27 July 20
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27 July 20
RSN: John Kiriakou | The Government's Weapon Against Reality Winner: COVID-19
John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
Kiriakou writes: "Covid-19 is raging through US prison systems at every level – federal, state, and local – at a rate far higher than in the general population. To make matters worse, many prisoners are forbidden from cleaning and disinfecting their cells."
John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
Kiriakou writes: "Covid-19 is raging through US prison systems at every level – federal, state, and local – at a rate far higher than in the general population. To make matters worse, many prisoners are forbidden from cleaning and disinfecting their cells."
Whistleblower Marty Gottesfeld has written that as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic hit FCI Terre Haute, where he is being held, prison authorities stopped providing soap and shampoo and forbade prisoners from using detergent to clean their laundry. No explanation was given. Similarly, NSA whistleblower Reality Winner reported to her family that she and other prisoners at the federal women’s prison at Carswell, Texas, are not permitted to clean their cells. Five hundred women – nearly 50 percent of all prisoners at Carswell – have been infected. Winner is one of them.
Kevin Gosztola at Shadowproof is reporting information directly from Winner’s family. Neither he nor any other journalist has been in direct contact with Winner. But the Bureau of Prisons is treating her like she is violating Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy on contact with the media. And that punishment is manifesting itself in her being forbidden to keep her cell clean. Crazy, right?
Gosztola says that one prison guard taunted Winner by telling her, “I just wanted to congratulate you on your positive results.” That’s how Winner found out she was positive for Covid-19. And the guard immediately forbade her from cleaning and disinfecting her cell. A week ago, this same guard tried to have Winner thrown into solitary confinement just so that she would be unable to speak to her attorney, who had requested a meeting.
Gosztola says that, for a prisoner, “cleaning the little amount of space that they can call their own gives them some sense of control, and in a pandemic, that means being able to disinfect and dramatically slow the spread of the virus. But in a system where facility personnel want prisoners to remain dependent on them, staff can impose their authority by refusing to permit cleaning …” It’s an act of cruelty.
And Brittany Winner, Reality’s sister, says the present situation is even worse. Winner’s bunkmate tested positive for Covid-19 and was removed from the unit. (Most inmates who test positive have been sent to solitary confinement, rather than to the prison’s medical unit to try to slow the spread of the disease.) Instead, prisoners at Carswell have been taken to the medical unit, where other prisoners receive chemotherapy, dialysis, and other treatments. You can guess what happened next. Covid-19 patients, guards, or others dragged the disease into the unit and infected prisoners who were already fighting for their lives. In a normal situation, this would likely be depraved indifference. It would be manslaughter if a patient were to die.
This horror is not relegated to only the women’s prison in Carswell. It’s happening in prisons and jails across the country. In the prison where I was incarcerated after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, FCI Loretto, one of the prisoners in my housing unit, four cells down from mine, tested positive for tuberculosis. We could hear his hacking cough 24 hours a day. He went to the medical unit, where he tested positive. Another prisoner, who was a physician in on a Medicare fraud case, told the guards that the positive prisoner had to be isolated to protect the rest of us. They told him to mind his own business. So the rest of us made our own makeshift masks our of tee shirts and underwear. That seemed to work. By the end of my sentence six or so months later, nobody else had tested positive. But at least we were able to clear our cells, wash our hands, and use detergent to clean our clothes.
This anti-health, anti-prisoner policy is not unique to FCI Terre Haute or FMC Carswell. It’s a policy across the Bureau of Prisons. According to Prison Legal News magazine, the BOP has dragged its feet in allowing prisoners to be released under the federal compassionate release program. At the same time, prisoners are 5.5 times more likely to be infected with Covid-19 than the general population and nearly twice as likely to die.
The whole situation reminds me of World War Z: “Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one’s better. Or more creative.”
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
The census in 2010. (photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
Experts Say Collecting Immigration Data Through US Census for Reapportionment Is Unconstitutional
Aline Barros and Aishwarya Airy, VOA News
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from a census tabulation used to determine how many U.S. representatives are apportioned to each state is unworkable and unconstitutional, according to civil rights groups and several American cities and counties suing the administration."
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Aline Barros and Aishwarya Airy, VOA News
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from a census tabulation used to determine how many U.S. representatives are apportioned to each state is unworkable and unconstitutional, according to civil rights groups and several American cities and counties suing the administration."
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Photographs of doctors and nurses, worn to comfort patients while they are dressed in protective gear, hangs on a wall outside the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, June 29. (photo: Go Nakamura/Bloomberg)
The Child-Care Crisis Punishes Women in Health Care. Without Schools, They'll Quit.
Chavi Eve Karkowsky, The Washington Post
Karkowsky writes: "Everywhere I look in the hospital, this is what I see: parents, disproportionately women — we make up about 75 percent of health-care workers — who have done brave and difficult things to be able to come to work for the past few months."
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Chavi Eve Karkowsky, The Washington Post
Karkowsky writes: "Everywhere I look in the hospital, this is what I see: parents, disproportionately women — we make up about 75 percent of health-care workers — who have done brave and difficult things to be able to come to work for the past few months."
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Billionaire Jeff Bezos. (photo: David Ryder/Getty Images)
America's Largest Unions Are Calling on the FTC to Stop Amazon
Edward Ongweso Jr., Vice
Ongweso writes: "On Thursday, a coalition of some of America’s largest unions representing millions of workers filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to address Amazon's exploitation of the Covid-19 pandemic to further expand its dominance over U.S. markets and labor."
Edward Ongweso Jr., Vice
Ongweso writes: "On Thursday, a coalition of some of America’s largest unions representing millions of workers filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to address Amazon's exploitation of the Covid-19 pandemic to further expand its dominance over U.S. markets and labor."
On behalf of millions of workers, the unions are calling on the FTC to investigate the company’s dominance over workers and markets.
n Thursday, a coalition of some of America’s largest unions representing millions of workers filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to address Amazon's exploitation of the Covid-19 pandemic to further expand its dominance over U.S. markets and labor.
"We are highly alarmed by Amazon's conduct during the unprecedented crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic," reads the complaint. "Amazon is taking advantage of the economic desperation and upheaval caused by COVID to engage in new or intensified conduct that further entrenches its market power and dominance."
The complaint presents a series of arguments making the case that Amazon's dominant position in e-commerce has accelerated the crumbling of physical retail, allowed it to abuse its market power to undermine competitors and squeeze suppliers, exploit U.S. workers without fear of reprisal or consequence, and enter new markets to engage in anti-competitive behavior.
For years, critics have warned Amazon, which has engaged in aggressive anti-union tactics, has escaped regulatory scrutiny in part because today's antitrust framework is outdated and ill-equipped to handle the sheer scope of the company’s power. The complaint warns that Amazon’s ability to use pricing as a weapon—either through suppressing prices by offering cheaper versions of products offered by their sellers at levels unsustainable for competitors or constantly changing them using data collected from consumers—helps to prevent competitors from thriving, and to stop sellers from leaving.
The unions argue that sellers are increasingly finding themselves trapped on Amazon, a platform which has no problem levying taxes on sellers to make up for those levied from it by various governments. Vendors reliant on the platform to make ends meet find themselves at the mercy of unilateral decision-making, yet still unable to leave.
For example, in April, a ProPublica investigation found that Amazon’s pricing algorithm was further trapping sellers by increasing "suggested" inventory levels that third party sellers must send to Amazon to avoid being demoted in sales results. Such a tactic forces suppliers to prioritize Amazon over other retailers, even if they might receive a better deal, for fear of losing revenue.
The complaint highlights another prominent example—"most-favored nation" clauses—which bar sellers from selling their products at lower prices on competitor platforms or even their own websites. Amazon is able to then combine this clause with its cloud computing dominance to "deny competing platforms and even the developers themselves the opportunity to offer lower prices to smaller sets of consumers than those purchasing the software products on the AWS Marketplace."
The coalition of unions also raise major labor concerns in their petition, related to the fact that Amazon directly employs "22 percent of the entire national labor market in private warehousing and storage" when seasonal workers are excluded. It is one of the largest employers in the United States with a direct workforce of around 400,000 and has hired approximately 175,000 workers during the pandemic, 125,000 of which are permanent ones. The coalition says that Amazon’s status as a major employer (sometimes the only major employer in towns) has allowed it to suppress wages of its workers.
Earlier this year, before the lockdown was in effect, Bank of America estimated Amazon's share of the U.S. e-commerce market was 44 percent. Second place, at 7 percent, was Walmart. And while physical retail suffered a massive hit during the spring that many companies may never recover, online sales skyrocketed. Indeed, Amazon and Jeff Bezos have seen their fortunes soar by tens of billions during this pandemic while millions are being pushed to the brink of homelessness or starvation.
"Amazon represents a clear and present danger to American workers and our economy," said UFCW International President Marc Perrone. "The company has not only refused to acknowledge the full impact of COVID-19 on its workers, it has exploited this pandemic to increase its market dominance as well as its power over employees throughout its distribution centers."
Amazon spokespeople were not immediately available to comment.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks during a hearing on the coronavirus pandemic last week. (photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Sen. Hawley Lays Down New Antiabortion Marker for Supreme Court Nominees
Robert Costa, The Washington Post
Costa writes: "Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was 'wrongly decided.'"
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Robert Costa, The Washington Post
Costa writes: "Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was 'wrongly decided.'"
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Kim Jong Un. (photo: Getty Images Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images)
Kim Jong Un Finally Admits Coronavirus Is in North Korea
Donald Kirk, The Daily Beast
Kirk writes: "North Korea just announced its first case of COVID-19, casting blame most conveniently on a defector who had fled to South Korea and then re-defected back to the North, supposedly bringing the bug with him."
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Donald Kirk, The Daily Beast
Kirk writes: "North Korea just announced its first case of COVID-19, casting blame most conveniently on a defector who had fled to South Korea and then re-defected back to the North, supposedly bringing the bug with him."
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A polar bear with two playful cubs. (photo: Jennie Gosché/Alaska Wilderness League)
Climate Change, Oil Development Threaten Alaska's Polar Bears
Jennie Gosché, Alaska Wilderness League
Gosché writes: "The Inupiat share their whale meat with the polar bears, something they have done for many years. This gesture provides much needed food for polar bears, especially as they spend longer periods of time on land due to the receding sea ice."
Jennie Gosché, Alaska Wilderness League
Gosché writes: "The Inupiat share their whale meat with the polar bears, something they have done for many years. This gesture provides much needed food for polar bears, especially as they spend longer periods of time on land due to the receding sea ice."
n late 2019, before the world was completely upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was presented a last-minute chance to photograph polar bears outside one of the northernmost villages in the United States — Kaktovik, Alaska. It was an opportunity I couldn't refuse, and as the COVID-19 pandemic now stretches into summer 2020, I'm grateful I accepted.
Kaktovik is an Inupiat native village of around 250 people on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, located on barrier islands at the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My first trip there took place in September 2016, and I traveled with the purpose to photograph the threatened Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population. The coastal region of the Arctic Refuge in fall is a special place to photograph these magnificent animals, as they congregate on dirt and sand spits of land waiting for the winter ice of the Beaufort Sea to make its way to the Alaska shore.
During the late summer and early fall, Inupiat boat owners from Kaktovik guide "tourist" photographers out to view polar bears from a safe distance in the placid lagoon adjacent to the raging waves of the Beaufort Sea. I joined one such group of photographers led by Hugh Rose, a professional photographer and geologist who lives in Fairbanks, and we took a short charter flight from Deadhorse to Kaktovik, landing in a morning snowstorm. But by afternoon, the sun was out and we had three and a half days of sunshine that combined with the ice and snow to create great conditions in which to photograph polar bears.
We were out in the lagoon twice a day, breaking only for lunch at our hotel, the modest but welcoming Waldo Arms Hotel owned by Walt "Waldo" Audi and Merlyn Trainer — one of only two options for places to stay in Kaktovik when visiting. The boat guides are skilled, and they have to be, because knowledge and awareness of depths in the lagoon is critical to prevent a boat from getting stuck in shallow water.
This trip we were in a boat with a heated cabin, a perk since we were there later in the season. Our boat driver, however, told us that at that very same time the previous year, the lagoon was completely frozen over. He shared this as we floated on the lagoon in open water, though ice was visible in places and we occasionally heard pieces rubbing against the hull of the metal boat.
With rapidly rising temperatures, increases in wildfires, thawing permafrost, receding glaciers, eroding coastlines and disappearing sea ice, Alaska and the Arctic are on the front lines of climate change. It has hit Alaska's rural communities and Alaska Native villages especially hard, including villages like Kaktovik. Warming waters and the disappearing Arctic ice cap are also impacting ocean life, from plankton to polar bears to whales. And the decline in sea ice is making it increasingly unsafe for humans and wildlife to travel across it to hunt marine mammals like seals, walrus and bowhead whales.
The Inupiat are primarily subsistence hunters and whalers, harvesting whales each summer (in addition to caribou and other wildlife), the meat from which is shared by the entire village. It is a staple of their diet and has been for thousands of years, but as temperatures warm, the lack of ice combined with changes in whale migration patterns and timing could make hunting progressively more difficult.
The Inupiat share their whale meat with the polar bears, something they have done for many years. This gesture provides much needed food for polar bears, especially as they spend longer periods of time on land due to the receding sea ice. When I visited Kaktovik in 2016, my most memorable photo is of a cub on top of whale bones, shaking what looks like animal skin in its mouth.
As I returned to the village in late 2019, however, they had moved the bone pile away from the lagoon to an area off-limits to tourists. I was told the bone pile now only stays on land for a short time, and then the bones are pushed into the ocean. Eventually, this change could affect the overall health of the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, as many of them increasingly den on land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and utilize the shared whale meat for sustenance during the summer and early fall before they enter their maternal birthing dens in November.
Which brings me back to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as wild a place as any other on Earth but one also under threat of oil and gas development. While in Kaktovik I learned that there is not a consensus in the village on the question of allowing oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Climate change and impacts to wildlife are serious concerns, so much so that more than 60 village residents signed a petition in 2017 opposing drilling on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.
Helping to prevent development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a place that supports the greatest variety of plant and animal life in the entire circumpolar north — is very important to me, not least of all because the U.S. government has admitted it simply doesn't have enough information about the impacts of oil and gas development on the coastal plain to protect its wildlife and other values. Oil drilling will compound the devastating climate impacts already being felt by villages in the region, increasing carbon emissions, worsening climate pollution and further harming front line communities.
Especially now, in the midst of an uncertain present and looking forward to an uncertain future, we need to press pause on Arctic Refuge development. Instead of recklessly rushing ahead, more research over extended periods of time is needed so that we can fully understand the potential impact oil drilling will have on local villages, our climate and wildlife like the majestic polar bear.
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