Thousands of animals, including endangered Sumatran tigers and Bornean orangutans, are facing starvation at Indonesia's zoos as the global pandemic pushes shuttered facilities toward collapse, officials say. Some 60 cash-strapped animal parks -- home to roughly 70,000 creatures -- across the Southeast Asian archipelago have been closed since mid-March and most say they have only enough food until the middle of May. "Most zoos relied on ticket sales so when they closed everything collapsed," said Indonesian Zoo Association spokesman Sulhan Syafi'i.
https://www.ibtimes.com/virus-pushes-indonesia-zoo-animals-brink-starvation-2967807
Essential workers in Michigan that are helping on the front lines during the coronavirus pandemic may be given the opportunity to continue their educational pursuits for free, the state's governor said Wednesday. The program, titled "Futures for Frontliners, will be available to essential workers without a college degree, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said. The program will be offered not only to those working in hospitals or nursing homes, but also to grocery store employees, child care workers, sanitation workers and those who deliver supplies. "The Futures for Frontliners program is our way of saying 'thank you' to those who have risked their lives on the front lines of this crisis," Whitmer said in a statement. "I want to assure all of our workers we will never forget those of you who stepped up and sacrificed their own health during this crisis. You're the reason we're going to get through this." Whitmer described the program as "paths to opportunity" for Michigan's essential workers, and likened it to the GI Bill offered to returning soldiers after World War II.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/us/michigan-tuition-free-educational-program-essential-workers-trnd/index.html
The Michigan Court of Claims has said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order does not infringe on the constitutional rights of residents. | "But those liberty interests are, and always have been, subject to society's interests—society being our fellow residents," said Court of Claims Judge Christopher M. Murray. "They—our fellow residents—have an interest to remain unharmed by a highly communicable and deadly virus, and since the state entered the Union in 1837, it has had the broad power to act for the public health of the entire state when faced with a public crisis."
https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-lawsuit-1501109
The British Museum Just Made 1.9M Stunningly Detailed Images Free Online | While everyone is stuck at home due to Covid-19, the collection allows people to get a better view of some key objects than they would in person.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akw57z/the-british-museum-just-made-19m-stunningly-detailed-images-free-online
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries'
As of Wednesday night, the U.S. Department of Treasury has not released any of the $8 billion allocated to tribes in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds that were to be distributed to American Indian tribes “not later than 30 days” after March 26, 2020. Three days later after the deadline, the tribes are still waiting for the much needed funds and the Treasury Department is not answering why they have not disbursed the money. Tribes across Indian Country are hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused the shuttering of tribal casinos and huge reduction in revenue from tribal business enterprises. On Wednesday, eight members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to prompt the federal government to fulfill it trust obligations to the tribes by requesting the Treasury Department to immediately disburse the funds to tribal governments. “The Congressional intent behind the CRF is to expedite relief funds to governments, including sovereign tribal governments, as part of the federal government’s larger initiative to provide emergency assistance throughout the country,” the members of Congress wrote. “As you are aware, the CARES Act was passed over a month ago, on March 27,2020, yet this funding has yet to be disbursed to tribal governments, in part due to litigation aimed at ensuring these resources go to the governmental entities that Congress intended.” The litigation refers to lawsuits brought by more than a dozen other federally recognized tribes to declare Alaska Native Corporations ineligible to receive any of the CARES Act’s $8 billion. The case was argued last Friday before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in the District of Columbia Court, who ruled in favor the tribes on Monday.
https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/treasury-department-has-not-disbursed-cares-act-funds-to-tribes-stays-mum/
https://nativenewsonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/letter-to-mnuchin.pdf
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has donated a $100,000 prize she won from a Danish foundation to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for use against the COVID-19 pandemic, the world body said Thursday
https://www.france24.com/en/20200430-thunberg-donates-100-000-to-support-children-during-pandemic
Canada set to ban assault-style weapons, including AR-15 and the gun used in Polytechnique massacre
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawas-gun-ban-to-target-ar-15-and-the-weapon-used-during/
US Navy sends second ship into disputed waters after China claims it scrambled jets to expel U.S. destroyer
https://www.newsweek.com/us-navy-ship-sails-disputed-sea-amid-escalating-tensions-china-over-coronavirus-pandemic-1501057
Too little too late: Germany has banned all Iran-backed Hezbollah activity on its soil and designated it a terrorist organisation, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. Police also conducted early morning raids on mosque associations in four cities across Germany. Security officials believe up to 1,050 people in Germany are part of Hezbollah’s extremist wing.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-lebanon-hezbollah/germany-classifies-hezbollah-as-terrorist-organisation-conducts-raids-idUKKBN22C0JL?il=0
If we must blindly accept every allegation of sexual assault, the #MeToo movement is just a hit squad. And it's too important to be no more than that.
“No one” in Puerto Rico has received stimulus checks, says San Juan mayor; The Treasury Department has sent out more than 88 million payments. Not one of them went to Puerto Rico, a nation of American citizens.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/30/no-one-in-puerto-rico-has-received-stimulus-checks-says-san-juan-mayor/
On This Day: Adolf Hitler found dead. On April 30, 1945, the burned body of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was found in a bunker in the ruins of Berlin.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2020/04/30/On-This-Day-Adolf-Hitler-found-dead/3091588083144/
Sen. Ron Wyden Oregon has used vote by mail since electing me in 1996. Those who say it can't work are lying. My state has proven that voting by mail is secure and helps more people exercise their rights. Expanding it to more states this year could help save lives. | It seems that everyone voting by mail suddenly makes sense to people outside Oregon after 25 years. After all, if Americans fear going to the polls or working at them because of the risks of COVID-19, voting by mail offers a way for people to cast ballots while maintaining social distancing. So for my friends around the United States interested in our system, here's how it works. After receiving the ballots that go out around three weeks before a primary or general election day, most voters fill them out and mail them back — or drop them off at collection boxes posted at places like the county elections office or a local library. | Since our state went to vote by mail, I have never seen people waiting in lines extending for blocks just to vote. No one must miss a shift at work or find extra child care just to vote. Seniors don't need to risk their health just so they can vote. It's no surprise, then, that Oregon ranks near the top of the country in voter turnout. Nearly 70 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in presidential elections. And 63 percent voted in the 2018 midterms. And it's far cheaper than conventional voting: Counties that vote at home cut their election costs by nearly 40 percent. Oregon taxpayers saved $600,000 in the first all-mail election alone. Trump, who has regularly voted using mailed-in absentee ballots, has claimed that voting by mail is too susceptible to fraud to be allowed. That's a flat-out lie: Oregon aggressively hunts for any election irregularities, and it has never found anything resembling the fantasy scenarios conjured up by Trump and others on the far right. Oregon Republicans agree. Our former secretary of state, the late — and very conservative — Dennis Richardson, wrote to Trump in 2017 that "we are confident that voter fraud in last November's election did not occur in Oregon." Our current Republican secretary of state, Bev Clarno, said, "We've proven that our system is very secure and voters love it." And, by the way, nearly a million members of our armed forces vote by mail all the time. They've been doing it for decades. I know voting by mail works — which is why I wrote a bill with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to make sure that every American has the right to vote the way we do in Oregon. Our bill doesn't require all-mail elections, of course: If states want to have in-person voting, they can do that, too. The legislation would additionally require that states provide residents with 20 days of early voting, and it has clear rules to make sure that people's ballots don't get thrown out by mistake. Time is running out to prepare for November's election, and if Congress doesn't act in a matter of weeks, I'm afraid many state and local governments won't be ready if, as scientists suggest they will, COVID-19 cases spike in the fall. Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., must drop their partisan roadblocks and give states the guidance and resources they need to help all Americans exercise their constitutional rights as soon as possible. Oregon has shown voting by mail works — no matter your political preferences. It can work for the rest of America, too.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/oregon-has-used-vote-mail-electing-me-1996-those-who-ncna1195646
https://www.sightline.org/2018/12/13/voter-turnout-oregon-tops-charts-2018-midterms/
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2016/03/colorado-voting-reforms-early-results
https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/statistics/vote-by-mail-timeline.pdf
https://theweek.com/speedreads/907540/trump-who-votes-by-mail-calls-other-mailin-voting-dangerous-corrupt
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1247861952736526336
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493100-former-oregon-official-touts-states-mail-in-two-decade-voting-record
https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/us-military-votes-absentee-no-fraud
Republican-led states signal they could strip workers’ unemployment benefits if they don’t return to work,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/30/republican-states-unemployment-benefits/
Biden reaches deal to let Sanders keep hundreds of delegates | Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has agreed to let former primary rival Bernie Sanders keep hundreds of delegates he would otherwise forfeit by dropping out of the presidential race in a deal designed to avoid the bitter feelings that marred the party in 2016 and helped lead to Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Under party rules, Sanders should lose lose about a third of the delegates he’s won in primaries and caucuses as the process moves ahead and states select the people who will attend the Democratic National Convention. The rules say those delegates should be Biden supporters, as he is the only candidate still actively seeking the party’s nomination. | Sanders delegates would also get seats on key convention committees that will enforce convention rules and draft the party’s platform. This would allow Sanders and progressives to maximize their influence on key convention committees this summer and on the convention floor –- whether virtual, because of the coronavirus pandemic, or an in-person gathering as planned in Milwaukee. The deal came out of a series of talks led by Anita Dunn, a senior strategist for Biden, and Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ top political adviser.
https://apnews.com/1250a619e0c8195fad1aa6aea08c63c8
Believe me on this one, the truly organized set of Berniecrats, many of whom plan to go to the DNC, all of whom plan to continue working in politics as career, would have been livid if Biden didn't agree to this after Sanders announced in his concession speech that he was still collecting delegates. Keep in mind there's a difference between "being a former Bernie supporter" and having spent the last four years organizing within the party infrastructure so as to continue to push the leftist agenda.
Esper Illegally Redirects Funds From Counter-Russia Programs for Illegal Border Wall | U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is illegally directing Pentagon budget planners to defer $545 million worth of construction projects -- many in Europe meant to counter Russian aggression -- to pay for the "wall". Esper does not have the authority to redirect funds because courts nullified the illegal "national emergency! we must build a wall!" declaration.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/esper-taps-funds-from-counter-russia-programs-for-border-wall
Declaration illegal and overturned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergency_Concerning_the_Southern_Border_of_the_United_States
A new analysis of financial disclosure documents found that Republican and Democratic members of Congress made nearly 1,500 stock transactions worth up to $158 million between February and April as the coronavirus spread across the U.S., heightening suspicions that elected officials in charge of the federal response to the pandemic have opportunistically cashed in on it. The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group, uncovered at least 127 purchases or sales in securities by senators and at least 1,358 transactions by members of the House between February 2 and April 8. "Of those transactions, some members of Congress were strategically buying stocks in companies that might see a boost during the crisis, as well as selling stocks that seemed likely to tank," CLC said. "Public servants made purchases in remote work technologies, telemedicine companies, and car manufacturers that were shifting their production to ventilators. Sales were made in companies in the restaurant and hospitality industries." | "The stock trading was bipartisan—27 Democrats, 21 Republicans, and 1 independent were making trades as the devastation that Covid-19 would exact on the U.S. crystallized," CLC said. "Most congressional members are millionaires and a number have investments in the tens of millions and far more likely to have investments in the markets." Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) had the most transactions of any member of Congress with 366 worth between $2.4 and $10.6 million. Rep. Gilbert Cisneros (D-Calif.) trailed Roe with 219 transactions worth between $1.9 and $6.7 million.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/30/cashing-pandemic-documents-show-lawmakers-made-1500-stock-transactions-worth-158
https://campaignlegal.org/update/congressional-stock-trading-during-pandemic-diminishes-public-trust
Though only a small number of those detained by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) have been tested for the coronavirus, 60 percent of those tested came up positive for the disease. Recent data from ICE indicates that 425 individuals have tested positive for coronavirus. However, only 705 detainees have received the tests out of approximately 40,000 total individuals. That works out to just over 1 percent of all detainees being tested for coronavirus. However, 60 percent of those tested have tested positive. Cases were reported in detention centers across 16 states including Michigan, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. "One of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) highest priorities is the health and safety of those in our custody," the agency said in an April statement. "Detainees are being monitored and tested for COVID-19 in line with CDC guidance, and in conjunction with the recommendations of state and local health partners." However, because of the threat of community spread coronavirus within the detention centers, advocacy groups have called for the release of certain individuals with underlying health problems or who have not been accused of violent crimes. | In California, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the state government on Friday calling for an end to placing immigrants in detention centers during the coronavirus pandemic. | U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter ruled Thursday for at least 250 ICE detainees to be released from the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center because of the possibility of the spread of coronavirus among the population. According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, small cells and a lack of personal protective equipment posed a contamination danger to individuals housed inside the center.
https://www.newsweek.com/60-percent-ice-detainees-tested-have-coronavirus-1500817
Congress must stand up to the White House and deliver relief to the Postal Service | On Capitol Hill, leaders on both sides of the aisle supported a postal relief package, but Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin intervened to keep it out of the final $2.3 trillion stimulus deal. Instead, the Postal Service received an offer of $10 billion in additional debt if they agreed to draconian conditions. According to The Post, Trump and Mnuchin are using the crisis as leverage to ram through long-sought hikes in package delivery rates and cuts to labor costs. Lawmakers must stand up to the White House and deliver the relief the Postal Service needs — not only to survive abut also to thrive. The USPS is the quintessential American institution. In fact, it predates the nation by one year: In 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. After nearly 250 years, it is the most trusted brand in the county, according to a study by Morning Consult. That’s unsurprising, perhaps, as “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” prevent postal workers from doing their jobs. Nor has covid-19. As Americans across the country are following stay-at-home directives, they are relying on the USPS to deliver their prescription drugs, food and other essentials. Tax refunds and stimulus checks arrive through the mail. So do absentee ballots — this year’s presidential election may indeed depend on the Postal Service to facilitate voting by mail. As civil rights leaders caution against efforts that would require voters to pay for postage when mailing in ballots, the USPS has restated its previous policy to deliver every ballot, even those with insufficient postage. Can you imagine UPS or FedEx doing the same? According to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, rural areas, often heavily Republican, would be particularly hard hit if the Postal Service goes bust. No other service has the capacity to deliver to every address in America, no matter how remote. And in 15 states with the largest rural populations, the USPS directly employs more than 75,000 people. Maine’s 3,356 postal workers, for example, exceed the number of the state’s electricians, fast-food cooks, construction workers, child-care workers and truckers. Last year, when the main threat to the USPS was privatization, Danny Glover wrote that a diminished Postal Service “would be devastating for customers and employees of all races — but especially African Americans.” Glover, an actor and the son of two postal workers, explained that black employees make up 28.6 percent of the postal workforce and concluded, “We must protect the Postal Service — and support new innovation to meet 21st century needs.” Today, that innovation is within reach. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) have proposed free Federal Reserve accounts, accessible through local post offices, that would give individual Americans the same higher-than-normal interest rates that big banks enjoy. This builds on postal banking proposals that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others have put forward that could generate as much as $1.1 billion in annual revenue. | There are other ways the Postal Service could innovate to meet the needs of today and the expectations of tomorrow. Other countries have postal workers check in on the elderly, making it easier for seniors to remain in their own home. Postal trucks could also be equipped with monitors to gather data on everything from potholes to pollution.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/28/congress-must-stand-up-white-house-deliver-relief-postal-service/
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pmg-franklin.pdf
https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/?mod=djemCMOToday
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/mission-motto.pdf
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/23/working-save-democracy-postal-service-reaffirms-policy-delivering-mail-ballots-even
https://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IPS-policy-brief-on-USPS-and-Rural-America.pdf
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/11/danny-glover-postal-service-banking-reform-column/1692850001/
https://theweek.com/articles/905207/need-send-people-money-need-fix-how
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/aoc-bernie-sanders-postal-banking-sean-hannity-john-nichols/
https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/rarc-wp-15-011_0.pdf
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/in-france-elder-care-comes-with-the-mail
Dr. Anthony Fauci and Andrew Cuomo remain the most trusted leaders on coronavirus, while Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are the least trusted
https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-cuomo-most-trusted-trump-kushner-least-trusted-on-coronavirus-2020-4
Trump presented with grim internal polling showing him losing to Biden | Trump’s advisers presented him with the results of internal polling last week that showed him falling behind former vice president Joe Biden in key swing states in the presidential race, part of an effort by aides to curtail Trump’s freewheeling daily briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, according to three people with knowledge of the conversations. The president spoke with campaign manager Brad Parscale, White House senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, among other officials, in calls and meetings last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions. One call on Wednesday — with Parscale patched in from his home in Florida and McDaniel from hers in Michigan — was designed to present grim polling data to the president to encourage him to reduce the frequency of coronavirus briefings or to stop taking questions, after seeing his numbers slip for several weeks, officials said. | Aides described Trump as in a particularly foul mood last week because of the polling data and news coverage of his administration’s response to the pandemic, according to two of the people familiar with the discussions. In one call, he berated Parscale over the polling data, the two people said. At one point in that call, Trump said he might sue Parscale, though one of the people with knowledge of the comments said he made the remark in jest. News of Trump’s eruption at Parscale was first reported Wednesday by CNN. Trump told Parscale that he did not believe the polling that had been presented to him, even though it came from the campaign and the RNC. “I’m not losing to Joe Biden,” Trump said at one point, both of these people said, adding that the president used profanities throughout the call.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-presented-with-grim-internal-polling-showing-him-losing-to-biden/2020/04/29/33544208-8a4e-11ea-9759-6d20ba0f2c0e_story.html
A bottled water company has won a key decision in its effort to pump more water from a well in western Michigan. An administrative law judge last week upheld a state permit, which allows Nestle Waters North America to pump 400 gallons a minute from a well near Evart in Osceola County, a 60% increase, MLive.com reported. The water is trucked to an Ice Mountain production facility in Mecosta County. Nestle pulls water from other wells in the area. A local group, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians challenged a permit approved in 2018 by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration. The critics say increased pumping will harm the environment in the Chippewa Creek watershed.
https://www.wxyz.com/news/judge-allows-nestle-to-pump-more-water-from-michigan-well
The COVID-19 pandemic is delivering the biggest shock to the global energy system in seven decades, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. Global energy demand is expected to fall by 6% this year, seven times the decline brought by the financial crisis 10 years ago. IEA projections show oil and gas being hit hard. But demand for coal could fall by an extraordinary 8% — the largest decline since World War II. Not all the drop in demand was because of the coronavirus; in the U.S. especially, a large share was caused by a warmer-than-average winter. The IEA says the lower emissions will reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change by almost 8% this year, which would be the largest annual decrease ever recorded. But the U.N. has said global emissions must be cut that much every year for the next decade in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid its worst impacts. The IEA warns that emissions will rebound when the economy recovers, unless countries focus their economic relief packages on boosting clean energy.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/30/848307092/greenhouse-gas-emissions-predicted-to-fall-nearly-8-largest-decrease-ever
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842807177/pandemic-shutdown-is-speeding-up-the-collapse-of-coal
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/18/803125282/how-warming-winters-are-affecting-everything
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/14/834295861/carbon-emissions-are-falling-but-still-not-enough-scientists-say
Global CO2 emissions are set to fall nearly 8% this year to their lowest level since 2010, the largest drop in history. But this fall, on the back of premature deaths & economic trauma, is nothing to cheer. The 🌍 needs structural emissions reductions driven by better policies. pic.twitter.com/kk9UONUGkN
https://twitter.com/IEABirol/status/1255731651956670464
A U.S. judge Wednesday prohibited an administrative agency for the federal judiciary from barring its 1,100 employees from engaging in virtually all forms of partisan political activity outside the workplace. The judge called the ban an excessive effort to protect courts from “hyper-partisanship” and attacks from members of Congress. | In a 46-page ruling, Cooper called the effort to protect the judiciary from perceptions of political influence “laudable.” But, the judge said, that intent did not justify a new code of conduct barring employees from participating in political activities open to virtually all other federal workers, including expressing views publicly or on social media about political candidates, attending events for political parties or candidates, joining parties or making donations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/us-judge-strikes-down-prohibitions-on-political-speech-for-1100-federal-court-workers/2020/04/29/5665d162-8a5d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html
The second these people show up to "peacefully" protest decked out in their tacticool gear armed to the teeth with loaded assault weapons they immediately become domestic terrorists.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/michigan-armed-protesters-debate-whitmer
https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/michigan-state-of-emergency-extension-protests-lansing-thursday/
They claim their right to assemble is being violated as they assemble without being arrested. A bunch of people upset about being told to stay inside fighting to get inside. As I type, Michigan is over 40k cases and approaching 3800 deaths from COVID19. Trump has incited these people on Twitter
Franken was a Democrat, and a very effective Senator that got railroaded for the benefit of Gillibrand's presidential aspirations. If Gillibrand had integrity, she would resign. She is a stain on the party and I don't value her opinion and wish the Democratic party would force her to resign for publically endorsing Biden: Kirsten Gillibrand on Tara Reade allegation: 'I support Vice President Biden' | "So when we say believe women, it's for this explicit intention of making sure there's space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard. And in this allegation, that is what Tara Reade has done," Gillibrand said. "She has come forward, she has spoken, and they have done an investigation in several outlets. Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself. Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations and I support Vice President Biden." | "Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women. He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard -- and heard respectfully," Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, Kate Bedingfield said in a statement provided to CNN. "Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: it is untrue. This absolutely did not happen."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/politics/kirsten-gillibrand-joe-biden-support/index.html
Tara Reade is welcome to testify before congress the way Christine Blasey Ford has. But she didn't even name Biden in her police report, nor did she offer any specifics. And considering how often she's already changed her story, I doubt she'd ever take up that offer to testify.
Scientists Identify 1.9 Million Pieces of Microplastic in Square Meter of Ocean Floor | Researchers writing in Science have reported the highest levels of microplastics observed on the seafloor to date, finding up to 1.9 million fibers and fragments per square meter of ocean bed. For some time, scientists have struggled to find the "missing" 99 percent of plastic that ends up in our oceans—the polyethylene bags and polypropylene straws that accumulate at the surface accounting for a tiny fraction of total waste. Now an international team of scientists say they have identified a mechanism that transports and dumps at least some of the remaining 99 percent onto the seabed. While islands of floating plastic—such as the great Pacific garbage patch, estimated to be twice the size of Texas—have garnered a lot of media attention, researchers have identified what they call "microplastic hotspots," which form in a not-too-dissimilar fashion, only thousands of feet below the sea surface. "Until now we haven't understood where the missing microplastics in the ocean end up and how they are transported," Mike Clare of the National Oceanography Centre told Newsweek. "We know that there are concentrations of plastic on the ocean's surface, but this accounts for less than one percent of the plastic that makes it into the ocean." He added: "Until now, the rest has been assumed to settle slowly out, like rain or snow in the deep sea. We found instead that currents in the deep sea act like conveyor belts—moving plastic around, locally creating hotspots on the seafloor."
https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-identify-1-9-million-pieces-microplastic-square-meter-ocean-floor-1501237
Increase in unemployment from February to March:
🇪🇺 EU: 0.1%
🇩🇰 Denmark: 0.2%
🇩🇪 Germany: 0.7%
🇺🇸 United States: 11.5%
Newly uninsured people:
🇪🇺 0
🇩🇰 0
🇩🇪 0
🇺🇸 12,700,000
Solution: Guarantee paychecks to workers and health care to all: The coronavirus pandemic has dealt Europe an economic wallop on par with that in the United States, but Europe has more successfully managed to shield workers, according to data released Thursday. | The contrast shows the effect of Europe’s starkly different approach to fighting the economy-busting effects of the pandemic, with many governments intervening to subsidize private-sector salaries.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/joblessness-is-rising-far-more-slowly-in-europe-than-in-the-us-during-the-pandemic-new-figures-show/2020/04/30/7a5a050a-8a5a-11ea-80df-d24b35a568ae_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europe-seeks-to-limit-coronavirus-crisis-with-unprecedented-offers-to-pay-private-sector-salaries/2020/03/24/1f099a5a-6abe-11ea-b199-3a9799c54512_story.html
We are the only major country with millions unemployed and uninsured. It's time to reexamine our society's foundations and fight for a more just nation. This is the moment to make sure everyone has economic security and health care: Another 3.8 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total claims since mid-March to more than 30 million
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html
Maybe, just maybe, we should ask ourselves how we got into a situation where millions of Americans are working for starvation wages in the first place: Roughly half of all U.S. workers stand to earn more in unemployment benefits than they did at their jobs before the coronavirus pandemic brought the economy to a standstill.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-relief-often-pays-workers-more-than-work-11588066200
Openly gay woman running for sheriff in Ohio wins primary against Trump-supporting Democrat; gets 70% of vote | An openly gay woman has decisively won a race against her opponent — and former boss — in an election to decide the Democratic candidate who will run for Hamilton County Sheriff in November. Charmaine McGuffey, 62, defeated Hamilton’s County current sheriff, Jim Neil, 61, and will now face Republican Bruce Hoffbauer in the general election. In the stunning victory against a two-time incumbent, McGuffey received about 70% of the votes, according to unofficial results.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-charmaine-mcguffey-hamilton-county-sheriff-ohio-wins-primary-20200430-i3o6eqw5fvhqtcgunzuefiwo6y-story.html
Trump is still blaming Obama for leaving him with "broken tests" for a virus that didn't exist
Opening up his personal senate records would be political malpractice from the Biden campaign. Regardless of the veracity of Reade's claim, there will almost certainly not be a record of it in Biden's records since there isn't a record in the Senate personnel office. All opening up his records would do is give us an endless stream of mildly embarrassing bullshit to drip out over the next 6 months. It's Clinton's emails all over again.
https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-refuses-open-senate-papers-accusers-claims-2020-4
As the government struggles to keep businesses afloat through the pandemic, the Trump administration is sitting on about $43 billion in low-interest loans for clean energy projects, and critics are accusing the Energy Department of partisan opposition to disbursing the funds. | The loans — which would aid renewable power, nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage technology — had some bipartisan support even before the coronavirus pushed 30 million people onto the unemployment rolls. But some supporters of the program said it was being held back by a president who has falsely claimed wind power causes cancer and consistently sought deep cuts to renewable energy spending, including the loan program. | “They haven’t put out any or almost any of these loans since he’s become president,” said Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “There’s an ideological or political aspect to this. The president is not someone who seeks to promote the clean energy sector.” Mr. Pallone said low-carbon technology efforts had created more than 3 million jobs before the pandemic, and said he planned to prioritize finding ways to address the unspent loans in the next stimulus. The last new project approved under the programs came in late 2016, a loan to a carbon capture and storage plant in Louisiana. The Trump administration did approve one follow-up loan for a nuclear reactor project in Georgia, but the process had begun under the Obama administration. Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy, declined to explain why loans are not being disbursed. | The money in question comes from multiple sources, including a $17.7 billion loan program for advanced vehicle technology and a $2 billion loan program for tribal energy projects. The bulk of it, about $24 billion, is in what is known as the Title XVII loan program. That was authorized in 2005 to support the deployment of large projects that avoid, reduce or sequester planet-warming emissions. In 2009, in response to the last financial crisis, Congress temporarily expanded the program. During that time the Obama administration granted a $535 million loan to Solyndra, a California solar company that went bankrupt. | “Republicans have decided they don’t want this money to go out, even though a lot of it could be for things they say they like, like for the oil and gas industry or carbon capture and sequestration or the nuclear industry,” said Peter W. Davidson, who led the loan program under former President Barack Obama and is now chief executive of Aligned Climate Capital, an asset management company.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/climate/clean-energy-loans-coronavirus-trump.html
https://blog.aee.net/at-more-than-3-million-jobs-advanced-energy-is-a-big-and-growing-source-of-employment-in-the-us
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/georgia-vogtle-nuclear-reactors.html?searchResultPosition=3
Reminder: Dozens of tribal governments have sued the Treasury Department over the distribution of the $8 billion after the Trump administration said it would give funds to for-profit Native corporations. A federal judge ruled on Monday evening that the Trump administration cannot give the funds to for-profit Native companies, but 574 federally recognized tribes are still waiting for their money, according to HuffPost. | American Indians and Alaska Natives have a disproportionately higher chance of having underlying health complications like diabetes, asthma, and heart disease, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. They're also more likely to live in poverty and be uninsured, the HHS said. | There are more than 3,100 confirmed COVID-19 cases among federally recognized tribes, the Indian Health Service has reported. Navajo Nation, in particular, has been hit especially hard.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tribal-governments-waiting-covid-18-relief-money-2020-4
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tribes-covid-19-federal-relief-treasury-deb-haaland_n_5ea9decac5b633a8544487d9
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=62
https://www.ihs.gov/coronavirus/
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-navajo-nations-infection-rate-10-times-higher-than-arizonas-2020-4
A conservative justice who lost his bid for reelection to Wisconsin's Supreme Court reversed his recusal from a major case involving the potential removal of more than 200,000 people from the state's voter rolls. | Justice Daniel Kelly, who cited a potential conflict of interest when he sat out the case during his bid for reelection, said Wednesday he will now participate, potentially making him the deciding vote in whether the high court reviews the case. | "His final act on the court will be continuing the power grab set forth by Wisconsin Republicans in 2018 as he tries to strip hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, who a vast majority of support Democrats, of their right to vote," Wikler argued.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/wisconsin-daniel-kelly-voter-roll-purge
Speaker Pelosi says Democrats want to undo a provision in coronavirus legislation that bars families with mixed immigration status from receiving stimulus payments from the IRS.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Pelosi-Families-with-some-undocumented-15237736.php
Asked about Biden's call for Trump to lower the White House flag to honor the pandemic dead, Trump says, "I would not mind doing that, I would say not only the White House flag. We could do that. In fact, it's something I will be talking about later," at a meeting.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1255970727376965633
Secret Service paid billionaire Donald Trump's company tax-payer-funded $33,000 to rent a room at his D.C. hotel for 6 months. Why? Treasury Secretary Mnuchin decided to live in a luxury suite there. Agents had to protect him
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-paid-trumps-dc-hotel-more-than-33000-for-lodging-to-guard-treasury-secretary/2020/04/30/cd38e864-8987-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
In 2017, I interviewed @AmbassadorRice on Pod Save the World. Her comments about future pandemics are eerily prescient. You can hear it here at roughly min 25-30:
https://crooked.com/podcast/ambassador-susan-rice/
Trump not holding formal daily briefings, but has been having 2 lengthy press instabilities each day this week.
Texas reported 50 more COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, the most in any one day since the state reported its first deaths in mid-March. The state also reported it had added more than 1,000 new positive cases of COVID-19, the biggest one-day increase in infections since April 10. The numbers came out less than 9 hours before Gov. Greg Abbott is set to lift restrictions on many businesses, allowing mall, movie theaters, retail stores and restaurants to begin operating at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Those types of businesses can only operate at 25 percent of their maximum capacity for the next two weeks under Abbott’s phased re-opening plan. After that, if things are going well, Abbott has said those places can go to 50 percent occupancy. Abbott’s statewide stay-at-home order expires at the end of Thursday.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Texas-reports-most-deaths-in-a-day-from-COVID-19-15238205.php
“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China. The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.
“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/item/2112-intelligence-community-statement-on-origins-of-covid-19
Looking at the covid-19 maps and the demographics of death, there is a clear pattern that the professional class in high GDP, high inequality regions brings the disease in, and then withdraws from social life in a way that ensures the working class and general poor gets slammed.
Florida's budget is expected to take a huge hit from coronavirus. Sales tax, responsible for nearly $4 of every $5 in the state’s roughly $33 billion general revenue fund, has plummeted amid the shutdown. | Adding to the pressure: Florida has never passed a law to effectively collect sales tax on Internet purchases, so the state could lose even more revenue as the coronavirus pandemic prompts consumers, suddenly isolated in their homes, to shift more of their shopping online. Amazon.com Inc. said earlier this month that it plans to hire more than 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers to handle surging demand — yet approximately 60 percent of the Internet giant’s sales go essentially untaxed in Florida.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-coronavirus-florida-finances-20200324-2bhdu3dolvbbjh3ftcgqzycdxu-story.html
As produce rots in the field, one Florida farmer and an army of volunteers combat ‘a feeling of helplessness’ — one cucumber at a time | Scott and the volunteer cucumber pickers were trying to bring some sense to what has emerged as one of the most perverse outcomes of the pandemic: farmers forced to destroy fields full of crops while a growing number of families can't afford enough food. On one end are produce growers who supply restaurants, canning companies and theme parks that have been closed for weeks. Meanwhile, increasing unemployment and a convulsing economy have sent many families to the foodlines. In the most agonizing instances, hungry mouths are just a few miles from rotting crops, separated by economic turmoil and ruptured supply chains. As the gleaners rescue vegetable after vegetable, they are both a final lifeline for desperate families and a sign of just how badly the novel coronavirus has kneecapped the systems that are supposed to keep everyone fed. The Florida Department of Agriculture estimates that produce farmers like Scott have lost $522.5 million through mid-April. And they are not the only ones with a perishable product that will reach the end of its shelf life before it even leaves the farm. Dairy farmers and cooperatives across the country have dumped millions of gallons of milk down drains or onto fields as cheese plants and dairy producers contend with an unmovable surplus. Workers at pork and poultry manufacturing plants have been sickened by the coronavirus and in some cases died, placing a harsh spotlight on their working conditions during the pandemic and putting another kink in the supply chain with no resolution in sight. By the time the country reopens, Scott fears it will be too late to save this season’s cucumber crop. It might also be too late to save his farm, one of the last-remaining family growers in a region that in recent decades has been defined by encroaching suburbs and shrinking agriculture. | On most days, an average of 35 people click on the food-finder button on the Web page of the Orlando-based Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, the state’s largest. In the last month, as the coronavirus has cost central Floridians their jobs, the number of clicks has ballooned to more than 1,200 a day. “I’ve been doing this work 26 years across the country — and through lots of disaster relief. This is as bad as it’s ever been.” said Dave Krepcho, president and CEO of the food bank. “Pre-virus, you had your population that was in poverty and you had this other population of working households that were struggling to pay the rent. They were on the edge. This pandemic has put them over the edge.” Many of the restaurants that used to drop-off regular donations to the collection center on Mercy Drive are closed or struggling. But Second Harvest and other food pantries have been getting more donations from farmers like Scott. While Krepcho’s grateful he can still feed hungry people, he concedes that’s a sign of a bigger problem: there is nowhere else for the farms’ produce to go. “The charitable food system is not equipped to accept all that product even if we can get our hands on it,” Krepcho said. “We’re the largest in Florida, so we have massive coolers and freezers and we can handle a lot of produce. But even with all our capacity, there are times that we can’t accept it.” Adam Putnam, the former Florida commissioner of agriculture who is also a farmer said that with no place to sell or donate their crops, “some farmers just put the product out by the road of their farm and just give it away. It’s just as frustrating for them. They don’t want to plow their crops under. But when it’s going to cost money to harvest it and send it somewhere when they’ve already lost a boatload of money, it’s just not a good business decision.” After news programs showed pictures of Scott’s farm plowing perfectly good crops into the ground, they received a deluge of hate mail from people who chastised them for not giving it to hungry people. Scott’s family responded with a Facebook post that touted their charitable giving — 4 million to 5 million pounds of produce a year — but also spoke about just how difficult and expensive it is to reconfigure a mammoth supply chain that moves truckloads of food at harvest time. “At this point we are struggling to pay our employees, as is everyone, so how can we possibly pay to harvest the crops only to be given away?” the post said. “ . . . Without drastic changes, and if we don’t get the country back to business as usual, we will continue to struggle, and you cannot get mad at the farmer who is forced to have to leave crops to rot in the field.” | Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried’s office has started a website that directs shoppers to farm stores. She’s also lobbying the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state’s congressional delegation for policies that would put more cash in the hands of Florida farmers — or at least give them a competitive edge in other markets. Last week, the USDA passed $19 billion in agriculture relief. But Fried, Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat whose agency is independent from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the benefit to Florida farmers would be nominal. Of the total, $2.1 billion goes to specialty crops like cucumbers. The program puts a cap of $125,000 per commodity and gives $250,000 for each individual farm or rancher, Fried said. “We are afraid that it is too little too late,” she said. | Scott spent most of last week looking for places to send his ripening crops — buyers preferably, but also charities in need. The largest charities help pay packaging costs for donated food, if he can find a way to get it to them. The large bins he uses to ship cucumbers to pickle producers aren’t feasible for food banks distributing fresh produce to families.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-produce-rots-in-the-field-one-florida-farmer-and-an-army-of-volunteers-combat-a-feeling-of-helplessness--one-cucumber-at-a-time/2020/04/30/6230c3ae-842b-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/fixing-food-dumping-food-banks/
As part of the Russian interference probe, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with #Russia. Before Flynn's claim was publicly revealed as a lie, however, it was repeated by Pence during an interview with former @FaceTheNation moderator @jdickerson
https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1255979225556963332
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Thursday that thousands of coronavirus tests obtained by the state from South Korea are currently protected in an undisclosed location by the Maryland National Guard.Asked in a Washington Post Live interview whether he was concerned the federal government would seize the tests, Hogan acknowledged “it was a little bit of a concern.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/495519-maryland-governor-says-coronavirus-tests-acquired-from-south-korea-under
https://twitter.com/postlive/status/1255878355016134656
An EMT who was born in Brooklyn, responded to the 9/11 attacks, and was a voracious reader in his off hours has died of the coronavirus: Mr. Bey, a 27-year veteran of the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services bureau, died on April 22 at Coney Island Hospital. He was 60. The cause was Covid-19, Daniel A. Nigro, the fire commissioner, wrote in a statement. He is one of nine members of the department to die of the virus so far. | “He was there during 9/11 when those buildings came down,” said Nehemiah Chandler, a close friend. “His ambulance was totally destroyed and many people thought that he and his partner may have died, but he survived and continued to put his life at risk to help as best he could.” The Fire Department said he received a medal for his actions after the attack. | Mr. Bey was a history buff and an avid reader who amassed a library of more than 1,000 books. Friends and family said if he wasn’t at work you could find him browsing the aisles at Barnes & Noble. He was also an observant Muslim who had made the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/obituaries/idris-bey-dead-coronavirus.html
The 40+ immigrant detention centers opened under Trump are among the nation's worst in terms of abuse, medical neglect and access to legal counsel, according to a years-long report on 5 facilities authored by 3 civil liberties groups.
https://www.courthousenews.com/report-details-abuse-and-medical-neglect-at-immigrant-detention-centers/
A person who opened fire outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington was arrested on charges that included possession of an unregistered firearm and assault with the intent to kill, the authorities said. There were no injuries reported at the scene.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/us/cuban-embassy-shooting.html
Can't get over Trump threatening to sue Brad Parscale over bad poll numbers and then the shitheads on that staff leaking it to like five different outlets. Tells you everything you need to know about them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/us/politics/trump-campaign-reelection-polls.html
Biden Accuser Tare Reade's Allegations Match Scene from Her Dead Father's Novel: The novel, ‘Loss’, listed on Amazon and Google Books contains a scene, which bears uncanny similarity to her allegation against Joe Biden: “After several weeks of flirting with him she spent the night in his room on Bleeker Street next door to the Russian strip joint...” — actually I will stop there as the scene gets pretty adult and would not be appropriate for a diary IMO. You can see the highlighted text at this twitter thread for more info. Major media has practically run away from giving these allegations air time and it’s clear why: every time someone does some digging, her story falls apart. Nevertheless toxic elements in our party have continued to try and breathe life into this disaster of a story. Following the same pattern as the ‘mental decline’ narrative which went from ‘Biden has dementia’, to ‘well maybe not dementia but he’s old/frail/something’s not right’, to ‘people are talking about it, so maybe there’s something there’, to ‘it may not be true but he should just address it’, the Reade narrative is playing out just the same way. It’s like a 12-step program for disinformation, the goal being to keep the narrative in the ether as long as possible even if it’s just to create doubt. Even if under the guise of being pro-active. But just like the mental decline narrative, the Reade story has failed. Instead it’s backfiring on the few who are trying to give it new life. Like a hand grenade being desperately lobbied across the field and blowing up as the needle’s pulled every time. But this isn’t backfiring on Trump and the Republicans. It’s backfiring on *us*. It’s undermining our credibility on the left since ‘the calls are coming from inside the house’. The overwhelming memes and social media posts I see are from those purporting to be left. It’s just another message to the base of our party that the lessons of 2016 were not learned. Reade pilfered her dead father’s work for her allegations against a presidential candidate. That’s about as low as one can get IMO. There’s nothing for Biden or anyone to address, except Reade. Her 15 minutes are done. Those of us who feel compelled to hand wring over this trainwreck should ignore the toxic, dare I say infectious, fumes on social media. Learn the lessons of 2016. The overwhelming majority of America is focused on who can best lead us to a life free of fearing our next day may be our last, not a Ryan Murphy-esque political intrigue best left for a Netflix binge with box wine.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/30/1941523/-Biden-Accuser-Reade-s-Allegations-Match-Scene-from-Dead-Father-s-Novel
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1452009554/
https://twitter.com/SallyAlbright/status/1255753538518515717/photo/1
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW1VGdJXQAY0d6y.jpg
As Reade herself said when she was interviewed by pro-Sanders pundit Krystal Ball, Time's Up offered her considerable help when she first reached out to the organization. In its partnership with the National Women's Law Center, Time's Up connected Reade with a number of lawyers who interviewed her to see if she had a case worth pursuing. None of those lawyers took Reade on as a client. It's important to understand here that Time's Up Legal Defense Fund only provides support beyond these referrals — such as PR assistance — if a client obtains a lawyer and moves to take legal action on workplace harassment. But Reade told Salon she wasn't interested in suing Biden. Instead, she was angry "about the smears about being a Russian agent" from Biden supporters and was hoping a lawyer could find a way to stop them. One law firm Reade spoke with confirmed that they would not take a case with the ambiguous goal of trying to shut down people on social media who were speculating about an accuser being a "Russian agent."
https://www.salon.com/2020/03/31/a-woman-accuses-joe-biden-of-sexual-assault-and-all-hell-breaks-loose-online-heres-what-we-know/
No comments:
Post a Comment