing people over the need to stay at home.
“He’s making a very dangerous bet … that Brazil won’t behave like the US, like England, like Italy. I think that’s an irresponsible bet because there’s a very big chance a catastrophe will happen and the chance of one not happening is very small.”
A third doctor, who asked not to be named, called Bolsonaro’s actions “childish” and “surreal”. “It’s madness. There’s no justification for this kind of behaviour,” they said. “You can justify thinking about the business community. It’s cool to try and find [economic] solutions [to this crisis]. What’s not cool is ignoring what all of the world’s top epidemiological experts are saying.
“People are going to get sick [in Brazil], and if they get sick at the same time we will find ourselves in the same situation as Italy and Wuhan.”
Since mid-March, the governors of nearly all of Brazil’s 27 states have been trying to slow transmission by ordering citizens indoors. But there are signs that such efforts are fraying, with a growing number of people stepping out on to the streets of cities such as Rio and São Paulo.
The experts point to several possible explanations for social distancing not working in Brazil. One was the failure of state governments to sufficiently support poor favela residents who had no option but to work. Another was the difficulty in persuading exuberant, family-focused Brazilians to shun relatives.
“Brazilians are having a really hard time with social distancing. We aren’t used to this. We’re used to living together, to hugging and kissing each other,” said Tânia Vergara, president of Rio’s Society of Infectious Diseases.
“Some people can’t bear this, so perhaps we need tougher measures,” Vergara ventured, before adding: “But we have a president who isn’t sticking to the measures himself.”
There is also consensus that by snubbing distancing, Bolsonaro is undercutting its implementation. “Everything he says and does has an intense impact … Lots of people say: ‘The president’s 65 and he’s not afraid – so why should we be?’” said Ricardo Sobhie Diaz, an infectious diseases specialist from São Paulo’s Federal University. “Everybody [in infectiology] thinks the same about the president: that he’s not going in a good direction.”
Alberto Chebabo, vice-president of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, said because coronavirus arrived in Brazil later than elsewhere, it had the advantage of learning from other countries’ experience – and had the chance to take crucial steps such as distancing. “We can see the epidemic is advancing more slowly [here] and if it’s advancing more slowly it’s because of these measures,” he said.
But Bolsonaro’s stance risked throwing away that advantage. “We need a unified discourse,” Chebabo added.
Polls show that the president still enjoys the backing of about 30% of voters, and hundreds turned out in São Paulo on Saturday to denounce social distancing. “The hospitals are empty,” one supporter, who gave his name as Wagner de Oliveira, falsely claimed during a two-man pro-Bolsonaro demo in Rio.
But media and politicians of all stripes have rounded on the president. “President Bolsonaro is the virus’s main ally,” said Arthur Virgílio, mayor of the Amazon city of Manaus, where 42 people have died.
Merval Pereira, a columnist for the O Globo newspaper, accused Bolsonaro of acting like “a mystical leader leading his followers to collective suicide”.
França Junior predicted painful days lay ahead: “We are going to see people dying outside hospitals [because there are no intensive care beds], people dying at home because our ambulance service won’t be able to cope.
“Forecasts suggest this will happen in three or four weeks … and by then it will be too late. People will freak out and lock themselves indoors of their own volition.”
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