RSN: Fauci Urges Americans to Sacrifice Traditional Thanksgiving to Save Lives
25 November 20
Small Donors Rallying for RSN, Need Some Matching Funds!
Got a nice burst of very small donations last night and this morning. We could really use a few larger ones to get the progress bar moving again.
Could that be you?
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Sure, I'll make a donation!
Update My Monthly Donation
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
25 November 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
WITHOUT FUNDING THERE WON’T BE AN RSN FOR YOU TO COME TO - Funding is not optional. We are - required - to have a basic budget, like it or not. We would love to reduce fundraising. Reasonable donations will absolutely allow us to do that. Right now reasonable donations are lacking. With urgency. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News
Sure, I'll make a donation!
Fauci Urges Americans to Sacrifice Traditional Thanksgiving to Save Lives
Joanna Walters, Guardian UK
Walters writes: "The top US public health official urged Americans today make a 'sacrifice now to save lives and illness' by resisting the urge to gather together for Thanksgiving."
he top US public health official urged Americans today make a “sacrifice now to save lives and illness” by resisting the urge to gather together for Thanksgiving, as the US witnessed more than 2,000 deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday – the first time that grim mark has been surpassed since the spring.
Anthony Fauci, the lead public health expert on the White House coronavirus taskforce and a leading official to every president since Ronald Reagan, said “that’s my final plea” before tomorrow’s traditional dinner celebrations.
“Keep the indoor gatherings as small as you possibly can. We all know how difficult that is because this is such a beautiful, traditional holiday. But by making that sacrifice you are going to prevent infections,” Fauci told ABC’s Good Morning America in a live interview on Wednesday morning.
Fauci, who has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said that asymptomatic people who have Covid-19 innocently and “without malice” unwittingly infect people if they attend an indoor party or gathering, especially when taking their face mask off to eat and drink.
“The sacrifice now could save lives and illness and make the future much brighter as we get through this, because we are going to get through this. Vaccines are right on the horizon,” he said.
More than 2,100 deaths from coronavirus were recorded in the US on Tuesday. That is the highest 24-hour death toll in the US since early May. The previous record total was 2,603 deaths in a day in mid-April, when New York was the world’s coronavirus hotspot and many hospitals in New York City were overwhelmed.
More than 88,000 Americans are now in hospital across the nation with coronavirus, infections are almost at 12.6m and deaths in the US are on the brink of 260,000, the highest numbers in the world, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus research center.
Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, described Thanksgiving to CNN as “potentially the mother of all super-spreader events”.
He added that: “One of the ways we think the midwest was seeded with virus over the summer was with the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally, [in August] where people were infected and then dispersed out through the midwest. Now imagine that on a massive scale [over Thanksgiving], with people leaving from every airport in the United States and carrying virus with them.”
Fauci added that “it concerns me greatly” if Americans, including healthcare workers, express doubts about taking the vaccines that are approaching imminent approval in the US.
He said there were three vaccines, “maybe more”, coming on stream that are “highly efficacious” and people should have faith in a process of approval that is “transparent and independent”.
“We could crush this outbreak the way we did with smallpox, polio and measles,” he said.
Fauci said he has been talking to president-elect Joe Biden’s incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain.
The Trump administration agreed this week, three weeks after the election, to begin cooperating with the Biden transition team.
READ MORE
Michael Flynn. (photo: Vice)
Trump Tells Confidants He Plans to Pardon Michael Flynn
Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu, Axios
Excerpt: "President Trump has told confidants he plans to pardon his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts."
READ MORE
Miss Navajo Nation Shaandiin P. Parrish distributes food, water, and other supplies to Navajo families on May 27, 2020 in Huerfano on the Navajo Nation Reservation, New Mexico. (photo: Sharon Chischilly/Getty Images)
The Trauma of Thanksgiving for Native Communities During a Pandemic
Rachel Ramirez, Vox
Excerpt: "The myth of Thanksgiving, a tale of a peacemaking repast between white colonizers and Native Americans, has long been debunked for its historical inaccuracies. But to reckon with the holiday is to understand how it helped set off a painful history of trauma - massacres, abuse, and negligence - that Native Americans still carry 400 years later."
READ MORE
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to members of the media on September 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)
The 2022 Senate Map Presents Opportunity for Democrats
Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan, Politico
Excerpt: "Ahead of another brutal fight for Senate control and a 2022 map tilted against the GOP, Republicans are racing to persuade their incumbents to run again."
en. Chuck Grassley will be 89 when the 2022 midterm campaign rolls around. Republicans are counting on him to run for an eighth term.
“I hope Chuck Grassley comes back. He’s very healthy and I hope he comes back really strong. That will be really important,” said incoming National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott of Florida in an interview. “I don’t think Chuck Grassley is beatable.”
Grassley, who has been asymptomatic after testing positive for coronavirus, hasn’t decided. But his lock on Iowa’s Senate seat — and the prospect that he could retire — hits directly at the challenge facing Scott and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who must defend at least 20 seats to Democrats’ 13.
Ahead of another brutal fight for Senate control and a 2022 map tilted against the GOP, Republicans are racing to persuade their incumbents to run again. Leadership is already getting some positive results, with a number of GOP senators signaling they will run for reelection in battleground states.
The tough map for Senate Republicans is likely to have a huge impact on what, if any, deals McConnell makes with President-elect Joe Biden and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). And as in this last cycle, McConnell will be looking to protect vulnerable incumbents — both by moving legislation they support and saving them from having to cast tough votes.
“McConnell is a results-oriented leader,” said Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso (Wyo.). “We’re gonna want to stay in the majority in 2022, and we’re gonna need to show the country we’re a party of governing, not grandstanding.”
Some Republicans have made clear they’re not sticking around. Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania have already announced their retirement plans, and the GOP doesn’t want Grassley to join them. Ditto Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said that he is undecided and has “got to see how things play out.”
Scott said he is optimistic Johnson is finding a groove in the Senate and will decide to run again in his swing state. Sen. Kelly Loeffler also will have to run again next cycle if she wins the current Georgia Senate runoff on Jan. 5.
Meanwhile, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said he’s doing all the things necessary to run for re-election even though he’s made no announcement. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she will keep doing what “Alaskans expect me to do until they tell me not to do it anymore.”
Others facing potentially tough races were even firmer on their plans for the next election. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said “we’re off and running” in his bid for a third term in 2022. And Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he plans to run, with the expectation of favorable terrain for Republicans with a Democrat in the White House.
“Normally the first midterm election after the presidential is good for the opposite party,” Portman said. “Donald Trump just won Ohio by eight points twice. I beat [Trump] by 13 points last time [in 2016]. Should be a good year for Republicans.”
Depending on the results in Georgia’s two Senate runoffs in January, Democrats could either have the majority or need one or two seats to take it back. That’s not certain by any means given the conservative lean to many of the states with Senate races in 2022. Pennsylvania’s open seat is probably Democrats’ best target for a pick-up, with Wisconsin and North Carolina not far behind.
“Democrats are focused on winning two competitive runoff elections in Georgia in less than 50 days,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Republicans know Senators Loeffler and Perdue are on the verge of losing their seats and the Senate majority, and are clearly worried about losing even more seats next cycle.”
Democrats, however, have underperformed in Senate campaigns in recent cycles, despite winnable races and some huge fundraising advantages thanks to ActBlue, the online fundraising portal that's delivered historic sums from the grassroots.
For Republicans, getting their incumbents to run again might not be enough to keep control of the chamber. They need to go on offense too, and there are scant opportunities. So far, no Democrats have announced plans to retire and they don’t have any seats up in states won by Trump this year.
New Hampshire is one possibility for the GOP. Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan narrowly won in 2016 and said in a brief interview that she will soon make an announcement on her plans for next cycle.
Scott, a former governor, is leaning on his relationships with other GOP governors to try to lure them to the Senate and wants to see New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu make a run.
Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.) is also running for reelection after winning a close race four years ago. Trump lost Nevada by only a couple percentage points earlier this month.
And Sen.-elect Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) will have to run again in 2022. Scott said the GOP’s recent losses there won’t deter him from trying to recruit Gov. Doug Ducey. “I don’t think it’s logical that both the senators from Arizona are Democrats,” said Scott. The last time that happened was nearly 70 years ago.
Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) says he’s not interested in a Senate bid and seems more curious about a presidential race in 2024. But several Maryland Democratic sources say Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) is “very concerned” about a potential Hogan candidacy and is watching Hogan closely.
“I think Larry could [run],” Scott said. “People perceive him to be a successful governor. And I think he likes the political process. I think he likes trying to do good things. You could see him doing it.”
The decisions senators make in the coming weeks won’t just animate the battle for the upper chamber but could reshape the Senate altogether. For instance, the two longtime dealmakers atop the Senate Appropriations Committee are still weighing whether to give it another go.
Eighty-year-old Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the longest-serving senator, said he will make up his mind on his future in the fall of 2021.
“I’ll talk to you after January,” added Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the 86-year-old chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “They’re trying to get me to run, but it’s my sixth term. Let’s talk after January.”
Shelby’s seat is in safely red Alabama, so McConnell and Scott wouldn’t have to worry about losing it. But there would be a long list of Republicans seeking to replace him, including former Shelby aides, state officials and several members of the Alabama congressional delegation. Vermont is also unlikely to be up for grabs if Leahy does retire.
In California, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' seat will be filled in January by the governor and that person will have to run again in 2022. Some Democrats think it's possible Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) could step down early from a term that ends in 2024.
As for Grassley, who follows the House speaker in the line of presidential succession, his decision will probably come sometime next year. Grassley’s colleagues think he’s leaning toward yet another campaign.
“He will probably make that determination soon,” said one Republican senator. “I am just operating under the assumption that he is running.”
READ MORE
Randy Young waits to get a Thanksgiving meal at the drive-through food distribution center on Nov. 21. (photo: WP)
ALSO SEE: US Billionaires Have Increased Their Riches
by $1 Trillion During the Pandemic
A Growing Number of Americans Are Going Hungry
Todd C. Frankel, Brittney Martin, Andrew Van Dam and Alyssa Fowers, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "26 million now say they don't have enough to eat, as the pandemic worsens and holidays near."
t was 5 a.m., not a hint of sun in the Houston sky, as Randy Young and his mom pulled into the line for a free Thanksgiving meal. They were three hours early. Hundreds of cars and trucks already idled in front of them outside NRG Stadium. This was where Young worked before the pandemic. He was a stadium cook. Now, after losing his job and struggling to get by, he and his 80-year-old mother hoped to get enough food for a holiday meal.
“It’s a lot of people out here,” said Young, 58. “I was just telling my mom, ‘You look at people pulling up in Mercedes and stuff, come on.’ If a person driving a Mercedes is in need of food, you know it’s bad.”
More Americans are going hungry now than at any point during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, according to a Post analysis of new federal data — a problem created by an economic downturn that has tightened its grip on millions of Americans and compounded by government relief programs that expired or will terminate at the end of the year. Experts say it is likely that there’s more hunger in the United States today than at any point since 1998, when the Census Bureau began collecting comparable data about households’ ability to get enough food.
One in 8 Americans reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week, hitting nearly 26 million American adults, an increase several times greater than the most comparable pre-pandemic figure, according to Census Bureau survey data collected in late October and early November. That number climbed to more than 1 in 6 adults in households with children.
“It’s been driven by the virus and the unpredictable government response,” said Jeremy K. Everett, executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty in Waco, Tex.
Nowhere has there been a hunger surge worse than in Houston, with a metro-area population of 7 million people. Houston was pulverized in summer when the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals, and the local economy was been particularly hard hit by weak oil prices, making matters worse.
More than 1 in 5 adults in Houston reported going hungry recently, including 3 in 10 adults in households with children. The growth in hunger rates has hit Hispanic and Black households harder than White ones, a devastating consequence of a weak economy that has left so many people trying to secure food even during dangerous conditions.
On Saturday, these statistics manifested themselves in the thousands of cars waiting in multiple lines outside NRG Stadium. The people in these cars represented much of the country. Old. Young. Black. White. Asian. Hispanic. Families. Neighbors. People all alone.
Inside a maroon Hyundai Santa Fe was Neicie Chatman, 68, who had been waiting since 6:20 a.m., listening to recordings of a minister’s sermon piped into large earphones.
“I’ve been feeding my spirit,” she said.
Her hours at her job as an administrator have been unsteady since the pandemic began. Her sister was laid off. They both live with their mother, who has been sick for the past year. She planned to take the food home to feed her family and share with her older neighbors.
Now, a new wave of coronavirus infections threatens more economic pain.
Yet the hunger crisis seems to have escaped widespread notice in a nation where millions of households have weathered the pandemic relatively untouched. The stock market fell sharply in March before roaring back and has recovered all of its losses. This gave the White House and some lawmakers optimism about the economy’s condition. Congress left for its Thanksgiving break without making any progress on a new pandemic aid deal even as food banks across the country report a crush of demand heading into the holidays.
“The hardship is incredibly widespread. Large parts of America are saying, ‘I couldn’t afford food for my family,’ ” said Stacy Dean, who focuses on food-assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s disappointing this hasn’t broken through.”
No place has been spared. In one of the nation’s richest counties, not far from Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, Loudoun Hunger Relief provided food to a record 887 households in a single week recently. That’s three times the Leesburg, Va.-based group’s pre-pandemic normal.
“We are continuing to see people who have never used our services before,” said Jennifer Montgomery, the group’s executive director.
Hunger rates spiked nationwide after shutdowns in late March closed large chunks of the U.S. economy. The situation improved somewhat as businesses reopened and the benefits from a $2.2 trillion federal pandemic aid package flowed into people’s pockets, with beefed-up unemployment benefits, support for food programs and incentives for companies to keep workers on the payroll.
But those effects were short-lived. The bulk of the federal aid had faded by September. And more than 12 million workers stand to lose unemployment benefits before year’s end if Congress doesn’t extend key programs.
“Everything is a disaster,” said Northwestern University economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a leading expert on the economics of food insecurity. “I’m usually a pleasant person, but this is just crazy.”
Economic conditions are the main driver behind rising rates of hunger, but other factors play a role, Schanzenbach said. In the Great Recession that began in 2008, people received almost two years of unemployment aid — which helped reduce hunger rates. Some long-term unemployed workers qualified for even more help.
But the less-generous benefits from the pandemic unemployment assistance programs passed by Congress in March have already disappeared or soon will for millions of Americans.
Even programs that Congress agreed to extend have stumbled. A program giving families additional cash assistance to replace school meals missed by students learning at home was renewed for a year on Oct. 1. But the payments were delayed because many states still needed to get the U.S. Agriculture Department’s approval for their plans. The benefit works out to only about $6 per student for each missed school day. But experts say the program has been a lifeline for struggling families.
One program that has continued to provide expanded emergency benefits is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The Agriculture Department issued an emergency order allowing states to provide more families the maximum benefit and to suspend the time limit on benefits for younger unemployed adults without children.
The sharpest rise in hunger was reported by groups who have long experienced the highest levels of it, particularly Black Americans. Twenty-two percent of Black U.S. households reported going hungry in the past week, nearly twice the rate faced by all American adults and more than two-and-a-half times the rate for White Americans.
The Houston area was posting some of its lowest hunger rates before the pandemic, thanks to a booming economy and a strong energy sector, Everett said. Then, the pandemic hit. Hunger surged, concentrated among the city’s sizable low-income population, in a state that still allows for the federally mandated minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Houston’s hunger rates — like those nationwide — fell significantly after the $1,200 stimulus checks were mailed out in April and other pandemic aid plans took effect, Everett said.
But most of the effects of that aid are gone.
“Without sustained aid at the federal level, we’ll be hard pressed to keep up,” said Celia Cole, chief executive of Feeding Texas, which advocates for 21 food banks in the state. “We’re just bracing for the worst.”
Schools are one of the most important sources of food for low-income families in Houston. The Houston Independent School District has 210,000 students — many of whom qualify for free or reduced-priced meals. But the pandemic closed schools in the spring. They reopened in the fall with less than half of the students choosing a hybrid model of in-school and at-home instruction. That has made feeding these children a difficult task.
“We’ve made an all-out effort to capture these kids and feed them,” said Betti Wiggins, the school district’s nutrition services officer.
The district provided curbside meal pickups outside schools. Anyone could come, not just schoolchildren. School staffers set up neighborhood distribution sites in the areas with the highest need. They started a program to serve meals to children living in apartment buildings. Sometimes the meal program required police escorts.
“I’m doing everything but serving in the gas station when they’re pumping the gas,” Wiggins said.
Wiggins said the normal school meals program she ran before the pandemic has been transformed into providing food for entire families far beyond a school’s walls. She has noticed unfamiliar faces in her meal lines. The “new poor,” she calls them, parents who might have worked in the airline or energy industries crushed by the pandemic.
“I’m seeing folks who don’t know how to handle the poverty thing,” she said, adding that it became her mission to make sure they had food.
The Houston Food Bank is the nation’s largest, serving 18 counties in Southeast Texas with help from 1,500 partner agencies. Last month, the food bank distributed 20.6 million pounds of food — down from the 27.8 million pounds handed out in May, but still 45 percent more than what it distributed in October 2019, with no end in sight.
The biggest worry for food banks right now is finding enough food, said Brian Greene, president of the Houston Food Bank. Food banks buy bulk food with donations. They take in donated food items, too. Food banks also benefited from an Agriculture Department program that purchased excess food from U.S. farmers hurt by the ongoing trade war with China, typically apples, milk and pork products. But funding for that program ended in September. Other federal pandemic programs are still buying hundreds of millions of dollars in food and donating it to food banks. But Greene said he worries about facing “a commodity cliff” even as demand grows.
Teresa Croft, who volunteers at a food distribution site at a church in the Houston suburb of Manvel, said the need is still overwhelming. She handles the paperwork for people visiting the food bank for the first time. They’re often embarrassed, she said. They never expected to be there. Sometimes, Croft tries to make them feel better by telling her own story — how she started at the food bank as a client, but got back on her feet financially more than a decade ago and is now a food bank volunteer.
“They feel so bad they’re having to ask for help. I tell them they shouldn’t feel bad. We’re all in this together,” Croft said. “If you need it, you need it.”
The pandemic changed how the Houston Food Bank runs. Everything is drive-through and walk-up. Items are preselected and bagged. The food bank has held several food distribution events in the parking lots outside NRG Stadium — a $325 million, retractable-roof temple to sports and home to the National Football League’s Houston Texans.
Last weekend, instead of holding the 71st annual Thanksgiving Day Parade in Houston, the city and H-E-B supermarkets decided to sponsor the food bank’s distribution event at NRG Stadium. The plan was to feed 5,000 families.
The first cars arrived at the stadium around 1 a.m. Saturday, long before the gates opened for the 8 a.m. event. By the time Young and his mother drove up, the line of vehicles stretched into the distance. Organizers opened the gates early. The cars and trucks began to slowly snake through the stadium’s parking lot toward a series of white tents, where the food was loaded into trunks by volunteers. The boxes contained enough food for multiple meals during the holiday week, with canned vegetables such as corn and sweet potatoes, a package of rolls, cranberry sauce and a box of masks. People picking up food were also given a bag of cereal and some resealable bags, a ham, a gallon of milk, and finally a turkey and pumpkin pie.
The food for 5,000 families ran out. The Houston Food Bank — knowing that would not be enough — was able to assemble more.
It provided food to 7,160 vehicles and 261 people who walked up to the event.
Troy Coakley, 56, came to the event looking for food to feed his family for the week. He still had his job breaking apart molds at a plant that makes parts for oil field and water companies. But his hours were cut when the economy took a hit in March. Coakley went from working overtime to three days a week.
He was struggling. Behind on rent. Unsure what was to come.
But for the moment, his trunk filled with food, he had one less thing to worry about.
“Other than [the pandemic], we were doing just fine,” Coakley said. “But now it’s getting worse and worse.”
former militia leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and mass rape, a decision hailed by the United Nations as a blow to the “impunity” provided to armed groups in the country. The UN’s DRC representative, Leila Zerrougui, said the ruling showed that “impunity is not inevitable.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.