Wednesday, April 01, 2020

"It's A Horrible Topic ... It's Incredibly Interesting ... They Can't Get Enough of It"

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Fun Fact: There are people who do not think these religious shows are comedy.
News! ... Each Article More Depressing Than The Last!

Taxpayers Paid Millions to Design a Low-Cost Ventilator for a Pandemic. Instead, the Company Is Selling Versions of It Overseas.
As coronavirus sweeps the globe, there is not a single Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator — developed with government funds — in the U.S. stockpile. Meanwhile, Royal Philips N.V. has sold higher-priced versions to clients around the world.
(ProPublica, March 30, 2020)

A Major Medical Staffing Company Just Slashed Benefits for Doctors and Nurses Fighting Coronavirus
Alteon Health, a staffing company backed by private-equity firm Frazier Healthcare Partners, will cut salaries, time off and retirement benefits for providers, citing lost revenue. Several hospital operators announced similar cuts.
(ProPublica, March 31, 2020)

'Taking Action Cost Me My Job.' Amazon Fires Worker Who Led Coronavirus Strike
(Time, March 31, 2020)
Chris Smalls, an Amazon fulfillment center employee, said he was fired after he led a strike at a Staten Island warehouse. A group of employees walked off the job last Monday, demanding Amazon (a company owned by the richest man in human history) close the facility for extended cleaning.

Stimulus Bill Allows Federal Reserve to Conduct Meetings in Secret; Gives Fed $454 Billion Slush Fund for Wall Street Bailouts
(Counterpunch, March 27, 2020)

Washington Uses the Pandemic to Create a $2 Trillion Slush Fund for Its Cronies
(Counterpunch, March 30, 2020)

Human Rights Advocates Slam Trump for Caving to Gun Lobby and Classifying Firearms Stores as Essential Businesses Amid Pandemic
"With hospitals at critically low capacity due to the pandemic, we cannot afford more injuries or deaths from gun violence."
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

"I Haven't Heard About Testing in Weeks": In Leaked Audio, Trump Dismisses Governors' Concerns About Lack of Coronavirus Equipment
"It would be shocking to me that... anyone who has had access to any newspaper, radio, social networks, or any other communication would not be knowledgeable about the need for test kits."
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

I Spent A Day In The Coronavirus-Driven Feeding Frenzy Of N95 Mask Sellers And Buyers And This Is What I Learned
[Millions Of N95 Masks & PPE Are Leaving America Every Day To Foreign Buyers]
Forbes (March 30, 2020)

Don't Just Blame Trump for the COVID-19 Crisis: the U.S. Has Been Becoming a Failed State for Some Time
(Counterpunch, March 27, 2020)

History's Verdict on Trump will be Devastating
(CNN, March 31, 2020)

Attack on Asian-Americans Was Virus-Fueled Hate Crime: Feds
Federal authorities say a Texas teenager stabbed three individuals in a Sam's Club this month because "he thought the family was Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus".
(The Daily Beast, March 31, 2020)

Fed Economists Warn US Unemployment Rate Could Soon Reach 32%—During Great Depression It Peaked at 25%
"These are very large numbers by historical standards, but this is a rather unique shock that is unlike any other experienced by the U.S. economy in the last 100 years."
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

'Critical Victory' for Reproductive Rights as Federal Judges Block Three States From Exploiting Coronavirus to Ban Abortion Care
"This is an important recognition of what we know to be true—abortion care is essential healthcare."
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

Trump Administration Finalizes Car Rule Which Will Worsen Economy, Public Health
This policy is bad for consumers, bad for public health, and bad for the environment.
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

Don't worry. Conservatives in Canada are acting like evil assholes, too.

A Shameful New Low': Amid COVID-19 Crisis, Alberta Govt. Ponies Up $1 Billion for Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
"We need billions of public dollars invested directly in vulnerable communities dying from COVID-19, not spent propping up massive oil companies and unneeded projects that would trample Indigenous rights and exacerbate the climate crisis."
(Common Dreams, March 31, 2020)

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Zohaib Begg, a seven-year-old boy from Ashburn, Virginia, has done far more to help Americans during this crisis than Donald Trump, a 73-year-old shitbag from TaxHaven-PeeTape, USA.

Zohaib has been going to hotels in the Ashburn area and asking if they had any shower caps to donate to hospitals. They did, and because hotels do not have much business right now, they also had stocks of gloves and face masks. Zohaib and his mother, Isma Zubair, collected more than 6,000 items. They donated them to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where Zohaib's aunt works in the emergency room and where he had emergency surgery to remove a tumor from his abdomen from when he was four years old.

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