23 March 20
People are responding, but we are far behind where we need to be.
Have to get more people involved. It’s imperative and the situation is critical.
In earnest.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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22 March 20 PM
DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency
Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Wade writes: "The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies."
he Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan.
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Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Wade writes: "The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies."
The Department of Justice has secretly asked Congress for the ability to detain arrested people “indefinitely” in addition to other powers that one expert called “terrifying”
he Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan.
While the asks from the Department of Justice will likely not come to fruition with a Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, they demonstrate how much this White House has a frightening disregard for rights enumerated in the Constitution.
The DOJ has requested Congress allow any chief judge of a district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation,” according to draft language obtained by Politico. This would be applicable to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil processes and proceedings.” They justify this by saying currently judges can pause judicial proceedings in an emergency but that new legislation would allow them to apply it “in a consistent manner.”
But the Constitution grants citizens habeas corpus which gives arrestees the right to appear in front of a judge and ask to be released before trial. Enacting legislation like the DOJ wants would essentially suspend habeas corpus indefinitely until the emergency ended. Further, DOJ asked Congress to suspend the statute of limitations on criminal investigations and civil proceedings during the emergency until a year after it ended.
Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told Politico the measure was “terrifying,” saying, “Not only would it be a violation of [habeas corpus], but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest.’ So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”
“That is something that should not happen in a democracy,” he added.
DOJ also asked Congress to amend the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to have defendants appear at a hearing via videoconference instead of in-person with the defendant’s consent, although in a draft obtained by Politico, the sections about requiring consent were crossed out. But it’s not just Americans’ rights the DOJ wants to violate. They also asked Congress to pass a law saying that immigrants who test positive for COVID-19 cannot qualify as asylum seekers.
As coronavirus spreads through the country, activists are calling on politicians in office to release prisoners and immigrants held in detention centers, both of which can be a hotbed of virus activity with so many people in close quarters and limited or non-existent supplies of soap, sanitizer, and protective equipment. Some states have already begun to do so. But with this, the Trump administration is taking steps to hold more people in prisons for an undetermined amount of time — showing their priority is not saving lives but giving themselves more power.
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Coronavirus shows that capitalist globalization is biologically unsustainable. (photo: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)
Mike Davis | The Coronavirus Crisis Is a Monster Fueled by Capitalism
Mike Davis, In These Times
Davis writes: "A year from now we may look back in admiration at China's success in containing the pandemic but in horror at the United States' failure. The inability of our institutions to keep Pandora's Box closed, of course, is hardly a surprise. Since at least 2000 we've repeatedly seen breakdowns in frontline healthcare."
EXCERPT:
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Mike Davis, In These Times
Davis writes: "A year from now we may look back in admiration at China's success in containing the pandemic but in horror at the United States' failure. The inability of our institutions to keep Pandora's Box closed, of course, is hardly a surprise. Since at least 2000 we've repeatedly seen breakdowns in frontline healthcare."
EXCERPT:
A new monster
So Corona walks through the front door as a familiar monster. Sequencing its genome (very similar to its well-studied sister SARS) was a piece of cake, yet much information is still missing. As researchers work night and day to characterize the outbreak they are faced with three major challenges. First, the continuing shortage of test kits, especially in the United States and Africa, has prevented accurate estimates of key parameters such as reproduction rate, size of infected population and number of benign infections. The result has been a chaos of numbers.
Second, like annual influenzas, this virus is mutating as it courses through populations with different age compositions and health conditions. The variety that Americans are most likely to contract is already slightly different from that of the original outbreak in Wuhan. Further mutation could be benign or could alter the current distribution of virulence which spikes sharply after age 50. The coronavirus is at minimum a mortal danger to Americans who are elderly, have weak immune systems, or chronic respiratory problems.
Third, even if the virus remains stable and little mutated, its impact on younger age cohorts could differ radically in poor countries and amongst high poverty groups. Consider the global experience of the Spanish flu in 1918-19 which is estimated to have killed 1 to 3% of humanity. In the United States and Western Europe, H1N1 was most deadly to young adults. This has usually been explained as a result of their relatively stronger immune systems which overreacted to the infection by attacking lung cells, leading to pneumonia and septic shock.
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Kenny Roger. (photo: Andre Csillag/Shutterstock)
Farewell, Kenny Rogers
Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
Sheffield writes: "Kenny Rogers always knew when to hold them, when to fold them, when to walk away, when to run. The beloved country-pop stud died Friday night at 81, after a career full of hits that defined his silver-fox mystique."
Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
Sheffield writes: "Kenny Rogers always knew when to hold them, when to fold them, when to walk away, when to run. The beloved country-pop stud died Friday night at 81, after a career full of hits that defined his silver-fox mystique."
Two voters stand outside a polling station after casting their ballots at the Burton Barr Library in Phoenix on Tuesday. (photo: Cheney Orr/Reuters)
Mail Voting Could Secure the November Election. But Can Election Officials Make It Happen in Time?
Amy Gardner and Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The rapidly escalating coronavirus pandemic has forced election officials to consider a sobering reality: The crisis could run headlong into November's presidential election, and revamping America's voting systems before then could be difficult and in some cases impossible."
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Amy Gardner and Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The rapidly escalating coronavirus pandemic has forced election officials to consider a sobering reality: The crisis could run headlong into November's presidential election, and revamping America's voting systems before then could be difficult and in some cases impossible."
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Homeless in Los Angeles. (photo: Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images)
Housing as a Human Right: Movement Gains Steam in Los Angeles in Response to Pandemic
Anne Branigin, The Root
Branigin writes: "Now, with the coronavirus pandemic requiring Californians to 'shelter-in-place,' homeless families find themselves running out of safe options."
Anne Branigin, The Root
Branigin writes: "Now, with the coronavirus pandemic requiring Californians to 'shelter-in-place,' homeless families find themselves running out of safe options."
EXCERPT:
or years, a housing crisis in California has been coming to a head as skyrocketing rents have outpaced people’s wages. That crisis has led to a growing homeless population the state has struggled to assist. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic requiring Californians to “shelter-in-place,” homeless families find themselves running out of safe options.
In response, homeless families and others living in precarious situations in Los Angeles have taken part in the “Reclaiming Our Homes” movement, the Huffington Post reports. An organized group has moved into 12 homes owned by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in the El Sereno neighborhood of L.A. According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, Caltrans owns dozens more empty homes in the area.
From the Huffington Post:
The group is demanding that local and state governments take action immediately to provide housing to homeless families, which are particularly at risk of being exposed to coronavirus.
Dominque Walker, one of the organizers of Moms 4 Housing, the Oakland-based group that made headlines earlier this year when it occupied—and was subsequently evicted from—a vacant home in the Bay Area offered support to the group.
“We are all being urged to stay home and practice social distancing—but how can you do that when your family is homeless?” Walker said in a statement.
Cuban doctors are flown to several countries around the world to help combat the coronavirus outbreak. (photo: @CubacooperaGh)
Cuba Comes to Italy's Aid by Sending Team of Doctors and Nurses
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The island-nation of Cuba has dispatched a team of doctors and nurses to help Italy combat the coronavirus outbreak that killed over 4,000 people inside the country in the last month."
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The island-nation of Cuba has dispatched a team of doctors and nurses to help Italy combat the coronavirus outbreak that killed over 4,000 people inside the country in the last month."
“We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take out fear and put it to one side,” Leonardo Fernandez, 68, an intensive care specialist, told Reuters late on Saturday shortly before his brigade’s departure.
Cuba announced on Sunday that the team of doctors and nurses to Italy after the worst-affected region, Lombardy, asked the island-nation for immediate assistance in helping them fight the coronavirus.
The Caribbean island has sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution. Its doctors were in the front lines in the fight against cholera in Haiti and against ebola in West Africa in the 2010s.
Yet with the 52-strong brigade, this is the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, one of the world’s richest countries, demonstrating the reach of its medical diplomacy.
This is the sixth medical brigade Cuba has sent in recent days to combat the spread of the new disease abroad. It has sent contingents to socialist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada.
“We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take out fear and put it to one side,” Leonardo Fernandez, 68, an intensive care specialist, told Reuters late on Saturday shortly before his brigade’s departure.
“He who says he is not afraid is a superhero, but we are not superheros, we are revolutionary doctors.”
Fernandez said this would be his eighth international mission, including one in Liberia during the fight against ebola.
Italy is the country that has been worst affected by the highly contagious virus that originated in China, with the northern region of Lombardy bearing the brunt of the contagion.
Its death toll rose on Saturday by 546 to 3,095, according to its head of welfare, Giulio Gallera, who requested the Cuban doctors.
We are going to fulfill an honorable task, based on the principle of solidarity,” said Graciliano Díaz, 64.
Still, Cuba has one of the highest ratios worldwide of physicians per capita even when excluding those doctors abroad, and its medical brigades for disaster relief continue to earn Havana goodwill worldwide.
“In a time of crisis, the Cuban government, the Cuban people ... have risen to the occasion, they have heard our appeal and they have responded,” Jamaican Health Minister Christopher Tufton said on Saturday upon greeting 140 Cuban medical professionals at Kingston international airport.
Britain also thanked Cuba last week for allowing a British cruise ship that had been turned away by several Caribbean ports to dock on the island and for enabling the evacuation of the more than 600 passengers onboard.
Meanwhile Cuba, which is known for its disaster preparedness, is stepping up measures at home too to stem the coronavirus contagion. Twenty-five cases have been confirmed so far.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel announced late on Friday the country would be closing its borders to foreign non-residents from Tuesday in a major blow to one of the motors of its cash-strapped economy, tourism.
Thousands of doctors and medicine students are also going door-to-door monitoring their local communities.
Sika deer cross a road in Nara, Japan. The animals have been wandering through city streets and subway stations. (photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
Emboldened Wild Animals Venture Into Locked-Down Cities Worldwide
Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK
Singh writes: "As cities around the world mandate lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing, social media posts about animals frolicking through deserted cities have enchanted people anxiously seeking silver linings."
Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK
Singh writes: "As cities around the world mandate lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing, social media posts about animals frolicking through deserted cities have enchanted people anxiously seeking silver linings."
EXCERPTS:
“Normally, animals live in the parts of our cities that we don’t use,” said Seth Mangle, who directs the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. “It makes them an unseen presence, kind of like ghosts.”
Gangs of wild turkeys aren’t an uncommon sight in parts of the Bay Area but it seems they’ve got a bit more room to wander through neighborhoods they might not normally visit. Boars have been known to descend upon European cities – but Barcelonans on lockdown have marveled at how the wild animals romp through quiet, deserted streets.
In American cities under shelter in place orders, walks and jogs are one of the few excuses for people to go outside. “It’s going to be a really cool time to spot wildlife,” Mangle said.
In San Felipe, where restaurants and bars have closed and tourist traffic is almost nonexistent, Matt Larsen has noticed some new visitors on the beach near his home. “There were three raccoons, just frolicking along right at the edge of the surf,” said Larsen, the director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “I’ve lived here six years, and it was something I had never seen before.”
The beach, which is right by the presidential palace, is usually kept clear by security guards, said Larsen, who directs the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “But normally there are people all around; the streets are almost always crowded with foreign visitors and Panamanian tourists,” he said.
Larsen, who has been teleworking from home with his wife, was happy to see “nature maintaining itself”, he said. “It was nice to see something a little out of the ordinary.”
Quarantines could continue to affect wildlife in unexpected ways, said Paige Warren, an ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I’ll be interested in whether creatures like coyotes and foxes start acting more bold in American cities,” she said. At the same time, fewer people in the streets could drive some species away, she said, especially those who subsist on whatever humans feed them – or leave behind in the trash.
That is the case in Nara Park, where the sika deer – which look like Bambi – have grown accustomed to tourists lining up year-round to feed them rice crackers. Now that the park is devoid of human visitors, the deer have begun wandering into the city looking for food. They’ve been spotted crossing city streets and walking through subway stations, snacking on potted plants.
In Lopburi, Thailand, the absence of tourists and their tasty snacks left local monkeys brawling over what appeared to be a cup of yogurt.
But just as many urban animals have adapted to humans, they’ll find ways to adjust during the quarantine, said Warren.
Mangle concurred: “As they said in Jurassic Park, life tends to find a way.” Though his team in Chicago has been working from home and practicing social distancing, Mangle said they were trying to find a way to set up equipment around Chicago for their annual study of urban wildlife and track how the coronavirus crisis may shift animal behavior.
The changes will probably be subtle, the researchers said. Urban foxes and coyotes might venture out of their hiding spots a bit more. Birds might roam, graze and hunt new pastures.
The narrative that wildlife populations will dramatically rebound and retake cities is fantasy – albeit one that might comfort those looking for meaning amidst the crisis. “If anything, these times may serve as a reminder that animals have always lived in our area,” Mangle said. “We may not think of our cities as a part of nature, but they are.”
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