truthout--2020-05-19--Religious Fundamentalism Impairs COVID-19 Response Across Nations

This spring , the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism — this time in two countries that think of themselves as polar opposites and enemies : Supreme Leader Ali Khameini ’ s Iran and Donald Trump ’ s America .
On the U.S. side of things , New Orleans pastor Tony Spell , for instance , has twice been arrested for holding church services without a hint of social distancing , despite a ban on such gatherings .
His second arrest was for preaching while wearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death of at least one of his church members .
The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin ’ s famed Origin of the Species , arguing as it did for natural selection ( which many American evangelicals still reject ) , might be considered the origin point for the modern conflict between religious beliefs and science , a struggle that has shaped our culture in powerful ways .
Unexpectedly , given Iran ’ s reputation for religious obscurantism , the science-minded in the nineteenth and twentieth century often took heart from a collection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or “ quatrains , ” attributed to the medieval Iranian astronomer Omar Khayyam , who died in 1131 .
Edward FitzGerald ’ s loose translation of those poems , also published in 1859 , put Khayyam on the map as a medieval Muslim free-thinker and became a century-and-a-half-long sensation in the midst of heated debates about the relationship between science and faith in the West .
Avowed atheist Clarence Darrow , the famed defense attorney at the 1925 “ monkey trial ” of a Tennessee educator who broke state law by teaching evolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Rubáiyát .
He often quoted it in his closing arguments , observing that for Khayyam the “ mysticisms of philosophy and religion alike were hollow and bare.
” To be fair , some religious leaders , including Pope Francis and Iraq ’ s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani , have followed the most up-to-date science , as Covid-19 spread globally , by supporting social-distancing measures to deal with the virus .
When he still went by the name of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and lived in Buenos Aires , the Pope earned a high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually knows something about science .
Indeed , the Catholic Church in Brazil has impressively upheld the World Health Organization ’ s guidelines for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic , defying the secular government of far right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro , that country ’ s Donald Trump .
Brazil ’ s president has notoriously ignored his nation ’ s public-health crisis , dismissed the coronavirus as a “ little flu , ” and tried to exempt churches from state government mandates that they close .
The archbishop of the hard-hit city of Manaus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact , publicly complained that Brazilians are not taking the virus seriously enough as it runs rampant in the country .
Church authorities worry about the strain government inaction is putting on Catholic hospitals and clinics , as well as the devastation the disease is wreaking in the region .
Here , we witness not a dispute between religion and science but between varieties of religion .
Pope Francis ’ s Catholicism remains open to science , whereas Bolsonaro , although born a Catholic , became an evangelical and , in 2016 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Jordan River .
He now plays to the 22 % of Brazilians who have adopted conservative Protestantism , as well as to Catholics who are substantially more conservative than the current pope .
While some U.S. evangelicals are open to science , a Pew Charitable Trust poll found that they , too , are far more likely than the non-religious to reject the very idea of evolution , not to speak of the findings of climate science ( action on which Pope Francis has supported in a big way ) .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ religious leaders have failed the test of reasoned public policy in outrageous ways .
Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne , railing at “ tyrannical government , ” refused to close his mega-church in Florida until the local police arrested him in March .
He even insisted that church members in those services of 500 or more true believers should continue to shake hands with one another because “ we ’ re raising up revivalists , not pansies.
” As he saw it , his River Tampa Bay Church was the “ safest place ” around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ salvation.
” Only in early April did he finally move his services online and it probably wasn ’ t to protect the health of his congregation either .
His insurance company had cancelled on him after his arrest and his continued defiance of local regulations .
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis muddied the waters further in early April by finally issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order that exempted churches as “ essential services.
” Then , after only a month , he abruptly reopened the state anyway .
DeSantis , who had run a Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risen on Donald Trump ’ s coattails , has a sizeable evangelical constituency and , in their actions , he and Pastor Howard-Browne have hardly been alone .
It tells you all you need to know that , by early May , more than 30 evangelical pastors had died of Covid-19 across the Bible Belt .
Two Epicenters of the Pandemic In the Muslim equivalent of the Bible Belt , the clerical leader of Iran , Ali Khamenei , stopped shaking hands and limited visits to his office in early February , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic go forward unimpeded .
Then , on February 24th , he also allowed national parliamentary elections to proceed on hopes of entrenching yet more of his hardline fundamentalist supporters — the equivalent of America ’ s evangelicals — in Iran ’ s legislature .
Meanwhile , its other religious leaders continued to resist strong Covid-19 mitigation measures until late March , even as the country was besieged by the virus .
Deputy Minister of Health Iraj Harirchi caught the spirit of the moment by rejecting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seriousness of the outbreak in his country , only to contract Covid-19 himself and die of it .
The virus initially exploded in the holy city of Qom , said to have been settled in the eighth century by descendants of the Prophet Muhammad .
It ’ s filled with a myriad of religious seminaries and has a famed shrine to one of those descendants , Fatima Masoumeh .
In late February , even after government officials began to urge that the shrine be closed , its clerical custodians continued to call for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ typically touch the brass latticework around Fatima Masoumeh ’ s tomb and sometimes kiss it , a classic method for passing on the disease .
Its custodians ( like those American evangelical pastors ) continued to believe that the holiness of the shrine would protect the pilgrims .
They may also have been concerned about their loss of income if pilgrims from all over the world stopped showing up .
Despite having a theocratic government in which clerics wield disproportionate power , Iran also has a significant and powerful scientific and engineering establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even if some of them are also devout Shiite Muslims .
In the end , as the virus gripped the country and deaths spiked , the scientists briefly won and the government of President Hassan Rouhani instituted some social-distancing measures for the public , including canceling Friday prayers and closing shrines in March , though — as in Florida — those measures did not last long .
In this way , as the U.S. emerged as the global epicenter of the pandemic , so Iran emerged as its Middle Eastern one .
Call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Superstition was only part of the problem .
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blamed the Trump administration ’ s sanctions and financial blockade of the country for the government ’ s weak response , since the Iranians had difficulty even paying for much-needed imported medical equipment like ventilators .
Indeed , the U.S. government has also had Iran kicked off global banking exchanges and threatened third-party sanctions against any companies doing business with it .
President Trump , however , denied that the U.S. had blockaded medical imports to that country , a statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in any other sense .
The full range of U.S. sanctions had indeed erected a formidable barrier to Iran ’ s importation of medical equipment , despite attempts by the European Union ( which opposes Trump ’ s maximum pressure campaign against Iran ) to allow companies to sell medical supplies to Tehran .
Still , as with Trump ’ s policies in the U.S. ( including essentially ignoring the virus for months ) , Iranian government policy must be held significantly responsible for the failure to stem the coronavirus tide , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official figures , resulted in more than 100,000 cases and some 7,000 deaths ( numbers which will , in the end , undoubtedly prove significant undercounts ) .
Whether in America or Iran , fundamentalist religion ( or , in the U.S. case , a Trumpian and Republican urge to curry favor with it ) often made for dismally bad public policy during the first wave of Covid-19 .
Among other things , it encouraged people , whether in religious institutions in both countries or in American anti-shutdown protests , to engage in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but others .
Ironically , the conflict in each country between defiant pastors or mullahs and scientists on this issue should bring to mind the culture wars of the early twentieth century and the place of the Iranian poetry of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in what was then largely a Western debate .
That makes those poems worthy of reconsideration in this perilous moment of ours .
As I wrote in the introduction to my new translation of the Rubáiyát : “ The message of the poems… is that life has no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Death is near and we might not live to exhale the breath we just took in .
The afterlife is a fairy tale for children… The only way to get past this existential unfairness is to enjoy life , to love someone , and to get intimate with good wine .
On the other hand , there is no reason to be mean-spirited to other people.
” Some of the appeal of this poetry to past millions came from the dim view it took of then ( as now ) robust religious obscurantism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ No poem had given me so much pleasure before… It is the only poem that I have ever carried about with me ; it has not been from under my hand for 28 years.
” Thomas Hardy , the British novelist and champion of Darwin , wove its themes into some of his best-known fiction .
Robert Frost wrote his famous ( and famously bleak ) poem “ Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Night ” with Khayyam ’ s quatrains in mind .
Beat poet Jack Kerouac modeled Sal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novel On the Road , on his idea of what Khayyam might have been like .
Although compilers have always attributed those poems to that great astronomer and mathematician of the Seljuk era , it ’ s clear that they were actually written by later Iranian figures who used Khayyam as a “ frame author , ” perhaps for fear of reaction to the religious skepticism deeply embedded in the poetry ( in the same way that the Thousand and One Nights tales composed in Cairo , Aleppo , and Baghdad over centuries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The bulk of those verses first appeared at the time of the Mongol invasion of Iran in the 1200s , a bloody moment that threw the region into turmoil and paralysis just as Covid-19 has brought our world to an abrupt and chaotic halt .
As if the war ’ s urban destruction and piles of skulls weren ’ t enough , historians have argued that the Mongols , who opened up trade routes from Asia into the Middle East , also inadvertently facilitated the westward spread of the Yersina pestis bacillus that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Black Death , a pandemic that would wipe out nearly half of China ’ s population and a third of Europe ’ s .
A fifteenth-century scribe in the picturesque Iranian city of Shiraz would , in fact , create the first anthology of quatrains entitled The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam , many composed during Mongol rule and the subsequent pandemic .
The dangers of what we would now call religious fundamentalism , as opposed to an enlightened spirituality , were trumpeted throughout those poems : While some turn to theology for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urged instead that all of us be aggressively here and now , trying to wring every last pleasure out of our worldly life before it abruptly vanishes : The poetry ridicules some religious beliefs , using the fantasies of astrology as a proxy target for the fatalism of orthodox religion .
The authors may have felt safer attacking horoscopes than directly taking on Iran ’ s powerful clergy .
Astronomers know that the heavenly bodies , far from dictating the fate of others , revolve in orbits that make their future position easy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the lives of complex and unpredictable human beings ( just as , for instance , you could never have predicted that American evangelicals would opt to back a profane , womanizing , distinctly of-this-world orange-faced presidential candidate in 2016 and thereafter ) : Wars and pandemics choose winners and losers and — as we ’ re learning all too grimly in the world of 2020 — the wealthy are generally so much better positioned to protect themselves from catastrophe than the poor .
To its eternal credit , the Rubáiyát ( unlike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ religious leadership ) took the side of the latter , pointing out that religious fatalism and superstitions like astrology are inherently supportive of a rotten status quo in which the poor are the first to be sacrificed , whether to pandemics or anything else : In our own perilous times , right-wing fundamentalist governments like those in Brazil and the United States , as well as religious fundamentalist ones as in Iran , have made the coronavirus outbreak far more virulent and dangerous by encouraging religious gatherings at a time when the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by social distancing .
Their willingness to blithely set aside reason and science out of a fatalistic and misguided faith in a supernatural providence that overrules natural law ( or , in Donald Trump ’ s case , a fatalistic and misguided faith in his own ability to overrule natural laws , not to speak of providence ) has been responsible for tens of thousands of deaths around the world .
Think of it as , in spirit , a fundamentalist version of genocide .
The pecuniary motives of some of this obscurantism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mosques depend on contributions from congregants at services for the livelihood of imams and pastors .
Their willingness to prey on the gullibility of their followers in a bid to keep up their income stream should be considered the height of hypocrisy and speaks to the importance of people never surrendering their capacity for independent , critical reasoning .
Though you might not have noticed it on Donald Trump ’ s and Ali Khameini ’ s planet , religion seems to be in the process of collapsing , at least in the industrialized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that they have no religion at all and just 45 % consider themselves Catholic ( with perhaps only half of those being relatively committed to the faith ) , while only 5 % attend church regularly .
A majority of young people in 12 European countries claim that they now have no religion , pointing to a secular future for much of the continent .
Even in peculiarly religious America , self-identification as Christian has plunged to 65 % of the population , down 12 % in the past decade , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having a religion at all .
In post-pandemic Iran , don ’ t be surprised if similar feelings spread , given how the religious leadership functionally encouraged the devastation of Covid-19 .
In this way , despite military threats , economic sanctions , and everything else , Donald Trump ’ s America and Ali Khameini ’ s Iran truly have something in common .
In the U.S. , where it ’ s easier to measure what ’ s happening , evangelicals , more than a fifth of the population when George W. Bush @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are 16 % of it two decades later .
Given the unpredictable nature of our world ( as the emergence of Covid-19 has made all too clear ) , nothing , secularization included , is a one-way street .
Religion is perfectly capable of experiencing revivals .
Still , there is no surer way to tip the balance toward an Omar Khayyam-style skepticism than for prominent religious leaders to guide their faithful , and all those in contact with them , into a new wave of the pandemic .

This spring, the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism — this time in two countries that think of themselves as polar opposites and enemies: Supreme Leader Ali Khameini’s Iran and Donald Trump’s America.
On the U.S. side of things, New Orleans pastor Tony Spell, for instance, has twice been arrested for holding church services without a hint of social distancing, despite a ban on such gatherings. His second arrest was for preaching while wearing an ankle monitor and despite the Covid-19 death of at least one of his church members.
The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s famed Origin of the Species, arguing as it did for natural selection (which many American evangelicals still reject), might be considered the origin point for the modern conflict between religious beliefs and science, a struggle that has shaped our culture in powerful ways. Unexpectedly, given Iran’s reputation for religious obscurantism, the science-minded in the nineteenth and twentieth century often took heart from a collection of Persian poems, the Rubáiyát, or “quatrains,” attributed to the medieval Iranian astronomer Omar Khayyam, who died in 1131.
Edward FitzGerald’s loose translation of those poems, also published in 1859, put Khayyam on the map as a medieval Muslim free-thinker and became a century-and-a-half-long sensation in the midst of heated debates about the relationship between science and faith in the West. Avowed atheist Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney at the 1925 “monkey trial” of a Tennessee educator who broke state law by teaching evolution, was typical in his love of the Rubáiyát. He often quoted it in his closing arguments, observing that for Khayyam the “mysticisms of philosophy and religion alike were hollow and bare.”
To be fair, some religious leaders, including Pope Francis and Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have followed the most up-to-date science, as Covid-19 spread globally, by supporting social-distancing measures to deal with the virus. When he still went by the name of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and lived in Buenos Aires, the Pope earned a high school chemical technician’s diploma and actually knows something about science. Indeed, the Catholic Church in Brazil has impressively upheld the World Health Organization’s guidelines for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, defying the secular government of far right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, that country’s Donald Trump. Brazil’s president has notoriously ignored his nation’s public-health crisis, dismissed the coronavirus as a “little flu,” and tried to exempt churches from state government mandates that they close. The archbishop of the hard-hit city of Manaus in the Amazon region has, in fact, publicly complained that Brazilians are not taking the virus seriously enough as it runs rampant in the country. Church authorities worry about the strain government inaction is putting on Catholic hospitals and clinics, as well as the devastation the disease is wreaking in the region.
Here, we witness not a dispute between religion and science but between varieties of religion. Pope Francis’s Catholicism remains open to science, whereas Bolsonaro, although born a Catholic, became an evangelical and, in 2016, was even baptized as a pastor in the Jordan River. He now plays to the 22% of Brazilians who have adopted conservative Protestantism, as well as to Catholics who are substantially more conservative than the current pope. While some U.S. evangelicals are open to science, a Pew Charitable Trust poll found that they, too, are far more likely than the non-religious to reject the very idea of evolution, not to speak of the findings of climate science (action on which Pope Francis has supported in a big way).
Death in the Bible Belt
In the U.S., a variety of evangelical religious leaders have failed the test of reasoned public policy in outrageous ways. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, railing at “tyrannical government,” refused to close his mega-church in Florida until the local police arrested him in March. He even insisted that church members in those services of 500 or more true believers should continue to shake hands with one another because “we’re raising up revivalists, not pansies.”
As he saw it, his River Tampa Bay Church was the “safest place” around because it was the site of “salvation.” Only in early April did he finally move his services online and it probably wasn’t to protect the health of his congregation either. His insurance company had cancelled on him after his arrest and his continued defiance of local regulations.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis muddied the waters further in early April by finally issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order that exempted churches as “essential services.” Then, after only a month, he abruptly reopened the state anyway. DeSantis, who had run a Facebook group dominated by racist comments and had risen on Donald Trump’s coattails, has a sizeable evangelical constituency and, in their actions, he and Pastor Howard-Browne have hardly been alone.
It tells you all you need to know that, by early May, more than 30 evangelical pastors had died of Covid-19 across the Bible Belt.
Two Epicenters of the Pandemic
In the Muslim equivalent of the Bible Belt, the clerical leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, stopped shaking hands and limited visits to his office in early February, but he let mass commemorations of the 41st anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic go forward unimpeded. Then, on February 24th, he also allowed national parliamentary elections to proceed on hopes of entrenching yet more of his hardline fundamentalist supporters — the equivalent of America’s evangelicals — in Iran’s legislature. Meanwhile, its other religious leaders continued to resist strong Covid-19 mitigation measures until late March, even as the country was besieged by the virus. Deputy Minister of Health Iraj Harirchi caught the spirit of the moment by rejecting social-distancing measures in February while downplaying the seriousness of the outbreak in his country, only to contract Covid-19 himself and die of it.
The virus initially exploded in the holy city of Qom, said to have been settled in the eighth century by descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s filled with a myriad of religious seminaries and has a famed shrine to one of those descendants, Fatima Masoumeh. In late February, even after government officials began to urge that the shrine be closed, its clerical custodians continued to call for pilgrims to visit it. Those pilgrims typically touch the brass latticework around Fatima Masoumeh’s tomb and sometimes kiss it, a classic method for passing on the disease. Its custodians (like those American evangelical pastors) continued to believe that the holiness of the shrine would protect the pilgrims. They may also have been concerned about their loss of income if pilgrims from all over the world stopped showing up.
Despite having a theocratic government in which clerics wield disproportionate power, Iran also has a significant and powerful scientific and engineering establishment that looks at the world differently, even if some of them are also devout Shiite Muslims. In the end, as the virus gripped the country and deaths spiked, the scientists briefly won and the government of President Hassan Rouhani instituted some social-distancing measures for the public, including canceling Friday prayers and closing shrines in March, though — as in Florida — those measures did not last long.
In this way, as the U.S. emerged as the global epicenter of the pandemic, so Iran emerged as its Middle Eastern one. Call it an irony of curious affinity. Superstition was only part of the problem. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blamed the Trump administration’s sanctions and financial blockade of the country for the government’s weak response, since the Iranians had difficulty even paying for much-needed imported medical equipment like ventilators. Indeed, the U.S. government has also had Iran kicked off global banking exchanges and threatened third-party sanctions against any companies doing business with it.
President Trump, however, denied that the U.S. had blockaded medical imports to that country, a statement that was technically true, but false in any other sense. The full range of U.S. sanctions had indeed erected a formidable barrier to Iran’s importation of medical equipment, despite attempts by the European Union (which opposes Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran) to allow companies to sell medical supplies to Tehran.
Still, as with Trump’s policies in the U.S. (including essentially ignoring the virus for months), Iranian government policy must be held significantly responsible for the failure to stem the coronavirus tide, which by early May had, according to official figures, resulted in more than 100,000 cases and some 7,000 deaths (numbers which will, in the end, undoubtedly prove significant undercounts).
A Rubáiyát World
Whether in America or Iran, fundamentalist religion (or, in the U.S. case, a Trumpian and Republican urge to curry favor with it) often made for dismally bad public policy during the first wave of Covid-19. Among other things, it encouraged people, whether in religious institutions in both countries or in American anti-shutdown protests, to engage in reckless behavior that endangered not just themselves but others. Ironically, the conflict in each country between defiant pastors or mullahs and scientists on this issue should bring to mind the culture wars of the early twentieth century and the place of the Iranian poetry of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in what was then largely a Western debate.
That makes those poems worthy of reconsideration in this perilous moment of ours. As I wrote in the introduction to my new translation of the Rubáiyát:
“The message of the poems… is that life has no obvious meaning and is heartbreakingly short. Death is near and we might not live to exhale the breath we just took in. The afterlife is a fairy tale for children… The only way to get past this existential unfairness is to enjoy life, to love someone, and to get intimate with good wine. On the other hand, there is no reason to be mean-spirited to other people.”
Some of the appeal of this poetry to past millions came from the dim view it took of then (as now) robust religious obscurantism. The irreverent Mark Twain once marveled, “No poem had given me so much pleasure before… It is the only poem that I have ever carried about with me; it has not been from under my hand for 28 years.” Thomas Hardy, the British novelist and champion of Darwin, wove its themes into some of his best-known fiction. Robert Frost wrote his famous (and famously bleak) poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Night” with Khayyam’s quatrains in mind. Beat poet Jack Kerouac modeled Sal Paradise, the unconventional protagonist of his novel On the Road, on his idea of what Khayyam might have been like.
Although compilers have always attributed those poems to that great astronomer and mathematician of the Seljuk era, it’s clear that they were actually written by later Iranian figures who used Khayyam as a “frame author,” perhaps for fear of reaction to the religious skepticism deeply embedded in the poetry (in the same way that the Thousand and One Nights tales composed in Cairo, Aleppo, and Baghdad over centuries were all attributed to Scheherazade). The bulk of those verses first appeared at the time of the Mongol invasion of Iran in the 1200s, a bloody moment that threw the region into turmoil and paralysis just as Covid-19 has brought our world to an abrupt and chaotic halt.
As if the war’s urban destruction and piles of skulls weren’t enough, historians have argued that the Mongols, who opened up trade routes from Asia into the Middle East, also inadvertently facilitated the westward spread of the Yersina pestis bacillus that would cause the bubonic plague, or the Black Death, a pandemic that would wipe out nearly half of China’s population and a third of Europe’s.
A fifteenth-century scribe in the picturesque Iranian city of Shiraz would, in fact, create the first anthology of quatrains entitled The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, many composed during Mongol rule and the subsequent pandemic. The dangers of what we would now call religious fundamentalism, as opposed to an enlightened spirituality, were trumpeted throughout those poems:
In monasteries, temples, and retreats
they fear hellfire and look for paradise.
But those who know the mysteries of God
don’t let those seeds be planted in their hearts.
While some turn to theology for comfort during a disaster, those quatrains urged instead that all of us be aggressively here and now, trying to wring every last pleasure out of our worldly life before it abruptly vanishes:
A bottle of Shiraz and the lips of a lover, on the edge of a meadow —
are like cash in hand for me — and for you, credit toward paradise.
They’ve wagered that some go to heaven, and some to hell.
But whoever went to hell? And whoever came back from paradise?
The poetry ridicules some religious beliefs, using the fantasies of astrology as a proxy target for the fatalism of orthodox religion. The authors may have felt safer attacking horoscopes than directly taking on Iran’s powerful clergy. Astronomers know that the heavenly bodies, far from dictating the fate of others, revolve in orbits that make their future position easy to predict and so bear little relationship to the lives of complex and unpredictable human beings (just as, for instance, you could never have predicted that American evangelicals would opt to back a profane, womanizing, distinctly of-this-world orange-faced presidential candidate in 2016 and thereafter):
Don’t blame the stars for virtues or for faults,
or for the joy and grief decreed by fate!
For science holds the planets all to be
A thousand times more helpless than are we.
Wars and pandemics choose winners and losers and — as we’re learning all too grimly in the world of 2020 — the wealthy are generally so much better positioned to protect themselves from catastrophe than the poor. To its eternal credit, the Rubáiyát (unlike both the Trump administration and the Iranian religious leadership) took the side of the latter, pointing out that religious fatalism and superstitions like astrology are inherently supportive of a rotten status quo in which the poor are the first to be sacrificed, whether to pandemics or anything else:
Signs of the zodiac: You give something to every jackass.
You hand them fancy baths, millworks, and canals —
while noble souls must gamble, in hopes of winning their nightly bread.
Who would give a fart for such a constellation?
In our own perilous times, right-wing fundamentalist governments like those in Brazil and the United States, as well as religious fundamentalist ones as in Iran, have made the coronavirus outbreak far more virulent and dangerous by encouraging religious gatherings at a time when the pandemic’s curve could only be flattened by social distancing. Their willingness to blithely set aside reason and science out of a fatalistic and misguided faith in a supernatural providence that overrules natural law (or, in Donald Trump’s case, a fatalistic and misguided faith in his own ability to overrule natural laws, not to speak of providence) has been responsible for tens of thousands of deaths around the world. Think of it as, in spirit, a fundamentalist version of genocide.
The pecuniary motives of some of this obscurantism are clear, as many churches and mosques depend on contributions from congregants at services for the livelihood of imams and pastors. Their willingness to prey on the gullibility of their followers in a bid to keep up their income stream should be considered the height of hypocrisy and speaks to the importance of people never surrendering their capacity for independent, critical reasoning.
Though you might not have noticed it on Donald Trump’s and Ali Khameini’s planet, religion seems to be in the process of collapsing, at least in the industrialized world. A third of the French say that they have no religion at all and just 45% consider themselves Catholic (with perhaps only half of those being relatively committed to the faith), while only 5% attend church regularly. A majority of young people in 12 European countries claim that they now have no religion, pointing to a secular future for much of the continent. Even in peculiarly religious America, self-identification as Christian has plunged to 65% of the population, down 12% in the past decade, while 26% of the population now disavows having a religion at all.
In post-pandemic Iran, don’t be surprised if similar feelings spread, given how the religious leadership functionally encouraged the devastation of Covid-19. In this way, despite military threats, economic sanctions, and everything else, Donald Trump’s America and Ali Khameini’s Iran truly have something in common. In the U.S., where it’s easier to measure what’s happening, evangelicals, more than a fifth of the population when George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, are 16% of it two decades later.
Given the unpredictable nature of our world (as the emergence of Covid-19 has made all too clear), nothing, secularization included, is a one-way street. Religion is perfectly capable of experiencing revivals. Still, there is no surer way to tip the balance toward an Omar Khayyam-style skepticism than for prominent religious leaders to guide their faithful, and all those in contact with them, into a new wave of the pandemic.
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truthout--2020-05-19--Trump’s Attacks on Obama Signal an Even Dirtier Stretch of Campaigning

Dirty campaigns are nothing new in U.S. politics , but there have been a few that stand out from the pack .
Before the Republican presidential primaries began in 2000 , George W. Bush held a commanding 50-point lead over the field .
He was not only the clear choice of the GOP establishment , but was also the favorite son of evangelical Christians , a voting bloc that had grown muscular within Republican circles during the Clinton years .
Quite completely out of a clear blue sky , however , came John McCain , presidential candidate and “ maverick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a smoking hole in Bush ’ s assumed coronation with a whopping 19-point victory in New Hampshire .
With the South Carolina primary looming and the nomination suddenly in jeopardy , Bush let adviser and hatchet man Karl Rove off the leash for what became one of the filthiest campaigns ever waged on the North American continent .
The details of the whisper campaign waged against McCain in South Carolina have , over the intervening years , become the stuff of grisly political lore .
Children were paid $ 50 by “ a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claiming that McCain had fathered a Black child out of wedlock .
Rumors were floated that he was mentally unstable after his POW confinement in Vietnam , and that he had turned traitor during captivity .
According to other rumors , he slept with sex workers and gave his wife , Cindy , an STD .
Others said he was secretly gay because he met with the Log Cabin Republicans , and still others said his wife was addicted to drugs .
For conservative South Carolina voters , this was meat so red @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to this avalanche of smears much the same way a bug reacts to a windshield at high speed , and when the votes were tallied , Bush had won South Carolina by a comfortable 11-point margin .
McCain ’ s campaign never recovered from the trashing he took , and after losing badly on Super Tuesday less than a month later , he withdrew from the race .
That was ugly , and the 2016 campaign season was uglier still .
What we are about to witness in the 2020 presidential campaign , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Carolina primary and the 2016 general look like a sun-drenched grammar school Field Day by comparison .
“ Scorched-earth city , ” former Republican National Committee spokesman and GOP strategist Doug Heye told The Hill .
“ Are you kidding me ?
This is already portending to be , and to some extent already has been , as nasty a campaign as we have seen in modern times .
And if we thought 2016 was nasty , buckle your seat belts.
” It has already begun .
Donald Trump , floundering under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to kill with his gross COVID incompetence , has returned to his most favorite punching bag : Barack Obama .
Trump ’ s obsession with Obama is now old enough to be in junior high , and he has revived it with a bolt of gibberish he has dubbed “ Obamagate.
” It is a convoluted and utterly baseless conspiracy theory — not even Trump himself can explain it — that accuses Obama , and most importantly Trump ’ s current opponent Joe Biden , of abusing their powers while in office .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a man who brazenly flouts the law and abuses the powers of his office to a remarkably unprecedented degree is an irony for the ages , but there it is .
It ’ s a canny play if you don ’ t mind the stench , and Trump has proven himself almost superheroically impervious to shame .
Biden , to put it mildly , is not the greatest campaigner in U.S. history , and is facing serious allegations of sexual assault .
Meanwhile , the threat of COVID means he ’ s campaigning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , on the other hand , is one of the most popular political figures in the country and will make a dynamic proxy for Biden .
A lot of voters see a former president who can speak in complete , coherent sentences and get all misty .
It would not be a proper Republican gutter campaign without the presence of Rove .
After Obama slammed Trump ’ s pathetic COVID response in a commencement speech delivered to historically Black colleges and universities , Rove went straight for the tried and true GOP tactic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is so unseemly for a former president to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series of historically black colleges and universities and turn it into a political drive-by shooting , ” Rove said on Fox & Friends .
Dog whistle ?
More like a dog klaxon .
“ Obamagate ” is meant to take Obama off the board , and the right-wing media machine has dutifully picked up Trump ’ s banner to achieve this end .
The “ mainstream ” news media , having learned nothing from the Clinton emails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their part to spread the nonsense far and wide .
Some , including Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson , believe targeting Obama will backfire on Trump in the long run .
That may be true , but in the interim , we will be dealing with credulous media people treating this story like it ’ s real , and for Trump , that is a victory in itself .
“ Obamagate , ” as slimy as it is , represents only the overture in the symphony of shit to be unleashed .
Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ served his father as the dirtiest of dirty fighters , recently accused Biden of being a pedophile in an Instagram post .
Junior ’ s father has taken to calling the 77-year-old Biden a senile old man who “ doesn ’ t know he ’ s alive , ” which is a hot-buttered hoot coming from a guy who recently told the American people that injecting disinfectants into their bodies can cure COVID .
Trump ads on Facebook depict Biden being spoonfed in a nursing home next to the words “ Too Old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tactics is vivid .
An averaging of all reliable state polls has Biden leading Trump by 8 points , which is 6 points higher than where Hillary Clinton stood four years ago .
Biden is leading nationally in virtually every poll by between 3 to 6 points , and has held this lead for several months running .
Trump , for his part , is hemorrhaging support from older voters , a fact that is nothing short of disaster for his reelection hopes , and is 20 points behind Biden with voters under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID , Donald Trump has it pretty good right now .
It ’ s almost like he has one of those Mafia “ jobs ” where you punch a time card but don ’ t actually have to show up for work .
All he does is watch television , eat fast food , rant on Twitter , and give the occasional incomprehensible press conference .
His pet attorney general and majority pals in the Senate have effectively walled him off from the consequences of his actions , and the Supreme Court may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law entirely while in office .
All of that will change in January if Trump loses .
A swath of federal and state investigators , particularly in New York , will want to have a word with him once his cloak of immunity is removed in defeat , and the statute of limitations for the crimes he is accused of runs for years beyond when he would leave the White House .
Biden , for his part , has pledged not to pardon Trump if he wins in November .
The COVID pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even third wave of infections thanks to the ill-prepared “ reopen ” push , the bleak electoral outlook due to nearly 100,000 dead and a shattered economy , the long stability of his deficit in basically every poll there is , the generalized Trump exhaustion within the populace after nearly four years of enforced mayhem , and the very real possibility of ruin once he is out of office… all these are prime motivators for this push toward a campaign made entirely of claws and fangs .
This also serves to explain the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making to keep him in office for another term .
“ The Republican program , which has gained steam in recent weeks , envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious , ” reports The New York Times .
This is thuggery in the raw .
Because of the COVID threat , many people would greatly prefer the option of voting by mail in November .
Trump and much of the GOP are dead set against it , and Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States Postal Service from within in order to render that agency incapable of handling the volume that will come with a national vote-by-mail election .
Trump and his people are not being quiet about any of this .
There is no whisper campaign taking place like the one that undid McCain in South Carolina 20 years ago .
Donald Trump does not do subtle , and for voters , the next six months will be like standing in front of a wide-open sewage spigot .
Like the man said : Buckle @ @ @ @

Trump’s campaign is likely to be especially filthy because if he loses, he may be prosecuted.
Dirty campaigns are nothing new in U.S. politics, but there have been a few that stand out from the pack.
Before the Republican presidential primaries began in 2000, George W. Bush held a commanding 50-point lead over the field. He was not only the clear choice of the GOP establishment, but was also the favorite son of evangelical Christians, a voting bloc that had grown muscular within Republican circles during the Clinton years.
Quite completely out of a clear blue sky, however, came John McCain, presidential candidate and “maverick” senator from Arizona, who blew a smoking hole in Bush’s assumed coronation with a whopping 19-point victory in New Hampshire. With the South Carolina primary looming and the nomination suddenly in jeopardy, Bush let adviser and hatchet man Karl Rove off the leash for what became one of the filthiest campaigns ever waged on the North American continent.
The details of the whisper campaign waged against McCain in South Carolina have, over the intervening years, become the stuff of grisly political lore. Children were paid $50 by “a guy” to put fliers under windshields claiming that McCain had fathered a Black child out of wedlock. Rumors were floated that he was mentally unstable after his POW confinement in Vietnam, and that he had turned traitor during captivity. According to other rumors, he slept with sex workers and gave his wife, Cindy, an STD. Others said he was secretly gay because he met with the Log Cabin Republicans, and still others said his wife was addicted to drugs.
For conservative South Carolina voters, this was meat so red it was still mooing. McCain reacted to this avalanche of smears much the same way a bug reacts to a windshield at high speed, and when the votes were tallied, Bush had won South Carolina by a comfortable 11-point margin. McCain’s campaign never recovered from the trashing he took, and after losing badly on Super Tuesday less than a month later, he withdrew from the race.
That was ugly, and the 2016 campaign season was uglier still. What we are about to witness in the 2020 presidential campaign, I believe, will make the 2000 South Carolina primary and the 2016 general look like a sun-drenched grammar school Field Day by comparison.
“Scorched-earth city,” former Republican National Committee spokesman and GOP strategist Doug Heye told The Hill. “Are you kidding me? This is already portending to be, and to some extent already has been, as nasty a campaign as we have seen in modern times. And if we thought 2016 was nasty, buckle your seat belts.”
It has already begun. Donald Trump, floundering under the weight of 90,000 corpses he helped to kill with his gross COVID incompetence, has returned to his most favorite punching bag: Barack Obama.
Trump’s obsession with Obama is now old enough to be in junior high, and he has revived it with a bolt of gibberish he has dubbed “Obamagate.” It is a convoluted and utterly baseless conspiracy theory — not even Trump himself can explain it — that accuses Obama, and most importantly Trump’s current opponent Joe Biden, of abusing their powers while in office. That such an accusation has come from a man who brazenly flouts the law and abuses the powers of his office to a remarkably unprecedented degree is an irony for the ages, but there it is.
It’s a canny play if you don’t mind the stench, and Trump has proven himself almost superheroically impervious to shame. Biden, to put it mildly, is not the greatest campaigner in U.S. history, and is facing serious allegations of sexual assault. Meanwhile, the threat of COVID means he’s campaigning entirely online and through surrogates. Obama, on the other hand, is one of the most popular political figures in the country and will make a dynamic proxy for Biden. A lot of voters see a former president who can speak in complete, coherent sentences and get all misty.
It would not be a proper Republican gutter campaign without the presence of Rove. After Obama slammed Trump’s pathetic COVID response in a commencement speech delivered to historically Black colleges and universities, Rove went straight for the tried and true GOP tactic of the racist dog whistle. “It is so unseemly for a former president to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series of historically black colleges and universities and turn it into a political drive-by shooting,” Rove said on Fox & Friends. Dog whistle? More like a dog klaxon.
“Obamagate” is meant to take Obama off the board, and the right-wing media machine has dutifully picked up Trump’s banner to achieve this end. The “mainstream” news media, having learned nothing from the Clinton emails debacle in ‘16, are doing their part to spread the nonsense far and wide. Some, including Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, believe targeting Obama will backfire on Trump in the long run. That may be true, but in the interim, we will be dealing with credulous media people treating this story like it’s real, and for Trump, that is a victory in itself.
“Obamagate,” as slimy as it is, represents only the overture in the symphony of shit to be unleashed. Donald Trump, Jr., who has dutifully served his father as the dirtiest of dirty fighters, recently accused Biden of being a pedophile in an Instagram post. Junior’s father has taken to calling the 77-year-old Biden a senile old man who “doesn’t know he’s alive,” which is a hot-buttered hoot coming from a guy who recently told the American people that injecting disinfectants into their bodies can cure COVID. Trump ads on Facebook depict Biden being spoonfed in a nursing home next to the words “Too Old?”
Donald Trump does not do subtle, and for voters, the next six months will be like standing in front of a wide-open sewage spigot.
The desperation in these ghastly tactics is vivid. An averaging of all reliable state polls has Biden leading Trump by 8 points, which is 6 points higher than where Hillary Clinton stood four years ago. Biden is leading nationally in virtually every poll by between 3 to 6 points, and has held this lead for several months running. Trump, for his part, is hemorrhaging support from older voters, a fact that is nothing short of disaster for his reelection hopes, and is 20 points behind Biden with voters under 30.
Even amid the chaos of COVID, Donald Trump has it pretty good right now. It’s almost like he has one of those Mafia “jobs” where you punch a time card but don’t actually have to show up for work. All he does is watch television, eat fast food, rant on Twitter, and give the occasional incomprehensible press conference. His pet attorney general and majority pals in the Senate have effectively walled him off from the consequences of his actions, and the Supreme Court may soon decide that he is above the law entirely while in office.
All of that will change in January if Trump loses. A swath of federal and state investigators, particularly in New York, will want to have a word with him once his cloak of immunity is removed in defeat, and the statute of limitations for the crimes he is accused of runs for years beyond when he would leave the White House. Biden, for his part, has pledged not to pardon Trump if he wins in November.
The COVID pandemic which threatens to unleash a second and even third wave of infections thanks to the ill-prepared “reopen” push, the bleak electoral outlook due to nearly 100,000 dead and a shattered economy, the long stability of his deficit in basically every poll there is, the generalized Trump exhaustion within the populace after nearly four years of enforced mayhem, and the very real possibility of ruin once he is out of office… all these are prime motivators for this push toward a campaign made entirely of claws and fangs.
This also serves to explain the other moves Trump and his allies are making to keep him in office for another term. “The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious,” reports The New York Times. This is thuggery in the raw.
Because of the COVID threat, many people would greatly prefer the option of voting by mail in November. Trump and much of the GOP are dead set against it, and Trump has personally undertaken a campaign to eviscerate the United States Postal Service from within in order to render that agency incapable of handling the volume that will come with a national vote-by-mail election.
Trump and his people are not being quiet about any of this. There is no whisper campaign taking place like the one that undid McCain in South Carolina 20 years ago. Donald Trump does not do subtle, and for voters, the next six months will be like standing in front of a wide-open sewage spigot. Like the man said: Buckle your seat belts.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-05-20--WHO Doctor Warns Against Hydroxychloroquine Use as Trump Continues to Peddle It

A high-ranking member of the World Health Organization ( WHO ) encouraged people against seeking out a drug frequently touted by President Donald Trump , who , without evidence backing up his claims , has called it a “ game-changer ” in the fight against coronavirus .
Michael Ryan , executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program and a former trauma surgeon and infectious disease specialist , explained this week that hydroxychloroquine should not be taken by individuals unless they ’ re part of a study on the drug ’ s efficacy against COVID-19 , or told to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Every sovereign nation , particularly those with effective regulatory authorities , is in a position to advise its own citizens regarding the use of any drug… .
I would point out , however , at this stage , [ neither ] hydroxychloroquine , nor chloroquine , have been , as yet , found to be as effective in the treatment of COVID-19 or in the prophylaxis against coming down with the disease , ” Ryan said .
“ In fact , the opposite ” may hold true , he added , “ in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authorities regarding the potential side effects of the drug , and many countries have limited its use to that of clinical trials [ … ] or under the supervision of clinicians in a hospital setting specifically for COVID-19.
” Ryan urged individuals to resist the urge to take the medicine themselves .
“ As WHO , we would advise that , for COVID-19 , these drugs be reserved for use within such trials , ” he added .
Ryan ’ s statement is a direct contradiction to what Trump has been saying about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president claimed on Monday that he ’ s been taking the drug himself for “ a couple of weeks ” now .
“ I take it .
I hope to not be able to take it soon because , you know , I hope they come up with some answer , ” Trump added .
“ But I think people should be allowed to.
” Later in the week , Trump was asked why he felt that his promotion of the drug , which many , including the Food and Drug Administration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without a physician ’ s approval , was appropriate , given that he himself had no medical expertise .
In those same comments , the president blasted a study that looked at hydroxychloroquine ’ s effects on VA hospital patients for the treatment of coronavirus , which showed a higher mortality rate among those taking the drug versus those being treated in conventional ways .
“ They were giving it to people that were in very bad shape , ” Trump suggested .
“ They were very old , almost dead.
” He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , calling it a ‘ Trump enemy ’ statement .
The limited studies of the drug ’ s use for those suffering from coronavirus have suggested it isn ’ t the safest route to take , but more research on the drug has been desired .
Unfortunately , because of Trump ’ s statements — and due to the media having to correct his errant words on the subject — a number of individuals have been reluctant to take part in studies involving hydroxychloroquine .
In addition to bad-mouthing studies on the drug @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also be retaliating against medical professionals in the federal government who have the audacity to stand up against his errant statements about hydroxychloroquine .
Rick Bright , who used to head the Department of Health and Human Services ’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority , claimed he was removed from his post because he questioned Trump ’ s promotion of the drug and wouldn ’ t go along with it himself .
“ I also resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections , ” Bright said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misguided directives , I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine , promoted by the administration as a panacea , but which clearly lack scientific merit .
”

A high-ranking member of the World Health Organization (WHO) encouraged people against seeking out a drug frequently touted by President Donald Trump, who, without evidence backing up his claims, has called it a “game-changer” in the fight against coronavirus.
Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program and a former trauma surgeon and infectious disease specialist, explained this week that hydroxychloroquine should not be taken by individuals unless they’re part of a study on the drug’s efficacy against COVID-19, or told to do so by a healthcare professional.
“Every sovereign nation, particularly those with effective regulatory authorities, is in a position to advise its own citizens regarding the use of any drug…. I would point out, however, at this stage, [neither] hydroxychloroquine, nor chloroquine, have been, as yet, found to be as effective in the treatment of COVID-19 or in the prophylaxis against coming down with the disease,” Ryan said.
“In fact, the opposite” may hold true, he added, “in that warnings have been issued by many authorities regarding the potential side effects of the drug, and many countries have limited its use to that of clinical trials […] or under the supervision of clinicians in a hospital setting specifically for COVID-19.”
Ryan urged individuals to resist the urge to take the medicine themselves.
“As WHO, we would advise that, for COVID-19, these drugs be reserved for use within such trials,” he added.
Ryan’s statement is a direct contradiction to what Trump has been saying about the drug as of late. The president claimed on Monday that he’s been taking the drug himself for “a couple of weeks” now.
“I take it. I hope to not be able to take it soon because, you know, I hope they come up with some answer,” Trump added. “But I think people should be allowed to.”
Later in the week, Trump was asked why he felt that his promotion of the drug, which many, including the Food and Drug Administration, have warned people not to seek out without a physician’s approval, was appropriate, given that he himself had no medical expertise.
“I’ve worked with doctors,” Trump responded.
In those same comments, the president blasted a study that looked at hydroxychloroquine’s effects on VA hospital patients for the treatment of coronavirus, which showed a higher mortality rate among those taking the drug versus those being treated in conventional ways.
“They were giving it to people that were in very bad shape,” Trump suggested. “They were very old, almost dead.”
He also lashed out at the study itself, calling it a ‘Trump enemy’ statement.
The limited studies of the drug’s use for those suffering from coronavirus have suggested it isn’t the safest route to take, but more research on the drug has been desired. Unfortunately, because of Trump’s statements — and due to the media having to correct his errant words on the subject — a number of individuals have been reluctant to take part in studies involving hydroxychloroquine.
In addition to bad-mouthing studies on the drug that he disagrees with, Trump may also be retaliating against medical professionals in the federal government who have the audacity to stand up against his errant statements about hydroxychloroquine.
Rick Bright, who used to head the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, claimed he was removed from his post because he questioned Trump’s promotion of the drug and wouldn’t go along with it himself.
“I also resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections,” Bright said. “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-05-20--Mnuchin Wants to Deny Unemployment to Workers Who Stay Home Due to COVID Risk

United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin assured conservative lawmakers on Tuesday that unemployment benefits could not be collected by workers who refused to return to work out of fear of contracting coronavirus .
While speaking before the Senate Banking Committee , Sen. David Perdue questioned Mnuchin on whether additional aid of $ 600 per week in unemployment “ disincentivizes ” people from returning to work .
It ’ s estimated that half the U.S. workforce could receive more income from unemployment than from their regular jobs .
However , many studies in the past have also demonstrated that even generous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an ill effect on keeping people from going back to their places of employment .
Nevertheless , some lawmakers remain worried that workers , fearful of contracting coronavirus , could cite those fears in order to keep collecting unemployment .
Mnuchin , who is not necessarily a friend to the working class ( he was nicknamed the “ Foreclosure King ” during the Great Recession and benefited to the tune of millions from the Wall Street bailout of 2008 ) , told Perdue and other members of the committee on Tuesday he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” but didn ’ t think it was something to worry over because , in his view , anyone who says they won ’ t return to work for those reasons would be denied unemployment insurance .
“ If you offer back a worker and they don ’ t take that job , you will be required to notify the local unemployment insurance agency because that person will no longer be eligible for unemployment , ” Mnuchin told the committee .
Such concerns by Republicans are perhaps moot points at this juncture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 600 per week of unemployment aid isn ’ t meant to last forever — per the CARES Act legislation that passed in late March , the additional funds for unemployment expire at the end of July .
There have been attempts by Democrats in the House to extend unemployment aid to workers beyond that date .
But the bill passed by the House last week has little chance of getting support in the Republican-led Senate , and an even smaller possibility of being signed into law by President Donald Trump , who expressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he was opposed to the measure .
Americans overall are worried about returning to work amid the COVID-19 crisis .
According to findings from a Washington Post/Ipsos poll published earlier this month , 58 percent of respondents said they had concerns that going to work could expose them , and in turn their loved ones at home , to the disease .
Certain individuals can continue to collect unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic , even if they are offered their jobs back .
Workers with diabetes , heart disease , or immune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work will be dangerous to their health , are protected by provisions of the CARES Act .
Workers who lack a way to find childcare may also be able to continue to collect unemployment .
However , a general fear of contracting the disease isn ’ t enough to allow workers to stay at home .
Even if workers cited unsafe conditions at their places of employment , they would have to document how bad things were in order to argue that they shouldn ’ t have to return to work due to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arduous task for an individual to go through as it involves having to make their case to the state unemployment office .

United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin assured conservative lawmakers on Tuesday that unemployment benefits could not be collected by workers who refused to return to work out of fear of contracting coronavirus.
While speaking before the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. David Perdue questioned Mnuchin on whether additional aid of $600 per week in unemployment “disincentivizes” people from returning to work. It’s estimated that half the U.S. workforce could receive more income from unemployment than from their regular jobs. However, many studies in the past have also demonstrated that even generous unemployment programs don’t have much of an ill effect on keeping people from going back to their places of employment.
Nevertheless, some lawmakers remain worried that workers, fearful of contracting coronavirus, could cite those fears in order to keep collecting unemployment.
Mnuchin, who is not necessarily a friend to the working class (he was nicknamed the “Foreclosure King” during the Great Recession and benefited to the tune of millions from the Wall Street bailout of 2008), told Perdue and other members of the committee on Tuesday he was “aware of the technical problem,” but didn’t think it was something to worry over because, in his view, anyone who says they won’t return to work for those reasons would be denied unemployment insurance.
“If you offer back a worker and they don’t take that job, you will be required to notify the local unemployment insurance agency because that person will no longer be eligible for unemployment,” Mnuchin told the committee.
Such concerns by Republicans are perhaps moot points at this juncture, however, because the additional $600 per week of unemployment aid isn’t meant to last forever — per the CARES Act legislation that passed in late March, the additional funds for unemployment expire at the end of July.
There have been attempts by Democrats in the House to extend unemployment aid to workers beyond that date. But the bill passed by the House last week has little chance of getting support in the Republican-led Senate, and an even smaller possibility of being signed into law by President Donald Trump, who expressed to Republicans during a luncheon this week that he was opposed to the measure.
Americans overall are worried about returning to work amid the COVID-19 crisis. According to findings from a Washington Post/Ipsos poll published earlier this month, 58 percent of respondents said they had concerns that going to work could expose them, and in turn their loved ones at home, to the disease.
Certain individuals can continue to collect unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic, even if they are offered their jobs back. Workers with diabetes, heart disease, or immune deficiencies, fearful that going back to work will be dangerous to their health, are protected by provisions of the CARES Act. Workers who lack a way to find childcare may also be able to continue to collect unemployment.
However, a general fear of contracting the disease isn’t enough to allow workers to stay at home. Even if workers cited unsafe conditions at their places of employment, they would have to document how bad things were in order to argue that they shouldn’t have to return to work due to coronavirus concerns, a difficult and likely arduous task for an individual to go through as it involves having to make their case to the state unemployment office.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-05-20--Trump’s Assaults on Government Watchdogs Expose His Authoritarian Ambitions

It has nearly reached the point of being a parlor game : Which government watchdog will Donald Trump fire next ?
Before this past Friday , Trump had already sacked three of them .
Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson , who handled the Ukraine whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment , got bounced on April 3 .
Glenn Fine , the Defense Department ’ s acting inspector general tasked with overseeing $ 2.2 trillion of the funds included in the CARES Act relief bill , was given the boot three days later .
Health and Human Services ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who released a chilling report detailing severe shortages of medical supplies and staff in the face of the COVID pandemic , was shown the door on May 1 .
These three actions — two vengeance firings and a money grab — are brazen enough on their own .
Trump wanted the head of the man who didn ’ t burn the whistleblower report in an act of starry-eyed loyalty , and the head of the woman who contradicted his sunny lies about our preparedness for the pandemic , and he got them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to oversee where all that yummy COVID money was going , and he got them , too .
On Friday night , however , two very large shoes dropped with a resounding thud .
State Department inspector general Steve Linick became the fourth government watchdog to be removed by Trump in the span of six weeks .
Initial reports on the cause of Linick ’ s removal were bad enough : He had been investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan for improperly using staff to run personal errands for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough for House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel ( D-New York ) to stand up and clear his throat .
“ I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick ’ s firing , ” Engel said in a statement on Monday .
“ His office was investigating — at my request — Trump ’ s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia .
We don ’ t have the full picture yet , but it ’ s troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be completed.
” The back story here is a perfect distillation of the corruption and greed that has scarred this administration from the beginning .
Saudi Arabia has been slaughtering civilians in Yemen with weapons it purchased from the United States .
Members of Congress , including a number of Republicans , threatened to intervene in any further arms sales to the House of Saud .
Trump , eager to rake in revenue from another arms sale to the Kingdom and utterly indifferent to the human suffering taking place at the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state of emergency to expedite the deal .
Congress passed legislation to thwart the sale , Trump vetoed it , and an attempted congressional override fell short .
Trump ’ s ridiculous emergency declaration was what Steve Linick was investigating when he was pushed out , according to Rep. Engel .
Along those lines , Linick was looking into the role Pompeo may have played from his perch in the State Department to unlawfully expedite the deal .
Pompeo was apparently well aware of Linick ’ s investigation , and gave written answers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be interviewed by the watchdog ’ s office .
After Linick was let go , allies to Pompeo claimed he was removed because he was not pursuing an investigation into press leaks with sufficient vigor .
On Monday , Pompeo denied knowing what Linick had been investigating , and offered a telling explanation for the inspector ’ s release .
“ I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn ’ t performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ that was additive for the State Department , very consistent with what the statute says he ’ s supposed to be doing .
The kinds of activities he ’ s supposed to undertake to make us better , to improve us.
” Short form : Pompeo specifically asked Trump to remove Linick from his watchdog position because he wasn ’ t doing what he was told .
Shorter form : Linick wasn ’ t loyal to Trump , and now Linick is gone .
There was a fifth inspector removed on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received less scrutiny than the sacking of Steve Linick .
Mitch Behm , acting inspector general for the Department of Transportation ( DOT ) , was demoted to deputy without explanation .
Like Glenn Fine , Behm was tasked with overseeing a portion of the money allocated by the COVID relief legislation passed by Congress .
There appears to be far more to Behr ’ s demotion than the COVID money .
Last year , DOT Secretary Elaine Chao awarded a $ 67.4 million grant to Boone County , Kentucky .
Chao is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and McConnell is facing a stiff challenge to his re-election as Kentucky ’ s senior senator .
Suburban Boone County is a vital “ get ” for McConnell if he hopes to return to office , and his wife seems to have done her thoroughly unscrupulous part to aid in that endeavor .
In response , the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ( CREW ) released a scathing statement : There appears to be no stopping this avalanche of broad-daylight corruption .
House Democrats have opened an investigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly go nowhere , and Speaker Pelosi dispatched a strongly worded letter to the White House demanding an explanation .
That and a dollar still won ’ t get you a cup of black coffee at Starbucks .
As for the Republicans ?
Senators Chuck Grassley ( R-Iowa ) and Mitt Romney ( R-Utah ) have made concerned noises over the firings , but pretty much the entire GOP establishment has chosen to remain in thrall to Trump during an election year .
During the Obama administration , congressional Republicans were stalwart defenders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not so much .
And , of course , Mitch McConnell has a vested interest in making sure nobody asks any hard questions about all this .
Trump and his people were never subtle about their desire to place the executive branch above the law , and Trump himself has been conspicuously enchanted with the absolute power enjoyed by authoritarian leaders all over the world .
Now , amid the grinding roar of a pandemic that has no end in sight , they are sweeping away any lingering vestiges of oversight as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divine right of kings .
Make no mistake : The country is not “ falling apart.
” It is being torn apart , with clear deliberation and intent , while the Treasury is looted and masses wail for succor in unemployed cloister behind tightly closed doors .
We are approaching the crescendo of calamity many have feared was coming since 2016 , and almost nothing is left to stand in its way .

We are approaching the crescendo of calamity many have feared was coming since 2016.
It has nearly reached the point of being a parlor game: Which government watchdog will Donald Trump fire next?
Before this past Friday, Trump had already sacked three of them. Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, who handled the Ukraine whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment, got bounced on April 3.
Glenn Fine, the Defense Department’s acting inspector general tasked with overseeing $2.2 trillion of the funds included in the CARES Act relief bill, was given the boot three days later.
Health and Human Services (HHS) deputy inspector general Christi Grimm, who released a chilling report detailing severe shortages of medical supplies and staff in the face of the COVID pandemic, was shown the door on May 1.
These three actions — two vengeance firings and a money grab — are brazen enough on their own. Trump wanted the head of the man who didn’t burn the whistleblower report in an act of starry-eyed loyalty, and the head of the woman who contradicted his sunny lies about our preparedness for the pandemic, and he got them. He also wanted more friendly eyes to oversee where all that yummy COVID money was going, and he got them, too.
On Friday night, however, two very large shoes dropped with a resounding thud. State Department inspector general Steve Linick became the fourth government watchdog to be removed by Trump in the span of six weeks. Initial reports on the cause of Linick’s removal were bad enough: He had been investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan for improperly using staff to run personal errands for them.
That story lasted just long enough for House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-New York) to stand up and clear his throat. “I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick’s firing,” Engel said in a statement on Monday. “His office was investigating — at my request — Trump’s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia. We don’t have the full picture yet, but it’s troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr. Linick pushed out before this work could be completed.”
The back story here is a perfect distillation of the corruption and greed that has scarred this administration from the beginning.
Saudi Arabia has been slaughtering civilians in Yemen with weapons it purchased from the United States. Members of Congress, including a number of Republicans, threatened to intervene in any further arms sales to the House of Saud. Trump, eager to rake in revenue from another arms sale to the Kingdom and utterly indifferent to the human suffering taking place at the end of the exchange, declared a nonsense state of emergency to expedite the deal. Congress passed legislation to thwart the sale, Trump vetoed it, and an attempted congressional override fell short.
Trump’s ridiculous emergency declaration was what Steve Linick was investigating when he was pushed out, according to Rep. Engel. Along those lines, Linick was looking into the role Pompeo may have played from his perch in the State Department to unlawfully expedite the deal. Pompeo was apparently well aware of Linick’s investigation, and gave written answers to Linick’s queries but declined to be interviewed by the watchdog’s office. After Linick was let go, allies to Pompeo claimed he was removed because he was not pursuing an investigation into press leaks with sufficient vigor.
There appears to be no stopping this avalanche of broad-daylight corruption.
On Monday, Pompeo denied knowing what Linick had been investigating, and offered a telling explanation for the inspector’s release. “I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn’t performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to,” he told The Washington Post, “that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he’s supposed to be doing. The kinds of activities he’s supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us.”
Short form: Pompeo specifically asked Trump to remove Linick from his watchdog position because he wasn’t doing what he was told. Shorter form: Linick wasn’t loyal to Trump, and now Linick is gone.
There was a fifth inspector removed on Friday night, an act that has received less scrutiny than the sacking of Steve Linick. Mitch Behm, acting inspector general for the Department of Transportation (DOT), was demoted to deputy without explanation. Like Glenn Fine, Behm was tasked with overseeing a portion of the money allocated by the COVID relief legislation passed by Congress.
There appears to be far more to Behr’s demotion than the COVID money. Last year, DOT Secretary Elaine Chao awarded a $67.4 million grant to Boone County, Kentucky. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and McConnell is facing a stiff challenge to his re-election as Kentucky’s senior senator. Suburban Boone County is a vital “get” for McConnell if he hopes to return to office, and his wife seems to have done her thoroughly unscrupulous part to aid in that endeavor.
In response, the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a scathing statement:
In yet another assault on checks and balances, President Trump abruptly removed the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) independent watchdog late Friday – the same night he announced plans to fire the State Department Inspector General (IG). At DOT, the acting IG was overseeing a high profile investigation of Secretary Chao’s alleged favoritism benefiting her husband Senator Mitch McConnell’s political prospects, but has now been replaced with a political appointee from within the agency. The acting IG’s ouster calls into question the future of the Chao-McConnell investigation, other critical oversight, and whether the watchdog was dismissed for unearthing damaging information.
There appears to be no stopping this avalanche of broad-daylight corruption. House Democrats have opened an investigation into all these firings that will almost certainly go nowhere, and Speaker Pelosi dispatched a strongly worded letter to the White House demanding an explanation. That and a dollar still won’t get you a cup of black coffee at Starbucks.
Make no mistake: The country is not “falling apart.” It is being torn apart, with clear deliberation and intent.
As for the Republicans? Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have made concerned noises over the firings, but pretty much the entire GOP establishment has chosen to remain in thrall to Trump during an election year. During the Obama administration, congressional Republicans were stalwart defenders of all government watchdogs, but now, not so much. And, of course, Mitch McConnell has a vested interest in making sure nobody asks any hard questions about all this.
Trump and his people were never subtle about their desire to place the executive branch above the law, and Trump himself has been conspicuously enchanted with the absolute power enjoyed by authoritarian leaders all over the world. Now, amid the grinding roar of a pandemic that has no end in sight, they are sweeping away any lingering vestiges of oversight as they assert a 21st-century version of the divine right of kings.
Make no mistake: The country is not “falling apart.” It is being torn apart, with clear deliberation and intent, while the Treasury is looted and masses wail for succor in unemployed cloister behind tightly closed doors. We are approaching the crescendo of calamity many have feared was coming since 2016, and almost nothing is left to stand in its way.
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