06 April 20
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Robert Reich | To Donald Trump, Coronavirus Is Just One More Chance for a Power Grab
Robert Reich, Guardian UK
Reich writes: "The real hoax is Trump's commitment to America. In reality he will do anything - anything - to hold on to power. In his mind, the coronavirus crisis is just another opportunity."
he utter chaos in America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic – shortages of equipment to protect hospital workers, dwindling supplies of ventilators and critical medications, jaw-dropping confusion over how $2.2tn of aid in the recent coronavirus law will be distributed – was perhaps predictable in a nation that prides itself on competitive individualism and hates centralized power.
But it is also tailor-made for Donald Trump, who has spent a lifetime exploiting chaos for personal gain and blaming others for losses.
“I don’t take responsibility” for the slow rate of coronavirus testing in the US, he said.
On Friday, when asked if he could assure New Yorkers there would be enough ventilators next week when virus victims are expected to overwhelm city hospitals, he replied: “No. They should have had more ventilators.”
Trump has told governors to find life-saving equipment on their own. He refuses to create a central bargaining agent, arguing the federal government is “not a shipping clerk”. This has left states and cities bidding against each other, driving up prices.
Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor, described how ventilators went from $25,000 to $45,000 “because we bid $25,000. California says, ‘I’ll give you $30,000’ and Illinois says, ‘I’ll give you $35,000’ and Florida says ‘I’ll give you $40,000. And then, Fema [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] gets involved and Fema starts bidding!
“And now Fema is bidding on top of the 50! So Fema is driving up the price. What sense does this make? We’re literally bidding up the prices ourselves.”
New York state is paying 20 cents for gloves that normally cost less than five cents, $7.50 for masks that normally go for 50 cents, $2,795 for infusion pumps that normally cost half that, $248,841 for a portable X-ray machine that typically sells for $30,000 to $80,000.
Who’s pocketing all this? An array of producers, importers, wholesalers and speculators. State laws against price gouging usually don’t apply to government purchases.
Some of it may be finding its way into this fall’s election campaigns. The veteran Republican fundraiser Mike Gula and Republican political operative John Thomas just started a company selling coronavirus testing kits, personal protective equipment and other “hard to find medical supplies to beat the outbreak”. They call themselves “the largest global network of Covid-19 medical suppliers”.
Asked how he’d found such equipment, Gula explained: “I have relationships with a lot of people.”
Thomas added: “In politics – especially if you’re at a high enough level – you are one phone call away from anybody in the world.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – who’s one phone call away from anyone – is running a “shadow” coronavirus task force that has been enlisting the private sector and overseeing the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies, all out of public view.
“It’s supposed to be our stockpile – it’s not supposed to be state stockpiles,” he said cryptically on Thursday.
Oh, and let’s not forget the giant coronavirus bill Trump signed into law on 27 March, which created a $500bn fund that Trump and his treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, will distribute to the private sector. Most of it will backstop $4.5tn of subsidized loans (ie, bailout money) coming from the Fed, also distributed by the Treasury.
In a signing statement, Trump said he wouldn’t agree to provisions in the bill for congressional oversight – meaning the wheeling-and-dealing will be in secret. When the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said she’d form a special select committee to watch how the money is spent, Trump accused her of “conducting partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic”, adding: “Here we go again … It’s witch hunt after witch hunt.”
Is there any doubt Trump will try to use this money, as well as his son-in-law’s secretive dealings, to improve his odds of re-election?
Trump was impeached a mere three and a half months ago on charges of abuse of power and obstructing investigations. Eight months ago, he phoned the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, seeking dirt on Joe Biden and threatening to hold up military aid to get it.
In June 2016, his son Donald Jr and Jared Kushner met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, after a Russian intermediary contacted Trump Jr with a promise to provide material that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton and be “very useful to your father”, adding it was part of the Russian government’s “support” for Trump.
Donald Trump calls allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election a “hoax”. He called his impeachment a “hoax”. He initially called the coronavirus a “hoax”.
But the real hoax is Trump’s commitment to America. In reality he will do anything – anything – to hold on to power. In his mind, the coronavirus crisis is just another opportunity.
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Boris Johnson. (photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson Admitted to the Hospital With Coronavirus
BBC News
Excerpt: "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital for tests, 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus, Downing Street has said."
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Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Atkinson: Trump Fired Me Because I Handled Whistleblower Complaint Properly
Kyle Cheney, Politico
Cheney writes: "The intelligence community watchdog removed abruptly late Friday by President Donald Trump says he believes Trump ousted him because of his evenhanded handling of a whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to the president's impeachment."
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Medical workers transporting a coronavirus patient into an isolation ward in Fuyang, China. (photo: Chinatopix/AP)
Official Counts Understate the US Coronavirus Death Toll
Sarah Kliff and Julie Bosman, The New York Times
Excerpt: "A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the coronavirus had killed a man in early March, but said that her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the coronavirus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection."
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty)
Jeff Bezos and AMI: Lawsuit Raises Questions About Source of Affair Revelation
Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Guardian UK
Kirchgaessner writes: "A top executive at the tabloid publisher behind the National Enquirer said in a private email that he was 'saving for my tombstone' the untold story of how the tabloid uncovered a 2019 exclusive about Jeff Bezos's extramarital relationship, according to a lawsuit against the publisher."
In lawsuit, Michael Sanchez has accused AMI of plot to ‘scapegoat’ him, and has cast doubt on claim that he was the ‘sole source’
top executive at the tabloid publisher behind the National Enquirer said in a private email that he was “saving for my tombstone” the untold story of how the tabloid uncovered a 2019 exclusive about Jeff Bezos’s extramarital relationship, according to a lawsuit against the publisher.
The claim raises new questions about how American Media Inc (AMI) discovered the Amazon CEO’s relationship, and how it obtained knowledge of explicit sexual photographs that Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, has alleged were used against him by the publisher for “extortion and blackmail”.
The claim by Bezos that he was being blackmailed by AMI is the subject of an FBI investigation.
AMI has publicly insisted that it relied on only one source for its salacious scoop about the Bezos affair: Michael Sanchez, who is the brother of Lauren Sanchez, Bezos’s girlfriend.
Michael Sanchez was reportedly paid $200,000 by the tabloid for intimate texts and other information about the secret affair, which ultimately led to Bezos’s multi-billion dollar divorce from wife MacKenzie Bezos.
But in a new lawsuit filed in March against AMI, the Enquirer, and top AMI executives, Michael Sanchez has accused the company of an elaborate plot to “scapegoat” him, and has cast doubt on the claim that he was the “sole source” of all the information and materials the tabloid obtained before it published its stories about the extramarital relationship.
Instead, Sanchez has claimed in court documents that the Enquirer publisher relied on multiple sources, including the use of “high-tech spyware” to secretly hack Bezos’s phone and extract “his most private and confidential information”.
Sanchez’s allegations echo claims that have been levelled against AMI by Bezos’s own security team. In a Daily Beast op-ed last year, Gavin De Becker, Bezos’s top security consultant, said he believed that Michael Sanchez had played a relatively minor role in the Enquirer’s story, and compared him to a “low-level Watergate burglar”.
“Reality is complicated, and can’t always be boiled down to a simple narrative like “the brother did it,” even when that brother is a person who certainly supplied some information to a supermarket tabloid,” De Becker wrote.
It is still far from clear how the supermarket tabloid landed its scoop, and how it obtained information about some “below the belt” photographs Bezos sent to Lauren Sanchez while their relationship was still secret.
The Guardian reported in January that Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, had his mobile phone “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
The matter is under investigation by experts at the United Nations. Saudi Arabia has denied it hacked Bezos.
In his lawsuit, Michael Sanchez admits having played a role in the Enquirer story, and claims to have done so “strategically” to minimise fallout for his sister and control the “narrative” of the story. While he has not denied supplying the tabloid with some of the couple’s private texts , he has denied the allegation that he ever gave AMI sexually explicit photographs.
Those photographs have never been published, but Bezos referred to them in an extraordinary blog post statement on the matter in February 2019, a few weeks after the Enquirer story was published. Bezos claimed in the post that he was the victim of an extortion attempt by AMI.
The billionaire executive also published emails from AMI executives which he claimed showed the company threatening to publish sexually explicit photographs – which it described in detail – if Bezos did not publicly state that he had “no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”
At the time Bezos said he had decided to publish the AMI emails “despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten”.
In his lawsuit, Michael Sanchez described himself as his sister’s “primary confidant and advisor” when he learned about her relationships with Bezos in March 2018. He said he was introduced to Bezos a month later over dinner, and said he had immediately “hit it off” with the billionaire.
A preliminary investigation that was commissioned by the Amazon CEO found that it was “highly probable” that an intrusion into Bezos’s mobile phone was triggered after an infected video file was sent to him over WhatsApp from the account of Mohammed bin Salman on 1 May 2018.
In his lawsuit, Sanchez has alleged that he was first contacted by the Enquirer about his sister’s affair with Bezos in July 2018, and has claimed “on information and belief” that AMI was “already in possession of raunchy text messages and nude selfies exchanged” between Lauren Sanchez and Bezos.
Sanchez also referred in his lawsuit to a cryptic email he said was sent by Dylan Howard, AMI’s vice-president, dated 22 January 2019. A person close to the matter said it was a response to a previous email from Sanchez about the Bezos story, which had been published a few weeks earlier.
“The untold story – if you will – has not been told as to how we uncovered the story. I’m saving it for my tombstone,” Howard wrote in the email, according to Sanchez’s legal filing.
In a statement, AMI denied Sanchez’s allegations. “The fact, as we have maintained throughout, is that Mr Sanchez sold the National Enquirer the story about his sister’s secret affair and was the sole source for its reporting. His frivolous lawsuit underscores what his true motivation is, his own greed,” the company said.
AMI did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Howard’s email or what the executive was referring to.
An attorney representing Bezos did not respond to a request for comment.
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Navajo Children in Monument Valley, Arizona. (photo: Getty Images)
Community Care: An Indigenous Response to Coronavirus
Jade Begay, Yes! Magazine
Begay writes: "This moment can feel scary and strange. But again, when you quiet worries and the fears, moments like this really urge us to become strong, innovative, holistic-minded, and resilient peoples."
n March 11, the World Health Organization announced that the coronavirus, COVID-19, is a global pandemic. With this news, it is easy and also legitimate for us to feel stress, concern, and even fear. As Indigenous peoples whose ancestors were intentionally exposed to viruses, this moment can also feel triggering and bring up ancestral trauma and even distrust and disbelief. What’s more, we live in a toxic individualistic society, a symptom of colonization and capitalism, wherein the status quo has lost its concern for the collective.
Unfortunately, we are seeing some toxic individualism play out in response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Some are hoarding materials and resources, while others respond dismissively to the pandemic with things like, “I’ll be OK; the virus is only a threat to the elderly and those with weakened immune systems,” or even going as for as framing the virus as being a good thing for the environment, as emissions go down.
According to the World Health Organization, a pandemic is declared when a new disease for which people do not have immunity spreads around the world beyond expectations. To break that down further, the symptoms of the virus have not changed or gotten worse, but rather, it’s the spread of the virus that makes this a pandemic and the fact that most people across the world do not have an immunity built for this virus, which, of course, contributes to how fast it is spreading.
As a new strain of coronavirus, which has already existed in some different forms, doctors and health officials worldwide are still trying to get a grasp of what this outbreak of COVID-19 will entail, and how to get ahead of it. What we do know so far is that COVID-19 is especially brutal and even lethal for the elderly, for those with weakened immune systems, and those with preexisting conditions. We also know that it is spreading quickly, and as a result, a growing number of events are being canceled, while some towns hit especially hard are even going into quarantine.
Needless to say, as Indigenous people, our elders are precious and sacred to us. They are keepers of knowledge, and they sit at the center of so many of our cultural spaces and ceremonies. While COVID-19 might not hit all of us hard, we all have a responsibility to protect our cherished elders and those who are also vulnerable and valuable members of our communities.
The simple truth is that this disease is causing suffering and inequity across the world, to people’s bodies, their livelihoods, their spirits and emotional well-being. Furthermore, we are only as strong as the most vulnerable person in our community, so now, more than ever, it is imperative for us to decolonize from individualism and reconnect with ways of community care.
As stated earlier, the circumstances we are in can lead to paranoia and fear because our peoples have endured germ warfare in the past, and we’ve been misled if not outright harmed by colonial systems. While this pandemic is not being maliciously introduced to our communities, we would be remiss not to acknowledge this truth and also acknowledge that our communities are at the frontlines of inequities in health care.
So we do not get lost or spiral into fear and stress, which can actually compromise our immune systems, we draw from our beautiful survival and our timeless knowledge, and share some traditional practices that may support our spirits in this time. We encourage you to share these with the people around you to help mitigate stress and overwhelm:
1. Smudge and Stay Grounded
Here at NDN Collective, we start our days by smudging and grounding ourselves as we prepare to face the important daily tasks in front of us. In moments like this, a daily smudging ritual can help ground us in prayer and spiritual fortitude. This practice gives us a moment to slow down, acknowledge what we are grateful for, release tension, and call in protection and strength. Furthermore, rituals are important to keep us anchored in our truth and in our power.
2. Connect with Traditional Medicines and Knowledge
It’s true that our relatives and ancestors endured germ warfare at the hands of the U.S. military while suffering great losses. What’s also true is that we survived, and our connection to traditional knowledge and medicine has played a role in that survival.
During this time when we are having to practice “social distancing,” it is a perfect time to dive into learning about your traditional medicines, whether that be tinctures and syrups, traditional foods, plant medicines, fermentation, and so on. Connect with friends and relatives and learn from each other. Use technology so you can talk about your learnings and experiments virtually, in making these medicines via text, video, or FaceTime.
Here are just a handful of traditional medicines that support immune and respiratory systems and are also anti-viral: Osha, fire cider, garlic, elderberry, lemon balm, and oregano.
3. Build Community
When we are able to quiet all the worries, the media, and public frenzy of this time and think about the big picture, we can see that this moment is an opportunity to come together in community, in care and preparation. Grave threats like climate change are real and these types of scenarios may become more frequent and perhaps more extreme. This is why building with community is critical for how we respond to these types of events.
In times like this, we need to identify who in our community is most vulnerable and strategize the best ways to protect them. We need to think about food security, and not in a capitalist and individualistic sense, but in a collective sense. We need to reflect on some important questions, such as: Are we growing crops in the summer to store and feed our communities during times like this? What are our most fundamental values that our community has to draw upon in high stress moments like this? How do we make decisions? And how do we not turn on each other?
This is all decolonial work: getting back to community and even matriarchy, honoring the interdependence of all beings, and valuing the collective over our own ego.
We are learning from communities that are at ground zero of devastation, such as Italy and Washington state, that “social distancing” is a critical strategy in curbing the spread of this new disease. For Native communities “social distancing” can be challenging because many of us live closely with our relatives, our elders, and our young ones, often in the same household, so this strategy will require some “Indige-nueity” and conversations as a community for how to care for elders and each other.
In closing, we will survive COVID-19. And by the time the pandemic has been managed, we will have learned so much from this moment and how we can better prepare for these types of scenarios; we will see where we have gaps in our communities, cities, nations, and where we have strengths. When all of this has stabilized, we encourage you to not to forget the feelings and the lessons that this moment is giving each and everyone one of us. Write them down so as to not forget this moment.
We can not go back to business as usual after this experience. We have to apply what we learned to our lives, to our politics, and to our relationships, so that if and when this happens again, whether it’s a pandemic or a climate catastrophe, we can be fully prepared as communities. This might look like voting in November, or working for Medicare For All in your state or region, or working within your community to build gardens and food banks, bringing in renewable energy so we are not dependent on grids or oil and gas.
This moment can feel scary and strange. But again, when you quiet worries and the fears, moments like this really urge us to become strong, innovative, holistic-minded, and resilient peoples.
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A tiger. (photo: Pexels)
A Conservationist's Guide to "Tiger King": Keep Wildlife in the Wild
Zak Smith, Natural Resources Defense Council
Smith writes: "Watch Tiger King and see if for you, like me, it informs the horror of the current moment, then maybe think about building a different world when we come out of this."
t is pretty amazing that in this moment when the COVID-19 outbreak has much of the country holed up in their homes binging Netflix, the most watched show in America over the last few weeks has been focused on wildlife trade — which scientists believe is the source of the COVID-19 pandemic. Make no mistake: Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is about wildlife trade and other aspects of wildlife exploitation, just as surely as the appearance of Ebola, SARS, MERS, avian flu and probably COVID-19 in humans is a result of wildlife exploitation. As a conservationist, this is one of the things I've been thinking about while watching Tiger King. Here are five more:
1. We are in a biodiversity crisis.
A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, many within decades, including tigers. The leading drivers of species decline and the impending collapse of ecosystems are ocean and land use changes (like converting wildlands into other uses, usually agricultural) and the direct exploitation of species (like taking animals out of the wild for eating, "medicinal" purposes, or status motives). It is for these exact reasons that there are more tigers in cages in the United States than there are in the wild. Developers continue to destroy tiger habitat and, in the not-so-distant past, hunters shot and killed tigers for sport or for trade in tiger products (and some still do illegally).
2. We must fundamentally change our relationship to nature.
Transformative change is necessary to limit species extinctions and secure human well-being (functioning ecosystems provide the clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration, flood control, healthy soils, pollination of plants and healthy coastal waters humans need to survive). Transformative change in this context means "a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic, and social factors, including paradigms, goals, and values." We aren't going to halt the loss of species and strengthen ecosystems if we continue to treat wild plants and animals as expendable and renewable resources that we can use however we want. The tigers and other animals in Tiger King are exploited for profit and personal interests. Regardless of how they may be respected, coveted, or cared for, they are still treated as exploitable objects, which reinforces other destructive attitudes toward nature. A tiger cub is something to be held and photographed, a wetland is something to be filled and built upon, a rhino is something to be killed so we can use its horn for fake medicine. It's a view of nature as being in service to human wants, an attitude that is destroying our planet and one that must change.
3. Most wildlife trade should be banned and we should protect more wild places.
As noted above, ocean and land use changes and direct exploitation of species are causing an extinction crisis and threaten the ecosystems we depend on for human well-being. In line with our exploitative mindset, we've been stuck for centuries with economic and social patterns that allow unfettered use of wild places and wildlife until there's a problem. We need to flip that model on its head and only use wild places and wildlife if we can affirmatively demonstrate that such use won't contribute to the biodiversity and climate crisis. Tigers and the other animals appearing in Tiger King wouldn't be endangered today and wouldn't require "sanctuaries" if we hadn't destroyed their habitat and taken them from the wild for food, pets, "medicine" and trophies.
To set things right, we should ban most wildlife trade and protect more of the natural world. I say "most" wildlife trade to account for the exception of well-managed fisheries. NRDC has long sought to limit irresponsible wildlife trade (fighting for imperiled species internationally, supporting state efforts to limit trade, providing recommendations to China on revisions to its wildlife law), and now we must go further by banning most trade. In addition, we should support efforts to set aside vast swaths of ocean, land and terrestrial water to rebalance the functioning of our natural world. That's why NRDC and others support an initial call of protecting 30 percent of the world's oceans, lands and water areas by 2030. In China, we're protecting areas in a way that helps tigers by supporting the government's development of a National Park system, with targeted efforts on one of its pilot parks, the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, which provides an important habitat for China's struggling populations of Amur tigers and leopards.
4. Not all sanctuaries are sanctuaries.
A lot of so-called sanctuaries are dumpster fires; they serve no purpose other than exploitation of animals for profit, and the animals suffer needlessly. It doesn't look like the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park — the park formerly owned by Joe Exotic — is a sanctuary, though it styles itself as being one, so the public may be confused. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, legitimate sanctuaries "do not breed, allow public contact with, sell, or otherwise exploit the animals that they take in." Legitimate sanctuaries can play an important role in saving imperiled species, promoting animal welfare, and educating the public. But those that do not meet strict standards are part of the problem, not the solution. The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) provides accreditation for sanctuaries that abide by a set of policies, including the maintenance of a nonprofit/noncommercial status. Big Cat Rescue, which is featured in the Tiger King series, "has held GFAS Accreditation status since 2009."
5. Changing our relationship to nature must include a just transition.
Throughout the world and in the United States, millions of people use nature in destructive ways for their livelihoods. I don't say this with judgement; often, people are just doing what we've always done — business as usual — which is unfortunately destroying the planet. Workers in the fossil fuel industry, fishermen in unsustainable fisheries, clearcutters in the tropics and boreal forests, and even people working at fake sanctuaries depend on the current system of exploiting nature to provide for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, it's at the expense of other people who depend on healthy, thriving ecosystems for their livelihoods and at the expense of human well-being overall. If we want to succeed in charting a new path for our planet, we must commit to making people and communities whole. The rampant exploitation appearing on the screen in Tiger King isn't just of wildlife — it is also of many desperate people brutalized by a political and economic system providing few options. We're not going to successfully realign our relationship with nature if we don't provide the necessary support for people and communities to transition to more sustainable, ethical means of providing for themselves and their families.
So, watch Tiger King and see if for you, like me, it informs the horror of the current moment, then maybe think about building a different world when we come out of this — a vibrant, natural world filled with wildlife and wonder, where we orient ourselves around preserving nature, not exploiting it, and embark on a new human journey.
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