21 March 20
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21 March 20
Charles Pierce | It's Time to Quarantine the Crazy Coming Out of the White House
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "The now-daily gathering of the Coronavirus SuperFriends on Thursday took the express bus to Crazytown, perhaps never to return. This is because they insist on telling El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago where the briefing is and at what time it will be held."
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Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "The now-daily gathering of the Coronavirus SuperFriends on Thursday took the express bus to Crazytown, perhaps never to return. This is because they insist on telling El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago where the briefing is and at what time it will be held."
READ MORE
Manufacturers are concerned about getting stuck with excess supply. (photo: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)
Trump Resists Pressure to Force Companies to Make Coronavirus Supplies
Katie Rogers, Maggie Haberman and Ana Swanson, The New York Times
Excerpt: "President Trump and his advisers have resisted calls from congressional Democrats and a growing number of governors to use a federal law that would mobilize industry and provide badly needed resources against the coronavirus spread, days after the president said he would consider using that authority."
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Katie Rogers, Maggie Haberman and Ana Swanson, The New York Times
Excerpt: "President Trump and his advisers have resisted calls from congressional Democrats and a growing number of governors to use a federal law that would mobilize industry and provide badly needed resources against the coronavirus spread, days after the president said he would consider using that authority."
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Detained immigrants from El Salvador in ICE custody. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
Lawmakers Demand That ICE Stop Arresting Immigrants to Prevent Spreading Coronavirus Among Detainees
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to freeze its enforcement-to-detention pipeline, suspend deportations, and release comprehensive plans to prevent a broader outbreak of the coronavirus in its facilities."
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Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to freeze its enforcement-to-detention pipeline, suspend deportations, and release comprehensive plans to prevent a broader outbreak of the coronavirus in its facilities."
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The case of a Texas mother is a window into how the myth of voter fraud is being weaponized to suppress the vote. (photo: ACLU)
Texas Upholds Sentence for Woman Who Didn't Know She Was Ineligible to Vote
Sam Levine, Guardian UK
Levine writes: "A Texas appeals court on Thursday upheld a five-year prison sentence for a woman who was convicted of illegally voting even though she didn't know she was ineligible when she went to the polls in 2016."
EXCERPT:
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Sam Levine, Guardian UK
Levine writes: "A Texas appeals court on Thursday upheld a five-year prison sentence for a woman who was convicted of illegally voting even though she didn't know she was ineligible when she went to the polls in 2016."
EXCERPT:
Four years ago, Mason was on supervised release, similar to probation, for a federal felony conviction related to tax fraud. She didn’t know that Texas prohibits felons from voting until they finish their sentence entirely. Mason voted in the last presidential election at the urging of her mother and cast a provisional ballot when poll workers couldn’t find her name on the voter registration rolls. The ballot was never counted because Mason was not an eligible voter.
During her 2018 trial probation officials testified that they never told Mason she could not vote, but the appeals court said that didn’t matter. Mason was guilty, the court said, because she knew she was on supervised release. “Contrary to Mason’s assertion, the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution,” Justice Wade Birdwell wrote for a three-judge panel on Texas’ second court of appeals.
“These are difficult times for me, but I have faith that with the help of my family and God, right will prevail,” Mason said in a statement on Friday. “A punishment of five years in jail for doing what I thought was my civic duty, and just as I was getting my family’s life together, is not simply unfair, it’s a tragedy.”
The case has already taken a significant toll on Mason, who turns 45 on Saturday. After she was arrested in 2017, the life she had been working to rebuild since getting out of federal prison in 2015 crumbled. She lost her job, which provided the main source of income for her family, which includes three children, four of her brother’s children who she raised, and her grandchildren.
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An Uber Eats delivery bike rider wears a face mask as a precaution against transmission of the coronavirus. (photo: Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images)
We Can Stop Pandemic Profiteering
Jeremy Gong, Jacobin
Gong writes: "If we are going to avert the worst-case COVID-19 scenario and prevent unimaginable human suffering, we have to fight - and even nationalize - the corporations that are trying to profit off of this crisis at everyone else's expense."
EXCERPT:
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Jeremy Gong, Jacobin
Gong writes: "If we are going to avert the worst-case COVID-19 scenario and prevent unimaginable human suffering, we have to fight - and even nationalize - the corporations that are trying to profit off of this crisis at everyone else's expense."
EXCERPT:
The Intercept revealed today that investors are hoping health-care firms will raise prices on critical goods like N95 masks and experimental pharmaceuticals. In California, Tesla, owned by union-buster billionaire Elon Musk, fought a losing battle against an order to shut down “nonessential” businesses, to keep production going at its ten-thousand-worker Fremont factory. Pharmaceutical companies, with the help of Joe Biden, are hoping that an eventual COVID-19 vaccine will be a huge profit-maker, instead of affordable or free to all. At least three Republican senators and Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein of California have all been caught off-loading millions of dollars in stocks, before the public caught on to the seriousness of the pandemic and the markets crashed — and after confidential briefings they received in their positions on Senate committees. Amazon is failing to protect its workers, meaning already poorly paid and overworked warehouse workers and delivery drivers risk contracting and spreading the virus to keep our logistics supply chains flowing — all because megabillionaire Jeff Bezos wants to keep profit margins high.
And, on top of all of this, our balkanized, multipayer, mostly-for-profit health insurance system that leaves tens of millions — likely far more as unemployment skyrockets — without health care will mean continued massive profits for health insurance and massively more death, misery, and poverty for everyone else.
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Ivan Duque. (photo: A. Brandon/AP)
Colombia: President Duque Faces Investigation for Vote Buying
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Congress' Investigation Chamber Thursday presented the first inquiry document of the accusation process against Colombia's President Ivan Duque due to vote-buying accusations."
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Congress' Investigation Chamber Thursday presented the first inquiry document of the accusation process against Colombia's President Ivan Duque due to vote-buying accusations."
EXCERPT:
"The investigation against President Ivan Duque is formally opened in the House of Representatives Accusations Committee, as a result of the statements made by Aida Merlano on electoral corruption."
The accusations against Duque linked several members of his administration and other supporters to vote-buying, as senator Alvaro Uribe and his advisors Priscila Cabrales and Maria Claudia Daza.
These functionaries are mentioned in the audio evidence collected by the Supreme Court of Justice's Instruction Chamber.
The accusatory institution also considers accelerating the process by using alternative channels on notifications and declarations. Denouncer Racero’s complaint will be considered under this option.
Among those summoned to testify are also Duque's election campaign manager Luigi Echeverry, Interior Minister Alicia Arango, and the wife of the deceased Jose Guillermo Hernández, who is credited with buying votes for Duque's election in 2018.
The Colombian Commission of Investigation and Accusation will analyze 40 823 messages, audio, and data as evidence of the vote-buying case.
Currently, Duque faces harsh criticism for his poor management of the Covid-19's spread. He will undergo a second test after Pomaya's mayor, whom he recently met, was diagnosed as positive.
Locusts swarm from ground vegetation as people approach at Lerata village, near Archers Post in Samburu county, approximately 186 miles north of Nairobi, Kenya, on Jan. 22. (photo: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)
Locust Plague Destroys Livelihoods in Kenya but 'Biggest Threat Yet to Come'
Sophie Mbugua, Climate Home News
Mbugua writes: "In late January, what seemed like a vast dark cloud approached Lawrence Mwagire's farm in Njoga village in central Kenya."
Sophie Mbugua, Climate Home News
Mbugua writes: "In late January, what seemed like a vast dark cloud approached Lawrence Mwagire's farm in Njoga village in central Kenya."
Wetter and hotter weather than usual is forecast until May, providing locust eggs with ideal conditions to hatch and grow. FAO says it is in a “race against time”
“I said to my wife Daisy ‘this will be one heavy downpour!’ But to my surprise, within a few minutes, the cloud landed on trees, and a pink-red shade replaced the vast green scenery.”
“That is when we realised the dreaded locusts had made a landfall next to our farm,” the 40-year-old father of three told Climate Home News.
By morning, the trees had lost the top green leaves, and the swarm of locusts had started to devour Mwagire’s livelihood – cowpeas, green grams, maize and Khat on his three-acre farm in Embu county, about 155 kilometres northeast of Nairobi.
The plague dashed hopes for a good harvest after rains in November 2019 ended a prolonged dry spell in the arid region, where it hadn’t rained since May 2018.
“This was the best planting season we had for the last five years. I anticipated to harvest at least 280 kilograms of cowpeas, 560 kgs of green grams, and 250 kgs of maize before the invasion,” he said.
Mwagire, who had invested about Kshs 8,500 ($84.5) on cowpeas, maize, and green grams seeds said he lost all the cowpeas within three days. With his maize developing sudden rust, he only hoped to harvest at most 40 kilograms of green grams after the ordeal.
The Horn of Africa is suffering the worst desert locust invasion in decades, devastating pastoralists and farming communities in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Uganda. South Sudan and Tanzania now are on the UN “watch list”. For Kenya, it is the worst infestation in 70 years and the worst outbreak in 25 years for Somalia and Ethiopia.
By January, data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated nearly 110,000 hectares were affected by the desert locust crisis in the Horn of Africa.
FAO says that cyclones in May and October 2018 in the southern Arabian Peninsula caused heavy rainfall and gave rise to favourable locust breeding conditions in Yemen. Lack of control measures allowed three generations of breeding to migrate through Saudi Arabia, Iran, to the horn of Africa.
Since October 2019, east African countries have experienced exceptionally heavy rains and widespread flash floods attributed to the Indian ocean dipole – a climate phenomenon in which the western part of Indian ocean near the east African coast was warmer than the eastern part.
The wind sent warm moist air across the East African coast, causing heavy rainfall.
Abubakar Salih Babiker, a climate scientist at the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC), told CHN the Western Indian Ocean has warmed rapidly over the past 100 years and is the fastest warming part of the tropical ocean system, a trend linked to man-made global warming.
The warming is causing more intense tropical cyclones in East Africa.
“October to December 2019 was the third wettest season in the past 30 years for the East Africa region. As a result, this heavy rainfall has resulted in increased green vegetation landscapes hence plenty of food for the locusts.
“The temperatures are warm aiding their egg hatching, and with the good winds, the conditions are suitable for their spread and movement,” Babiker said.
And the crisis is far from over.
ICPAC’s Fifty-Fourth Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum predicts a wetter and hotter than usual March to May season in a wide area within the horn of Africa. Already the region is experiencing above-average rainfall during the summer season, which began in January.
Cyril Ferrand, FAO resilience team leader for eastern Africa, told CHN the countries have a vast swarm of desert locusts now maturing and laying eggs on the ground.
And the rains complicate desert locust control as it is not suitable to spray insecticides during rains.
“Within the next three months, we could potentially have a 20 times bigger problem than we have now,” Ferrand said, given typical population growth if eggs hatch and the vast new generation of insects manages to find enough food and reproduce.
And in six months “we could have 400 times bigger swarms if we do not work on the control now,” he said.
Stephen Njoka, director of the Desert Locust Control Organisation for Eastern Africa, said one female could lay eggs three times, with each pond containing up to 100 eggs. “It is a big challenge as they are billion mobile swarms, some already laying eggs.” Njoka said female desert locusts can lay eggs at least three times in their lifetime, usually at intervals of about 6-11 days.
Esbon Agira, a plant protection officer at the ministry of agriculture, livestock, and fisheries in Kenya, said the local monitoring team ministry has identified four areas in northern Kenya where the desert locusts have laid eggs – in Marsabit, Samburu and two spots in Isiolo.
Agira said controlling bands of young locusts, known as hoppers, will be easier as they do not have no wings for about two weeks. “But the challenge is identifying where the locusts are laying eggs.”
To boost on-ground surveillance capacity in Kenya, FAO Kenya has stated training 600 people as part of the National Youth Service (NYS) in collaboration with Moroccan desert locust experts.
Ferrand admitted the desert locust mapping and monitoring in Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan is currently “sketchy.” “The control operation is still to be improved as we do not have all the means to control, survey, and conduct ground monitoring, but we are building this capacity.”
Ferrand said FAO was working with countries and the Desert Locust Control Organisation for Eastern Africa to build capacity for on-ground monitoring teams. The teams require GPS radios to monitor and map the movement of the swarms of yellow-coloured mature insects, since the colour indicates the areas where they are likely to lay eggs.
But the biggest threat is yet to come, Ferrand warned.
“It is a race against time to have all the capacity in place to control the next generation of locust at the time the farmers are planting cereals in March and April. We are urging donors to allocate resources now instead of June,” he said.
Kenya has an on-ground monitoring team in every county, identifying and reporting the swarm activities. While the situation is mostly under control, according to Agira, incoming swarms from Somalia are a threat to efforts conducted so far.
“If there is still no control in Somalia and Yemen, new swarms and unidentified hatchings will continue being a significant threat,” he said.
FAO is requesting $76 million for Kenya, Somali, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. Ferrand said the figure will rise as more resources for controlling and supporting affected communities’ livelihoods will be required.
New breeding could worsen the food security current situation for Mwagire and about 13 million others in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia who are currently critically food insecure.
For him, the locusts have dashed his hopes of buying two cows and nine goats to replace livestock he sold during the 2019 drought when he needed to raise money to pay his children’s school fees.
“I had planned to repurchase them with the harvest, but now I can’t. Instead of developing yourself, one keeps sinking into poverty,” he said.
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