Music: Till Brönner & Dieter Ilg — ‘Ach, bleib mit Deiner Gnade’
Trump officials encourage public to ignore the news as community transmission of coronavirus spreads in California
The Washington Post reports: California has a second case of community transmission of the coronavirus, a 65-year-old resident of Santa Clara County who has no known history of travel to countries hit hard by the outbreak, people familiar with the case said Friday. There is also no apparent connection between the new patient and anyone else with the disease caused by the virus, covid-19. On Wednesday, health authorities revealed the nation’s first case of community transmission, a woman in Solano…
Key missteps at CDC set back its ability to detect the potential spread of coronavirus
By Caroline Chen, Marshall Allen, Lexi Churchill and Isaac Arnsdorf, ProPublica, February 28, 2020 As the highly infectious coronavirus jumped from China to country after country in January and February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost valuable weeks that could have been used to track its possible spread in the United States because it insisted upon devising its own test. The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out…
Bernie Sanders can beat Trump. Here’s the math
Steve Phillips writes: Whatever you think about Bernie Sanders as a potential president, it is wrong to dismiss his chances of winning the office. Not only does most of the available empirical evidence show Mr. Sanders defeating President Trump in the national popular vote and in the critical Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College in 2016, but his specific electoral strengths align with changes in the composition of the country’s population in ways that could actually make him a…
When the billionaire family behind the opioid crisis needed PR help, they turned to Mike Bloomberg
By Hannah Dreier, ProPublica, February 28, 2020 Long celebrated as civic-minded philanthropists, the Sacklers were becoming pariahs. The billionaire family whose company created and pushed the addictive painkiller OxyContin had managed to escape connection with the opioid crisis for years, but now two magazine pieces were portraying them as pain profiteers. Museums that had sought their donations were being asked about giving the money back. Mortimer D.A. Sackler — son of a co-founder of the company, Purdue Pharma, and a…
Judge voids nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases, saying Trump policy undercut public input
The Washington Post reports: A federal judge in Idaho has voided nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases on federal lands in the West, saying that a Trump administration policy that limited public input on those leases was “arbitrary and capricious.” The ruling Thursday by U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush represented a win for environmentalists, who challenged the leasing policy as part of a broader effort to block drilling in habitat for the imperiled greater sage-grouse….
Syria: Why is the world indifferent to Idlib?
The United Nations has warned the world is facing the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century as the forces of President Bashar al-Assad close in on Syria’s last opposition stronghold, forcing more than one million people to flee into an ever shrinking space at the closed and fortified border with Turkey. The battle for Idlib has caused the biggest displacement of people so far in Syria’s nine-year civil war and more than half of the million people now…
Airstrike hits Turkish forces in Syria, raising fears of escalation
The New York Times reports: The Turkish Army suffered mass casualties in an airstrike in northwest Syria late Thursday, an attack that could dramatically change the course of the Syrian war as fears grow of a direct conflict between Russia and Turkey, a NATO member. At least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed and more than 30 wounded, said Rahmi Dogan, the Turkish governor of the southern province of Hatay, where the Turkish casualties were arriving. Turkish officials said the strike…
Music: Christian Prommer & Roberto di Gioia vs. The Crusaders — ‘Lilies of the Nile’
In a national emergency, America needs a president the nation can trust
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a special adviser to the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaking on MSNBC’s Hardball: "I found most of what he said incoherent." — Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel on Trump's press conference regarding the coronavirus. #Hardball pic.twitter.com/HIHxYLS1E5 — Hardball (@hardball) February 27, 2020 The New York Times reports: When Hurricane Dorian crashed into the Atlantic Coast in September, President Trump assumed a take-charge role in response. But he undermined his own effectiveness after it became apparent that…
Could coronavirus really trigger a recession?
Coronavirus seems to be on a collision course with the US economy and its 12-year bull market. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan By Michael Walden, North Carolina State University Fears are growing that the new coronavirus will infect the U.S. economy. U.S stocks are headed for their worst week since the 2008 financial crisis; companies including Apple and Walmart have been warning of potential sales losses from COVID-19 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans to prepare for…
Saudi Arabia suspends entry for pilgrims over coronavirus as U.S. sees first case of community transmission
AFP reports: Saudi Arabia on Thursday suspended visas for pilgrims wishing to visit Mecca over coronavirus fears, the foreign ministry said. The government is “suspending entry to the Kingdom for the purpose of Umrah and visiting the Prophet’s Mosque temporarily”, the foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of year. Umrah attracts tens of thousands of devout Muslims from all over the globe each month. The foreign…
Bernie Sanders, despite his age, promises a true break with the past
Jamelle Bouie writes: If he wins the nomination, whether outright or at the Democratic Party convention this summer, Senator Bernie Sanders will be the most left-wing politician ever nominated for president and the only self-described “socialist” to ever run on the ballot line for either of the two major parties. Many Democrats, especially moderates, think this is a disaster in waiting. They look back to 1972, when a different left-wing senator, George McGovern of South Dakota, was crushed by Richard…
Anand Giridharadas talks about the billionaire election
The 10th Democratic presidential debate took place Tuesday in Charleston, South Carolina, and two billionaires were at either end of the stage: Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. Front-runner Bernie Sanders, who has made attacking the power of the “billionaire class” a central theme of his campaign, stood in the middle. It was a visual representation of the split within the Democratic Party, in which a growing number of people are “rising up against plutocracy,” says Anand Giridharadas, editor-at-large at…
Why President Trump can’t pardon Roger Stone
Corey Brettschneider writes: Speculation that President Donald Trump might pardon Roger Stone has reached a fever pitch after Stone’s sentencing by a federal judge and the president’s repeated hints that he thinks the verdict unfair. But fortunately, the Constitution’s framers imagined this nightmare scenario—a suspected criminal president pardoning a co-conspirator—and they put in the Constitution language to legally prohibit the pardon power in exactly this kind of case. Both the plain meaning of the Constitution’s text and the historical evidence…
Indigenous people may be the Amazon’s last hope
Collecting firewood on the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state, Brazil, Oct. 13, 2017. A new bill could open Brazil’s Native lands to development. APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images By Robert T. Walker, University of Florida; Aline A. Carrara, University of Florida; Cynthia S. Simmons, University of Florida, and Maira I Irigaray, University of Florida Brazil’s divisive President Jair Bolsonaro has taken another step in his bold plans to develop the Amazon rainforest. A bill he is sponsoring, now before…