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23 April 20
Joseph Stiglitz: US Coronavirus Response Is Like 'Third World' Country
Larry Elliott, Guardian UK
Elliott writes: "Donald Trump's botched handling of the Covid-19 crisis has left the US looking like a 'third world' country and on course for a second Great Depression, one of the world's leading economists has warned."
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Larry Elliott, Guardian UK
Elliott writes: "Donald Trump's botched handling of the Covid-19 crisis has left the US looking like a 'third world' country and on course for a second Great Depression, one of the world's leading economists has warned."
In a withering attack on the president, Joseph Stiglitz said millions of people were turning to food banks, turning up for work due to a lack of sick pay and dying because of health inequalities.
The Nobel prize-winning economist said: “The numbers turning to food banks are just enormous and beyond the capacity of them to supply. It is like a third world country. The public social safety net is not working.”
Stiglitz, a long-term critic of Trump, said 14% of the population was dependent on food stamps and predicted the social infrastructure could not cope with an unemployment rate that could hit 30% in the coming months.
“We have a safety net that is inadequate. The inequality in the US is so large. This disease has targeted those with the poorest health. In the advanced world, the US is one of the countries with the poorest health overall and the greatest health inequality.”
Stiglitz said Republicans had opposed proposals to give those affected by coronavirus 10 days’ sick leave, meaning many employees were going to work even while infected. “The Republicans said no because they said it would set a bad precedent. It is literally unbelievable.”
He added: “The safety net is not adequate and is propagating the disease. There is very weak unemployment insurance and people don’t think they can rely on it.”
During an interview with the Guardian to mark the paperback publication of his book People, Power, and Profits, Stiglitz was asked whether the US might be heading for a second Great Depression.
“Yes is the answer in short,” he said. “If you leave it to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell [the Republican Senate majority leader] we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily.”
Stiglitz said that as a result of Trump’s mismanagement, the White House office responsible for pandemics had been closed, funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been cut, and the US had gone into the crisis without enough testing kits, masks and protective gear. Encouraged by Trump, some parts of the US were determined to reopen in a way that would facilitate the transmission of the disease and lead to a fresh outbreak, he added.
“In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression.
“We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.”
Stiglitz said that if Trump were defeated in the presidential contest in November and the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress there was a chance of the US moving in a more progressive direction, but he warned Republicans would fight dirty in order to cling on to power.
“There is voter suppression and gerrymandering. The Republican party knows it’s a minority party and there is a no-holds-barred struggle going on to make sure a minority party rules America.”
Stiglitz said the current crisis would force countries to make themselves less vulnerable, and this would lead to shorter supply chains and a greater emphasis on self-sufficiency in food and energy.
He added that the complexity of modern production methods meant autarky was not feasible but added: “Fighting global pandemics and climate change require global cooperation. It’s just that the president of the United States doesn’t understand that.
“I hope we emerge from this with the perspective that multilateralism is even more important than we thought. It can’t just be a corporate-driven globalisation. We have to make it more resilient.’
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Dr. Rick Bright was transferred from the Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. (photo: Thibault Savary/Getty)
Head of Coronavirus Vaccine Research Says He Was Demoted for Questioning Drug Favored by Trump
Blake Montgomery and Sam Stein, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "The doctor in charge of the federal agency overseeing research into a coronavirus vaccine said on Wednesday he was forced out of the job after questioning the efficacy of an anti-malarial drug favored by the president."
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Blake Montgomery and Sam Stein, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "The doctor in charge of the federal agency overseeing research into a coronavirus vaccine said on Wednesday he was forced out of the job after questioning the efficacy of an anti-malarial drug favored by the president."
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Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. (photo: Frederic J. Brown/Getty)
Biden and Sanders Vow Joint Climate Work as Part of Endorsement
Ben Geman, Axios
Geman writes: "Part of Bernie Sanders' endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is a new plan for them to form joint "task forces" on six big topics, including climate change."
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Ben Geman, Axios
Geman writes: "Part of Bernie Sanders' endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is a new plan for them to form joint "task forces" on six big topics, including climate change."
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Health and Human Services director Alex Azar elevated a former labradoodle breeder to lead the department's day-to-day response to the coronavirus. (photo: Getty)
Trump's Health and Human Services Chief Chose a Former Dog Breeder With Minimal Public Health Experience to Lead Covid 19 Response
Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor, Reuters
Excerpt: "On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared."
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Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor, Reuters
Excerpt: "On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared."
EXCERPT:
DALLAS LABRADOODLES
Azar is a Republican lawyer who once clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and counts current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a friend. Under George W. Bush, Azar worked for HHS as general counsel and deputy secretary. During the Obama years, he cycled through the private sector as a pharmaceutical company lobbyist and executive for Eli Lilly. After Trump’s first HHS secretary was forced out in a travel corruption scandal, Azar stepped in, in January 2018.
Two years later, at the dawn of the coronavirus crisis, Azar appointed his most trusted aide and chief of staff, Harrison, as HHS’s main coordinator for the government’s response to the virus.
Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company.
Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.
The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sale price was $225,000.
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An Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer. (photo: Flickr)
ICE Has Access to DACA Recipients' Personal Information Despite Promises Suggesting Otherwise, Internal Emails Show
Dara Lind, ProPublica
Lind writes: "When undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors applied for deportation protections and work permits, the forms included a promise: The information would not be shared with immigration enforcement agents."
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Dara Lind, ProPublica
Lind writes: "When undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors applied for deportation protections and work permits, the forms included a promise: The information would not be shared with immigration enforcement agents."
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (photo: Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
Justin Trudeau Is Calling for a Ban on All "Assault-Style Weapons" Following One of the Deadliest Mass Shootings in Canadian History
Emmanuel Felton, BuzzFeed News
Felton writes: "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pledging to continue to push for stricter gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia that killed at least 23 people, the deadliest mass shooting in the country's modern history."
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Emmanuel Felton, BuzzFeed News
Felton writes: "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pledging to continue to push for stricter gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia that killed at least 23 people, the deadliest mass shooting in the country's modern history."
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Environmental activists in Chicago protest President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, June 2, 2017. (photo: Christopher Dilts/AP)
We Can't Let Trump Roll Back 50 Years of Environmental Progress
Elizabeth Southerland, Guardian UK
Southerland writes: "The Trump EPA has repealed or weakened almost 100 environmental regulations, even when affected industries have not objected to the rules. The number and speed of these repeals puts us in uncharted territory."
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Elizabeth Southerland, Guardian UK
Southerland writes: "The Trump EPA has repealed or weakened almost 100 environmental regulations, even when affected industries have not objected to the rules. The number and speed of these repeals puts us in uncharted territory."
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