https://vikv.net/watch/peterloo-2018/
Sunday, May 10, 2020
US Blocks UN Global Ceasefire Resolution, Objecting to Indirect Reference to World Health Organization
"It's bad enough that Trump is responsible for so many deaths in his own country, now he is actively complicit in causing even more across the globe."
by
Julia Conley, staff writer
57 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/09/us-blocks-un-global-ceasefire-resolution-objecting-indirect-reference-world-health
International diplomats were stunned and frustrated Friday night after the U.S. again blocked a United Nations resolution to call for a global ceasefire during the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. objected to any mention of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the resolution. President Donald Trump has claimed WHO withheld information from world governments about the coronavirus, and that the global health agency was privy to information about the virus originating in a lab in China.
The president has offered no evidence of the claims.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on governments around the world to enact ceasefires in conflicts, convincing armed factions in more than a dozen countries to call for temporary truces as the world battles the pandemic.
For six weeks the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Security Council has objected to references to WHO within the resolution, forcing French officials to lead an effort to reach a compromise.
France was confident this week that the U.S. would agree to a resolution containing the phrase "specialized health agencies," appeasing both the U.S. and China, which has insisted on a reference to WHO.
But on Friday, the U.S. announced it would not support the resolution and blocked the Security Council from holding a vote.
Diplomats on the council were perplexed over how to proceed.
"Obviously they have changed their mind within the American system so that wording is still not good enough for them," one official told The Guardian. "It might be that they just need a bit more time to settle it amongst themselves, or it might be that someone very high up has made a decision they don't want it, and therefore it won't happen. It is unclear at this moment, which one it is."
Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, wrote that the U.S. is playing the "blame game" rather than joining with other countries to focus efforts on the global health crisis and put fighting on hold.
In addition to rejecting the ceasefire resolution, Trump has also withheld funding for WHO in recent weeks, claiming the agency mismanaged the crisis and that "So much death has been caused by their mistakes."
The U.S. has had far less success than a number of other wealthy countries at "flattening the curve." Earlier this month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projected a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths, with deaths reaching 3,000 per day by June 1, as the Trump administration pushed states to reopen their economies. Republican-led states have taken an aggressive approach to forcing Americans back to work amid widespread fears of the deadly virus, with Ohio urging employers to report workers who don't report to their jobs after industries reopen and threatening a loss of unemployment benefits.
Meanwhile in many other countries, with widespread testing that began weeks ago when Trump was publicly downplaying the pandemic and robust economic relief packages designed to keep people at home without worrying about a loss of income, cases have been dropping for weeks.
New Zealand announced late last month that it "effectively eliminated" Covid-19, with new cases in the single digits. The government spent 4% of its G.D.P. on an economic relief package which covered the wages of all New Zealanders who had to self-isolate, and doubled its healthcare spending.
South Korea has also been praised for flattening the curve with widespread testing early on in the global pandemic, and countries including Denmark and Germany have seen success at reducing cases with early adoption of strict lockdowns.
According to a Foreign Policy report last month the Trump administration is also reluctant to sign the resolution because a ceasefire could impede its counterterrorism operations and key ally Israel's ability to conduct military operations throughout the Middle East.
"It's bad enough that Trump is responsible for so many deaths in his own country, now he is actively complicit in causing even more across the globe," tweeted human rights advocate Dan Sohege of the U.K. charity Stand for All.
Former British Green Party leader Natalie Bennett called the U.S. "an obstructive force in international affairs."
The Security Council is set to continue negotiations on the resolution next week.
'Most Cataclysmic' Jobs Report of Our Lifetime Shows US Unemployment Soaring to Level Not Seen Since Great Depression
While the official government figure is 14.7% for April, some economists estimate the actual unemployment rate is around 23.6%.
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/08/most-cataclysmic-jobs-report-our-lifetime-shows-us-unemployment-soaring-level-not
Just a day after announcing that about 33.5 million Americans have filed jobless claims since mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic has caused lockdowns worldwide, the U.S. Department of Labor on Friday revealed the nation's official unemployment rate hit 14.7% last month—its highest level since the Great Depression.
Before the April jobs report release, Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) warned on Twitter that Friday would be "the most cataclysmic #JobsDay of all of our lives" and shared a chart showing how recent unemployment claims contrast with the past 80 years, before detailing current conditions in a 22-tweet thread.
While the 14.7% figure for April is significantly higher than February (3.5%) and March (4.4%), it fails to capture the full scope of how U.S. workers have been impacted by temporary business closures and hours reductions that have resulted from the ongoing global health crisis. The report says 5.1 million Americans had hours cut in April.
Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at EPI, explained that "only about two-thirds of coronavirus-related job losses are showing up as unemployed—the rest are showing up as having dropped out of the labor force. If all coronavirus-related job losses had shown up as unemployed, the unemployment rate would now be around 19.0%, not 14.7%."
"Further, about 7.5 million workers are likely being misclassified as 'employed, not at work' instead of 'temporarily unemployed,'" she continued. "If they were classified correctly AND all coronavirus-related job losses had shown up as unemployed, the unemployment rate would be around 23.6%."
She also highlighted EPI's estimate from April 30 that because of recent job losses, about 12.7 million Americans have lost their employer-based health insurance—which EPI researchers called a "terrifying" indictment of the country's private, for-profit healthcare system, particularly in the midst of a pandemic.
EPI senior economist Elise Gould addressed the April jobs report in a Friday blog post entitled "A Waking Nightmare." She wrote: "I struggle to even put into words how large this drop is. It's as if all the gains in employment since 2000 were wiped out. Total job losses over the last two months would fill all 30 currently empty Major League Baseball stadiums 16 times over."
Gould advised against celebrating the supposed "silver lining" that nominal wages grew 7.9% over the year, explaining that the wage growth "reflects the dropping of lower wage jobs from the total, which results in higher average wages for the remaining jobs, and what appears to be faster overall growth, but not driven by people getting meaningful raises."
The 20.5 million job losses across the United States in April underscore the need for bold action from federal lawmakers, according to Gould.
"Congress needs to continue providing relief to workers and their families across the country," she wrote. "They need to extend expanded unemployment insurance until the labor market has sufficiently recovered and provide a huge amount of aid to state and local governments."
"The next relief package," Gould concluded, "should also include worker protections, a paycheck guarantee, invest in our democracy, provide relief to the postal service, and make significant investments in testing and contact tracing."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, took to Twitter Friday with a similar message, promoting the Paycheck Guarantee Act she unveiled in early April, which would enable U.S. companies of all sizes to continue paying 100% of their employees' salaries of up to $100,000 annually.
When the bill was introduced, Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform warned that "in the absence of action along the lines outlined in Rep. Jayapal's legislation, the likelihood of a Great Depression scale economic catastrophe and the disappearance of large swathes of the small business sector becomes ever greater."
'My God,' Says US Senator After William Barr Deploys 'History Is Written by the Winners' Trope
"The head of the American justice system now saying publicly that there is no good or bad except what the strongest want," said another critic. "The definition of autocracy."
by
Jon Queally, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/08/my-god-says-us-senator-after-william-barr-deploys-history-written-winners-trope
"My god."
That was the initial two-word reaction of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) late Thursday night after CBS News aired an interview with U.S. Attorney General William Barr who declared that "history is written by the winners" when asked how he thought historians would view the Justice Department's dropping of charges against President Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn earlier in the day.
To critics like Murphy, Barr's response was a clear betrayal of the standards that should be upheld by the Justice Department and the American legal system.
"The entire idea of the rule of law—that thing the Attorney General is supposed to be in charge of upholding—is predicated on the outcome of elections NOT mattering when it comes to the operation of the legal system," Murphy said.
After the DOJ's decision to drop charges against Flynn there was no shortage of outrage directed at Barr, with many critics saying it appeared to be a direct effort to help the president politically.
"Barr has consistently acted for the personal and political benefit of President Trump, rather than fulfilling his duty as chief law enforcement officer of the United States," said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Legal experts, meanwhile, said the DOJ maneuvers related to the Flynn case were unprecedented.
"I've been practicing for more time than I care to admit and I've never seen anything like this," Julie O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Georgetown University, told the New York Times.
But Barr's deflection of such criticisms—delivered with what the Daily Beast characterized as "a sly smile"—during the CBS interview sparked even further alarm.
"The head of the American justice system now saying publicly that there is no good or bad except what the strongest want. The definition of autocracy," tweeted writer and director Adam Stein in response.
Political science professor Robert E. Kelly, who teaches at the Pusan National University in South Korea, said it's "kinda mind-blowing that the US equivalent of the justice minister is embracing might-makes-right historiography. [Isn't] his job literally the opposite?"
In the U.S. meanwhile, journalist and left-leaning columnist Will Bunch suggested it was time to put Barr's theory of history and justice to the test.
"We need to win in November and write the history of how Bill Barr spent the rest of his life in prison," Bunch quipped.
'This Funding Should Be Non-Negotiable': CPC Co-Chair Pocan Joins Progressives to Demand Congress Allocate $4 Billion for Election Assistance
"Failing to act now would put our democracy and the 2020 election at risk."
by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/06/funding-should-be-non-negotiable-cpc-co-chair-pocan-joins-progressives-demand
Rep. Mark Pocan added his legislative weight to demands from progressives that Congress include in the next coronavirus relief package $4 billion for election assistance as the disease continues to make in-person voting potentially hazardous, necessitating reforms.
"Voting shouldn't be a risk you have to choose to take," Pocan said in a statement Wednesday. "The health of the election and the health of the nation will be at stake in November—and we think this funding should be non-negotiable."
The Wisconsin Democrat joined groups like Stand Up America and Demos Action in a press call promoting their demand that federal lawmakers act to protect the right to vote and avoid debacles like that in Wisconsin in April, where officials pushed forward with in-person voting despite the health risks—resulting in dozens in the aftermath becoming ill with Covid-19.
"The Wisconsin election is the poster child for everything that can go wrong if we don't act fast," said Pocan.
As Common Dreams reported, over 150 advocacy groups, including Stand Up America and Demos, demanded in an open letter on April 13 that Congress take action to protect elections because "time is of the essence" as shown by the "the election fiasco in Wisconsin—where voters were forced to risk their health and safety in order to exercise their fundamental right to vote."
The spread of the disease in Wisconsin and other states through polling places, said Demos senior policy analyst Laura Williamson, shows that "crowded polling places and waiting hours in long lines do not serve the public interest."
"The bottom line here is that Covid-19 presents an existential threat to our democracy—especially for Black and brown voters who have always faced higher barriers to the ballot box," said Williamson.
Stand Up America founder Sean Eldridge declared that inaction "would put our democracy and the 2020 election at risk."
"We know that Democrats have leverage in negotiating the next coronavirus package, and we are calling on them to use it to ensure that election assistance funding is included," said Eldridge. "States need funding right now for upcoming primaries, and there are fewer than 200 days until the general election in November. Congress must act by providing $4 billion."
'Outrageous, Callous, and Cruel': Seniors Rip Trump for Holding Covid-19 Relief Hostage to Push Social Security Cuts
"Trump's actions are a war on seniors. He is insisting on threatening Social Security on which most seniors rely for their food, medicine, and other basic necessities."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/05/outrageous-callous-and-cruel-seniors-rip-trump-holding-covid-19-relief-hostage-push
Grassroots advocacy groups representing millions of retirees and seniors across the United States are speaking out against and urging Congress to oppose President Donald Trump's threat to block desperately needed Covid-19 relief legislation if it does not slash the payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare.
"It is outrageous, callous, and cruel for President Trump to hold the American people, and seniors in particular, hostage if Congress doesn't go along with his plan to gut Social Security for current and future retirees," said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an organization with over four million members nationwide.
During a Fox News town hall Sunday night, Trump said he would oppose any additional coronavirus stimulus package that does not include his long-desired payroll tax cut, which would provide zero direct relief to the more than 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs over the past six weeks. The president suggested at a press briefing last month that the tax cut should be permanent."The president's plan is also bad economics. Social Security puts more than $800 billion into the economy each year. Destabilizing the system when we are in the middle of an economic downtown is exactly the opposite of what we need to do," Fiesta added. "The 4.4 million members of the Alliance for Retired Americans call on all members of Congress to refuse to make such a deal. We will fight this attempt to gut Social Security and in November we will remember who was willing to defend and protect our earned benefits."
"We're not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut," Trump said Sunday, just days after vowing to protect Social Security and Medicare.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in a statement Monday that Trump's remarks "set off alarm bells for America's seniors and their advocates."
"Make no mistake: by pushing to cut off the program's funding stream, President Trump is taking the first step toward dismantling Social Security," said Richtman. "The president's campaign to eliminate payroll taxes is a violation of his patently false promises to seniors 'not to touch' Social Security. This proposal goes way beyond 'touching.' Choking off Social Security's funding stream is an existential threat to seniors' earned benefits."
The multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in late March, contains a provision allowing employers to delay payment of the payroll tax for at least the duration of 2020.
Advocates warned at the time that the provision, which replaces payroll tax revenue with general revenue, represents a fundamental threat to Social Security's long-term financial health. Nancy Altman, president of advocacy group Social Security Works, predicted that Republicans will "undoubtedly use the general revenue to demand cuts to Social Security in the name of 'reining in entitlements.'"
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a proponent of Social Security cuts, hinted in that direction last month, declaring that "the future of our country in terms of the amount of debt that we're adding up is a matter of genuine concern."
In a statement on Monday, Altman said the president's relentless push for a payroll tax cut shows "how desperately Trump and the right-wing ideologues surrounding him want to defund Social Security, so they have an excuse down the road to demand cuts to our earned benefits."
"Trump's actions are a war on seniors," said Altman. "He wants to open up the economy, even though Covid-19 is disproportionately costing seniors their lives. Now he is insisting on threatening Social Security on which most seniors rely for their food, medicine, and other basic necessities. Members of Congress, particularly House Democrats, need to stand strong and call Trump's bluff."
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