Category: Media and Culture,

Elizabeth Warren Is Everywhere On Coronavirus Response

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

Even before she left the presidential race, Warren had worked to shape seemingly every element of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the steep recession that is almost certainly coming with it. Her proposal to bar companies who receive bailout funds from stock buybacks has been endorsed by even conservative Republicans, and she worked with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to make canceling student debt part of the Democratic Party’s proposed response to the crisis.

She’s peppered seemingly every branch of President Donald Trump’s administration with letters demanding details on how they’re responding, sending more than 25 letters to different branches and agencies, covering everyone from the Federal Communications Commission to the National Institutes of Health to Vice President Mike Pence’s office. 

“This is not my first rodeo,” Warren said.

… On Tuesday, she rolled out a list of eight conditions she argued should be placed on any company that receives government funds to help stay afloat during the pandemic, including a permanent ban on stock buybacks, a three-year ban on dividends or executive bonuses and setting aside board seats for employee-elected representatives.

…Warren’s role in the debate shows she’s continuing to function as the Democratic Party’s ideas factory even after her presidential campaign sputtered.

To Warren allies, it makes perfect sense that the second-term senator would grieve the end of her campaign by making policy. Warren’s original rise to political prominence was a result of the similarly complicated and all-encompassing 2008 financial crisis, and Warren released plans to deal with both a pandemic and a financial collapse during her 2020 run for the presidency.

…“If anyone is going to listen to anybody on how to get out of this, it’s going to be Elizabeth Warren,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic strategist.

Why Elizabeth Warren Is Everywhere On Coronavirus Response | HuffPost

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DOJ Wants to Suspend Constitutional Rights for Coronavirus Emergency

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan.

While the asks from the Department of Justice will likely not come to fruition with a Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, they demonstrate how much this White House has a frightening disregard for rights enumerated in the Constitution.

The DOJ has requested Congress allow any chief judge of a district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation,” according to draft language obtained by Politico. This would be applicable to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil processes and proceedings.”

…Enacting legislation like the DOJ wants would essentially suspend habeas corpus indefinitely until the emergency ended. Further, DOJ asked Congress to suspend the statute of limitations on criminal investigations and civil proceedings during the emergency until a year after it ended.

…They also asked Congress to pass a law saying that immigrants who test positive for COVID-19 cannot qualify as asylum seekers.

As coronavirus spreads through the country, activists are calling on politicians in office to release prisoners and immigrants held in detention centers, both of which can be a hotbed of virus activity with so many people in close quarters and limited or non-existent supplies of soap, sanitizer, and protective equipment.

DOJ Wants to Suspend Constitutional Rights for Coronavirus Emergency – Rolling Stone

Unamerican asshats

‘Nature is taking back Venice’: wildlife returns to tourist-free city

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

La Serenissima’s hundreds of canals have been emptied of speeding motorboat taxis, transport and tourist boats. The chugging vaporetti water buses now run on a reduced timetable. Even most of the gondolas are moored.

The clarity of the water has improved dramatically. Cormorants have returned to dive for fish they can now see.

…The reason is the absence of motorised transport, which normally churns up the muddy canal floor.

….In a queue to buy fish at his local fishmonger in Canareggio, Franco Fabris, an architect, reminisced: “When I was a kid growing up, there were far less boats in the canals and lots of kids would jump in and go swimming.”

“For the moment I am not going out fishing as all the restaurants I supply have closed, so what is the point?” said Franco Folin, a fisherman. “But when this all over, we may well see more fish returning because for the moment pleasure fishing is prohibited – there will be an awful lot of extra marine life in the lagoon.”

‘Nature is taking back Venice’: wildlife returns to tourist-free city | Environment | The Guardian

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What historians hear as Trump describes coronavirus: racism

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,Leave a comment

From the plague to SARS, whenever an outbreak spread, racism and xenophobia weren’t far behind.

…”Jewish populations were accused of deliberately poisoning the wells and causing the plague. We know examples of this from many places in Europe,” Varlik says.

As rumors spread, Jews were killed, buried alive and burned at the stake. 

…An 1832 cholera outbreak “was very largely blamed on Irish Catholic immigrants,” Kraut says.

“This is in part because this was also the period of the Second Great Awakening, of intense Protestant evangelism, and Catholics were always the target of that,’ he says. “They attributed the presence of the epidemic to the ‘filthiness’ and ‘ignorance’ of Irish Catholic immigrants.”

“Whenever there’s a crisis like an epidemic, people immediately look for who to blame. And groups that have already been stigmatized are natural targets,” Kraut says.

…”During an outbreak of smallpox in San Francisco in 1876, a population of 30,000 Chinese living there became medical scapegoats, Chinatown was blamed as a ‘laboratory of infection,’ and quarantined amidst renewed calls to halt immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Act, the first immigration law based on race, was enacted in 1882,” Lee noted in a recent essay for Salon.

“As soon as the immigration started to increase, that is when the job prospects for white laborers became threatened, and that is when the rumors about Chinese being disease vectors began,” she told CNN.

What historians hear as Trump describes coronavirus – CNN

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Democratic primary: no election rigging against Sanders for Biden – Vox

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

Experts who’ve studied actual rigged elections in places like Russia say the notion that the Democratic primary is being “rigged” is completely bogus — and they warn that perpetuating this narrative could deeply harm the legitimacy of the election, and faith in US democracy itself.

…Are there misgivings to be had about the way that people of color and minorities were covered during this election and the way that the female candidates were covered by the media? Absolutely. Is that election rigging? No.

A lot of the other commentary I saw, particularly from some Sanders supporters, was that the fact that moderates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg endorsed Biden was some sort of election rigging. That’s a normal political process that happens all the time. That’s not rigging.

…The fact that US states are the ones administering elections means there is less room for top-down corruption or top-down rigging. …States so firmly hold onto that control. They have the right to purchase voting machines, they have the right to set what ballots look like. They have the right to set the rules and regulations for how elections are run in their states.

So it’s very, very difficult to organize some sort of top-down effort, especially in some cases where those election officials may not be of the same political party as you.

…Even the allegation of election rigging might discourage some people from going out and voting. That was worrisome when President Trump said that the election was rigged in the 2016 campaign, and it’s worrisome now when we have candidates on the left and the right saying the same thing.

Democratic primary: no election rigging against Sanders for Biden – Vox

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Kremlin In Denial Over Clear Evidence of Russian COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign

On By peanutgallerynhIn Central Northern Asia and The Caucasus,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Sputnik’s affiliate in Belarus published a story claiming the virus is an “Anglo-Saxon” plot to counter China. EUvsDisinfo also cited a report by Sputnik’s affiliate in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia occupied by Russian troops, which claimed the epidemic had been turned into a “weapon” for “information warfare” by the West.

In another case, Sputnik’s Armenian affiliate put out a story claiming, without any evidence, that the COVID-19 virus was created in a U.S. laboratory. Sputnik Latvia ran an article suggesting the virus could have originated in Latvia.

EUvsDisinfo also cited disinformation that appeared on websites that are not owned by the Russian government but regularly promote Kremlin talking points.

‘Russophobic’: Kremlin Denies Evidence of Russian COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign

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The Simple Reason the Left Won’t Stop Losing

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

It’s an old problem, one that has long undermined left-wing movements in this country. They have often prioritized purity over victory. They wouldn’t necessarily put it these terms, but they have chosen to lose on their terms rather than win with compromise.

…By designing campaign strategies for the America they want, rather than the one that exists, progressives have done a favor to their political opponents. They have refused to make tactical retreats, which is why they keep losing.

Opinion | The Simple Reason the Left Won’t Stop Losing – The New York Times

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How Three Coastal Churches Became Hubs of Climate Resilience

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Religion,Leave a comment

With the help of an ecological restoration company, they coaxed back to the surface the stream that had been diverted through stormwater pipes and built a cascading streambed, with step pools and weirs—low dams to slow water flow—to filter the water as it makes its way toward Back Creek.

…In an age of climate crisis, marshes like this one are critical: As sea levels rise, marshes engage in a kind of dance with the rising tides through a process called accretion. …The marsh is also a carbon sink, more effective at sequestering carbon than the equivalent area of dry land.

By restoring their land to serve its intended purpose, the church created a climate sanctuary: absorbing higher tides, filtering polluted stormwater from extreme rain events, hosting displaced creatures, and drawing carbon out of the air.

…Three hurricanes, in 2015, 2016, and 2017, pummeled Crosstowne, each dumping enough water to require a massive rebuild of the sanctuary. After the third flood, the church interior was rebuilt in two weeks, but the church recognized that rebuilding wasn’t enough. The leadership team at Crosstowne decided to do something unusual for a church: gather scientific data. They hired a hydrology team and an environmental lawyer to analyze the onshore causes of the flooding so that the church could serve as a trustworthy hub of communication with their neighbors and the city.

The study found that as climate change exacerbates rainfall intensity, unsustainable development results in water flowing over concrete rather than percolating into the soil. When rain falls, streets and storm drains are inundated with more water than they can handle, and the excess water ends up 3 feet deep in the sanctuary of Crosstowne. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, by the end of the century heavy rainfall events in the Southeast U.S. are expected to double, and the amount of water falling on extreme rain days will increase by 21 percent. As more rain falls on hard surfaces around Charleston, Crosstowne has realized it will be underwater more frequently.

With their data-driven study, Crosstowne became experts on flooding in the area around Charleston’s Church Creek Basin. Rienzo worked with the city to develop new stormwater retention guidelines, reshaping how development is done in Charleston. The benefits of Crosstowne’s work extended beyond its walls, to local homeowners who “were looking at buyouts, flooding, delays,” Rienzo told the local Live 5 News. “So we began to see we were not just doing this study for ourselves. It was a study to do for the community around us.”

How Three Coastal Churches Became Hubs of Climate Resilience | Sojourners

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A sneaky attempt to end encryption is worming its way through Congress – The Verge

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

It’s not clear that companies have to “earn” what are already protections provided under the First Amendment: to publish, and to allow their users to publish, with very few legal restrictions. But if the EARN IT Act were passed, tech companies could be held liable if their users posted illegal content. This would represent a significant and potentially devastating amendment to Section 230, a much-misunderstood law that many consider a pillar of the internet and the businesses that operate on top of it.

When internet companies become liable for what their users post, those companies aggressively moderate speech. This was the chief outcome of FOSTA-SESTA, the last bill Congress passed to amend Section 230. It was putatively written to eliminate sex trafficking, and was passed into law after Facebook endorsed it. 

…One item on that checklist could be eliminating end-to-end encryption in messaging apps, depriving the world of a secure communications tool at a time when authoritarian governments are surging around the world. 

…The bill’s backers have not said definitively that they will demand a backdoor for law enforcement (and whoever else can find it) as part of the EARN IT Act. (In fact, Blumenthal denies it.) But nor have they written the bill to say they won’t. And Graham, one of the bill’s cosponsors, left little doubt on where he stands:

“Facebook is talking about end-to-end encryption which means they go blind,” Sen Graham said, later adding, “We’re not going to go blind and let this abuse go forward in the name of any other freedom.”

Graham raises the prospect that the federal government will get what it has long wanted — greatly expanded power to surveil our communications — by burying it in a complex piece of legislation that is nominally about reducing the spread of child abuse imagery.

A sneaky attempt to end encryption is worming its way through Congress – The Verge

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