https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkRXeStFp78&feature
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Health Commissioner forced out as New York City prepares to reopen schools amid national pandemic surge
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/07/barb-a07.html
By Josh Varlin
7 August 2020
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot resigned abruptly on August 4 after months of conflict between her department and Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio related to the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. While conflicts between de Blasio and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) have been glaring since May, it appears that the impending reopening of the city’s public schools as soon as September 10 was the final straw that prompted Barbot’s departure, reportedly because she expected to be fired shortly.
In early March, Barbot and other top DOHMH officials were among those urging de Blasio to adopt measures to combat the pandemic earlier and more consistently against the urging of, among others, Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), responsible for the city’s public hospitals. De Blasio apparently retaliated by moving COVID-19 contact tracing from DOHMH—which contact traces for HIV and other communicable diseases—to H+H.
Barbot’s replacement, Dr. David Chokshi, has worked for six years in senior roles at H+H. He has endorsed the reopening of schools, saying that New York City is one of the only places with an infection rate low enough to do so. His new role was announced rapidly, illustrating that Barbot was indeed forced out and did not resign of her own volition.
In point of fact, while new cases in the city are in the low hundreds daily, a far cry from the April 6 peak of 6,377, the proportion of tests coming back positive remains above one percent, and tests still take days to return results. With the pandemic surging nationally and with much of the New York economy reopened, a second wave in the state and city is inevitable, especially if the schools reopen as planned.
Official data for the city indicates 18,938 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and an additional 4,625 probable deaths. The staggering 23,563 total is certainly an undercounting of deaths directly and indirectly caused by the pandemic.
There is every indication that Barbot’s forced departure is an attempt to neuter an agency that has advocated for generally more stringent public health measures than de Blasio, a tool of Wall Street despite his “progressive” posturing, has been willing to adopt. This conflict dates back to before the pandemic, with the mayor and DOHMH squabbling over the 2015 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the Bronx.
However, this pales in comparison to the row that began at the beginning of this year. Barbot, who became health commissioner in 2018, and her staff were arguing for the closure of schools and businesses much earlier than the mayor was willing to consider and earlier than their counterparts in H+H were.
As early as March 10, DOHMH officials were urging de Blasio to close the city’s public schools, with some even threatening to resign in the face of the mayor’s intransigence, according to the New York Times.
On the very same day, H+H’s Katz was emailing top mayoral aides recklessly promoting a murderous “herd immunity” approach. He claimed that there was “no proof that closures will help stop the spread,” despite the experience of Hubei Province in China, and worried about the economic impact of any serious public health measures, according to the Times.
He then declared, “We have to accept that unless a vaccine is rapidly developed, large numbers of people will get infected. The good thing is greater than 99 percent will recover without harm. Once people recover, they will have immunity. The immunity will protect the herd.”
This perspective guided the city’s response for the following week, needlessly condemning tens of thousands to an early grave in New York City and in areas across the US where the virus spread from New York.
De Blasio only ended up closing the schools days later above all due to threats of a mass sickout by rank-and-file teachers. At this point, further shutdowns at the city and state levels were inevitable, especially under conditions in which workers nationally were engaged in job actions against the spread of the virus and when the Wall Street bailout had not yet been passed in Congress.
His reluctant coming around to public health measures did not mend the relationship with DOHMH or Barbot. In early May, de Blasio handed control of the city’s COVID-19 contact tracing program to H+H, despite DOHMH overseeing contact tracing measures for other diseases like HIV. Public health experts at the time roundly condemned the decision, and de Blasio officials privately told the media the decision was “outrageous.”
The contact tracing program began, in the understated words of the New York Times, with “a rocky start.” Despite supposedly being chosen because it can rapidly hire people, H+H has outsourced call center management to a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, and fewer than half of those contacted have provided the necessary information to contact tracers.
Dr. Neil Vora, director of the contact tracing efforts, admitted in an internal meeting, “Right now, cases are popping up all over the place, and we are not linking them to known contacts except in a small proportion of cases.”
The dirty tricks against Barbot did not end there, however. In particular, this was demonstrated in a confrontation that allegedly occurred in March between Barbot and New York City Police Department Chief of Department Terence Monahan which surfaced later in May.
NYPD officers had been attempting to strong-arm half a million surgical masks from the DOHMH stockpile but were promised a lower amount due to shortage of supplies. Barbot allegedly said, according to the New York Post tabloid, “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops.” (NYPD officers have been ostentatiously violating state mandates and departmental policy by eschewing masks, including during the violent crackdown on protests against police violence.)
While no doubt garnering her sympathy among health care workers and workers more broadly in New York City, who loathe and fear the NYPD, the leaking of the conversation sparked a firestorm in the media and among the police, particularly among the fascistic police union officialdom.
At that point, Barbot seemed firmly on the outs, appearing at fewer news conferences, and the Times notes that de Blasio again turned to Katz for advice.
Recent weeks have seen lower-profile friction between de Blasio and DOHMH about how to reopen the schools, including what containment measures are appropriate when a student tests positive.
Barbot’s being forced out occurs during a relative lull in the city’s coronavirus cases, but also at a critical moment which will determine how the next phase of the pandemic will affect the city. With caseloads overwhelming hospital systems across the country, it is only a matter of time before there is a resurgence in New York City, especially within the schools.
As of this writing, the city’s public school district, the largest in the country, is the only district among the six largest in the US preparing to resume in-person instruction at the beginning of the school year. All of the other largest, including Chicago and Miami-Dade, have had to bow to the reality of the expanding pandemic and the immense opposition among educators and parents to the resumption of classes, for at least a few weeks.
However, forcing students back to school is the linchpin of the back-to-work campaign in the US. Millions of workers are unable to return to full-time work if their children are being taught remotely. That such a policy will result in the infection and deaths of an untold number of children, educators, staff and parents, along with an acceleration of the pandemic, is small potatoes to President Donald Trump as well as Democratic officials like de Blasio.
It is under these conditions that Barbot’s position at DOHMH became untenable. For all of de Blasio’s blathering about “teamwork,” his decision was driven by Wall Street’s profit interests.
Thanks to the “herd immunity” position adopted for a few days in the largest city in the country, New York City was the undisputed epicenter of the pandemic globally for weeks. The return to such policies signaled by Barbot’s ouster, on the eve of the return to in-person instruction, will spell an even worse bloodbath, unless halted by the independent action of the working class, guided by a socialist program.
West Palm Beach, Florida seniors face eviction from low income housing
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/07/flor-a07.html
By Matthew Taylor
7 August 2020
Low income seniors formerly living at the St. Andrews Residence in West Palm Beach, Florida are facing possible eviction from their temporary housing in the coming weeks. The residents of St. Andrews, a low-income senior living facility owned by the Episcopal diocese of Southeast Florida, were forced to leave the building after an electrical fire broke out in June that left the facility temporarily uninhabitable.
Of the residents who were displaced, 125 were placed in hotels in the area after the fire, with the rest going to live with friends or family. They continued to pay rent and were delivered the three daily meals that were included in their rent arrangement.
Last Sunday, according to the Palm Beach Post, the tenants of St. Andrews received a notice from SPM Management, which runs the facility on behalf of the diocese, that if the building did not conclude repairs and pass inspection by August 14, so residents could return home, they would no longer be accommodated in hotels and their meal service would also be cut off.
Through no fault of their own, the elderly residents of St. Andrews now face homelessness and hunger, amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged the senior population in the US and internationally. Already residents have been informed that one tenant, who is currently residing in a hotel, had tested positive for the virus.
As of Thursday, West Palm Beach and surrounding Palm Beach County have recorded 35,735 COVID-19 infections and 892 deaths. The state of Florida remains a hot spot for infections and deaths, reporting 7,650 new cases and 121 deaths on Thursday.
St. Andrews management has made no effort thus far to test its residents for coronavirus, instead instructing them to seek out tests from their own doctors. For many residents who do not have their own cars this is impossible.
Jim Jensen, 77, who suffers from COPD and was placed in a local hotel told the Palm Beach Post that the news “had me quite upset because I could end up homeless...the thought that at 77 years old and being homeless for no reason is rather disturbing, I didn’t cause this.”
Another resident spoke to the Post anonymously because “I’m afraid I would be evicted. I’m scared to death of management.” They added that many residents “Don’t know where they are going to go. Some of them don’t have any family left. They have outlived their families. They are petrified.”
The initial displacement was highly disruptive on its own because many residents have no cars or are unable to drive. St. Andrews, like many similar facilities in other cities, is located downtown, making it easier for the residents to access stores, doctors’ offices, and other necessities. After being forced to leave after the fire in June they were spread around to various hotels in the area.
Additionally, the placement in hotels puts the seniors, already at a high risk of dying from COVID–19 if they contract the virus, in still greater peril due to the fact that area hotels have many guests from other states and counties, increasing the risk of coronavirus transmission.
According to the accounts of multiple residents who spoke to the Palm Beach Post , the facility has been in disrepair for years, with leaky pipes and electrical problems common, elevators that worked intermittently in the 15-story structure, and pervasive black mold throughout the building.
“I have had to purchase expensive air purifiers and special allergy filters which are costly to survive in my apartment,” 67-year-old resident Judy Collins told the Post. “St. Andrews is always riding on the minimum to get by.”
Nancy Gregory, 75, told the Post that she moved out of the building last year due to extensive black mold. Residents also reported that the mold problem is so severe that it would coat clothing.
Many residents were also impacted when St. Andrews discontinued mail service to the facility last year, forcing them to pick up their mail at the nearest post office a mile away.
This is not the first time the building has experienced an electrical fire. In March of this year an electrical fire forced the residents of the building to temporarily evacuate. Another fire occurred in October 2018, which left the building without air conditioning for a week.
Collins told the Post that many residents believe that the diocese is spending a minimal amount on repairs because they plan on selling the building for a profit. The building, which sits along the Intracoastal waterway, was first purchased in 2009 for $3.3 million dollars, it is now valued at $13.8 million.
The Episcopal Diocese and its leader Reverend Peter Eaton have declined to speak with the press.
Violent, secretive fascistic networks operating inside California police stations
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/07/comp-a07.html
By Tom Carter
7 August 2020
A whistleblower in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has exposed a violent right-wing extremist gang operating within the Compton station known as the “Executioners.”
The “Executioners” network, according to a report on July 30 in the Los Angeles Times, is composed of sworn law enforcement officers who all have matching tattoos featuring “a skull with Nazi imagery” and an assault rifle. The gang “celebrates deputy shootings and the induction of new members with ‘inking parties.’”
An estimated 20 deputies are members of the “Executioners” network, most of whom work at night. According to the whistleblower’s claim, which was submitted on June 23 and more recently came to light, the “Executioners do not allow African-American or female members.”
Instead of using official police channels, the gang members communicate with each other through WhatsApp. “Members become inked as ‘Executioners’ after executing members of the public,” the whistleblower complaint states with emphasis, “or otherwise committing acts of violence in furtherance of the gang.”
According to the whistleblower complaint, the gang “wields vast power at the Compton station,” which covers an area of Los Angeles that is historically home to a large proportion of working-class black residents.
The whistleblower, deputy Thomas Banuelos, was targeted, threatened, and attacked by a member of the Executioners. “It was a very serious, violent and bloody assault which could have killed Deputy Banuelos,” the whistleblower’s attorney Alan Romero reported. A member of the Executioners “had him on the ground and was literally just bashing his head in with his elbow over and over and over again.”
When another deputy attempted to anonymously report the attack on Banuelos through an internal tip line, his identity was exposed and turned over to the Executioners, and he found graffiti scrawled on the keypad in front of the station accusing him of being a “rat.”
“I think the scariest thing,” Romero said, “is that he did what he was supposed to do. He called the authorities, and they betrayed him. They turned him right over to the gang. It’s a whistleblower’s worst nightmare.”
On the website WitnessLA, an inside source identified the three deputies in this video as members of the Executioners gang. On the video, which was published in June, the deputies savagely beat a man who is pinned to the ground.
“We have a gang here that has grown to the point where it dominates every aspect of life at the Compton station,” Romero told the Los Angeles Times. “It essentially controls scheduling, the distribution of informant tips, and assignments to deputies in the station with preference shown to members of the gang as well as prospects.”
When members of the right-wing extremist “Executioners” network do not get what they want within the sheriff’s department, the gang members threaten “work slowdowns — which involve ignoring or responding slowly to calls.” In addition, they set illegal “arrest quotas.”
The “Executioners” are only the latest subject of a string of exposures of right-wing extremist gangs, networks, and cliques operating in California police stations.
Also in recent weeks, an occult tradition of “bending badges” by police officers in Vallejo, California was exposed by the website OpenVallejo.
According to the initial report on July 28: “a secretive clique within the Vallejo Police Department has commemorated fatal shootings with beers, backyard barbecues, and by bending the points of their badges each time they kill in the line of duty.” This ritual was considered a “badge of honor” for the police officers in question.
The ritual was exposed when police captain John Whitney tried to put a stop to the practice and was fired, according to an unlawful retaliation claim he filed.
At the time of the captain’s firing, according to the OpenVallejo report, “nearly 40% of officers on the force had been in at least one shooting. .. More than a third of those had participated in two or more. The department employs about 100 sworn personnel.”
According to OpenVallejo, “the department’s most prolific shooters” are officers “Sean Kenney, Joe McCarthy and Steve Darden,” who together account “for nearly a third of the department’s 30 fatal shootings of the past two decades.”
“The cops who shoot someone bend the tabs on their badges,” stated one anonymous message received by OpenVallejo, which is believed to be from a “high-ranking Vallejo official with knowledge of the badge-bending tradition.”
“Kind of like a notch on the bedpost. It’s an indicator to each other how many hoodlums they’ve shot. They think it’s funny.”
According to the report, “For those invited into the group, a fatal shooting — their own or a colleague’s — is often followed by a barbecue or other celebration, according to current and former police department employees. The actual bending of badges occurs there or at roll call, an official law enforcement briefing that takes place at the beginning or end of a shift. Photographs indicate the first bend is often applied at the 4 o’clock point of a new initiate’s badge.”
The fascistic culture that surrounds these secretive networks has deep roots in California police departments. The Vikings police gang, which was exposed in Los Angeles during the 1990s, likewise featured tattooing rituals and was responsible for racist attacks on minorities.
“The Banditos, Spartans, Regulators, and Reapers are literal gangs that are claimed to exist within the Los Angeles law enforcement agency,” according to a 2019 report in Law Enforcement Today. “All members of the Banditos have tattoos of a skeleton wearing a sombrero, bandolier, and pistol.”
Other Los Angeles police gangs that have operated or are currently operating include the Hats, the Little Devils, the Jump Out Boys, the Grim Reapers, the “2000 Boys,” and the “3000 Boys.”
The “Jump Out Boys” were exposed in 2012 and earned international notoriety for their distinctively morbid tattoos and celebration of shootings.
A “Jump Out Boys” leaflet that was distributed to other deputies stated, “We are alpha dogs who think and act like the wolf, but never become the wolf,” and “We are not afraid to get our hands dirty without any disgrace, dishonor or hesitation... sometimes (members) need to do the things they don’t want to in order to get where they want to be.”
When a member of the “Jump Out Boys” shot someone, that member’s tattoos would be modified to feature smoke coming out of a gun.
It is significant that California’s city, county, and state government bodies are generally controlled by the Democratic Party, which has pledged nominal sympathy with the George Floyd protests and with the overwhelming popular sentiments against police brutality and racism.
These same Democrats have failed for years to root out the violent, fascistic, racist networks of police officers operating in their own communities.
The fascistic culture that has developed among police officers alongside the epidemic of brutality is not an accident, but is bound up with the role of the police in capitalist society. These contingents of degraded and desensitized brutes are being recruited and cultivated for a specific purpose: the violent suppression of the class struggle.
According to the whistleblower complaint regarding the Executioners, the members of the fascistic network target other deputies for recruitment “based on the prospect’s use of violence against suspects or other Deputies. Nearly all the CPT [Compton station] Deputies who have been involved in high-profile shootings and out-of-policy beatings at CPT in recent years have been ‘inked’ members of the Executioners.”
The Executioners use “violence against other Deputies and members of the public in order to increase their standing within the criminal organization.”
Emboldened by Trump’s call to “dominate” and to use “overwhelming force,” the police in America constituted the shock troops of the nationwide efforts to suppress the mass demonstrations that broke out following the police murder of Floyd at the end of May.
US retail bankruptcies and closures pile up amid pandemic
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/07/rcca-a07.html
By Trévon Austin
7 August 2020
The retail apocalypse continues to unfold in the United States under the economic pressure of the coronavirus pandemic. Since May, multiple well-known and long-established companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy including Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers. Tailored Brands, parent company of Men’s Wearhouse, and Lord & Taylor, along with its parent company Le Tote, became the most recent retail casualties on Sunday.
Prior to filing for bankruptcy, Tailored Brands announced in July that it would close up to 500 stores “over time” and cut about 20 percent of its corporate jobs. According to a public filing, Tailored Brands had about 19,300 employees as of Feb. 1, and 1,274 stores in the US and 125 stores in Canada. The company said it secured a deal with the majority of its senior lenders for a $630 million restructuring plan so it can survive bankruptcy.
The company's filing is partially a consequence of the trend away from business attire and toward more casual clothing during the pandemic. Millions of white-collar workers have shifted to working from home as offices have been closed and meetings moved online.
Founded in 1826, Lord & Taylor is considered America’s oldest retail store. A company official from Lord & Taylor estimated that about 20 of the company's stores are currently in a liquidation sale. The retailer runs 38 stores in the Northeast with a few more locations in the Midwest and Florida.
Lord & Taylor, which was bought by online clothing rental service Le Tote for $100 million last year, has been struggling in recent years. Under its previous owner, the Canadian-based Hudson’s Bay Company, Lord & Taylor’s chief executive complained that the store was in a fraught “middle space” among retailers because it neither sold high-end luxury nor discount apparel.
The latest additions bring the number of US retail bankruptcies this year to 43. According to S&P Global, 2020 has already seen more retail closures than the past eight years, with five months still left in the year. The last time retail companies recorded similar numbers of closures was 2010, with 48 companies filing for bankruptcy.
In 2008, a record 441 retailers filed for bankruptcy in the depths of the Great Recession. This marked the advent of the series of brick-and-mortar bankruptcies and store closures dubbed the retail apocalypse which has wiped out indoor shopping malls and strip malls around the country.
Retailers already faced severe challenges before COVID-19 forced stores to close and sparked a historic contraction in the economy. Not only were retailers struggling to compete with e-commerce stores such as Amazon and Walmart, but also ever-increasing debts threatened their stability. The arrival of the pandemic only accelerated a process that was already underway.
The coronavirus pandemic pushed retailers further into crisis. Shelter-in-place orders keeping people in their homes for weeks and the sudden loss of tens of millions of jobs facilitated a rapid change in spending habits. Shoppers abandoned malls, where many retailers who filed for bankruptcy are concentrated, as social distancing measures were implemented.
Experts also expect the pandemic to weaken the back-to-school shopping season, a typically busy time for retailers. With many schools engaging in remote learning, what families purchase for students is likely to shift towards electronics and away from clothing and other traditional items.
As the economic consequences of the pandemic continue to unfold, more bankruptcy filings are expected. A report from Coresight Research estimated that as many as 25,000 stores could permanently close in 2020, and about a quarter of all malls in the US could shutter their doors within the next three to five years.
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