Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

Conservative activist family behind ‘grassroots’ anti-quarantine Facebook events

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A family-run network of pro-gun groups is behind five of the largest Facebook groups dedicated to protesting the shelter-in-place restrictions.

…The groups were set up by four brothers — Chris, Ben, Aaron and Matthew Dorr — and have amassed more than 200,000 members collectively, including in states where they don’t reside.

…The Dorr brothers are known in conservative circles for running pro-gun and anti-abortion rights Facebook groups that bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by antagonizing establishment conservative leaders and activists.

Their usual method is to attack established conservative groups from the right, including the National Rifle Association, and then make money by selling memberships in their groups or selling mailing lists of those who sign up.

…The Facebook groups started by the Dorrs each promote state-specific websites, which were registered with the same private registrar, and use similar language in their descriptions.

…The websites, such as ReOpenPA.com and ReOpenMN.com, were initially shared by the same network of pro-gun and anti-vaccination sites, [some of which were not in the same] region.

…The groups repeatedly warn users not to use off-site petition platforms like Change.org [which would not feed data back to the groups’ originators.]

…Their groups drive users to petitions on Dorr-registered websites, which collect users’ email and home addresses.

…This sort of Facebook activity is common, DiResta said, and it allows for a small group with money and media manipulation skills to simulate the appearance of a much larger movement. It also allows the group to harvest email addresses for future political campaigns, which can be bought and sold.

…DiResta said the tactics are often used to capitalize on legitimate political activism.

…”It provides an opportunity for someone who wants to piggyback on that outrage for, in this case, it seems like, outreach for future campaigns.”

Conservative activist family behind ‘grassroots’ anti-quarantine Facebook events

A sliver of what’s out there.

Indutex USA says FEMA seized N95 respirators for national stockpile

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,1 Comment

NPR reported last week that Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said his state’s order of millions of N95 masks was confiscated at a port in New York.

…George Gianforcaro, owner of the small, Newark, Delaware-based Indutex USA, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not pay him when it took possession of two imported shipments of masks bound for customers across the United States.

Those customers included Delaware nursing facilities, the state of Michigan and boat captains who steer foreign ships through U.S. bays.

…”Let’s not forget I paid $4 million for this product on March 18,” Gianforcaro said, referring to the million-mask order. “This is getting very, very expensive. I don’t have any money and I don’t have any product and there’s people that are asking for it.”

…While FEMA says it targets exporters, Gianforcaro’s customers for the N95 masks are domestic companies or governments, according to a list of purchase orders Gianforcaro shared with The Delaware News Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.

…Gianforcaro shared a written order that he says FEMA sent to his company. The document directed Indutex to sell to the federal government “all filtering facepiece respirators, including the N95 respirators contained within shipment number 8994645378 that arrived at JFK Airport” on April 6.

…That early April shipment of 100,000 N95 masks was followed by the arrival April 19 of 300,000 additional ones, which also were seized, Gianforcaro said.

Citing Defense Production Act authority, the FEMA document further ordered Indutex to “set aside” all N95 or surgical masks it may come to possess during the federal emergency for a potential sale to FEMA.

[FEMA Administrator Peter] Gaynor’s signature is written along the bottom of the document.

…In the order to Gianforcaro, [FEMA] said the shipment of masks would be sent to the Strategic National Stockpile.

…Last month, Delaware requested 10 million masks and more than 100 million gloves for what it expected to be a months-long fight against the coronavirus. Days later, the federal government asked the state to pare back the request and submit what it would need for a two-week surge.

As of early April, Delaware had been granted less than 1% of what it initially requested, according to leaked federal documents.

…In discussions with FEMA officials, [Gianforcaro] said he proposed a solution in which he could deliver masks to health facilities in the United States as directed by FEMA, rather than federal officials carrying out the logistics themselves. FEMA did not appear to [to be interested in] the proposal, he said.

Indutex USA says FEMA seized N95 respirators for national stockpile

atlantic cover crying uncle sam

Global famines of ‘biblical proportions’ will be caused by coronavirus pandemic, UN warns

On By peanutgallerynhIn International Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The world is facing multiple famines of “biblical proportions.” The UN has said, warning that the coronavirus pandemic will push an additional 130 million people to the brink of starvation.

Famines could take hold in “about three dozen countries” in a worst-case scenario. …Ten of those countries already have more than 1 million people on the verge of starvation.

…”There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of Covid-19 than from the virus itself.”

The WFP had already warned that 2020 would be a devastating year for numerous countries ravaged by poverty or war, with 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. Their updated projections nearly double that number.

…That scenario would push more than 1 billion people into dire situations.

…”Lockdowns and economic recession are expected to lead to a major loss of income among the working poor,” Beasley said. Overseas remittances will also drop sharply, affecting countries such as Haiti, Nepal, and Somalia, for example.

…Even before the outbreak of the coronavirus, food supplies in some of the most vulnerable regions in the world were being directly affected by impacts such as crop failures and locust swarms. [Yep, locusts. Cue the end of the world comments.]

Exceptional drought followed by extremely heavy rainfall markedly decreased the seasonal crop yield in the Horn of Africa during 2019. These irregular weather and climate patterns also contributed to the worst desert locust invasion in 25 years, which further threatened the crop supply in the region.

Global famines of ‘biblical proportions’ will be caused by coronavirus pandemic, UN warns – CNN

Seriously…. In the middle of all of this… Locusts??! those poor people.

Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services …assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared.

…..[Sec] Azar is a Republican lawyer who once clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and counts current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as a friend. Under George W. Bush, Azar worked for HHS as general counsel and deputy secretary. During the Obama years, he cycled through the private sector as a pharmaceutical company lobbyist and executive for Eli Lilly. After Trump’s first HHS secretary was forced out in a travel corruption scandal, Azar stepped in, in January 2018.

…[Although COVID-19 was] “potentially serious,” Azar assured viewers in America, it “was one for which we have a playbook.”

…He [understated] the pandemic’s severity. He also [overstated] his agency’s preparedness.

…“We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this,” Azar said. “We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site.”

…[The Trump administration] wouldn’t come up with viable tests for [another] five and half weeks.

…The first test created by the CDC, meant to be used by other labs, was plagued by a glitch that rendered it useless.

…Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19: Brian Harrison.

…Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.

The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sales price was $225,000.

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force – Reuters

Labradoodles. What a creative way to launder money.

‘I will not be bullied’: LaToya Cantrell firm in decisions about coronavirus stay-home orders

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Gulf Coast Region,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

“The data will drive us and not a specific date,” the mayor said several times during an afternoon press conference, where she took issue with a letter published in a full-page newspaper ad the day before by four prominent businessmen that said her moves threatened the city’s economy.

…Cantrell cast her critics as out of touch with the city’s public health needs. She also suggested they were prioritizing money over people’s lives.

“To the citizens of the city of New Orleans, please know that I will and have always continued to put the health of the people first. They are the priority. And not only that…. but you can be reassured that I will not be bullied,” Cantrell said.

…Cantrell said she has been in constant contact with leaders in other parishes and said she doesn’t believe it will be safe to hold festivals in the fall since it will be hurricane season and because the coronavirus pandemic is likely to remain active then.

‘I will not be bullied’: LaToya Cantrell firm in decisions about coronavirus stay-home orders | Coronavirus | nola.com

hmmm

A hospital’s secretive deal for coronavirus masks

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,1 Comment

It had all the markings of an illicit drug deal in a Hollywood movie: an encounter at a secret warehouse, with a last-minute sampling of the goods to make sure they were the real thing, a wire transfer of more than $1 million, and the sudden appearance of the FBI at the moment of handoff.

But this wasn’t about drugs. It was a deal cut by a Massachusetts hospital system for 250,000 scarce Chinese-made masks so its personnel could treat COVID-19 patients.

…At the warehouse, two empty trailer trucks stood at the ready, disguised as food-service delivery trucks. The idea was for them to take different routes back to Massachusetts to minimize the chance that the whole shipment might be diverted.

…The G-men examined Artenstein’s identification and checked his bona fides on Google. Eventually they allowed the boxes to be loaded on the trucks. But they still refused to let the trucks leave until they verified that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t want to claim the supplies first. (A call to the hospitals’ local Congress member’s office helped fend off any effort by that agency to get in the way.)

…“We were just on the trail of 1.2 million disposable gowns that were exactly what we were looking for,” he says. “It literally dissolved at midnight the other night — we were told it was stuck in Turkey, which may or may not be the case. But that’s as much as we could get in terms of rationale.”

…Other suppliers have explained failed deals by blaming the Department of Veterans Affairs or other states or other institutions or other suppliers for stepping in. “That’s what we’ve been told,” Artenstein says. “It’s possible we’ve been fed a story, but it’s hard to fact-check these things.”

Even when a supplier can be found, the system is paying as much as five times the pre-crisis price — $5 or more for N95 masks, which offer the best filtration against airborne contaminants, and which normally cost as little as 60 or 70 cents each.

…A system that should operate like clockwork has turned into a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum game in which frontline workers and patients are merely pawns. Is this any way to run a 21st century country?

Hiltzik: A hospital’s secretive deal for coronavirus masks – Los Angeles Times

sigh….

Why New Jersey’s unemployment insurance system uses COBOL.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Local Interest,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

COBOL systems process trillions of dollars of transactions daily for the world’s largest banks, which are clearly not strapped for the cash they’d need to make upgrades. COBOL might be deeply uncool, but it’s hardly a dead language.

…States have been starved of funding they need for running their unemployment insurance systems, money that under the 1935 Social Security Act is supposed to come from the federal government. According to a 2017 presentation by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, the federal funding available for state unemployment insurance agencies to upgrade their technology, pay workers, and cover other administrative expenses has been falling steadily for the past 25 years, dipping roughly 30 percent below mid-1990s levels. In a survey NASWA conducted of 40 states’ workforce agencies, more than half of respondents said their administrative budget shortfalls were either “serious” or “critical.” And things haven’t gotten better in the years that followed, with Congress making further budget cuts in 2018 and 2019. Even compared with other social safety net programs, the technology used for unemployment insurance is in particularly bad shape. They have “some of the most antiquated and least versatile computer systems among public agencies,” said Indivar Dutta-Gupta, co-executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. While states that upgrade their Medicaid websites and tech systems have their spending matched 9 to 1 by the federal government, he said, states that want to fix their unemployment insurance get no such help.*

…According to Dutta-Gupta, Congress would have preferred to raise the percentage of lost wages that insurance would replace, instead of giving everyone the same boost, but the states said it would take five months or longer to change the reimbursement percentage.

…When it comes to our broken social safety net, COBOL isn’t really the bad guy: blame Congress for underfunding the programs, and states for failing to make up the gaps.

…It appears that a functional website sometimes goes hand in hand with a state government that prioritizes the safety net: Before Congress expanded UI, Florida provided only 12 weeks of unemployment insurance, while Massachusetts provided 30 weeks, and Massachusetts’ weekly benefit amounts were roughly 40 percent higher for middle-income workers than Florida’s.

Why New Jersey’s unemployment insurance system uses COBOL.

hmmm

The rightwing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right.

On Wednesday in Lansing, Michigan, a protest put together by two Republican-connected not-for-profits was explicitly devised to cause gridlock in the city, and for a time blocked the entrance to a local hospital.

It was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which Michigan state corporate filings show has also operated under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans. It was also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.

…The pattern of rightwing not-for-profits promoting public protests while still more radical groups use lockdown resistance as a platform for extreme rightwing causes looks set to continue in events advertised in other states over coming days.

…The protest has been heavily promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which counts among its donors “dark money” funds linked to the Koch brothers such as Donors Capital Fund, and Castle Rock, a foundation seeded with part of the fortune of Adolph Coors, the rightwing beer magnate.

…Rodriguez’s website advises, “We feel that wearing face masks and gloves is counterproductive to the movement, and should be avoided”.

…Miller, who is active in the Kitsap county Republican party, was involved in passing a resolution in January in support of representative Matt Shea, who was excluded from the State House’s GOP caucus after a report commissioned by house found that he had participated in domestic terrorism.

The rightwing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions

A decent start to connecting the dots.

Donald J. Trump’s name will be on stimulus checks in unprecedented move

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, “President Donald J. Trump” will appear on the left side of the payment.

It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS disbursement, whether a routine refund or one of the handful of checks the government has issued to taxpayers in recent decades either to stimulate a down economy or share the dividends of a strong one.

Donald J. Trump’s name will be on stimulus checks in unprecedented move – The Washington Post

hmmm

U.S. probe unable to rule out White House influence on JEDI contract awarded to Microsoft, not Amazon

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Several officials said their conversations were privileged “presidential communications.”

…“We could not definitively determine the full extent or nature of interactions that administration officials had, or may have had, with senior DoD officials regarding the JEDI Cloud procurement because of the assertion of a ‘presidential communications privilege,’” the report said, referring to the Department of Defense by its acronym.

…Amazon has said the Defense Department’s decision to give the contract to Microsoft was full of “egregious errors,” which were a result of “improper pressure from [Trump.]”

U.S. probe unable to rule out White House influence on JEDI contract awarded to Microsoft, not Amazon – Reuters

hmmmm

Mutant Enzyme Recycles Plastic in Hours, Could Revolutionize Recycling Industry

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Mutant Enzyme Recycles Plastic in Hours, Could Revolutionize Recycling Industry – EcoWatch

That’s nice but…. Et tu, EcoWatch?

Step away from the plastic recycling kool-aid. Recycling plastic is an unsustainable mysth propagated by an industry that doesn’t want anyone to pay attention to how devastatingly unnecessary and toxic their product is.

Repeat after me morons, the only way to stop the tide of plastic overwhelming our water and our landfills is STOP USING PLASTIC PACKAGING.

As long as you are distracted by recycling, you are tacitly enabling the proliferation of unnecessary single use plastic and plastic packaging. Period.

Ben Lefebvre on Twitter

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Ben Lefebvre on Twitter: “The White House COVID task force paid taxpayer $ to help DuPont produce PPE material more quickly. DuPont returned the favor by charging the govt three times its normal rate for said PPE. https://t.co/nhyYY9KqXS” / Twitter

sigh….

War. Profiteers.

Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited ‘Empty’ Stockpile – FactCheck.org

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

More than once, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the federal stockpile of emergency medicine and supplies he inherited from his predecessor was an “empty shelf.”

While the government does not publicize all of the contents of the repository, at the time Trump took office, the Strategic National Stockpile, as it is formally known, reportedly contained vast amounts of materials that state and local health officials could use during an emergency, including vaccines, antiviral drugs, ventilators and protective gear for doctors and nurses.

…The Strategic National Stockpile was created in 1999, and, as of April 2, was described on a Department of Health and Human Services website as “the nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.” [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]

(That description was later altered to say, “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies.” The change was made after Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, said on April 2: “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

…[June 26, 2016] There are rows upon rows of ventilators that could keep sick or injured people breathing. Mabry explains that they’re kept in a constant state of readiness. “If you look down to the side you’ll see there’s electrical outlets so they can be charged once a month,” she says. Not only that—the ventilators get sent out for yearly maintenance.

In fact, everything here has to be inventoried once a year, and expiration dates have to be checked. Just tending to this vast stash costs a bundle — the stockpile program’s budget is more than half a billion dollars a year.

One of the reasons for the current supply shortage, she said: “We’ve allowed our own national capacity to manufacture things to degrade and in some places go away. And we’ve done that for cost-efficiency sake.”

She later added: “What we need is not a big stockpile. We need a new strategy. We need to use the technologies we have now to create the capacity to respond to something in close to real-time.”

That means being able to “rapidly design and manufacture what we need, when we need it, and the quantities demanded,” she said.

Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited ‘Empty’ Stockpile – FactCheck.org

hmmmm