MAY 5, 2020
PROGRESSIVE
OPINION AND NEWS
GRETA VAN
SUSTEREN IS IN AGREEMENT WITH THE IDEA OF LOOKING INTO BIDEN’S SEXUAL ASSAULT
CHARGE BROUGHT BY TARA READE, THOUGH ONE OF HER ARGUMENTS IS A CURRENT
REPUBLICAN “TALKING POINT,” THAT KAVANAUGH WAS PUT TO SOME ROUGH TREATMENT. HER
OTHER REASON IS TO QUESTION THE RELATIVE FREEDOM FROM INQUIRY INTO POLITICAL MISBEHAVIOR
WHEN IT OCCURS IN THE LEGISLATIVE AND THE JUDICIAL SYSTEMS. IT HAS OCCURRED TO
ME SEVERAL TIMES TO WONDER WHAT IT TAKES TO IMPEACH A SENATOR, MITCH MCCONNELL,
FOR INSTANCE. ANYWAY, THIS IS AN INTERESTING ARTICLE.
TheHill.com
What we learned
from Joe Biden: Congress and the Court need a federal records act
BY GRETA VAN
SUSTEREN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 05/05/20 10:00 AM EDT 444
COMMENTS
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED
BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
SCREENGRAB –
Morning Joe Exclusive, Joe Biden Addresses Tara Reade’s Sexual Assault
Allegation, © MSNBC
America’s
Founders wanted to create a United States with three co-equal branches of
government, executive, legislative and judicial. Thus, one of the most shocking
discoveries to emerge from presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe
Biden’s response to allegations from one of his former U.S. Senate staffers is just
how unequal these three branches are when it comes to preserving official
papers and records.
Biden’s private
Senate papers are held at the University of Delaware. There is no requirement
for any of them to be made public. Indeed, last Friday, Biden told
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski that he didn’t want to release his Senate papers because
“all of that could be fodder in a campaign at this time.”
In fact,
according to the U.S. Senate Historical Office, the records from every senator’s
office are the “property” of the member. Senate committee files and floor
records are preserved, but all the letters, memos, reports, speeches,
calendars, voting records, electronic files, photographs, etc., remain that
senator’s private property, to do with as he or she sees fit. All of
Congress is also specifically exempt from the Freedom of Information and
Privacy Act — meaning no citizen can file a request to see congressional
papers, whereas federal agencies must share theirs.
Supreme Court justices
never run for office, but the justices’ papers are even more protected than
those of U.S. senators. The justices can decide to destroy all their papers
or save only select papers; they can make those papers public or keep them
private for any length of time. There is no regulation. According to
Scotusblog, before his death, Justice Hugo Black instructed his son to burn his
conference notes, so no one could “eavesdrop” on the “private conversations”
of justices.
Only the executive
branch is subject to detailed controls. The president and vice president of the
United States — and their offices — are required by federal law, passed by
Congress, to preserve all records. Every letter, email, memo and piece of
paper that a president touches must be preserved according to terms of the 1978
Presidential Records Act. This rule is so strict that, in 2018, Politico
reported on an entire records management department operating in the Old
Executive Office Building next to the White House. Its job? To tape together
documents and even newspaper articles that President Trump had torn up after
reading, sometimes into tiny pieces, so that they could be saved for the
National Archives. Apparently, ripping papers had been Trump’s “unofficial
filing system.” Federal employee Solomon Lartey told Politico that it was
like working “a large jigsaw puzzle” while using Scotch tape.
Here’s the
problem I have with this unequal treatment of work-related papers under the
law. At the end of the day, each of these branches of government, the Supreme
Court, Congress and the Executive, are not only supposed to be equal — so
they should abide by the same rules regarding document preservation — but they
also are each employed by the American people. We, as taxpayers, pay their
salaries; we pay for the paper they use and the computers they type on. They
are supposed to be working for us. In the private sector, employees’ email
accounts, as well as their contacts list, and any emails they have sent or
received, are the property of their employer if they are sent on a company
server or use a company email address. In fact, employers often can monitor
employee email accounts if they so desire. Employers also retain control over
documents and other work products.
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A quick review suggests
that only Congress and the Supreme Court have such extensive immunity from the
most basic regulations that govern the rest of us — as well as the
executive branch — in the workplace. This is not co-equal; this is unequal. There
should be no special claims of privacy or privilege for those in government,
beyond national security protections. If anything, we need our government
to be more transparent, not less so.
Public servant
means just that: These individuals serve the public. We, the voters and
taxpayers and citizens, are their employers. We should have a right to see
all of the work we have paid for.
Greta Van
Susteren is a lawyer and chief national political analyst for Gray
Television. She previously hosted legal affairs and news programs on Fox
News, MSNBC and CNN. Follow her on Twitter @greta.
INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION.
RIGHT. START WITH OPENING THOSE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE “PERSONAL” RECORDS.
Some Democrats
say charges against Biden merit independent investigation
BY ALEXANDER
BOLTON - 05/04/20 08:16 PM EDT
PHOTOGRAPH –
Joe Biden © Getty Images
A few Senate
Democrats are saying there needs to be more investigation of former aide Tara
Reade’s accusation that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in the Senate 27
years ago, a charge Biden has vehemently denied.
Sen. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.), who is in the midst of a tough primary race against
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), said Monday that there needs to be an
“independent” investigation.
“We need an
investigation that has independence that will then ensure that the facts are
established,” Markey said on his way to a late afternoon confirmation vote
in the Capitol.
“It should be
independent,” he added.
Markey said he
hadn’t yet thought about who should conduct the investigation but said
Biden himself “has called for it, and I think he’s right to do it.”
Sen. Jeff
Merkley (D-Ore.) also called for an independent review of the charges.
“I think it’s
important to have appropriate independent scrutiny brought to bear to
help inform all of us about the situation,” he said. Like Markey, he hasn’t
given much thought about who should conduct the probe.
“It’s a good
question ... because we’re not in a situation where there’s a member of the
Senate or a member of the administration” facing charges, Merkley
noted.
Reade in mid-March
claimed that Biden pushed her against a wall and assaulted her in 1993.
Biden declared
that “it never, never happened” during an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
on Friday, his first media interview on the subject.
The former vice
president, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, last week asked
Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams to make public any record that might exist
of a complaint Reade said she filed. Adams replied on Monday that Senate rules
and current law prohibit her from making public any information related to a
workplace complaint or harassment claim.
In a statement
released Monday morning, the secretary of the Senate said that “strict
confidentiality requirements” in the law allow for “no discretion to disclose
any such information” requested by Biden related to Reade’s accusations.
The statement
cited a review by the Senate legal counsel of the Government Employee Rights
Act of 1991 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, two laws that govern the records
of the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices.
Another
Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), on Monday said the rules must be changed to
allow the complaint, if it exists, to be reviewed.
“I want to get
all the Senate records and see if there was ever a complaint filed,” Kaine
said. “I think that’s the first question: Was there ever a complaint filed?”
“If there was,
who would have it? We’ve got to get it at some point,” he added.
Kaine said if
the law bars the disclosure of Reade’s complaint, “it should be changed.”
“I think the
American public needs to know was a complaint ever filed,” he said. “I’m
certainly going to figure out a way, talking to colleagues, to try to make that
happen.
“The vice
president wants it out there,” he noted.
Asked about bringing
in the FBI, Kaine said, “Let’s start with a stated fact: ‘I filed a complaint
against the senator.’ Let’s find out if that’s true. That’s the single most
probative fact that we can get at right now,” he said.
Several
Democrats last week offered support for Biden without suggesting the need
for a further investigation.
On Monday, Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) demurred when asked about the need for an additional
investigation.
“I think what
the vice president has said is convincing, and I support him,”
Warren told reporters Monday.
Asked
specifically about the need for additional investigation, Warren repeated,
“What he said is convincing.”
Democratic
senators note that The New York Times and other media outlets investigated
Reade’s claims and failed to find any Senate co-worker who would corroborate
her story.
Sen. Jeanne
Shaheen (D-N.H.) said “it has been investigated by both The Washington Post and
New York Times.”
Shaheen said
that “it’s appropriate” to make the record of Reade’s complaint public “if it
exists” and Reade is “willing to have it released.”
Many Democrats don’t
see a need for the FBI or other law enforcement agencies to investigate the
allegation, something they and a few moderate GOP senators insisted on
when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh faced assault allegations during
his confirmation hearings.
Senate Democratic
Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, pointed out
that Biden denied the charge and asked for the Senate’s personnel records
to be opened to shed further light on the matter.
“I don’t know
what the next step would be beyond that,” he said.
Asked about the
FBI investigating the alleged incident, Durbin said, “I don’t know when the FBI
has a responsibility to step in.”
He acknowledged
that “it’s a hard call.”
Durbin pointed
out the FBI hasn’t investigated sexual assault charges level against
President Trump by various women, such as E. Jean Carroll, a former advice
columnist for Elle magazine who says the president sexually assaulted her in a
dressing room 20 years ago.
Trump’s other
accusers include a woman who attended a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago
nearly 20 years ago and a participant in the 2006 Miss Universe pageant.
Republicans on
Monday accused their Democratic colleagues of applying a double standard for
Biden after raising ferocious opposition to Kavanaugh in the last Congress.
“What is so
appalling is the double standard and the way Democrats have by and large been
silent about the allegations,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of
the Judiciary panel who participated in Kavanaugh’s bitter confirmation
hearings.
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“I still
remember where they thought due process was a joke that didn’t apply to Brett
Kavanaugh, but somehow they think now that due process should be applied to Joe
Biden,” he added.
Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he would support changing
the Senate rules or the law to allow Reade’s complaint to be made public if it
exists.
“In this kind
of case, I would,” he said.
NOTE: INQUIRER.COM
IS NOT THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER, BUT THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, SO SET YOUR MIND
AT EASE ABOUT ITS’ GENERAL RELIABILITY. IN FACT, IT IS THE “THIRD OLDEST SURVIVING
DAILY NEWSPAPER,” FOUNDED IN JUNE OF 1829, AND HAS WON NOT TWO OR THREE, BUT 20
PULITZER PRIZES! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer.
A Pennsylvania
father and son backed Sanders and then Trump. They’re not sold on Biden.
by Julia
Terruso, Updated: May 5, 2020- 3:04 PM
PHOTOGRAPH – Father
and son YONG KIM / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Jose Frias Sr.
and his son know their political views frustrate Democrats. But they’re
frustrated with the party, too. The father and son were huge Bernie Sanders
supporters in 2016. Disillusioned and deflated by the Vermont senator’s loss in
the primary that year, they both voted for Donald Trump in the general
election.
This time
around, both have vowed not to vote for Trump again. But they’re still reluctant
to get behind the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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posted videos backing Trump. What has happened since ‘overwhelmed’ him, he
says.
“Joe Biden
hasn’t done anything to grab the attention of a person who thinks like me,”
said Jose Sr., 54, a truck driver who emigrated from the Dominican Republic in
the 1990s. “My point of view and where he is, he’s not in the position to
defend or bring in people like me.”
The men from
Reading represent a key group of voters Biden wants to win over, particularly
in states like Pennsylvania that helped Trump secure the presidency. The
Friases are animated by Sanders and his calls for revolutionary changes, but
feel little connection to the institutional Democratic Party and resent
suggestions they need to settle.
“There’s an
overwhelming urgency to get Trump out of the White House right now,” said Jose
Jr., 22. “But I feel like Democrats aren’t really getting that that’s not all
people want. That’s kind of why he’s in the White House in the first place.”
A USA Today/Suffolk
poll last week found that one in four Sanders supporters aren’t supporting
Biden yet. About 2% said they would vote for Trump, and 10% would vote third party
or not vote for president. In 2016, about 12% of Sanders supporters voted for
Trump.
The elder Frias
has voted in every election since becoming a citizen in 2001. But there was
never a candidate he was proud to back until Sanders.
“This country
doesn’t have leaders," he said. “True leaders that motivate the people do something
for the people, and that’s the reason the majority of people don’t vote."
Biden, Frias
Sr. said, represents a continuation of President Barack Obama, who he believes
failed to deliver on promises of immigration reform, deporting eight million people.
“He wasn’t as progressive as I thought he would be,” Frias said.
Trump has tried
to end an Obama program to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the
United States as children from deportation, known as DACA.
PHOTOGRAPH -- Jose
Frias Sr., YONG KIM / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
While Democrats
eagerly note that Biden’s platform is historically progressive, Frias Sr. said
he’s skeptical Biden will be an improvement for the majority of poor and
working-class Americans.
Since coming to
Reading, Frias Sr. has worked hard to support family back in the Dominican
Republic and here. He’s seen little improvement in his community or in the
lives of people around him, though he credits a state program that paid for him
to get his commercial truck driving license. He wonders why there aren’t more
training and technical programs.
“There wouldn’t
be so many people in these impoverished neighborhoods," Frias Sr. said. “Selling
drugs, getting into crime."
Frias Jr. grew
up in Reading, living mostly with his mother, but his father shaped his
political views.
“A lot of
people are frustrated with people like us,” Frias Jr. said. He’s been called a
communist while canvassing for Sanders. He’s said he’s gotten into heated
arguments with his older brother, who served in the Marines, and often
encourages him to appreciate what the country has given him.
“I love my
country, and that’s the main reason I feel so passionate,” Frias Jr. said.
"I want this country to be the best for everyone and not be so lopsided, with
so many innocent people that want to work hard. I don’t want them to struggle
as much as they do.”
The younger
Frias remembers friends as young as 11 and 12 getting recruited into gangs in
Reading. He’d play basketball with kids and on the walk home, and sometimes the
friends he was with would smash car windows — just because.
PHOTOGRAPH -- Jose
Frias Jr., YONG KIM / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“Their parents
were probably working two or three jobs, most didn’t have a dad in their
life," he recalled. "They were kind of, like, being neglected. It’s
not really their fault.”
Frias Jr.’s mom
moved the family to the suburban Antietam School District for high school, and
he saw the wealth and opportunity gap between zip codes.
“It was a
completely different environment," he said.
Biden’s
campaign is trying to attract people like Frias Jr. in a way Hillary Clinton’s
2016 campaign didn’t. He’s adopted pushes for loan debt forgiveness for
students at public universities and historically black institutions, lowering
Medicare eligibility to 60, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy reform plan.
Democrats,
stung by Trump’s 2016 success, are more united now. A number of voters who like
the Friases said they backed Trump as more of a protest vote against Clinton
have said they won’t vote for him again.
PHOTOGRAPH -- Former
Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, greeted
one another before they participated in a Democratic presidential primary
debate at CNN Studios in Washington on March 15.
EVAN VUCCI / AP
Former Vice
President Joe Biden, left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, greeted one
another before they participated in a Democratic presidential primary debate at
CNN Studios in Washington on March 15.
But Biden has
struggled to stir enthusiasm, polls show, the pandemic has put a stop to
traditional campaigning, and a sexual assault allegation against him, which he
has denied, has forced him onto the defensive.
Sanders
supporters may also be hesitant to consider Biden until after the Democratic
Naitonal Convention, where they hope to have a quarter of delegates to
influence the party platform. That goal suffered a blow when New York state
canceled its presidential primary.
“We should be
doing everything we can to bring Sanders voters into the fold, and we are
not," said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a progressive political consultant. “We
know how close Pennsylvania was last time. We know that a lot of voters stayed
home. We can’t have that happen this time, so the burden is on the Democrats to
show these voters that they do care about them.”
Holly Otterbein
✔
@hollyotterbein
New: Ex-Bernie Sanders
aides are forming a new PAC called "Once Again" that "will
continue to rally support for [him] in upcoming primaries in order to reach the
threshold of 25% of delegates required to bring proposals about the party
rules & platform to the entire convention."
2,727
12:33 PM - May
4, 2020
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The coronavirus
has complicated getting that message out.
Frias Jr., for
one, is more focused on family than politics. He was working as an aide caring
for people with disabilities at a large facility when the pandemic started. He
took an unpaid leave, concerned about getting his mom or girlfriend, who is
pregnant, sick.
His mom, who is
56, works overtime caring for an elderly woman to pay the family’s bills. She’s
asthmatic, and while there are only three other people in her employer’s house,
she worries about the virus.
“We’ve been
struggling with health insurance all our lives," Frias Jr. said. When he
was 10, his mom needed surgery, and the medical bills overwhelmed the family. She
filed for bankruptcy and lost her house.
Medicare for
All was the main reason he backed Sanders.
With six months
until the general election, Frias Sr. doubts he’ll change his mind about staying
home. His son is checking out the Green Party and watching to see how far
Biden moves on health-care policy.
“It’s not that
I want Trump to win, but I still feel like, this is our democracy," Frias
Jr. said. “My vote should have more value than something I’m being pushed
into.”
by Julia
Terruso
Posted: May 5,
2020 - 12:40 PM
Julia Terruso |
@JuliaTerruso | jterruso@inquirer.com
THIS SORT OF
BEHAVIOR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES IS DISGUSTING, BUT SO PREDICTABLE. OF COURSE, I
HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THE CORPORATE DEMS ARE BEHIND IT, AND AGAIN, THAT IS SOOO
PREDICTABLE.
Published on
Friday, April
10, 2020
byCommon Dreams
Thank You,
Bernie Sanders. Screw You, New York Times.
In the Times'
world, it’s apparently ok to bemoan a society and an economy that privileges
the rich over the poor, but it’s unacceptable to run for the presidency on a
promise to reverse those priorities.
byLaura
Flanders
PHOTOGRAPH -- Senator
Bernie Sanders during an interview with the editorial board of The New York
Times in February, 2020. (Photo: Screengrab/NYT/Brittainy Newman)
It is the
essence of American liberalism to trash radical dreams and then dance on them. And
that’s just what the New York Times did the day after Bernie Sanders bowed out
of the Democratic race for the nomination. On that day, in a special editorial,
the editors of the very same paper that disparaged his every move opined that
America is divided and our democracy corrupt and launched a series promising to
report on just the sort of transformative policies Sanders advocated.
“A great divide
separates affluent Americans, who fully enjoy the benefits of life in the
wealthiest nation on earth, from the growing portion of the population whose
lives lack stability or any real prospect of betterment," they write.
In the Times'
world, it’s apparently ok to bemoan a society and an economy that privileges
the rich over the poor, but it’s unacceptable to run for the presidency on a
promise to reverse those priorities.
"The
United States has a chance to emerge from this latest crisis as a stronger nation,
more just, more free, and more resilient. We must seize the opportunity,” write
the editors.
The words look
pretty on the page, snug in among the Tiffany ads. But when a campaign seeks
to seize not just opportunity but power—and spread it around—the same paper’s
reporters and headline writers called that campaign and the candidate leading
it “threatening,” “menacing” and “unelectable.”
“The wealthy
are particularly successful in blocking changes they don’t like,” the Times
writes now, as if their own paper has played no role in that. On the eve of
the decisive March 10th Midwest primaries, the week before which Sanders was
leading in the polls, columnist Thomas Friedman redbaited Bernie for the
umpteenth time, deliberately distorting democratic socialism as Stalinism
and accusing Sanders of “demonizing the engines of capitalism and job creation."
The truth is,
the New York Times, the paper of record of U.S. liberalism, likes the
progressive pose. With gravitas, they write that out of the coronavirus
crisis “there’s a chance to build a better America.”
But it didn’t
take a pandemic to wake 13 million Americans to that chance and to vote for it
in 2016, or 2.1 million of them to contribute to that effort in this race. Those
millions didn’t need all this new, unnecessary death to hear the death knell
sounding for status quo America. What they needed was a fairer chance against
the establishment media.
PHOTOGRAPH -- Laura
Flanders
Laura Flanders
is the award-winning host and executive producer of The Laura Flanders Show,
a nationally-syndicated TV and radio program that looks at real-life models
of shifting power in the arts, economics and politics. Flanders founded the
women’s desk at media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
and produced and hosted the radio program CounterSpin for a decade. She
is also the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller BUSHWOMEN:
Tales of a Cynical Species. Flanders was named Most Valuable Multi-Media
Maker of 2018 in The Nation’s Progressive Honor Roll, and was awarded the Izzy
Award in 2019 for outstanding achievement in independent media.
Our work is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel
free to republish and share widely.
Our pandemic
coverage is free to all. As is all of our reporting.
PRESIDENT TRUMP
WON’T LIKE THIS JUDGE FOR TWO REASONS. FIRST, SHE’S A LATINA, AND SECOND, SHE’S
A WOMAN. SHE CAN’T POSSIBLY BE FAIR. IT IS A SHAME THAT THE OPPONENT HERE IS NOT
DONALD TRUMP, BUT THE NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR, WHO ENGINEERED AND
THEN SIGNED THE SPECIAL WORDING INSERTED INTO THE NY EMERGENCY BUDGET. WHEN I FIRST
BEGAN TO WATCH ANDREW CUOMO, I WAS IMPRESSED. HE STRUCK ME AS AN HONEST MAN. HE
NOW IS JUST LIKE THE OTHERS. IF HE RUNS FOR PRESIDENT, I WON’T VOTE FOR HIM.
Judge Restores
NY Democratic Presidential Primary on June 23
By The
Associated Press
May 5, 2020
Updated 8:07
p.m. ET
NEW YORK — The
New York Democratic presidential primary must take place June 23 because
canceling it would be unconstitutional, a judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District
Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan ruled after hearing arguments a day earlier as
lawyers for withdrawn presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang
argued that it was wrong to cancel the primary.
The judge said
there was enough time before the primary occurs to figure out how to carry it
out safely.
“If all but one
of the presidential candidates are removed from the ballot and the primary is
not held, Delegate Plaintiffs will be deprived of the opportunity to compete
for delegate slots and shape the course of events at the Convention, and voters
will lose the chance to express their support for delegates who share their
views, the judge wrote. “The loss of these First Amendment rights is
a heavy hardship."
She added:
“There is also a strong public interest in permitting the presidential primary
to proceed with the full roster of qualified candidates."
The Democratic
members of the State’s Board of Elections voted to cancel the primary even
though New York was still planning to hold its congressional and state-level
primaries June 23.
They cited the
danger to voters from the coronavirus as a reason to cancel the election since
former Vice President Joe Biden has been endorsed by the major candidates he
had faced.
New York state
Democratic party chair Jay Jacobs said: “We are reviewing it.”
Jacobs had
called holding the primary “unnecessary” with the suspension of Sanders’
campaign and said reduced turnout could reduce the need for as many poll
workers.
Lawyers who
argued before Torres on Monday did not immediately return calls seeking
comment.
Associated
Press Writer Marina Villeneuve reported from Albany.
CLEARLY AN
OPPORTUNITY FOR BIG CARRIERS TO MAKE A LITTLE PROFIT. THE FACT THAT NOT
EVERYBODY IS BEING SERVED DOESN’T SEEM TO BOTHER THE TRUMP FAMILY. ONLY 50% OF
THE PRODUCTS HAVE TO BE DELIVERED TO THE SITES WHERE THEY ARE MOST NEEDED, AND
THE COMPANIES CAN THEN FREELY SELL THE REST WHERE THEY WANT TO. UNDOUBTEDLY THAT
WILL BE TO WHOEVER WILL GIVE THEM THE MOST MONEY. THAT’S CAPITALISM. THAT’S MODERN
DAY REPUBLICANS, WHO RARELY SERVE ANY HIGHER POWER THAN MONEY. I CAN REMEMBER
WHEN REPUBLICANS WEREN’T ALL LIKE THAT. IT MAKES ME SAD.
Politics
Kushner Airlift
Moves Millions of Masks, But Details Are Secret
By Josh
Wingrove, Daniel Flatley, and Shira Stein
May 1, 2020,
4:00 AM EDT
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PHOTOGRAPH –
FedEX Express aircraft being loaded
A program
created by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has airlifted millions of
gloves, masks and other coveted coronavirus supplies into the U.S. from
overseas -- but it isn’t clear who’s getting them and at what price, or how
much private-sector partners are earning through the arrangement.
Kushner’s
“Project Airbridge” provides transportation via FedEx Corp. and others
for supplies that medical distributors, including McKesson Corp. and
Cardinal Health Inc., buy from overseas manufacturers, mainly in China.
Once a supplier’s goods arrive in the U.S., the companies must sell half the
order in government-designated hotspots. They sell the rest as they see fit.
The U.S.
government provides the air transportation for free, to speed the arrival of
the products. The six distributors keep the profits, if any.
The program has
won praise from some states, where officials say it provided hard-to-find
supplies at a critical time in the Covid-19 outbreak, even if it met a
fraction of demand.
“We are very supportive
of Airbridge and other federal programs that can provide PPE to our first-line
responders,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat. “But it
doesn’t meet our full needs.”
Other governors
and lawmakers have raised questions, saying they have no visibility into how
supplies are distributed and the government has only limited power to direct it.
The program appears to run largely outside the standard federal channels for
competitive bidding, disclosure and transparency -- the government hasn’t
documented how the products are sold, how prices are determined or which
hospitals and other customers receive the supplies.
Senate Questions
The House
Oversight Committee is seeking answers, and Democratic Senators
Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal wrote to the medical supply companies
this week requesting details about their participation in Kushner’s
program. “The American people need an explanation for how these supplies are
obtained, priced, and distributed,” they said.
The letter went
to all six participating distributors: McKesson, Cardinal, Medline Industries
Inc., Henry Schein Inc., Owens & Minor Inc. and Concordance Health care
Solutions.
PHOTOGRAPH -- Jared
KushnerPhotographer: Evan Vucci/AP/Bloomberg
McKesson issued
a statement saying that its work with the government “reflects our commitment”
to fighting the pandemic, but declined to answer specific questions. The
other five companies declined comment or didn’t respond.
“Providing free
flights for supplies sold by the private sector may help, but it is not a
substitute for a comprehensive federal response to this crisis,” Representative
Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who chairs the Oversight committee,
said in a statement. She said her panel seeks to “understand how our
taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether supplies are reaching those who
need them most.”
Project
Airbridge has become a fixture at the president’s news conferences,
where Trump regularly ticks off the number of flights it’s completed and the
millions of pieces of gear it’s delivered. Its development is characteristic of
an administration that’s shown little patience for the traditional processes
and pace of government. Slow to prepare for the coronavirus outbreak, Trump
turned to Kushner in March to try to quickly fill shortages of vital medical
gear.
In Trump’s
telling, the nation is fortunate Kushner stepped in, because the program
relieved a bottleneck causing shortages of protective gear at the front
lines of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, the largest in the world. The country
has had more than 1 million documented cases of the disease and at least 61,000
deaths since February.
Kushner’s program
is not the only way medical supplies are imported into the country. The U.S.
government has bought gear on its own, and states, hospitals, medical
suppliers, retailers and others have placed their own orders. The president
has encouraged states to source and buy most of their own medical equipment, and
Kushner has described the federal stockpile as a backup.
Suppliers and
middlemen trying to keep hospitals equipped say that securing a flight out
of China has become their biggest logistical hurdle, with a surge in demand
doubling and even tripling prices for the limited number of cargo planes
handling shipments.
For about $69
million in flight costs so far, the Airbridge project has flown at least 746
million pairs of gloves, 71 million surgical masks and 10 million surgical
gowns to the U.S. market, mainly on planes operated by FedEx Corp. and United
Parcel Service Inc., according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The program has also brought in about 2 million thermometers, 768,000 N95
masks and 562,000 face shields.
The Department
of Justice said it would not mount an antitrust challenge to the “collaborative
efforts” of the distributors “to address supply needs arising from the COVID-19
pandemic,” for which, DOJ said in a statement, the companies “should be
applauded.”
‘Young
Geniuses’
Airbridge is
run out of FEMA, but its leadership includes what Trump has referred to as
“military people and young geniuses.” That includes Kushner and his
longtime friend, Adam Boehler, the chief executive officer of a new government
agency created in 2018, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. Navy
Rear Admiral John Polowczyk, a logistics expert who is Trump’s top adviser on
the medical supply chain, also helps direct the effort.
Speaking Wednesday
on Fox News, Kushner said he took “a custom-tailored approach” to Airbridge because
the U.S. health care system is mostly run by private firms or non-profits,
not government.
“We created a
control tower approach with the private company distributors in order to
make sure that we can be as efficient as possible, and it’s been quite
successful,” Kushner said.
FEMA says the
effort has slashed shipping time to two days, from the 30 to 40 days
that a conventional sea shipment would normally take.
Still,
Airbridge accounts for only a small portion of the protective medical gear sold
in the U.S., according to a person at one of the participating companies who
spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said the company sells
Airbridge supplies at prices consistent with what customers have previously
paid.
Polowczyk said
the administration doesn’t want to try to direct distribution. “I’m not here
to disrupt a supply chain,” he said on April 2, shortly after the program was
struck up. “I’m putting volume into that system.”
A spokesman for
Medline Industries Inc., one of the distributors involved, told CNN that
it sells some items transported by Airbridge at a loss.
The White House
declined to provide any information on prices charged by the distributors, nor
did it offer any accounting of the products brought into the U.S. or their
final destination -- even for the half of the products designated for areas
the government considers hotspots.
“Why isn’t
there transparency?” Representative Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat, said in
an interview. Deutch and colleagues have introduced legislation that would
require the White House to report on the program and other elements of the
medical supply chain every two weeks.
“If they’re so
willing to hold press conferences touting the importance of putting together
this program to bring a hundred cargo planes worth of equipment to the United
States in this time of a global pandemic, then they ought to be willing to
answer some basic questions about what’s coming,” he said. “How much it costs,
where it’s going, so that we can make sure that every life that can be saved is
being saved.”
Some
health-care executives are similarly concerned.
“There does
need to be more transparency here, because this is the sort of thing that people
investigate and wonder about,” said Blair Childs, a senior vice president at
Premier Inc., which helps 4,000 member hospitals purchase supplies. “What
are they paying? Is it a competitive price?”
FedEx, UPS
Contracts
Under
Airbridge, FEMA pays the cost of shipping and ensures that the U.S. gets the
supplies quickly. The goods are transported by FedEx, UPS, Landstar
System Inc. and Radiant Logistics Inc., according to FEMA. The agency
doesn’t know the specific contents of shipments until the cargo is loaded,
the agency says.
FedEx received
a $60 million sole-source shipping contract for the program while UPS was
awarded a “not competed” contract for “warehousing and distribution” worth as
much as $9.8 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. Total
figures for the program remain unclear.
Bonny Harrison,
a FedEx spokeswoman, said the cost of the flights is consistent with market
rates. The company’s coronavirus work includes flights of supplies,
distribution and collection of test kits and shipment of other things like
swabs, she said. UPS did not respond to a request for comment, Landstar
declined comment and Radiant referred questions to FEMA.
The program
plans to shift cargoes to lower-cost sea freighters once the need for equipment
isn’t as urgent, an administration official said. The person wasn’t
authorized to speak publicly about Airbridge and asked not to be identified.
Airbridge had completed 89 flights with 21 more scheduled, FEMA said, but the
number of total flights has ticked down over the past week.
Terms of the
shipments can vary. If they’re ordered by the six participating medical
supply companies, those firms retain control of the goods throughout, with the
understanding that they have to sell half to hotspot regions. There are no other
known constraints on the distributors.
Under the
agreement with participating companies, the U.S. government can take up to
20% of supplies it finds on its own, while the companies distribute the
remaining 80%. Project Airbridge has flown in at least 18.6 million masks
and respirators procured by FEMA, the agency says.
Pence Call
Governors
discussed Airbridge in an April 24 call with Vice President Mike Pence. While
Polis has complimented the program, another governor said allowing private
distributors to manage deliveries means the equipment isn’t necessarily going
where it’s most needed.
“The White
House has not delivered what it has said it would deliver,” Illinois Governor
J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat who has sparred with Trump, said on April 20. Allowing
companies to distribute the supplies is “a far cry from delivering to the
states so that we can distribute to, for example, a nursing home that has an
outbreak.”
A spokesperson
for Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said the program “appears
fairly small-scale,” and that the state doesn’t know how the distributors
decide where to sell the supplies.
Buyers in New
Jersey have received about two million pieces of equipment through Airbridge,
according to a person familiar with the matter.
“To classify it
as significant might be a bit of an overstatement,” Patrick Callahan,
superintendent of the New Jersey state police, said Friday. “We’ll take
everything we can get.”
— With
assistance by Paul Murphy, John Tozzi, Riley Griffin, Vincent Del Giudice,
Elise Young, Dina Bass, Shruti Singh, and Thomas Black
OPINION PIECE
BY BERNIE SANDERS AND PRAMILA JAYAPAL
Opinion US
healthcare
The pandemic
has made the US healthcare crisis far more dire. We must fix the system
Before the
pandemic, 87 million were uninsured or underinsured in the US. We must finally
guarantee healthcare to everyone as a human right
Coronavirus –
live US updates
Live global
updates
See all our
coronavirus coverage
Bernie Sanders
and Pramila Jayapal
@SenSanders
Sat 2 May 2020
06.00 EDT
PHOTOGRAPH -- ‘Our
public health system is incredibly weak, in part because of consistent federal
disinvestment and austerity that have decimated too many public health
agencies.’ Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
When it comes
to our current healthcare system, the waste, cruelty and dysfunction was
glaringly obvious even before the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing.
Today, as millions of Americans lose their jobs and their healthcare benefits
that come with them, it is now virtually impossible for any rational person to
defend a system – unique among wealthy countries – that ties healthcare to
employment, and is designed only to make huge profits for the insurance
industry and drug companies, while ignoring the needs of ordinary Americans.
Before the
pandemic, 87 million people were uninsured or underinsured in our country, and
more than 30,000 people died every year because they couldn’t get to a doctor
when they needed to see one. More than half a million families declared
bankruptcy each year because of medically related debt. One out of five
Americans could not afford the outrageously priced prescription drugs their
doctors prescribed to them. And our healthcare outcomes, from maternal deaths
to life expectancy to infant mortality, lagged behind most other industrialized
nations.
And for all of
that, the United States still spends nearly $11,000 on healthcare for every
adult and child – more than twice the average of other major countries.
That was before
the pandemic. The situation is far more dire now.
Over just the
last five weeks, more than 26 million Americans have lost their jobs and now
face a crisis unique among advanced countries: for most of them, their
healthcare was tied to their jobs. In America, unlike any other major country,
when you lose your job, you lose your healthcare. As a result, up to 35 million
Americans are estimated to see their health coverage disappear in the middle of
this Covid-19 nightmare. And premiums for those who retain their health
insurance in this crisis could increase by up to 40% . As horror stories
circulate of $34,000 coronavirus medical bills, the uninsured remain terrified
of going bankrupt just to get tested and treated for Covid-19. In many cases,
they just cannot afford to go to a doctor or the hospital.
It is an incredibly byzantine and complicated
collection of independent entities without a common purpose – except greed
But it’s not
just the high cost and growing number of uninsured that expose the irrationality
of the current system. It’s that the current “system” makes absolutely no sense
to anyone. It is an incredibly byzantine and complicated collection of
independent entities without a common purpose – except greed. Think about it:
In the midst of the worst healthcare crisis in modern American history, with
thousands of doctors and nurses and other medical personnel becoming infected
and sometimes dying, hospitals and clinics have, for financial reasons, been
forced to lay off thousands of medical workers at a time when they are needed
most.
Read more
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Further, our
public health system is incredibly weak, in part because of consistent federal
disinvestment and austerity that have decimated too many public health
agencies. In most states, we lack the capability to significantly increase the
level of coronavirus testing and contact tracing we need to begin to safely
reopen the economy.
Price-gouging
and profiteering has affected everything from hand sanitizer to respirator
prices which, in some cases, have more than quintupled – virtually overnight.
Cities, states and hospitals continue to fight over scarce gloves, gowns, masks
and ventilators. Four out of five frontline nurses don’t have enough protective
equipment. In the richest country in the history of the world, nurses caring
for coronavirus patients have resorted to wearing trash bags as makeshift
protective gear. That is an international embarrassment.
The current
crisis has also exposed, to a horrific degree, how the massive level of income
and wealth inequality in America magnifies healthcare inequities, and
financially ravages our most vulnerable people. Rural hospitals and community
health clinics, which often treat the poor, are on the verge of going bankrupt
and shutting down. Major outbreaks are attacking our Black, Hispanic, Native
American and undocumented communities, as well as the incarcerated and the
homeless.
State and local
data show that more than 30% of reported deaths have been African American,
even though they only make up less than 15% of the population. The perverse
irony of our broken for-profit healthcare system is that black, brown, rural
and low-income people are most likely to be uninsured or underinsured, delaying
or forgoing the costly necessary treatments or prescription drugs that could
prevent the very conditions that make them most susceptible to the virus. It is
no coincidence that the poor, the working class, the sick and the elderly
disproportionately make up America’s 1m reported coronavirus infections and
over 57,000 deaths – the largest figures of any country on Earth.
With tens of
thousands of Americans dying and millions losing their jobs, how sad it would
be if we learned nothing from all that we have done wrong
If there is any
silver lining in this unprecedented moment that we find ourselves in, it is
that we must use this time to reassess the foundational institutions of
American society and determine how we go forward into a better future. With tens
of thousands of Americans dying and millions losing their jobs, how sad it
would be if we learned nothing from all that we have done wrong.
Do we really
want to continue the current expensive and cruel system that ties healthcare to
our jobs? Or do we need a simple, comprehensive and cost-effective system that
understands that healthcare is a human right for all of our people – employed
or unemployed, young or old, rich or poor?
Do we really want
to continue being ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry that charges us, by
far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Or do we want a
system that negotiates drug prices like every other country on Earth?
Do we really
want to continue the complicated, wasteful and bureaucratic system in which
virtually every visit to a doctor or hospital requires the filling out of
endless forms in order to determine how much of our deductible we have paid,
what percentage of our procedure is covered, and whether we got sick in the
appropriate “network”? Or do we want a simple system in which we go to any
doctor we choose and never see a bill, because the system is publicly funded?
Do we really
want to continue having a woefully inadequate primary healthcare system because
medical and nursing school graduates, faced with huge student debt, often
gravitate to communities where they can make big bucks? Or do we want to make
sure we have an appropriate number of medical personnel in the locations where
they are most needed?
The good news
is that a growing number of Americans – especially in the face of this pandemic
– believe that this dysfunctional and wasteful healthcare system must be
replaced. A poll conducted this month, for example, indicated that 69% of all
Americans – including 68% of independents and 88% of Democrats – support
providing Medicare to every American.
The bad news is
that the healthcare industry, which made more than $100bn in profits last year
and provides their CEOs with huge compensation packages, will do everything
possible to maintain the status quo. And don’t be fooled: they will lobby just
as hard against any lesser proposal as they will against Medicare for All,
buying politicians with campaign contributions and spending endless amounts of
money on lobbying and advertising.
There is no
question that this will be an enormous challenge – but we can win this struggle
if we engage people in the political process in a way we have never done
before. We are all in this together. In this unprecedented moment in American
history, let us stand united and harness the solidarity and compassion that so
many are now demonstrating. Let us, finally, guarantee healthcare to all our
people as a human right.
On this Giving
Tuesday ...
... we’re
asking readers like you to make a contribution in support of our independent
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PETITION TO
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FOR THOSE OF MY AGE RANGE
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JRR TOLKIEN
'1892-1973' - A Study Of The Maker Of Middle-earth
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J. R. R.
TOLKIEN
John Ronald
Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university
professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The
Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
Born: January
3, 1892, Bloemfontein, Free State
Died: September
2, 1973, Bournemouth
Movies: The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return Of
The King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Children:
Christopher Tolkien, John Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, Michael Tolkien
Education:
Exeter College, Oxford, University of Oxford
CHRISTOPHER
TOLKIEN
Christopher
Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien, and
is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published
work.
Born: November
21, 1924 (age 88), Leeds
Spouse: Baillie
Tolkien (m. 1967)
Children: Simon
Tolkien, Rachel Clare Reuel Tolkien, Adam Reuel Tolkien
Siblings: John
Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, Michael Tolkien
Parents: Edith
Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien
Category Film & Animation
1,170 Comments
The
Silmarillion
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
The
Silmarillion (Quenya: [silmaˈrilliɔn]) is a collection of mythopoeic works by
English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously by his son,
Christopher Tolkien, in 1977 with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay.[T 1] The
Silmarillion, along with J. R. R. Tolkien's other works, forms an extensive,
though incomplete, narrative that describes the universe of Eä in which are
found the lands of Valinor, Beleriand, Númenor, and Middle-earth, within which
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place. After the success of The
Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher requested a sequel, but rejected a draft of The
Silmarillion as obscure and "too Celtic"; he developed The Lord of
the Rings instead.
The
Silmarillion has five parts. The first, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of
Eä, the "world that is". Valaquenta, the second part, gives a
description of the Valar and Maiar, the supernatural powers in Eä. The next
section, Quenta Silmarillion, which forms the bulk of the collection,
chronicles the history of the events before and during the First Age, including
the wars over the Silmarils that gave the book its title. The fourth part,
Akallabêth, relates the history of the Downfall of Númenor and its people,
which takes place in the Second Age. The final part, Of the Rings of Power and
the Third Age, is a brief account of the circumstances which led to and were
presented in The Lord of the Rings.
The five parts
were initially separate works, but it was the elder Tolkien's express wish that
they be published together.[T 1] Because J. R. R. Tolkien died before he finished
revising the various legends, Christopher gathered material from his father's
older writings to fill out the book. In a few cases, this meant that he had to
devise completely new material, though within the tenor of his father's
thought, in order to resolve gaps and inconsistencies in the narrative.[2]
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