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RSN: FOCUS: Jesse Jackson | Let Prisoners Go During COVID-19 Pandemic

29 April 20

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WE’RE NOT FINISHING FUNDRAISERS WELL - Even as recently as 6 months ago when we made a push to finish a fundraising drive people would respond. We can’t count on that any longer. RSN does not have deep pockets. We are not traded on Wall Street. Our readers are our investors. At least some of them are. If we had enough money for the month we would already have ended the fundraising drive. Help. Finish. It matters. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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FOCUS: Jesse Jackson | Let Prisoners Go During COVID-19 Pandemic

Jesse Jackson, The Chicago Sun-Times
Excerpt: "Inmates awaiting trial, the elderly, and those who have served much of their sentence should get early release before deaths start to soar." 

cross the United States and across the world, prisoners are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Overcrowded facilities, shortages of food and medicine, and totally inadequate testing expose prisoners who are disproportionately poor and afflicted with prior conditions that render them vulnerable to the disease. 

Prisoners increasingly are protesting their conditions, objecting to being sentenced to die in prison.

Experts across the world are urging governments to reduce their prison populations swiftly. Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations high commissioner for Human Rights, warned that “The consequences of neglecting [overcrowded conditions] are potentially catastrophic.”

Many countries have begun to act. Turkey’s parliament authorized the release of 45,000 prisoners. Indonesia has released at least 30,000. Even Iran’s dictatorial regime has released roughly 85,000 detainees, while dealing harshly with those protesting the risks.

The United States locks up more people than any other country in the world, largely because of harsh and wrong-headed policies. Fifty-five thousand are detained in jail awaiting trials, too poor to pay for their freedom under the current cash bail system that is prevalent in many states.

The Prison Policy Initiative reports that 48,000 children are incarcerated on any given day. Many are charged only with “status offenses,” such as truancy or homelessness. The Health and Human Services office in charge of the custody of unaccompanied undocumented minors reports that 2,000 are locked up. The New York Times reports that 59 in custody have already tested positive for COVID-19.

In California, The Marshall Project notes, more than one in seven prisoners are over the age of 55. The percentage of those 55 and older in prison in the country has tripled over the course of this century. 

As Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black,” wrote in the Washington Post, this is largely the result of prison sentences that are longer than those imposed by any other country. “Elderly probationers and parolees have some of the lowest recidivism rates of all former inmates. Releasing such people poses very low public safety risks and will have a dramatic effect on preserving public health.”

After an outbreak killed six inmates in a federal prison in Lisbon, Ohio, U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin decried the “shockingly limited” amount of testing, noting that the prison has received fewer than 100 tests, while a state prison of similar size had done about 4,000 tests. Two federal prisons in New York City reported that they had tested a total of only 19 inmates since the outbreak began; 11 were positive.

This has to change before the pandemic spreads, and prisons across the country go up in flames as prisoners’ riot against their conditions.

Inmates awaiting trial, the elderly, the afflicted, and those who have served much of their sentence should get early release, if possible quarantined at home to ensure they are safe. 

The space freed up should be used to provide more “social distancing,” while emergency steps are taken to provide adequate medicine, protective equipment like masks and gloves, and food. 

Correctional officials need particular priority, for they are most at risk and, if infected, could spread the virus in the local communities. And the failure to provide adequate testing in prisons and jails, as well as in society as a whole, is utterly inexcusable at this late date.

The crisis should also lead to larger reforms— drastically reducing sentences while expanding alternatives to incarceration, ending the cash bail system and the practice of locking poor people up while they await trial, expanding parole, reducing the overcrowded and primitive conditions of too many jails and prisons. 

The virus is like getting hit by a club across the head. Perhaps that might help bring us to our senses.

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FAIR: As Covid-19 Forces Emission Reductions, Media Offer Oil Industry Elegies

View article on FAIR's website As Covid-19 Forces Emission Reductions, Media Offer Oil Industry Elegies Dorothee Benz by Dorothee Benz CNN photo (4/17/20) of lions taking advantage of the shutdown to take over a road in South Africa. Last week on April 22 the world marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Air pollution in the world’s major cities was down dramatically; for the first time in decades, the Himalayan Mountains could be seen from 100 miles away. The canals in Venice were so clear you could see the fish swimming in them, and lions were sleeping on the roads in South Africa. All of these developments, and others like them, were the consequences of a global reduction in fossil-fuel emissions. Alas, none of this is the result of popular political pressure to finally bring fossil-fuel capitalism to heel. It is, rather, a byproduct of the economic shutdowns and travel restrictions that have been put in place by most nations in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Still, amidst so much death and fear, the Earth’s resilience has been a symbol of hope and a source of joy, if a melancholy joy, for many. Also last week, for the first time in history, the price of oil fell to below zero as suppliers were willing to pay to have it taken off their hands. The oil market collapse, of course, is caused by the same public health measures that have helped the planet heal: Demand for oil has plummeted. In environmental terms, falling demand for oil is the best news since...well, let’s just say long before sliced bread. Conversely, it has never been clearer that demand for oil = bad news for the planet and its inhabitants. To put this in perspective: Covid-19 has killed 200,000 to date; air pollution kills an estimated 7 million people annually. But if you’re looking for corporate media to celebrate the good news of the drop in demand for oil, you will be disappointed. Heck, you won’t even find an acknowledgement of the tradeoffs of oil demand and planetary health in last week’s breathless coverage of the unprecedented market collapse. And forget any analysis about the possibilities of directing government aid to conversion to renewable energy sources. Correcting the market, breaking the planet On the contrary. I looked at last week’s news coverage of the oil market collapse in four leading corporate outlets: New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and PBS NewsHour. Not a single piece included mention of the positive effects of decreased fossil fuel use, even as these outlets ran separate feel-good pieces about animals roaming free. On the PBS News Hour (4/21/20), a piece that promised a “closer look” at the oil market plunge lamented that “no one is consuming energy at the rates they used to,” treating this as a problem to be fixed: “Until that corrects itself,” it explained, the industry’s woes would continue. From an amoral supply and demand perspective without context, obviously falling demand is bad for a market; but to talk about increasing fossil fuel consumption as a correction, when we know that it is precisely that consumption that is destroying the planet, is irresponsible if not immoral. For the New York Times (4/21/20), the devastating "nightmare" is that people are burning much less oil. The New York Times ran several articles on the industry last week, and honestly, it was hard to tell them apart. I’m tempted to do a Freudian analysis of the word choices in “‘I’m Just Living a Nightmare’: Oil Industry Braces for Devastation” (4/21/20). The industry “braces for devastation.”... The planet is already experiencing devastation. One industry executive worried that “the current disorderly market has adversely damaged the industry.”... No word on the damage to the environment. He talked about “unsustainable” prices.... Crickets from the paper of record on unsustainable oil consumption. Another oil executive said, “The future is very cloudy right now”...unlike the skies, which are clear for the first time in decades. (Italics added.) In “What the Negative Price of Oil Is Telling Us” (4/21/20), the Times reassures us, “The good news is… the oil will still be in the ground once the economy starts to recover.” Lest you misunderstand this good news as a “keep it in the soil” idea, let me clarify that from the oil industry/New York Times point of view, “will still be in the ground” is good news because they can continue to get it out of the soil—contrary to every scientific warning about the need to stop extraction immediately. More of the same As these corporate news organizations sought to reassure their audiences that eventually the oil industry will “correct” itself, the only solutions on their horizon were temporary production cuts and government subsidies so that business as usual could resume once the crisis ends (again, the “crisis” being a global decline in fossil-fuel consumption). Conveniently forgotten is the reality that business as usual is the real problem for the planet and its inhabitants. “Shutting down oil wells and then restarting them when demand returns can require expensive manpower and equipment. Fields do not always recover their former production,” the New York Times (4/20/20) said in explaining why even now, when there is an unprecedented oil glut, companies continue to drill. The article went on to say, “The oil industry’s plight is forcing policymakers to consider intervening more forcefully.” It’s taken for granted here that fields recovering their former production is the goal. Intervening “forcefully” here means temporary government-enforced production quotas—not, say, ending further drilling and subsidizing renewable energy development. Despite literally wrapping oil production in the flag, this Washington Post piece (4/21/20) was the only story we found across four outlets that quoted a climate justice advocate on the fall in oil demand. Over at the Washington Post, it was clear that government intervention also means federal bailouts for the industry (“As Price of Oil Drops, Trump Orders Plan to Help US Energy Companies”—4/21/20). Trump has ordered his administration “to come up with a plan to provide federal assistance to the oil and gas industry,” it reported. Apart from passing mention that the assistance might come from the Fed’s small business loan program, there is no discussion of what such assistance might look like—or whether any conditions might be attached to it. If the oil industry needs government assistance to survive, then this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use that unique leverage to correct energy policy that is literally killing the planet. The government ought to be prohibiting all future drilling and offering significant subsidies to energy companies on the condition that they keep their workers on payroll and transition entirely to renewable energy sources. This isn’t rocket science, as they say; it’s obvious. The failure of corporate media to make any mention of such a redirection of investment is appalling. (By the way, this Post article was, as far as I can tell, the only piece in the four outlets that included even a single quote from a climate justice advocate: Greenpeace staffer Jack Shapiro, who was critical of a federal bailout of fossil-fuel industries.) At CNN (4/16/20), it was more of the same: discussion of falling demand as a “crisis” (“Global Oil Crisis: Bottom of the Barrel Is Still Unclear”), and resumption of pre-coronavirus consumption levels as “recovery.” The neoliberal lock on our imagination The New York Times (4/22/20) wrote a eulogy for the "proud but declining" industry of North Sea oil. In “Will the Coronavirus Pandemic Doom North Sea Oil?”—published April 22, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day—the New York Times (4/22/20) wistfully described “a proud yet declining industry” and the impact of falling oil prices on communities like Aberdeen, Scotland. Once again, the narrative horizon extends no further than understanding demand for oil as a positive: “Demand will come back, but it won’t come back fast,” said Mike Tholen, director of sustainability at Oil and Gas UK, which represents the North Sea industry. “We may be in an era of having seen peak oil demand,” he added. Analysts say that governments will likely continue to promote measures to tackle climate change by cutting carbon-dioxide emissions, which means reduced demand for oil. This piece illustrates some of the fallout for communities and regions from market shifts like the current oil crash—jobs lost, ripple effects on other industries, declining tax revenue, etc. Ultimately, these are human costs of economic upheaval, and the way they have played out in our global capitalist economy thus far is invariably brutal and unfair. This reality makes the refusal to look beyond continued investment in oil all the more infuriating, baffling—and depressing. The paucity of imagination on display in the corporate coverage of last week’s oil market crash is ultimately a reflection of the continued economic, political and ideological power of neoliberalism. Which brings us back to the clear skies and reduced air pollution. Since the planet’s reprieve is an unintended side effect of Covid-19 public health measures, rather than the outcome of redirected political priorities and economic investments, it has been treated as a quirky byproduct that must be temporary, even if it is charming in some ways. The “crisis” of falling oil demand is, ironically, a self-inflicted capitalist wound. The same unfettered corporate power that has driven global warming has given us the coronavirus crisis: the commodification of rights and goods that should never be commodified—in particular, in this instance, for-profit healthcare; gross economic inequalities stoked by white supremacist and patriarchal ideologies; and political priorities that ignore social goods and starve the government infrastructures needed to respond to the viral outbreak. In the absence of adequate public health responses, massive physical distancing—and its economic consequences—has been the only way governments have been able to even partially limit illness and death. It’s a bitter irony, entirely lost on corporate media.

© 2020 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Our mailing address is: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING 124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201 New York, NY 10001 FAIR's Website FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today.

New York’s presidential primary

On Monday, the New York State Board of Elections made the disgraceful and undemocratic decision to cancel their state’s presidential primary later this year.

This means that our campaign will receive no delegates from New York, weakening our ability to fight for a progressive platform and progressive rules at the Democratic Convention. It also means our voters are less likely to turn out, which will hurt progressive New York candidates who are still facing primaries.

This is an outrage, an assault on democracy and must not be allowed to stand.

While we did not have the votes to win the Democratic nomination, our campaign was suspended, not ended, because we believe that people in every state should have the right to express their preference.

Let's be clear. New York will still be holding a primary election on June 23. Voters will cast ballots for congressional candidates and other down-ballot offices but, because of the heavy-handed decision of two members of the State Board of Elections, they will not have the opportunity to vote in the presidential primary.

No one asked New York to cancel the election.

The DNC did not request it. The Biden campaign did not request it. And our campaign communicated, very strongly, that we wanted to remain on the ballot.

Given that the primary is months away, the proper response should be to make the election safe — such as moving entirely to vote by mail — rather than eliminating people’s right to vote completely.

The truth is that the New York State Democratic Party has never taken a particularly progressive approach toward democratic participation. In fact, quite the opposite. They have a very checkered pattern of voter disenfranchisement. For many years, New York has had one of the lowest rates of voter turnout in the country.

In addition to being a blow to American democracy, New York state's action is also a clear violation of the approved delegate selection plan of the Democratic National Committee.

At a time when all of us, including Joe Biden, are deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy, we must fight back against this action in New York state.

If states violate the DNC party rules regarding delegate selection, they can lose their ability to send delegates to the convention. And this is exactly what must be done.

If this outrage is not remedied, the Democratic National Committee must strip New York of all its delegates at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. New York, and every other state in this country, must understand they cannot violate the rules of the DNC with impunity.

While the New York State Democratic Party is trying to take away progressive voices in this election, we are asking you to make yours heard:

Sign our petition: tell DNC Chairman Tom Perez to strip New York state of its convention delegates unless they reinstate the Democratic presidential primary slated to take place later this year.

Thank you for standing up for democracy and thank you for making your voice heard on this important issue.

All our best,

Team Bernie

Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders

PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402

RSN: Paul Krugman | Peacocks and Vultures Are Circling the Deficit

29 April 20

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Fire and Brimstone Fundraising

We are starting to see some donations come in. Thank you. We are a long way from where we need to be. I deeply regret that we have to go to these extraordinary lengths to pull in minimal financing. I sincerely believe that is misguided.

If RSN is a place you would like to be, start thinking seriously about what it takes to maintain it.

Wishing us luck.

Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News

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29 April 20

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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“TODAY” REALLY MATTERS FOR DONATIONS - We are not making the kind of progress in terms of finishing the fundraising drive that we normally do. Still only a small fraction of you have responded. Today is a critical day for donations. Very important now. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Paul Krugman | Peacocks and Vultures Are Circling the Deficit

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "The only fiscal thing to fear is deficit fear itself."

lmost a decade has passed since I published a column, “Myths of Austerity,” warning that deficit alarmism would delay recovery from the Great Recession — which it did. Unfortunately, that kind of alarmism seems to be making a comeback.

You can see that comeback in the gradually increasing number of news analyses emphasizing how much debt we’ll run up dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. You can also see it in the rhetoric of politicians like Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who is blocking aid to beleaguered state and local governments because, he says, it would cost too much.

So this seems like a good time to emphasize two key facts. One is economic: While we will run very big budget deficits over the next couple of years, they will do little if any harm. The other is that whatever they may say, very few prominent figures in politics or the media are genuine deficit hawks, who are actually worried about the consequences of rising government debt. What we mainly have, instead, are deficit peacocks and deficit vultures.

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The U.S. has far more COVID-19 cases than any other country. (photo: Charles Krupa/AP)

US Reaches One Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
Lynsey Jeffery, NPR
Jeffery writes: "More than 1 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in the U.S., marking a grim milestone in the country with the most reported coronavirus infections in the world, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University."
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a campaign rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders at Venice Beach, Calif. (photo: Monica Almeida/Reuters)


ALSO SEE: New York Board of Elections Cancels
Democratic Presidential Primary

Ocasio-Cortez Blasts New York Elections Board for Canceling Presidential Primary
Rebecca Klar, The Hill
Klar writes: "Ocasio-Cortez challenged the notion that the decision was made with public health in mind, noting that the state is still holding down ballot elections the same day."
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Immigration advocates rally for against ICE. (photo: NURPHOTO)

Trump Threatens to Cut State Coronavirus Aid Over "Sanctuary City" Immigration Policies
Tom Porter, Business Insider
Porter writes: "President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he might withhold federal coronavirus aid from any states refusing to comply with his administration's immigration policies."
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New York City. (photo: Vice)

New York City Tenants Want the State to Cancel Their Rent. So They're Going on Strike.
Emma Ockerman, VICE
Ockerman writes: "Thousands of tenants in New York City are about to embark on the city's largest rent strike in decades."
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Hong Kong government CIO Victor Lam Wai-kiu shows a monitoring wristband for people under quarantine during a press conference on March 25. (photo: Li Zhihua/China News Service/Getty Images)

The Successful Asian Coronavirus-Fighting Strategy America Refuses to Embrace
Matthew Yglesias, Vox
Excerpt: "Other countries have had better results putting sick people into isolation instead of sending them home to potentially infect their family."
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The Arctic. (photo: iStock)

Record Ozone Hole Over the Arctic Has Closed
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "An unusual phenomenon happened in March and April when an enormous hole in the ozone layer formed over the Arctic. Last week, though, scientists tracking the hole noticed that it has closed."

EXCERPT:

n unusual phenomenon happened in March and April when an enormous hole in the ozone layer formed over the Arctic. Last week, though, scientists tracking the hole noticed that it has closed, as CNN reported.

Unlike the infamous hole in the ozone over Antarctica, which was caused by overuse of now illegal chemicals containing chlorofluorocarbons, the hole in the Arctic was caused by a combination of factors, including low Arctic temperatures, sunlight, pollutants and a particularly strong polar vortex, according to the Copernicus' Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), as CNN reported.

"These two are really different animals," said Paul Newman, the chief scientist in the Earth Sciences Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, as Mashable reported. "This [Arctic ozone hole] is not comparable to the Antarctic ozone hole. If this was happening over the Antarctic we would be shouting for joy."

The hole over Antarctica opens up every year from August until October. However, it has improved dramatically since ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons were banned in the 1994 Montreal Protocol. Last year, the Antarctic ozone hole was at its smallest since it was first discovered, as CNN reported.

While the COVID-19 lockdowns have improved air quality around the world and helped wildlife, the drops in pollution did not cause the ozone hole to close up.

"COVID19 and the associated lockdowns probably had nothing to do with this," CAMS said on Twitter. "It's been driven by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex, and isn't related to air quality changes."

The hole in the ozone above the Arctic started in March when unusual conditions trapped cold air over the North Pole for several weeks in a row. That triggered a circle of cold air, known as a polar vortex, which led to clouds high in the atmosphere. Those clouds interacted with pollutants from human emissions and depleted the ozone gases above the Arctic. The hole it opened up was roughly three times the size of Greenland.

The ozone layer, which sits between 9 and 22 miles from the earth's surface, shields the planet from the sun's damaging ultraviolet radiation. The hole above the Arctic would have only posed a threat to humans if it had traveled or expanded farther south, as Euronews reported.

"It's unusual but not unexpected," said Newman, of the recent Arctic ozone hole, to Mashable. "It's unusual in that we only have events like this about once per decade."

In 1997 and 2011, there were similar ozone depletions of the Arctic, according to Antje Innes, a senior scientist at the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, who spoke to Mashable. However, the extent of ozone depletion was far greater during this one.

Scientists insist it is too early and too rare to say if the recent ozone depletion portends a new trend. "From my point of view, this is the first time you can speak about a real ozone hole in the Arctic," said Martin Dameris, an atmospheric scientist at the German Aerospace Center, to Nature.

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