23 May 20
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22 May 20
Trump Is Treating Michigan the Way He Treated Ukraine. Well Done, Senate Republicans
Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
Bort writes: "A few weeks before President Trump was impeached last December for attempting to blackmail Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan warned the House Judiciary Committee of a future in which the president used similar tactics on his own country."
EXCERPTS:
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Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
Bort writes: "A few weeks before President Trump was impeached last December for attempting to blackmail Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan warned the House Judiciary Committee of a future in which the president used similar tactics on his own country."
EXCERPTS:
“Imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding. What would you think if you lived there and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for? What would you think if that president said, ‘I would like you to do us a favor? I’ll meet with you, and send the disaster relief, once you brand my opponent a criminal.’
Wouldn’t you know in your gut that such a president has abused his office? That he’d betrayed the national interest, and that he was trying to corrupt the electoral process? I believe the evidentiary record shows wrongful acts on those scale here.”
It didn’t take long for Karlan’s hypothetical to sidle up next to reality. Trump has repeatedly criticized Democratic governors throughout the coronavirus crisis, the implication being that there could be repercussions if they fail to cooperate with the administration or show their gratitude to the president. In late March, Trump came pretty close to laying out a quid pro quo during an interview with Fox News. “It’s a two-way street,” the president said while discussing states in need of federal assistance. “They have to treat us well, also.”
On Wednesday, Trump’s demands grew more specific. As part of his morning Twitter movement, he posted that he will withhold funding from Michigan and Nevada, two key swing states, if they expand voter access ahead of the 2020 election.
Now, Trump is trying to blackmail crucial swing states into suppressing their vote-by-mail initiatives. One of them, Michigan, is not only struggling with COVID-19, but with historic floods in the center of the state. How could Trump be so brazen? Well, he already got away with trying to blackmail a foreign nation into interfering in the 2020 election. Why wouldn’t he do it again?
Karlan tried to warn the House of Representatives that this could happen. After Trump was impeached, Democrats issued similar warnings to the Senate Republicans voting on whether to remove him from office. “The president solicited a personal political benefit in exchange for an official act,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during the impeachment trial. “If this Senate were to say, ‘That’s acceptable’ … [this] could take place all across America in the context of the next election, with grants allocated to cities or towns or municipalities all across the country.”
But Senate Republicans did indeed deem it acceptable, many of them arguing that Trump having to endure the impeachment process was punishment enough. “I believe that the president has learned from this case,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told CBS News after Trump was acquitted. “The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.”
Three months later, the lesson appears to be that that even if Trump flagrantly abuses his office, Senate Republicans will vote to protect him.
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The coronavirus primarily spreads from person to person and not easily from a contaminated surface. That's the takeaway from the CDC. (photo: Matias J. Ofner/TNS)
Virus 'Does Not Spread Easily' From Contaminated Surfaces or Animals, Revised CDC Website States
Ben Guarino and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The coronavirus primarily spreads from person to person and not easily from a contaminated surface. That is the takeaway from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which this month updated its 'How COVID-19 Spreads' website."
EXCERPTS:
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Ben Guarino and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The coronavirus primarily spreads from person to person and not easily from a contaminated surface. That is the takeaway from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which this month updated its 'How COVID-19 Spreads' website."
EXCERPTS:
A recent CDC report described how a choir practice in Washington state in March became a super-spreader event when one sick person infected as many as 52 others.
“Direct contact with people has the highest likelihood of getting infected — being close to an infected person, rather than accepting a newspaper or a FedEx guy dropping off a box,” said virologist Vincent Munster, a researcher in the virus ecology section at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases facility in Hamilton, Mont.
Munster and his colleagues showed in laboratory experiments that the virus remained potentially viable on cardboard for up to 24 hours and on plastic and metal surfaces for up to three days. But the virus typically degrades within hours when outside a host.
“A persistent problem in this pandemic has been lack of clear messaging from governmental leadership, and this is another unfortunate example of that trend,” Rasmussen said. “It could even have a detrimental effect on hand hygiene and encourage complacency about physical distancing or other measures.”
But the previous version of the website, archived May 1, includes the same statement about surfaces as the current version: “It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus.”
Rasmussen said the new CDC language will not alter her habits. “I wash my hands after handling packages and wipe down shared surfaces with household disinfectant,” she said. “In my opinion, that’s all that is necessary to reduce risk.”
And if people find comfort in “quarantining” their mail or wiping down plastic packaging with disinfectant, “there’s no harm in doing that,” Rasmussen said. “Just don’t wipe down food with disinfectant.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Matt Rourke/AP)
Sen. Bernie Sanders and 3 Other Democrats Just Introduced a Bill for the Government to Cover Workers' Paychecks and Health Insurance
Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Business Insider
Zeballos-Roig writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders and three other Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday for the government to cover employee payrolls and their benefits as well as the fixed expenses of businesses like rent, mortgage and utilities."
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Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Business Insider
Zeballos-Roig writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders and three other Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday for the government to cover employee payrolls and their benefits as well as the fixed expenses of businesses like rent, mortgage and utilities."
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Congress is poised to pass legislation that would place surveillance tools into the hands of law enforcement. (photo: iStock)
Lawmakers Demand a Vote to Stop FBI Collecting Web Browser History Without a Warrant
Dell Cameron, Gizmodo
Cameron writes: "Congress is poised to pass legislation that would place several powerful surveillance tools back into the hands of federal law enforcement agencies that have a history of abusing their authority."
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Dell Cameron, Gizmodo
Cameron writes: "Congress is poised to pass legislation that would place several powerful surveillance tools back into the hands of federal law enforcement agencies that have a history of abusing their authority."
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Breonna Taylor, 26, was killed on March 13 during a narcotics raid on her home. (photo: Breonna Taylor)
FBI Says It Will Investigate Breonna Taylor Shooting Death as Police Chief Announces Retirement
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Breonna Taylor's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department, the lawsuit detailing how police shot Taylor at least eight times after they burst into her apartment, unannounced, with a search warrant."
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Breonna Taylor's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department, the lawsuit detailing how police shot Taylor at least eight times after they burst into her apartment, unannounced, with a search warrant."
A Somali woman carries wood to make a shelter in an internally displaced people camp on December 18, 2018. Hundreds of people fled from southern Somalia because of the U.S.'s airstrikes against al Shebab in Baidoa. (photo: Mohamed Abdiwahaba/Getty)
Nick Turse | The US Brags About Health Aid to Africa While Bombing Some of Its Most Vulnerable Nations
Nick Turse, The Intercept
Turse writes: "When it comes to Africa, the messaging suggests, America's focus is on saving lives, not ending them. But a wealth of evidence reveals that the opposite is true in the two African countries of greatest interest to the U.S. military: Libya and Somalia."
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Nick Turse, The Intercept
Turse writes: "When it comes to Africa, the messaging suggests, America's focus is on saving lives, not ending them. But a wealth of evidence reveals that the opposite is true in the two African countries of greatest interest to the U.S. military: Libya and Somalia."
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As fishermen harvest salmon nearby, a brown bear fishes for its own salmon at Chenik Creek, Alaska. (photo: Acacia Johnson)
A Proposed Mine in Alaska Will Endanger Brown Bears - and Much More
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "The world's most productive salmon fishery and a stronghold for the state's bears are under threat from an open-pit gold and copper mine."
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "The world's most productive salmon fishery and a stronghold for the state's bears are under threat from an open-pit gold and copper mine."
owering over the average human and weighing as much as a grand piano, the bears found in south-west Alaska are considered among the best in the world to observe as they pad around in a largely untouched wilderness of soaring mountains, pristine rivers and rocky beaches.
About a third of Alaska’s 30,000 brown bears are found on the Alaska Peninsula, which separates the Pacific Ocean from Bristol Bay, a place that hosts the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world and draws large numbers of bears to catch their food in the tumbling waters once they emerge from their winter hibernation.
This idyll is under looming threat from the controversial Pebble Mine, a proposed open-pit gold and copper mine that is planned for the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed. The local fishing industry, comprising 14,000 jobs that hinge on an environment that produces half of the world’s sockeye salmon, fears the project will cause its demise.
But the mine, which will involve the destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands and miles of salmon streams, also poses a major threat to the bears that feed on the fish. Aside from ingesting pollution disgorged from the mine, the bears also face the prospect of their habitat being sliced up – an 87-mile transportation and infrastructure corridor to the mine will run right next to the largest concentration of brown bears in the world.
In 2014, the US Environmental Protection Agency determined the Pebble Mine would significantly harm fish populations and streams in the region – but the agency under Donald Trump has reversed its position, opening up a path forward for the development. Alaska Natives, fishing groups and environmentalists have sought legal action to block the mine ahead of a US army corp of engineers decision, expected this summer, on whether to grant it a necessary permit.
Opponents of the mine say much is under threat – a sizable fishing industry, the tens of thousands of tourists who visit the area each year, the health of prized salmon and one of the last corners of the world where significant numbers of bears live harmoniously around people.
“Personally, I feel that the mine’s impact on this bear population would be a global loss, not just a local one,” said Acacia Johnson, a photographer whose parents were bear guides. “I think that the opportunity to share a landscape peacefully with an apex predator is a powerfully transformative experience, that can change the way people understand their own relationships to the planet and wilderness in general.”
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