Tuesday, June 9, 2020
'Google the Geneva Conventions,' Kshama Sawant Tells Seattle Mayor After Police Use Tear Gas on Protesters Despite Ban
"Seattle police are banned from using tear-gas unless Seattle police disagree."
by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/08/google-geneva-conventions-kshama-sawant-tells-seattle-mayor-after-police-use-tear
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan's Friday promise that law enforcement would stop deploying tear gas against protesters for 30 days didn't even last the weekend as police flooded city streets with the chemical weapon Sunday in an attack on peaceful protesters demonstrating against police brutality.
"This is a wild abuse of power," tweeted progressive group MoveOn.
Demonstrations against police violence and racism have roiled Seattle as they have in cities around the nation in the two weeks since George Floyd was killed by four Minneapolis police officers last month.
The unrest has sparked a shift in national opinion on policing and cities around the country are defunding police departments—and in Minneapolis, beginning the process of dismantlement. The Seattle city council on Monday debated rerouting funding from the police department, with most members agreeing some money could be better spent on community service and the public good.
Seattle police have continually escalated conflict with demonstrators even as other departments around the country have pulled back on their violence and attacks on peaceful protesters.
On Monday, council member Kshama Sawant demanded Durkan "Google the Geneva Conventions to know what tear gas is all about," citing the international protocols' ban on using the chemical on civilians. Sawant, who was among those gassed and attacked by police on Sunday night, is calling on Durkan to resign.
Council member Lisa Herbold added that Durkan's order included language allowing Police Chief Carmen Best to override the ban, rendering it effectively powerless.
Earlier on Sunday, an armed counter-protester drove his car into demonstrators and drew a gun, firing into the crowd and wounding one young man. The shooter, a white man, was taken into custody by police after the incident.
The calm behavior of the police officers as they arrested the shooter was not lost on progressive activist Jordan Uhl, who has compiled a number of videos of footage from across the country of police abuse of protesters.
Journalist and activist Joshua Potash cited the use of tear gas by Seattle police and the attacks on demonstrators in the city as an indicator that simple police "reform" won't work.
"Small reforms aren't enough," tweeted Potash. "The culture of policing is rotten."
'It Was—Then as Now—Clearly a Coup': NYT Finally Gets Around to Reporting OAS Fraud Election Claims in Bolivia Were Bogus
"For those paying close attention to the 2019 election, there was never any doubt that the OAS' claims of fraud were bogus."
by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/08/it-was-then-now-clearly-coup-nyt-finally-gets-around-reporting-oas-fraud-election
More than seven months after claims of fraudulent elections sparked an undemocratic coup that led to the ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales, the New York Times late Sunday reported on new research showing the U.S.-led Organization of American States used flawed data and analysis to support its widely cited contention the voting was rigged.
"It was clear from the start, but now even the NYT is admitting: what happened in Bolivia was nothing short of a coup by the U.S. and its OAS puppet, deposing one of the most successful democratically elected leaders in modern Latin American history," tweeted journalist Glenn Greenwald in response to the tTimes reportin.
As Common Dreams reported in November, U.S. officials cited the OAS report on the election as a justification for backing the coup that deposed Morales, the left-wing Indigenous former president.
Despite reporting from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) casting doubt on those claims within 24 hours of the OAS making them, the Times only covered the problems with the U.S.-dominated organization's analysis after a study (pdf) from three independent researchers found the same results.
As the Times reported Monday:
The authors of the new study said they were unable to replicate the O.A.S.'s findings using its likely techniques. They said a sudden change in the trend appeared only when they excluded results from the manually processed, late-reporting polling booths.
This suggests that the organization used an incorrect data set to reach its conclusion, the researchers said. The difference is significant: the 1,500 excluded late-reporting booths account for the bulk of the final votes that the O.A.S. statistical analysis claims are suspicious.
In a statement, CEPR research associate Jake Johnston said that the OAS "continued to repeat its false assertions for many months with little to no pushback or accountability" despite his organization's finding to the contrary.
"For those paying close attention to the 2019 election, there was never any doubt that the OAS' claims of fraud were bogus," said Johnston.
Since the coup, the human rights situation in the Latin American country has gone from bad to worse as the government of far-right interim president Jeanine Áñez has rolled back reforms put in place by Morales, opened the country's resources to private exploitation, and delayed scheduled elections under the pretext of public health due to the coronavirus outbreak.
"The OAS bears responsibility for the significant deterioration of the human rights situation in Bolivia since Morales' ouster," said CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot.
Weisbrot warned that if the OAS and its leadership is "allowed to get away with such politically driven falsification of their electoral observation results again, this threatens not only Bolivian democracy but the democracy of any country where the OAS may be involved in elections in the future."
Due to Trump's Maskless Visit, Medical Supplier in Maine Forced to Toss Out Badly-Needed Swabs
"Thanks, President Jackass."
by
Julia Conley, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/08/due-trumps-maskless-visit-medical-supplier-maine-forced-toss-out-badly-needed-swabs
Puritan Medical Products in Guilford, Maine will have to discard an untold number of medical swabs that were manufactured while President Donald Trump toured its facility on Friday, after the president flouted basic sanitary precautions during his visit to the company's production line.
As with most of the president's public appearances during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump did not wear a face mask or any other personal protective equipment during his visit to Puritan, which is one of just two companies in the world that make the cotton swabs needed for coronavirus tests.
In contrast with Trump, the Puritan employees seen in photos and footage of the event wore masks, gloves, goggles, and plastic coverings over their shoes.
At one point during the visit, the president put his arm around an employee before saying, "I'm not supposed to do that."
Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat who is challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her Senate seat, slammed the president for coming to Maine for a photo-op at all in the middle of a public health and economic crisis as well as unrest over racial injustice—especially considering his visit may have worsened swab shortages across the country.
Former Senate candidate Ross LaJeunesse was more succinct in a tweet directed at the president:
Slow production of swabs has been identified as a key reason behind the U.S. government's delays in manufacturing coronavirus tests. As NPR reported last month, Trump did not invoke the Defense Production Act to order scaled-up swab production at Puritan until April 19, more than a month after state officials including Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo raised alarm over the lack of swabs.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in mid-April that weeks prior, he had written to the president and urged him to "mobilize the incredible supply chains that the Department of Defense has and to ask them to convert some of their production from other hardware and software to swabs and contact vials and machines that can do analysis. And he did not agree with that assessment, and we lost weeks, frankly."
Last month, the Portland Press Herald reported that 61% of Maine's nursing homes, where many of its coronavirus cases have been confirmed, had seven or fewer swabs on hand to conduct tests. Nearly a third of the nursing homes had no swabs.
Amid Easing Restrictions, Study Estimates Shutdowns Prevented 60 Million Covid-19 Cases in US Alone
"I don't think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time," said the study's lead author.
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/08/amid-easing-restrictions-study-estimates-shutdowns-prevented-60-million-covid-19
Though the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the United States is nearing two million and the death toll has topped 110,500, an analysis published Monday in the journal Nature shows that stay-at-home orders and other measures implemented in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic prevented about 60 million infections nationwide.
Since mid-March, millions of people in the U.S. have lost their jobs—and for many, that has also meant losing their health insurance in the midst of a pandemic. Americans' struggles to access healthcare, remain in their homes, and keep food on the table has put pressure on congressional leaders and the Trump administration to dramatically expand efforts that provide direct relief to peple who need it."The last several months have been extraordinarily difficult, but through our individual sacrifices, people everywhere have each contributed to one of humanity's greatest collective achievements," lead author Solomon Hsiang said in a statement Monday. "I don't think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time."
The findings come as communities across the country are easing restrictions—despite worries that reopening too early could lead to a surge in new infections. The analysis also comes amid a wave of nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism for which hundreds (pdf) of public health experts have expressed support while also warning of the inherent risks and the necessity of taking precautions.
The University of California, Berkeley said in a statement that the study is the "first peer-reviewed analysis of local, regional, and national policies" enacted to contain the virus. Researchers examined containment efforts in the U.S., South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and China—where the virus first emerged late last year—and found that across all six nations, 1,717 travel restrictions, business and school closures, and other policies prevented roughly 530 million Covid-19 infections.
The study period ended April 6. Continuing containment policies since then has likely prevented many millions more cases, according to Hsiang, director of UC Berkeley's Global Policy Laboratory and a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy. He said that "April and May would have been even more devastating if we had done nothing, with a toll we probably can't imagine."
"It's as if the roof was about to fall in, but we caught it before it crushed everyone," Hsiang added. "It was difficult and exhausting, and we are still holding it up. But by coming together, we did something as a society that nobody could have done alone and which has never been done before."
The UC Berkeley statement explained that "the study did not estimate how many lives might have been saved by the policies because, with so many infections, fatality rates would be much higher than anything observed to date."
Infectious disease expert Dr. Dena Grayson added a similar note after responding to the new study on Twitter Monday with an estimate of the number of deaths prevented based on the current fatality rate:
As the Washington Post reported Monday:
A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated the shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries, including 500,000 in the United Kingdom, and dropped infection rates by an average of 82%, sufficient to drive the contagion well below epidemic levels.
...But the overwhelming majority of people remain susceptible to the virus. Only about 3% to 4% of people in the countries being studied have been infected to date, said Samir Bhatt, senior author of the Imperial College London study.
"This is just the beginning of the epidemic: we're very far from herd immunity," Bhatt told the Post in an email Monday. "The risk of a second wave happening if all interventions and precautions are abandoned is very real."
Four Numbers that Show America's Disdain for Its Most Vulnerable People
The nation's plague of economic inequality and poverty puts everyone at risk.
by
Paul Buchheit
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/08/four-numbers-show-americas-disdain-its-most-vulnerable-people
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have suffered "deaths of despair" from alcohol and drug abuse and suicides because they could no longer provide for their families. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, during a post-recession period when the economy and stock market were booming, the poorest 50% of Americans lost wealth. And now many of them have lost their jobs, their income, their livelihoods.
40%: The Percentage of Lost Jobs that May Be Lost for Good
Anywhere from half to three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Now the paychecks are disappearing. Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, many of which will not come back. A recent paper out of the University of Chicago estimates that over 40 percent of jobs lost are gone for good.
$40 Trillion: The Amount of Wealth that Went to America's Richest 10% in Just Ten Years
The poorest 50% got nothing. Their wealth actually declined.
Over three-quarters of our wealth is owned by the richest 10% of Americans. Over $40 trillion has surged up to these individuals since the recession, allowing them to more than double their wealth to an average of over $3 million, mainly by doing nothing while the stock market nearly quadrupled in value. That's American prosperity being shifted upwards, a redistribution of wealth to households that were already wealthy.
America has nearly 20 million millionaires—approximately one for every seven households. But four of seven households are living without savings.
$8.70: The Amount of Black Household Wealth for Every $100.00 of White Household Wealth
The economic pain is greatest for black households, who have seen their median household income drop over the past twenty years, while their total household wealth remains at about one-twelfth of white households. The pain and misfortune continue to pile up for the black community, which has suffered the greatest effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Because of their job losses and lack of savings and inability to maintain rent payments, they will be taking the brunt of an inevitable housing crisis; and, in perhaps the cruelest hit of all, the Trump administration is still considering cuts in the food stamp program.
1 Hour: The Amount of Work in a Week to be Qualified as 'Employed'
Even if the jobs come back, they won't be enough for millions of part-time workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics bases the official unemployment rate on employees "who did any work for pay or profit" during the week being surveyed. That includes part-time workers who are employed for just one hour a week.
Even with that absurd definition of employment in America, unemployment levels were still not reduced for the Black community in the first month of recovery from the pandemic.
The Insanity of Not Having a Guaranteed Income
The need for a guaranteed income (or, even better, guaranteed jobs) was clear well before the pandemic. Robot technology has been steadily replacing workers, and unlike in the past the workforce is not evolving into a higher skill level. Much of our thinking is now performed by machine. And that technology—artificial intelligence—was largely built by the taxpayers. The jobs remaining are, to a good extent, either high-tech positions with six-figure salaries or low-skilled jobs in food service, retail, and health and personal care.
Now, with a quarter of the population facing economic collapse, the need for a guaranteed income is magnified to a level last seen in the Great Depression. It seems to have worked in Stockton, California. It has a wide range of supporting voices behind it. Most strikingly, the pandemic has made it clear that a dramatic change will be required in the way Americans provide for their families.
How to implement it? A very small tax on financial wealth. With just two percent of each household's financial wealth each year, our nation could generate enough revenue to provide nearly a $14,000 annual stipend to every American household (yes, including those of the richest families).
Does this "soak the rich"? No, everyone pays a tiny portion of their financial wealth, and everyone receives an equal portion in return.
If the wealthiest Americans continue to resist this sensible and obvious solution, the violence that plagues our nation will continue to get worse. And violence, as peace advocate Robert Burrowes has long maintained, is a reflection of a people's insanity.
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