TIME TO RETHINK THE US-ROK ALLIANCE

By John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus.

July 5, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/time-to-rethink-the-us-rok-alliance/






South Korea Is Trapped Between A U.S. Rock And A North Korean Hard Place. It Should Consider Changing Its Relationship With The Rock.


North Korea has blown up the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong. It is threatening an all-out pamphlet war in response to defectors sending anti-regime propaganda to the north. South Korea’s unification minister has stepped down after failing to meet with his North Korean counterparts during his 14-month tenure.

Pyongyang is not happy about the balloons launched by defectors carrying leaflets and dollar bills. But the real problem is that North Korea remains heavily sanctioned and South Korea has been unable or unwilling to alleviate that situation.

Meanwhile, South Korea is being pressured from the other side. The Trump administration has pushed hard for Seoul to pay more for the maintenance of U.S. bases and troops in the country: a preposterous increase from $900 million to $5 billion. South Korea countered with a 13 percent increase that Washington rejected. Only 4 percent of South Koreans believe that their country should accept the U.S. demand.

On top of that, the United States has refused to provide much if any wiggle room for South Korea to pursue economic projects with North Korea. Even as Trump attempted to negotiate a nuclear deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the United States maintained strict sanctions on the country.

It is very frustrating to be the object of geopolitics rather than the subject. South Korea is a weak geopolitical actor because other countries, primarily the United States and North Korea, are determining the conditions within which Seoul is operating.

President Moon Jae-in has tried to turn lemons into lemonade by presenting himself as the great conciliator. He pulled off three meetings with Kim Jong Un in 2018, two at the DMZ and one in Pyongyang, and breathed new life into inter-Korean relations. He managed to preserve a working relationship with Donald Trump, largely through flattery. Early on, he mended fences with China over the THAAD dispute. Moon did a brilliant job given the circumstances.

Much of that strategy now lies in tatters, blown up like the liaison office in Kaesong.

Some in Seoul are no doubt advising Moon to adopt a posture of “strategic patience” toward the United States. In November, American voters may well remove Trump from office, and then South Korea can negotiate with the more pragmatic and predictable Joe Biden.

But Biden’s predictability will pose an equally frustrating challenge. A Biden administration will probably accept Seoul’s offer of a modest increase in host nation support. But Biden will not likely offer a new approach to North Korea. Expect yet another strategic review of U.S. policy, followed by a continuation of the status quo: maximum pressure on Pyongyang, short of war, until it adopts a more conciliatory negotiating position. South Korea’s role as a passive actor in this drama will not change.

Perhaps it’s time for South Korea, then, to assert more independence and become a master of its own fate. Above all, that will require a reconsideration of the military alliance with the United States.

From a military point of view, South Korea doesn’t need the presence of U.S. troops on the peninsula. They serve a largely symbolic function as a concrete sign of U.S. commitment. At some point, after the resolution of ongoing negotiations, South Korea will assume full operational control of military forces. After years of arms imports, South Korea’s hardware advantage gives it a vast military superiority over the North.

The United States has been an obstacle in the way of improving inter-Korean relations. And it has forced a partnership with Tokyo that Seoul finds uncomfortable. On top of that, South Korea periodically worries that it will be drawn into the conflict between Washington and Beijing.

A cost-benefit analysis of the U.S.-South Korean alliance suggests that it no longer serves Seoul’s interests as it once might have.

Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in its own assessment of the benefits of that relationship. Under Trump, the United States has called into question virtually all of its military alliances. The burden-sharing that Trump is attempting to force on NATO, on Japan, and on South Korea is only an extreme version of what the foreign policy elite in Washington has demanded for years.

Biden is expected to take a more supportive position toward these military alliances. But the economic challenges posed by the coronavirus as well as the longer-term erosion of U.S. geopolitical influence mean that the United States will likely continue Trump’s cost-cutting approach but in more polite terms and according to a different timeline.

Instead of passively watching this process unfold, South Korea should get ahead of the curve. It should begin asserting its independence from the United States. It should prepare for the time when the two countries have a normal relationship rather than a “special” relationship.

It has been 70 years since the Korean War and the division of the peninsula. Overcoming that division, ultimately, will require altering South Korea’s relationship with the United States. The question that remains: will it be South Korea or the United States that takes the lead in changing the relationship?

By respectfully taking the initiative, South Korea can become a full-fledged actor in geopolitics. It can thank the United States for all of the help provided over the years (and hold its tongue about the unsavory aspects of the alliance like the prostitution around military bases). It can hold a party for the departing U.S. troops. And it can then set about re-imagining the North East Asian region with a unified peninsula at its heart.

Policing is Not a Public Good

Ravi Mangla July 4, 2020




https://citizentruth.org/policing-is-not-a-public-good/






From the beginning, policing in this country has primarily protected the powerful. Maybe now that can change.

(Common Dreams) For decades, we’ve been told that policing is a public good: available to all, for the benefit of all. But in practice, that’s never been true.

One of the basic measures of a “public good” is that it’s accessible to all people in a society, regardless of ability to pay. But from the beginning, policing in this country was designed to protect the assets of the most privileged.

Boston merchants were the first to persuade lawmakers in 1838 that a full-time, publicly funded police force would serve the “collective good.” In reality, they wanted to get the public to pay for protecting their shipped goods and routes.

In the South, where the economy depended on enslaved labor, publicly funded slave patrols were created in 1704 to surveil, track, and punish Black people who attempted to escape. As historian Sally Hadden notes, “Most law enforcement was, by definition, white patrolmen watching, catching, or beating Black slaves” — who were legally considered the property of wealthy white men.

Today, all across the United States, landlords and property managers enlist law enforcement to forcibly evict low-income tenants. Police regularly remove homeless individuals from parks and public spaces. And cops routinely stop, search, and threaten Black and brown people when they drive or walk through white neighborhoods.


We’ve seen these disparities in policing increase since the outbreak of COVID-19. And soon, with eviction moratoriums lifting across the country, tens of thousands of struggling tenants will be sent eviction notices. When families have no place else to go and landlords call in law enforcement, who do you think the police will serve and protect?

For centuries, police have taken the side of power, at the expense of those most marginalized.

Police have never protected Black lives as much as they protect white property. And when people protest having their safety threatened — as in the nationwide protests after the murder of George Floyd — they’re met with further violence from police.

Safety is born out of investment in true public goods. Policing in America reveals a lack of it.

If people had guaranteed housing, there would be no one sleeping in subway cars, in parks, or on sidewalks for the police to round up. If people had universal health care, mental health problems might be treated instead of criminalized. And if we had a federal jobs guarantee, people would not be forced into an underground economy that fuels a cruel and punishing prison system.

But instead of addressing root causes of insecurity, leaders of both parties have often chosen to defund education and hospitals while resisting significant reductions to policing.

What if public safety were a public good? What would that look like?

It would mean funding nonviolent tools to de-escalate and respond to safety concerns. It would mean engaging community members in collective decision-making, since each community has unique needs. And, most importantly, it means using an anti-racist framework to create new approaches to public safety.

We’re in a transformative moment in history where structural change is within our grasp. Reform has failed time and time again to address the problem of police violence. It’s more clear than ever that we need to divest from policing and invest in universal public goods that create true public safety, not just the illusion of it.

What Have We Learned from COVID-19? (Spoiler Alert: Not a Whole Lot)

Joseph Mangano July 4, 2020








Where are your masks? Why are you sitting so close together? AHHHHH! (Photo Credit: Shealah Craighead/Official White House Photo)




https://citizentruth.org/what-have-we-learned-from-covid-19-spoiler-alert-not-a-whole-lot/








No one in their right mind would’ve wished for a deadly global pandemic like the one we’re experiencing now. The ultimate hope of many, meanwhile, is that we might learn something, anything about how to live our lives in a way that is better for us all and more sustainable given the uncertainty of the planet’s very viability owing to climate change.

Months into our communal COVID-19 response, however, it is difficult to see what has changed for the better exactly. Thus far, our inept or deliberately poor handling of this crisis has only served to lay bare the imperfections in our society and its underpinning systems, manifested in woeful inequality and callous indifference to the suffering of marginalized peoples. For all the masks we now don to combat the spread of coronavirus—and for some, that still is a work in progress—2020 has been, in many respects, a “mask-off” year. This, despite hundreds of thousands of deaths, economic disarray, and a complete upheaval of what is considered “normal.”

A recent New York Times report on disparities in the availability and quality of health care in New York City along socioeconomic lines is more or less a microcosm of the overall trend. The article, a joint production by Brian M. Rosenthal, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Otterman, and Sheri Fink, details how outcomes have been markedly different for private facilities in Manhattan versus hospitals in poor neighborhoods.

Against a backdrop of disproportionate suffering for low-income neighborhoods, of which the majority impacted are blacks or members of the Latinx community and many of them immigrants or “essential” workers (so much for being truly essential), the piece, while acknowledging the myriad factors which affect how the infected recover or don’t recover, points to the potential significance of where someone is treated. Citing hospital mortality rates, the authors highlight how patients at community hospitals have been three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their counterparts at private medical centers.

Mediating this gap are less access to drug trials, reduced staffing, and worse equipment, a function of underfunded public facilities. Meanwhile, private networks like New York-Presbyterian, NYU Langone, and the Mount Sinai Health System have better resources—monetary or otherwise—not to mention the support of government policies and a sizable revenue stream by way of Medicare and private insurance. Thus, while the top private networks rake in cash, the city’s public hospitals struggle to stay afloat financially and face closures. As you might expect, these facilities on the brink of ruin tend not to be located in Manhattan, but rather the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens.


Under normal circumstances, these contrasts in the affordability and availability of care are alarming and dangerous. In a pandemic marked by overcrowding of hospitals and bed shortages across regions? It’s a recipe for disaster. And while the authors of the Times piece give a 3-to-1 ratio overall for the disparity in patient outcomes (which, to be fair, is disputed by some respondents contacted by the authors within), depending on the location and other circumstances, it potentially could be wider. This reality is one the likes of New York state governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC mayor Bill de Blasio would be loath to lead with in their coronavirus press conferences.

In the early stages of America’s COVID-19 response, New York and New Jersey were hit particularly hard by the pandemic. These states have since seen declines, but now infection rates are rising in a majority of the U.S.’s 50, particularly in states like Florida and Texas which sought a hasty return to business as usual only to have to backtrack even faster. Even in states like NY and NJ that have largely weathered a first wave, fears of a second (and worse) wave spurred by outbreaks in other states have caused authorities to dial back movement into “Phase Two” of their reopening plans, even if in part. If the country has gotten coronavirus under control, someone sure forgot to tell the virus.

Indeed, America now stands at a potential tipping point with respect to its ability to do just that, with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggesting that the “window is closing” for the United States to control COVID-19 outbreaks. That’s right—this is coming from a member of the Trump administration, an entity not known for having a solid relationship with the unvarnished truth. If someone like Secy. Azar is saying this, you know we’ve got a serious situation on our hands. Hell, even Donald Trump is extolling the virtues of masks of late. You know, despite not actually wearing one. Do as I say, not as I do. Not even a deadly pandemic will transform this guy.

The question is, though: Does America recognize this tipping point and is it ready to do what is necessary to avoid catastrophe? From the appearance of things, the answer would be a resounding no. Not when there yet is no national mask mandate in place. Not when lingering reports of “coronavirus parties” among teens and young adults exist. Not when umpteen videos of “Karens gone wild” can be found on social media where privileged women, predominantly white, are throwing a fit at the slightest hint of an inconvenience.

This pandemic is tough to handle, no matter who you are. If we can’t adhere to certain principles in trying to reduce the virus’s spread, however, and if we can’t keep our shit together when being told to wear a mask in Trader Joe’s (not for nothing, but is that really so much to ask?), how are we supposed to get through this without complete and utter devastation done to the nation? Four months into the COVID-19 response, we apparently haven’t learned a whole lot about how to handle it—and at this rate, we have a long, long way to go still.

If you’re reading this from outside the United States, first of all, welcome. I’m not sure how you found this post, but thank you for your time. To you, though, I pose this query: Do you believe I am writing this piece to try to engender sympathy for the U.S.A. or me? My love for my country notwithstanding, no, I’m really not. Because I get it. At this point, I’m not sure we deserve it. For all the times America has exported its brand of “democracy,” putting its interests ahead of the rest of the world’s and serving up diplomacy in the form of bombs and truncheons, we’re not a sympathetic figure in terms of foreign policy. We’re the New York Yankees of the world stage. If you’re not from here, to be honest, I don’t really know why you’d root for us.


Of course, unless you outright hate us, I don’t think you’re rooting for us to all die of coronavirus either. COVID-19 and its associated symptoms are something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Even if you don’t die as a result of infection, recovery might take weeks, and in many cases, there are lasting effects for the afflicted. While research is yet preliminary, patients may suffer from fatigue and damage to multiple organs as a result of contracting COVID. Simply put, you don’t want this disease, whether you’re 75 or 25. For this reason and more, say, holding a party and essentially playing a game of Russian roulette to see if you get infected is beyond stupid.

With the Fourth of July weekend upon us, I don’t wish to be a killjoy—you know, any more than I usually am. By pretty much every objective measure, though, America has been near the bottom if not the absolute worst at responding to the spread of coronavirus, especially when considering the nation’s capabilities and its advance warning from China and Europe. Furthermore, the virus does not care that it’s Independence Day. It has zero chill. It gives zero f**ks. This isn’t a game and it isn’t political. Wear a mask or other face covering if you’re around other people, practice social distancing when and where possible, wash your hands/use hand sanitizer, and strongly consider staying home if you can manage it.

It’s summer and, after months of fear, heartache, and uncertainty, we want to celebrate. Now is not the time to get reckless, however, and at heart, I wonder what it is we’re celebrating after all we’ve seen.

Why We Need a Global Green New Deal Right Now

Michael Galant July 3, 2020




https://citizentruth.org/why-we-need-a-global-green-new-deal-right-now/



The rules of the global economy got us into this mess. But rules can change.

(Common Dreams) The global economy is collapsing. When the pandemic began, experts at the International Monetary Fund predicted that we would see the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This week, they announced that it will be even worse than they thought.

This disaster comes into a world already facing record inequality, desperate poverty, and a growing climate crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a precarious world economy over the edge. This moment offers a rare opportunity to rethink the path that led us here and chart a new course out: a Global Green New Deal.

We have a tendency to treat the global economy as something natural—beyond our control.

We may understand that poverty, epidemics, and environmental destruction within the United States are not inevitable. There are certain rules in place that benefit some over others. People are not poor because they fail to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. People are poor because wages are too low, because we don’t invest in public goods, because the wealthy are too powerful.

But when it comes to the world economy, we forget. We forget that there are rules that determine how it all works. We forget that these rules were created not by God but by man. We forget that they can be changed.

The current rules are actually rather new. Born out of the financial crisis of the 1970s, these mirrored on the global level what Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were doing at home—crushing labor unions, slashing environmental protections, and empowering corporations.


The World Bank and International Monetary Fund lent recklessly to poor countries, saddling them with debt and imposing deregulation, austerity, and labor suppression. Trade agreements like the infamous NAFTA set corporations free to search the world for profits without added protection for workers or the environment.

Nations were forced into a competitive “race to the bottom” in wages, taxes, and regulations in an attempt to lure desperately needed investment. Multinational corporations began to outsource jobs to countries where wages were lower and environmental regulations lax—and outsource profits to a shadowy network of tax havens.

The suppression of worker power deepened inequality. The decimation of environmental standards fueled the climate crisis. Decades of budget-slashing left us all unprepared to confront a pandemic. The rules that govern the world economy were not inevitable. They were intentional, and they led us to where we are today.

To escape the global recession and build a more resilient world on the other side, we need to rewrite the rules. We need a system of trade that puts workers and the environment before corporate profits. We need enforceable global floors on wages, labor laws, and environmental protections. We need global coordination to end the scourge of tax havens, debt relief for countries in crisis, and massive global redistribution.

In short, we need a Global Green New Deal.

This ambitious agenda will be hard to achieve. But if there was ever a time for big change, it is now. It was after the devastation of World War II that the United Nations was born. It was from the recessions of the 1970’s that the latest world order emerged. It is out of a catastrophe as profound as COVID-19 that a new trail can be forged.

When Margaret Thatcher was setting the world on course to the present crisis, she had a slogan: “There is no alternative.” For too long, we believed it.


Now, there’s reason for the phrase to come back into use: There is no alternative. To rebuild the global economy, to prepare for the next pandemic, to confront the climate crisis, we have no choice: we need a Global Green New Deal.

Afghan Bounty Scandal Comes at Suspiciously Important Time for US Military Industrial Complex

https://citizentruth.org/afghan-bounty-scandal-comes-at-suspiciously-important-time-for-us-military-industrial-complex/






The latest scandal, like others before it, is based on scant testimony by anonymous officials and has had the effect of pushing liberal opinion on US foreign policy into a far more hawkish direction.

(By: Alan Macleod, Mintpress News) Based on anonymous intelligence sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal released bombshell reports alleging that Russia is paying the Taliban bounties for every U.S. soldier they can kill. The story caused an uproar in the United States, dominating the news cycle and leading presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to accuse Trump of “dereliction of duty” and “continuing his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.” “This is beyond the pale,” the former vice-president concluded.

However, there are a number of reasons to be suspicious of the new reports. Firstly, they appear all to be based entirely on the same intelligence officials who insisted on anonymity. The official could not provide any concrete evidence, nor establish that any Americans had actually died as a result, offering only vague assertions and admitting that the information came from “interrogated” (i.e. tortured) Afghan militants. All three reports stressed the uncertainty of the claims, with the only sources who went on record — the White House, the Kremlin, and the Taliban — all vociferously denying it all.

The national security state also has a history of using anonymous officials to plant stories that lead to war. In 2003, the country was awash with stories that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, in 2011 anonymous officials warned of an impending genocide in Libya, while in 2018 officials accused Bashar al-Assad of attacking Douma with chemical weapons, setting the stage for a bombing campaign. All turned out to be untrue.

“After all we’ve been through, we’re supposed to give anonymous ‘intelligence officials’ in The New York Times the benefit of the doubt on something like this? I don’t think so,” Scott Horton, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com and author of “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” told MintPress News. “All three stories were written in language conceding they did not know if the story was true,” he said, “They are reporting the ‘fact’ that there was a rumor.”

Horton continued: “There were claims in 2017 that Russia was arming and paying the Taliban, but then the generals admitted to Congress they had no evidence of either. In a humiliating debacle, also in 2017, CNN claimed a big scoop about Putin’s support for the Taliban when furnished with some photos of Taliban fighters with old Russian weapons. The military veteran journalists at Task and Purpose quickly debunked every claim in their piece.”


Others were equally skeptical of the new scandal. “The bottom line for me is that after countless (Russiagate related) anonymous intelligence leaks, many of which were later proven false or never substantiated with real evidence, I can’t take this story seriously. The intelligence ‘community’ itself can’t agree on the credibility of this information, which is similar to the situation with a foundational Russiagate document, the January, 2017 intelligence ‘assessment,’” said Joanne Leon, host of the Around the Empire Podcast, a show which covers U.S. military actions abroad.
Suspicious timing

The timing of the leak also raised eyebrows. Peace negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban are ongoing, with President Trump committing to pulling all American troops out of the country. A number of key anti-weapons of mass destruction treaties between the U.S. and Russia are currently expiring, and a scandal such as this one would scupper any chance at peace, escalating a potential arms race that would endanger the world but enrich weapons manufacturers. Special Presidential Envoy in the Department of the Treasury, Marshall Billingslea, recently announced that the United States is willing to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in a new arms race, mimicking the strategy it used in the 1980s against the Soviet Union. As a result, even during the pandemic, business is booming for American weapons contractors.

“The national security state has done everything they can to keep the U.S. involved in that war,” remarked Horton, “If Trump had listened to his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, we’d be on year three of an escalation with plans to begin talks with the Taliban next year. Instead Trump talked to them for the last year-and-a-half and has already signed a deal to have us out by the end of next May.”

“The same factions and profiteers who always oppose withdrawal of troops are enthusiastic about the ‘Bountygate’ story at a time when President Trump is trying to advance negotiations with the Taliban and when he desperately needs to deliver on 2016 campaign promises and improve his sinking electoral prospects,” said Leon.



What kind of monstrous country would fund and recruit fighters to attack occupying troops from an adversary country? It's an unprecedented breach of international ethics in all cases, but it's especially morally grotesque to do it against a foreign military in Afghanistan.🇺🇸🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/D6XdzMONaZ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 28, 2020



If Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans they are not doing a very good job of it. From a high of 496 in 2010, U.S. losses in Afghanistan have slowed to a trickle, with only 22 total fatalities in 2019, casting further doubt on the scale of their supposed plan.

Ironically, the United States is accusing the Kremlin of precisely its own policy towards Russia in Syria. In 2016, former Acting Director of the C.I.A. Michael Morell appeared on the Charlie Rose show and said his job was to “make the Russians pay a price” for its involvement in the Middle East. When asked if he meant killing Russians by that, he replied, “Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say, ‘We did this.’ But you make sure they know it in Moscow.”


Like RussiaGate, the new scandal has had the effect of pushing liberal opinion on foreign policy to become far more hawkish, with Biden now campaigning on being “tougher” on China and Russia than Trump would be. Considering that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set their famous Doomsday Clock — an estimation of how close they believe the world is to nuclear armageddon — to just 100 seconds to midnight, the latest it has ever been, the Democrats could be playing with fire. The organization specifically singled out U.S.-Russia conflict as threatening the continued existence of the planet. While time will tell if Russia did indeed offer bounties to kill American troops, the efficacy of the media leak is not in question.

Alan MacLeod

Workers Accuse Tesla of Coronavirus Cover Up

Alec Pronk July 3, 2020




https://citizentruth.org/workers-accuse-tesla-of-coronavirus-cover-up/






“This is a dire health and safety emergency because the state is not taking care of workers at Tesla”

Tesla employees and members of a workers’ rights group accused car company Tesla of a coronavirus cover up, with over 30 employees testing positive at Tesla’s Fremont plant. According to Courthouse News, Tesla employees Carlos Gabriel and Steve Zeltzer protested in front of the Alameda County Health Department.

The employees allege Tesla is conducting their own private contact tracing for employees, and Tesla said all thirty cases were contracted outside of work. But, Gabriel and Zeltzer believe Tesla is hiding information from workers and putting employees at risk.

The news comes on the same day as Tesla stock prices soared after strong production and sales numbers compared to competitors. In early May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly feuded with local health officials over the continued closure of Tesla car plants.

Musk said of a proposed closure until June 1, “the unelected & ignorant “Interim Health Officer” of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!”


Currently, Alameda County, home of a Tesla production plant, is experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases, seeing a daily average case increase from 44 to 107 a day.
Worker Safety

At the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, cases spiked in factories related to essential services such as agriculture and meatpacking. Mexico’s coronavirus crisis was also fueled by factory workers contracting the virus in industries deemed essential.

The protesting Tesla workers are demanding public health officers to investigate the Tesla plant in Fremont and determine if the company is hiding the true number of cases and their origin. The demonstrators also want an expansion in OSHA workers to ensure better worker safety during the pandemic.

“This is a dire health and safety emergency because the state is not taking care of workers at Tesla,” Zeltzer told Courthouse News.

Musk has repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus on Twitter and threatened to move Tesla’s production facilities to Texas if the Fremont plant was not allowed to reopen.

Despite reopening the Fremont plant early against public health advice on May 11, Tesla and Musk faced no penalty. President Donald Trump tweeted support for Musk’s decision to reopen the production plant.


With coronavirus once again spiking in California and multiple states, workers face increased risk of exposure to the virus and localized closures will be seen as the death toll to the virus creeps back up to peak levels.
Coronavirus Cover Ups?

Tesla is not the only company to face increasing coronavirus cases and scrutiny for their handling of a return to work.

Amazon has also been accused of covering up the number of coronavirus cases in its extensive network of warehouses. The tech giant said its data regarding employees and the virus were not very useful and mirrored the general public. But, an internal memo revealed that a study of one warehouse detailed a much higher infection rate than would be expected in the general public.

The extensive study broke down one warehouse based on department and employee country residence, and as of May 18 the warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota had an infection rate 17 times higher than the general public in the same county.

Internationally, Amazon warehouse workers went on strike in Germany after more than 30 employees tested positive for coronavirus. At the outset of Europe’s coronavirus lockdown, Amazon employees also went on strike in France, Italy, Spain, and Poland over unsafe working conditions related to coronavirus.

Amazon worker strikes have also taken place in the United States, and Amazon has been accused of and is under investigation for retaliating against workers for speaking out against unsafe working conditions.

Much like Tesla, Amazon and other large companies have been reluctant to share detailed information about coronavirus in their companies, only fueling accusations that big business is facilitating a coronavirus cover up to benefit their bottom line.

Healthy June Jobs Report Hides Reality of Economic Situation as Coronavirus Lingers

Daniel Davis July 2, 2020




https://citizentruth.org/healthy-june-jobs-report-hides-reality-of-economic-situation-as-coronavirus-lingers/



“More than ever, we’re concerned about the worsening health situation and its impact on the burgeoning recovery. Rebounding mobility and poor use of protective equipment will make for a dangerous summer cocktail.”

At a White House press conference Thursday, President Trump alongside his two chief economic advisors celebrated a healthy June jobs report. Although the report did include 4.8 million job gains, spinning it in a positive light hides the reality of the American economic situation.
Trump Celebrates Healthy Jobs Report

“These are historic numbers in a time that a lot of people would have wilted. They would have wilted, but we didn’t wilt and our country didn’t wilt, and I’m very honored to be your president,” Trump said in a transcript published by Rev.

The president claimed it as a victory, declaring it “the largest monthly jobs gain in the history of our country.” The unemployment rate now sits at 11.1%, down from a peak of 14.7% in April.

“Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back. It’s coming back extremely strong,” Trump said.

As the US continues to set new daily records for COVID-19 case, the president maintained that America has the situation “under control.”


“If you look, we were talking this morning, something to think about. China was way early, and they’re getting under control just now. And Europe was way early, and they’re getting under control,” Trump said. “We followed them with this terrible China virus. And we are likewise getting under control. Some areas that were very hard hit are now doing very well. Some were doing very well and we thought they may be gone and they flare up and we’re putting out the fires.”
Coronavirus Cases Continue to Threaten Economy

While the healthy June jobs report portrays a nation on the rebound, a surge of new virus cases in new regions of the US has forced states to reconsider their phased opening plans, Reuters reported.

“June may be the calm before the storm,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at New York-based MUFG. “We cannot be sure the labor market recovery will continue at a speed that is sufficient to put the millions and millions of Americans made jobless in this recession back to work.”

Notably, the June jobs report hides the reality of the economic situation because it lags two weeks behind; data was collected mid-June, before the new spike in virus cases.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the economic situation is predicated upon controlling the spread of COVID-19 and declared the future “is incredibly uncertain.”

Analysts at Oxford Economics and Goldman Sachs painted a more pessimistic outlook of the economic situation based on the rise in coronavirus cases.

“More than ever, we’re concerned about the worsening health situation and its impact on the burgeoning recovery. Rebounding mobility and poor use of protective equipment will make for a dangerous summer cocktail,” Oxford Economics analyst Gregory Daco wrote.


Similarly, analysts for Goldman Sachs expressed concern about the virus surging in nearly every state, Reuters reported. Consumer spending data beginning collected by Unacast and Chase also reflected a less-than-rosy picture. Although consumer spending seemed destined to return to 2019 levels, by June 20 it had receded once more as it became clear the virus continues to loom.
Is Another Stimulus Coming?

Trump’s economic advisors, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Director of the US National Economic Council Larry Kudlow, were on-hand for the presser over the healthy June jobs report.

“I think, as you know, people thought we would have 30 million people unemployed. Fortunately, we never got to that,” Mnuchin said.

Mnuchin admitted that the jobs data isn’t enough for the administration and that “our work is not done.” To that end, he referenced CARES 4 legislation, another stimulus bill the administration is focusing on in July. However, the secretary said it would be more focused toward businesses, leaving the possibility of a second stimulus check up in the air. Mnuchin only said the White House is “going to serious consider” the idea.

The economic situation is not improving in every aspect, though. Minority unemployment continues to remain higher, The New York Times reported.

“We already knew that there were structural inequities,” said Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.“Covid-19 made them much, much worse — it put a spotlight on them, but it also exacerbated them.”


Expanded unemployment benefits are also scheduled to end this month, meaning many Americans will receive $600 less per week, CNN reported. The lack of income and rise in cases could prevent unemployed workers from returning to work, a scenario that could have ripple effects across the economy.