mintpressnews--2020-03-18--The Coronavirus Primaries Were Illegitimate Elections. Here’s Why

Shadowproof — The United States is in the middle of the acceleration phase of the coronavirus pandemic .
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) , this is the period , where the virus infects people and social distancing is crucial to slow the outbreak .
Yet , in a reckless move that defied the concerns of medical professionals , state officials in Arizona , Florida , and Illinois listened to politicians and proceeded with previously scheduled in-person voting in their primaries .
Over 2,500 people , including more than 150 medical professionals , signed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to state officials .
It strongly urged them to extend mail-in voting and reschedule primaries .
( Disclosure : I co-organized the petition , which was sent to state officials . )
Multiple states postponed their primaries before in-person voting took place on March 17 .
Rather than respect the fact that states were trying to protect the health of voters and poll workers , the Democratic National Committee threatened states with the loss of delegates if they did not hold their primaries before June 9 .
On March 16 , Ohio Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the state ’ s health department director , showed leadership and declared polling places a health emergency risk .
They postponed in-person voting until June .
The Ohio Democratic Party sued the state the following day .
The sociopathic nature of the Democratic Party establishment , as a health crisis plunged the country into a recession , demonstrated how reprehensible party operatives are willing to be in order to shepherd their preferred candidate closer to a presidential nomination .
Dysfunction that officials knew would occur resulted in voter suppression that made it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballot .
Conditions stopped many other citizens from participating in the primaries .
Altogether , the results of the Arizona , Florida , and Illinois primaries were the product of an illegitimate electoral process carried out during a national state of emergency .
Once the news networks reported former Vice President Joe Biden was the winner of all three primaries , Biden appeared via livestream from his home in Wilmington , Delaware .
“ This is a moment , where we need our leaders to lead.
” “ It ’ s also a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make as individuals are going to collectively impact on what happens , make a big difference in the severity of this outbreak and the ability of our medical hospital systems to handle it , ” Biden added .
What he declared was rather hypocritical .
Biden likely secured an insurmountable delegate lead over his opponent , Senator Bernie Sanders .
But he also showed zero leadership , put his base of elderly voters , who have overwhelmingly supported him , at risk , and his campaign disregarded CDC guidance to a degree that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infected with the coronavirus because they believed what they claimed about how “ safe ” it was to vote .
“ If you are an older person , stay home and away from other people , ” the CDC advised .
“ If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk ( for example , a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system ) , stay home and away from other people.
” The CDC further recommended , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or otherwise healthy , you are at risk and your activities can increase the risk for others .
It is critical that you do your part to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
” And , “ Avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people.
” Much of Arizona ’ s voting was done by mail-in ballots .
However , in Florida and Illinois , there were long lines of people , and in some cases , there were groups packed into rooms that violated the CDC ’ s recommendations .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ health departments could have shut down .
The Dream Defenders , New Florida Majority , Organize Florida , and five individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit to challenge “ large-scale voter disenfranchisement ” of “ communities of color and other historically vulnerable populations.
” It painted a stark picture .
“ Florida has reported 149 confirmed cases of COVID-19 , and four deaths to date , with every expectation that these numbers will rise .
Universities have sent students home , people are remaining in quarantine , poll workers are dropping out , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 112 polling places in 22 counties , in many cases less than a week before the election , ” the complaint stated .
“ And yet the State of Florida has failed to take reasonable emergency measures necessary for voter participation in the face of this crisis , ” the groups added .
The deadline to request a mail-in ballot in Florida is the tenth day before an election .
The World Health Organization did not declare that the coronavirus was a pandemic until March 11 .
Travel restrictions were not imposed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same date , and it was not until March 13 that a national emergency was declared .
Ray Winters , a 78-year-old voter in Miami Dade County , suffers from heart problems and seizures .
He faces a higher risk of severe or “ fatal outcomes ” if he contracts the coronavirus .
Winters initially planned to vote at his polling place , but he was unable to vote on March 17 without severely risking his health .
His wife , Kathleen Winters , who is 67 years old , did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She was unable to vote without risking their health .
Bianca Maria Baez returned from an international trip and immediately quarantined herself .
She planned to vote at a polling place , but upon return from her trip , it became clear she was at risk of “ being asymptomatic while still having the virus.
” She did not want to risk her health or the health of members of her community .
Baez was unable to vote .
Another stunning example of voter disenfranchisement that was shared with the Dream Defenders apparently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who went to a county elections office in Florida .
They attempted to go through the process of casting votes for people , “ who were unable to be home to vote because of the quarantine.
” “ There ’ s a whole process in place , where the voter can provide an affidavit to designate someone else to pick up a mail in ballot for them on the day of an election , ” one person in the group added .
Florida has an “ election emergency ” law that allows the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delay an election .
He may do so independently or at the request of the secretary of state .
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis refused to take this step , and days prior to the primary , he proclaimed , “ We ’ re definitely voting .
They voted during the Civil War .
We ’ re going to vote.
” In Illinois , local news outlets in Chicago reported that the city ’ s board of elections asked Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to “ move to a mail-in only model and cancel in-person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immediately after the CDC classified the outbreak as a pandemic .
Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Jim Allen said “ the board anticipated the fear that the virus has caused among voters and poll workers but was told that the election was to be held anyway.
” After the first four hours of the primary , around 206 polling places were still not open .
Tim O ’ Brien , a professor in Cook County , shared , “ I went to my polling place early today .
It was closed .
An @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that judges quit , and that they [ were ] ‘ scrambling ’ to get it going.
” Lea Salvatore reacted to the mess early in the morning .
“ Illinois primary is a complete disaster .
Polling places have been eliminated with no notice to voters .
I ’ m an election judge sitting on my couch with no place to go .
My friend just showed up at hers , and the doors are locked .
This whole primary should be invalid.
” One election judge said polling place workers were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before and after use.
” Officials claimed they did not have time to give such coronavirus safety instructions , and several workers indicated they had to bring their own sanitizer or cleaning supplies to minimize risks to voters .
Buzzfeed published a definitive report on election irregularities in the Illinois primary .
One polling place coordinator in Lincoln Park had to turn voters away in the morning because the location had no equipment .
According to Buzzfeed , Toya sent them to “ a different polling place , only for that location to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late morning , she was forced to redirect people to a polling place more than a mile away.
” “ Voters are very upset , ” Toya H. told Buzzfeed .
Abshir Omar is the Iowa , Minnesota , Michigan , and Illinois political coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign .
He went to several polling places and documented voter suppression .
On the south side of Chicago , at the Thurgood Marshall Library , Omar observed a “ predominantly black senior population ” that “ waited on average two hours to vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senior citizens sitting in there .
They ’ ve been there two-to-three hours waiting .
There are too many people smashed together in there .
It ’ s too close in there , ” Deborah Collins told Omar .
“ None of the senior citizens are being waited on .
They ’ re just sitting there and waiting , and a lot of people are leaving .
They ’ re not voting because they ’ re having to wait so long.
” While at a Gage Park early voting site in the second-largest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crowd of people in a “ poorly ventilated basement.
” Several left without voting because they weren ’ t “ willing to risk their health.
” Yet another stunning example of non-CDC compliance was a line in the neighborhood near Wrigley Field stadium , where voters stood for around three hours .
It stretched for multiple blocks and voters were not standing six feet apart .
“ What I witnessed today in Chicago is likely a death sentence for many voters simply trying to have their voice heard .
The state of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all those that voted in person today .
Unacceptable risks and clear violations of CDC guidelines , ” Omar concluded .
Illinois students may register to vote at their campus address .
Given that colleges or universities were shut down , that likely disenfranchised a significant number of students , who were deprived of the opportunity to vote because they were sent home .
‘ The CDC and folks have said it ’ s safe ’ Beyond disenfranchisement in states , officials promoted misinformation or pseudo-science .
Initially , Ohio was part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote on March 17 .
Officials released an extraordinary statement .
“ Unlike concerts , sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time , polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration , ” they asserted .
As is clear after today ’ s primaries in Florida and Illinois , hundreds if not thousands of voters were in buildings and in larger groups than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened was completely the opposite of what officials said would happen .
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs , a Democrat , “ worked with Arizona State University to enlist students to replace poll workers who quit or don ’ t show up.
” Except , young people can still be carriers and spread the virus .
They can become severely ill too and that can put a greater strain on health care facilities as they deal with surging cases among the elderly population .
Physician and health reporter Dr. Norman Swan warned , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across Italy are full of people who are young .
And it ’ s the young who are dying with no obvious risk factors.
” “ When this takes off , it ’ s young people who hit your intensive care units , and you ’ re making decisions between a 40 year-old and a 60 year-old…terrible ethical conditions , ” Swan added .
Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders went on CNN after the presidential debate on March 15 and said , “ The CDC and folks have said it ’ s safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though the CDC issued no statements about whether primaries posed a risk to the public ’ s health .
She encouraged voters to go out there and vote in the middle of an accelerating pandemic .
Then , quite obnoxiously , after Biden took a commanding lead in the primary , she panicked .
“ Jake Tapper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are basically pleading with Americans to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously .
This is not a drill folks !
” The Biden campaign was afraid the pandemic would keep voters at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to delay primaries , they cynically tweeted , “ The right to vote is the most sacred American right there is .
State election officials are working closely with public officials to hold safe elections.
” “ If you are feeling healthy , not showing symptoms , and not at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 , please vote on Tuesday , ” the campaign urged .
The message was Trump-like in its disregard for public health risks .
Everyone is at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus .
A person who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus and infect someone .
A person may feel healthy but be a carrier .
This is why schools , restaurants , bars , and non-essential businesses are shutting down .
It is why the CDC recommends bans on the gathering of people that occurred at polling places .
To further emphasize the recklessness of the Biden campaign and Democratic officials who proceeded with the primaries , testing is going very poorly and will likely prolong the coronavirus outbreak .
What that means , according to Axios , is the “ virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ More people than we know about are infected , which means more people than we know about are spreading the virus , which likely means way more people than we know about are infected.
” Leadership from Dems now that Biden has a commanding lead Ken Martin , the vice chair of the DNC and president of the Association of State Democratic Committees ( ASDC ) , “ called for states to immediately adopt emergency measures to ensure voters are not disenfranchised by this public health crisis.
” “ The United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our democratic ideals when our primary election process broke down in a myriad of ways across several states , ” Martin contended .
“ Some voters were turned away from their polling places due to a lack of equipment or poll workers , students at colleges and universities that were barred from campuses could not vote where they reside as students , others chose to stay home out of a perfectly reasonable fear of contracting COVID-19 , and still more voters were put in harm ’ s way due to unsanitary conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unacceptable and can not continue.
” Martin ’ s leadership came too late for voters , especially since the national state of emergency is likely to interfere with any effort to seek a remedy .
The results were announced .
It is not like states will allow additional mail-in ballots to be added to the tally .
As such , they are forever tainted by the refusal of state governments to take action to reschedule primaries and extend mail-in voting .
That taint extends to down-ballot races too .
Recommendations were issued by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further insulated from losing to Sanders .
The DNC urged “ remaining primary states ” to incorporate “ vote by mail.
” They proposed “ no-excuse absentee voting , ” whereby a voter could either drop a ballot off at convenient locations or drop it in the mail .
( To some degree , this is the contingency plan Arizona adopted . )
The DNC ridiculously accused Ohio of breeding “ more chaos and confusion ” by rescheduling the primary .
What Ohio did was find an off-ramp that all March 17 states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public ’ s health .
The state employed the authority of the health department to declare a health emergency and shut down polling places .
It then left it up to the secretary of state to develop a remedy so that voters could participate by mailing in ballots or showing up to vote at polling places in June .
“ We can ’ t tell people it ’ s in their best interest to stay home and at the same time tell people to go vote .
We should not force people to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duties as citizens , ” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine plainly stated .
The Organization of American States ( OAS ) has election observers , who are trained to look for the very deficiencies that occurred : failure to open polling stations , lack of voting equipment or electoral materials , missing designated polling officials , lack of adequate information about polling place locations , and long lines for voters .
Had this happened when there was no coronavirus outbreak , what unfolded would be even more outrageous to the world .
Justice Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director for Justice Democrats , appeared on CNN while results from the primaries were tabulated .
She appropriately captured the gravity of what the Democratic Party did to voters .
“ In this moment , in the midst of a pandemic , where we know that millions of Americans lives are at risk , it feels like an abdication of Democratic leadership to carry forward , ” Rojas argued .
“ I know that most of the states , like Arizona and Florida , have vote by mail .
You have absentee ballots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the right to vote is sacred so is every American life , and I think that unprecedented times and moments of uncertainty call for unprecedented measures.
” “ So , even if it ’ s just one vote or a few votes , it matters .
The fact that it feels like we were kind of talking about young people were crowding bars and going into public places just a few days ago , yet we ’ re pushing forward with primaries.
” Rojas concluded , “ I think that Ohio made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health and well-being of their citizenry.
” “ If the question is if we gather in groups larger than 10—which I think those lines I think anecdotally I did not see people standing six feet apart , that ’ s really frightening , especially when it comes to the older population .
So , as a younger person seeing this in the midst of a pandemic , [ potentially ] another recession within my lifetime , it feels very frightening in this moment , and I hope that Democratic leadership heeds that.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during this pandemic , and they have turned out in larger numbers in 2020 to make Biden the Democratic Party ’ s nominee .
They are eager to vote for him and beat President Donald Trump in November .
Tragically , a number of them may not be alive in November , and the public may never know exactly how many elderly people died because of the deranged push to hold in-person voting during the pandemic .
Feature photo | Chicago residents line up for early voting at the Roden Library Monday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Charles Rex Arbogast | AP Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press .
He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast , “ Unauthorized Disclosure.
“

Shadowproof — The United States is in the middle of the acceleration phase of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this is the period, where the virus infects people and social distancing is crucial to slow the outbreak.
Yet, in a reckless move that defied the concerns of medical professionals, state officials in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois listened to politicians and proceeded with previously scheduled in-person voting in their primaries.
Over 2,500 people, including more than 150 medical professionals, signed on to a petition that was sent to state officials. It strongly urged them to extend mail-in voting and reschedule primaries. (Disclosure: I co-organized the petition, which was sent to state officials.)
Multiple states postponed their primaries before in-person voting took place on March 17. Rather than respect the fact that states were trying to protect the health of voters and poll workers, the Democratic National Committee threatened states with the loss of delegates if they did not hold their primaries before June 9.
On March 16, Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s health department director, showed leadership and declared polling places a health emergency risk. They postponed in-person voting until June. The Ohio Democratic Party sued the state the following day.
The sociopathic nature of the Democratic Party establishment, as a health crisis plunged the country into a recession, demonstrated how reprehensible party operatives are willing to be in order to shepherd their preferred candidate closer to a presidential nomination.
Dysfunction that officials knew would occur resulted in voter suppression that made it impossible for numerous citizens to cast their ballot. Conditions stopped many other citizens from participating in the primaries.
Altogether, the results of the Arizona, Florida, and Illinois primaries were the product of an illegitimate electoral process carried out during a national state of emergency.
Once the news networks reported former Vice President Joe Biden was the winner of all three primaries, Biden appeared via livestream from his home in Wilmington, Delaware. “This is a moment, where we need our leaders to lead.”
“It’s also a moment where the choices and decisions we make as individuals are going to collectively impact on what happens, make a big difference in the severity of this outbreak and the ability of our medical hospital systems to handle it,” Biden added.
What he declared was rather hypocritical. Biden likely secured an insurmountable delegate lead over his opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders. But he also showed zero leadership, put his base of elderly voters, who have overwhelmingly supported him, at risk, and his campaign disregarded CDC guidance to a degree that likely resulted in dozens of people becoming infected with the coronavirus because they believed what they claimed about how “safe” it was to vote.
‘Large-scale voter disenfranchisement in Florida
“If you are an older person, stay home and away from other people,” the CDC advised. “If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk (for example, a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people.”
The CDC further recommended, “Even if you are young, or otherwise healthy, you are at risk and your activities can increase the risk for others. It is critical that you do your part to stop the spread of the coronavirus.” And, “Avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people.”
Much of Arizona’s voting was done by mail-in ballots. However, in Florida and Illinois, there were long lines of people, and in some cases, there were groups packed into rooms that violated the CDC’s recommendations. Polling places became health hazards that state health departments could have shut down.
The Dream Defenders, New Florida Majority, Organize Florida, and five individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit to challenge “large-scale voter disenfranchisement” of “communities of color and other historically vulnerable populations.” It painted a stark picture.
“Florida has reported 149 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and four deaths to date, with every expectation that these numbers will rise. Universities have sent students home, people are remaining in quarantine, poll workers are dropping out, and supervisors of elections have closed or moved 112 polling places in 22 counties, in many cases less than a week before the election,” the complaint stated.
The predictable result is the denial of the vote to untold numbers of Floridians who had planned to vote in person on Election Day—including those who are elderly or have health conditions and cannot get to the polls without tremendous risk, university students who are no longer present in their county of registration because their dorms have closed, and those who venture out but encounter long lines and confusion at the polls.”
“And yet the State of Florida has failed to take reasonable emergency measures necessary for voter participation in the face of this crisis,” the groups added.
The deadline to request a mail-in ballot in Florida is the tenth day before an election. The World Health Organization did not declare that the coronavirus was a pandemic until March 11. Travel restrictions were not imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration until the same date, and it was not until March 13 that a national emergency was declared.
Ray Winters, a 78-year-old voter in Miami Dade County, suffers from heart problems and seizures. He faces a higher risk of severe or “fatal outcomes” if he contracts the coronavirus. Winters initially planned to vote at his polling place, but he was unable to vote on March 17 without severely risking his health.
His wife, Kathleen Winters, who is 67 years old, did not want to risk contracting the virus. She was unable to vote without risking their health.
Bianca Maria Baez returned from an international trip and immediately quarantined herself. She planned to vote at a polling place, but upon return from her trip, it became clear she was at risk of “being asymptomatic while still having the virus.” She did not want to risk her health or the health of members of her community. Baez was unable to vote.
Another stunning example of voter disenfranchisement that was shared with the Dream Defenders apparently involved a small group of people, who went to a county elections office in Florida. They attempted to go through the process of casting votes for people, “who were unable to be home to vote because of the quarantine.”
“There’s a whole process in place, where the voter can provide an affidavit to designate someone else to pick up a mail in ballot for them on the day of an election,” one person in the group added.
We were not allowed to participate in this process due to not having a physician’s note to explain why they were not present. [Quarantining] due to coronavirus travel restrictions was not a valid reason.”
Florida has an “election emergency” law that allows the governor to issue an executive order and delay an election. He may do so independently or at the request of the secretary of state. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis refused to take this step, and days prior to the primary, he proclaimed, “We’re definitely voting. They voted during the Civil War. We’re going to vote.”
Illinois governor reportedly rejected request to cancel in-person voting
In Illinois, local news outlets in Chicago reported that the city’s board of elections asked Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to “move to a mail-in only model and cancel in-person voting.” The board made this request immediately after the CDC classified the outbreak as a pandemic.
Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Jim Allen said “the board anticipated the fear that the virus has caused among voters and poll workers but was told that the election was to be held anyway.”
After the first four hours of the primary, around 206 polling places were still not open. Tim O’Brien, a professor in Cook County, shared, “I went to my polling place early today. It was closed. An election official showed up to inform me that judges quit, and that they [were] ‘scrambling’ to get it going.”
Lea Salvatore reacted to the mess early in the morning. “Illinois primary is a complete disaster. Polling places have been eliminated with no notice to voters. I’m an election judge sitting on my couch with no place to go. My friend just showed up at hers, and the doors are locked. This whole primary should be invalid.”
One election judge said polling place workers were not trained to “wipe down machines before and after use.” Officials claimed they did not have time to give such coronavirus safety instructions, and several workers indicated they had to bring their own sanitizer or cleaning supplies to minimize risks to voters.
‘Likely A Death Sentence For Many Voters’
Buzzfeed published a definitive report on election irregularities in the Illinois primary. One polling place coordinator in Lincoln Park had to turn voters away in the morning because the location had no equipment.
“Voters are very upset,” Toya H. told Buzzfeed.
According to Buzzfeed, Toya sent them to “a different polling place, only for that location to run out of provisional ballots. By late morning, she was forced to redirect people to a polling place more than a mile away.”
“Voters are very upset,” Toya H. told Buzzfeed.
Abshir Omar is the Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois political coordinator for the Bernie Sanders campaign. He went to several polling places and documented voter suppression.
On the south side of Chicago, at the Thurgood Marshall Library, Omar observed a “predominantly black senior population” that “waited on average two hours to vote in crowded rooms.”
“There are senior citizens sitting in there. They’ve been there two-to-three hours waiting. There are too many people smashed together in there. It’s too close in there,” Deborah Collins told Omar. “None of the senior citizens are being waited on. They’re just sitting there and waiting, and a lot of people are leaving. They’re not voting because they’re having to wait so long.”
While at a Gage Park early voting site in the second-largest Latino district in Illinois, Omar documented a crowd of people in a “poorly ventilated basement.” Several left without voting because they weren’t “willing to risk their health.”
Yet another stunning example of non-CDC compliance was a line in the neighborhood near Wrigley Field stadium, where voters stood for around three hours. It stretched for multiple blocks and voters were not standing six feet apart.
“What I witnessed today in Chicago is likely a death sentence for many voters simply trying to have their voice heard. The state of Illinois effective immediately should test and treat all those that voted in person today. Unacceptable risks and clear violations of CDC guidelines,” Omar concluded.
Illinois students may register to vote at their campus address. Given that colleges or universities were shut down, that likely disenfranchised a significant number of students, who were deprived of the opportunity to vote because they were sent home.
‘The CDC and folks have said it’s safe’
Beyond disenfranchisement in states, officials promoted misinformation or pseudo-science.
Initially, Ohio was part of a unified front by states scheduled to vote on March 17. Officials released an extraordinary statement.
“Unlike concerts, sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time, polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration,” they asserted.
As is clear after today’s primaries in Florida and Illinois, hundreds if not thousands of voters were in buildings and in larger groups than CDC recommends for long durations. What happened was completely the opposite of what officials said would happen.
Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, “worked with Arizona State University to enlist students to replace poll workers who quit or don’t show up.” Except, young people can still be carriers and spread the virus. They can become severely ill too and that can put a greater strain on health care facilities as they deal with surging cases among the elderly population.
Physician and health reporter Dr. Norman Swan warned, “Intensive care units across China and across Italy are full of people who are young. And it’s the young who are dying with no obvious risk factors.”
“When this takes off, it’s young people who hit your intensive care units, and you’re making decisions between a 40 year-old and a 60 year-old…terrible ethical conditions,” Swan added.
Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders went on CNN after the presidential debate on March 15 and said, “The CDC and folks have said it’s safe out there for Tuesday,” even though the CDC issued no statements about whether primaries posed a risk to the public’s health. She encouraged voters to go out there and vote in the middle of an accelerating pandemic.
Then, quite obnoxiously, after Biden took a commanding lead in the primary, she panicked. “Jake Tapper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are basically pleading with Americans to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously. This is not a drill folks!”
The Biden campaign was afraid the pandemic would keep voters at home. Rather than appeal to officials to delay primaries, they cynically tweeted, “The right to vote is the most sacred American right there is. State election officials are working closely with public officials to hold safe elections.”
“If you are feeling healthy, not showing symptoms, and not at risk of being exposed to COVID-19, please vote on Tuesday,” the campaign urged.
The message was Trump-like in its disregard for public health risks. Everyone is at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. A person who does not show symptoms could still have the virus and infect someone. A person may feel healthy but be a carrier. This is why schools, restaurants, bars, and non-essential businesses are shutting down. It is why the CDC recommends bans on the gathering of people that occurred at polling places.
To further emphasize the recklessness of the Biden campaign and Democratic officials who proceeded with the primaries, testing is going very poorly and will likely prolong the coronavirus outbreak. What that means, according to Axios, is the “virus has probably been spreading undetected for weeks.”
“More people than we know about are infected, which means more people than we know about are spreading the virus, which likely means way more people than we know about are infected.”
Leadership from Dems now that Biden has a commanding lead
Ken Martin, the vice chair of the DNC and president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), “called for states to immediately adopt emergency measures to ensure voters are not disenfranchised by this public health crisis.”
“The United States of America failed to live up to our democratic ideals when our primary election process broke down in a myriad of ways across several states,” Martin contended. “Some voters were turned away from their polling places due to a lack of equipment or poll workers, students at colleges and universities that were barred from campuses could not vote where they reside as students, others chose to stay home out of a perfectly reasonable fear of contracting COVID-19, and still more voters were put in harm’s way due to unsanitary conditions in their polling places. This is unacceptable and cannot continue.”
Martin’s leadership came too late for voters, especially since the national state of emergency is likely to interfere with any effort to seek a remedy.
The results were announced. It is not like states will allow additional mail-in ballots to be added to the tally. As such, they are forever tainted by the refusal of state governments to take action to reschedule primaries and extend mail-in voting. That taint extends to down-ballot races too.
Recommendations were issued by the DNC but only after Biden was further insulated from losing to Sanders. The DNC urged “remaining primary states” to incorporate “vote by mail.” They proposed “no-excuse absentee voting,” whereby a voter could either drop a ballot off at convenient locations or drop it in the mail. (To some degree, this is the contingency plan Arizona adopted.)
The DNC ridiculously accused Ohio of breeding “more chaos and confusion” by rescheduling the primary.
What Ohio did was find an off-ramp that all March 17 states should’ve taken to protect the public’s health. The state employed the authority of the health department to declare a health emergency and shut down polling places. It then left it up to the secretary of state to develop a remedy so that voters could participate by mailing in ballots or showing up to vote at polling places in June.
“We can’t tell people it’s in their best interest to stay home and at the same time tell people to go vote. We should not force people to choose between their health and their constitutional duties as citizens,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine plainly stated.
***
The Organization of American States (OAS) has election observers, who are trained to look for the very deficiencies that occurred: failure to open polling stations, lack of voting equipment or electoral materials, missing designated polling officials, lack of adequate information about polling place locations, and long lines for voters.
Had this happened when there was no coronavirus outbreak, what unfolded would be even more outrageous to the world.
Justice Democrats Alexandra Rojas, the 29 year-old executive director for Justice Democrats, appeared on CNN while results from the primaries were tabulated. She appropriately captured the gravity of what the Democratic Party did to voters.
“In this moment, in the midst of a pandemic, where we know that millions of Americans lives are at risk, it feels like an abdication of Democratic leadership to carry forward,” Rojas argued. “I know that most of the states, like Arizona and Florida, have vote by mail. You have absentee ballots and folks voting early. But just as the right to vote is sacred so is every American life, and I think that unprecedented times and moments of uncertainty call for unprecedented measures.”
“So, even if it’s just one vote or a few votes, it matters. The fact that it feels like we were kind of talking about young people were crowding bars and going into public places just a few days ago, yet we’re pushing forward with primaries.”
Rojas concluded, “I think that Ohio made the right call. They prioritized the health and well-being of their citizenry.”
“If the question is if we gather in groups larger than 10—which I think those lines I think anecdotally I did not see people standing six feet apart, that’s really frightening, especially when it comes to the older population. So, as a younger person seeing this in the midst of a pandemic, [potentially] another recession within my lifetime, it feels very frightening in this moment, and I hope that Democratic leadership heeds that.”
Older voters are most vulnerable to death during this pandemic, and they have turned out in larger numbers in 2020 to make Biden the Democratic Party’s nominee. They are eager to vote for him and beat President Donald Trump in November.
Tragically, a number of them may not be alive in November, and the public may never know exactly how many elderly people died because of the deranged push to hold in-person voting during the pandemic.
Feature photo | Chicago residents line up for early voting at the Roden Library Monday, March 16, 2020, in Chicago. Charles Rex Arbogast | AP
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “Unauthorized Disclosure.“


mintpressnews--2020-03-19--Death at the Border: Syrian Refugees Should Not Be Used as Political Pawns

Turkish President , Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced in a surprising move on February 29 that he would be reopening his country ’ s border to Europe , allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries .
Expectedly , over 100,000 people rushed to the Ipsala border point in the Edirne province separating Turkey from Greece , hoping to make it through the once-porous border .
Even though the sea route was not initially opened for the refugees , many attempted to brave the sea anyway , using small fishing boats and dinghies .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What transpired was one of the most tragic , heart-rendering episodes of the Syrian war and the subsequent refugee crisis saga .
This time around , Greece , with tacit political support from the rest of the European Union , was determined not to allow any of the refugees into its territories .
The prevailing understanding in Europe is that the Turkish government was purposely engineering a refugee crisis to press the EU into supporting Turkish military operations in Idlib in northern Syria .
“ They didn ’ t come here on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Order Minister , Michalis Chrysohoidis , told reporters on February 29 , with reference to the flood of refugees at his country ’ s border .
“ They are being sent away and being used by ( our ) neighbor , Turkey , ” he added .
While the media focused mostly on Erdogan ’ s decision within the context of the Idlib conflict , little mention was made of the fact that Syrian and other refugees in Turkey have been the focal point of an internal crisis within the country itself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ March 31 and , again , on June 23 ) underscored the anti-refugee sentiment among ordinary Turks , one that is compounded by the fact that Turkey itself has been subjected to a protracted economic recession .
Unsurprisingly , the over 3.5 million Syrian refugees who had fled the war in their country over the last decade are being scapegoated by opportunistic politicians , the likes of Istanbul ’ s new Mayor , Ekrem Imamoglu “ Imamoglu was … able to tap into simmering discontent with the large number of Syrian refugees in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complaints about the high level of unemployment in the city , ” wrote Bulent Aliriza and Zeynep Ekeler on the Center for Strategic and International Studies website .
The Turkish government is now fully aware of the obvious correlation in the minds of many Turkish voters between the oppressive economic crisis and the Syrian refugee population in Turkey .
In fact , a recurring argument made by the Turkish government is that its military campaign in northern Syria is ultimately motivated by its desire to create a safe zone that would allow for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With its NATO alliance faltering , and with growing difficulties at the northern Syrian front , Turkey ’ s strategy quickly fell apart .
However , the scenes of naked , shivering refugees running back to the Turkish side , after being pushed away by Greek military and police was not only indicative of Turkey ’ s growing political dilemma , but of Europe ’ s betrayal of Syrian refugees and its utter incompetence in fashioning long-term solutions to a crisis that has been brewing for years .
On March 18 , 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statement of cooperation , which resulted in a short-lived barter .
According to the deal , Turkey agreed to stem the flow of refugees into Europe in exchange for economic incentives to help Ankara cope with the economic burden , partly resulting from the refugee crisis .
Aside from the fact that Turkey has claimed that the EU failed to fulfill its part of the deal , the agreement did not offer a long-term solution , let alone a political vision that would ultimately end the suffering of millions of Syrians .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Turkish-EU context particularly complex is the fact that the refugees are finding themselves hostage to selfish , political calculations that view them as a burden or a pawn .
This unfortunate reality has left Syrian refugees in Turkey with three options , all of which are dismal : returning to a war zone in Syria , coping with unemployment and an increasingly hostile political environment in Turkey or making a run for the Greek border .
When Ahmed Abu Emad , a young Syrian refugee from Aleppo , opted for the third and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was shot in the throat by Greek border police .
His fellow refugees rushed his gaunt body back to Turkey , where he was laid to rest .
Considering their limited options , however , neither death , injury nor torture will end the quest of Syrian refugees , who are desperately trying , as they have for years , to find a safe space and badly needed respite .
Perhaps only Palestinian refugees can relate to the dilemma of their Syrian brethren .
It is one thing to be pushed out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole different thing to be refused , dehumanized and subjugated everywhere else .
The Syrian refugee crisis is a political , not a humanitarian crisis – despite the palpable humanitarian component of it .
Therefore , it can only be resolved based on a comprehensive political solution that keeps the interest of millions of Syrian refugees – in fact , the Syrian people as a whole – as a top priority .
Several ‘ solutions ’ have been devised in the past but they have all failed , simply because various governments in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to exploit the refugees for their own political , economic , and ‘ security ’ interests .
The time has come for a more considerate and thoughtful political strategy that is predicated on respect for international and humanitarian laws , one that adheres to the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of war refugees .
Syrian refugees do not deserve such inhumane treatment .
They have a country , glorious history and a deeply-rooted culture that has profoundly influenced ancient and modern civilizations .
They deserve respect , rights , and safety .
Equally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as pawns in a costly and dirty political game in which they have no interest or choice .
Feature photo | Refugees walk next to discarded shoes and boots outside the perimeter of the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos , Greece , March 11 , 2020 .
Aggelos Barai | AP Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle .
He is the author of five books .
His latest is “ These Chains Will Be Broken : Palestinian Stories of Struggle and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Press , Atlanta ) .
Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs ( CIGA ) , Istanbul Zaim University ( IZU ) .
His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced in a surprising move on February 29 that he would be reopening his country’s border to Europe, allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries.
Expectedly, over 100,000 people rushed to the Ipsala border point in the Edirne province separating Turkey from Greece, hoping to make it through the once-porous border.
Even though the sea route was not initially opened for the refugees, many attempted to brave the sea anyway, using small fishing boats and dinghies. A few have reportedly reached the Greek Islands.
What transpired was one of the most tragic, heart-rendering episodes of the Syrian war and the subsequent refugee crisis saga.
This time around, Greece, with tacit political support from the rest of the European Union, was determined not to allow any of the refugees into its territories.
The prevailing understanding in Europe is that the Turkish government was purposely engineering a refugee crisis to press the EU into supporting Turkish military operations in Idlib in northern Syria.
“They didn’t come here on their own,” the Greek Public Order Minister, Michalis Chrysohoidis, told reporters on February 29, with reference to the flood of refugees at his country’s border. “They are being sent away and being used by (our) neighbor, Turkey,” he added.
While the media focused mostly on Erdogan’s decision within the context of the Idlib conflict, little mention was made of the fact that Syrian and other refugees in Turkey have been the focal point of an internal crisis within the country itself.
The Istanbul mayoral election (held on March 31 and, again, on June 23) underscored the anti-refugee sentiment among ordinary Turks, one that is compounded by the fact that Turkey itself has been subjected to a protracted economic recession.
Unsurprisingly, the over 3.5 million Syrian refugees who had fled the war in their country over the last decade are being scapegoated by opportunistic politicians, the likes of Istanbul’s new Mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu
“Imamoglu was … able to tap into simmering discontent with the large number of Syrian refugees in Istanbul in the context of his general complaints about the high level of unemployment in the city,” wrote Bulent Aliriza and Zeynep Ekeler on the Center for Strategic and International Studies website.
The Turkish government is now fully aware of the obvious correlation in the minds of many Turkish voters between the oppressive economic crisis and the Syrian refugee population in Turkey.
In fact, a recurring argument made by the Turkish government is that its military campaign in northern Syria is ultimately motivated by its desire to create a safe zone that would allow for the resettlement of many Syrian refugees.
With its NATO alliance faltering, and with growing difficulties at the northern Syrian front, Turkey’s strategy quickly fell apart. However, the scenes of naked, shivering refugees running back to the Turkish side, after being pushed away by Greek military and police was not only indicative of Turkey’s growing political dilemma, but of Europe’s betrayal of Syrian refugees and its utter incompetence in fashioning long-term solutions to a crisis that has been brewing for years.
On March 18, 2016, Turkey and EU countries signed the statement of cooperation, which resulted in a short-lived barter. According to the deal, Turkey agreed to stem the flow of refugees into Europe in exchange for economic incentives to help Ankara cope with the economic burden, partly resulting from the refugee crisis.
Aside from the fact that Turkey has claimed that the EU failed to fulfill its part of the deal, the agreement did not offer a long-term solution, let alone a political vision that would ultimately end the suffering of millions of Syrians.
What makes the Syrian refugee crisis within the Turkish-EU context particularly complex is the fact that the refugees are finding themselves hostage to selfish, political calculations that view them as a burden or a pawn.
This unfortunate reality has left Syrian refugees in Turkey with three options, all of which are dismal: returning to a war zone in Syria, coping with unemployment and an increasingly hostile political environment in Turkey or making a run for the Greek border.
When Ahmed Abu Emad, a young Syrian refugee from Aleppo, opted for the third and final option on March 2, he was shot in the throat by Greek border police. His fellow refugees rushed his gaunt body back to Turkey, where he was laid to rest.
Considering their limited options, however, neither death, injury nor torture will end the quest of Syrian refugees, who are desperately trying, as they have for years, to find a safe space and badly needed respite.
Perhaps only Palestinian refugees can relate to the dilemma of their Syrian brethren. It is one thing to be pushed out of your homeland, but it is a whole different thing to be refused, dehumanized and subjugated everywhere else.
The Syrian refugee crisis is a political, not a humanitarian crisis – despite the palpable humanitarian component of it. Therefore, it can only be resolved based on a comprehensive political solution that keeps the interest of millions of Syrian refugees – in fact, the Syrian people as a whole – as a top priority.
Several ‘solutions’ have been devised in the past but they have all failed, simply because various governments in the Middle East and Europe have tried to exploit the refugees for their own political, economic, and ‘security’ interests.
The time has come for a more considerate and thoughtful political strategy that is predicated on respect for international and humanitarian laws, one that adheres to the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of war refugees.
Syrian refugees do not deserve such inhumane treatment. They have a country, glorious history and a deeply-rooted culture that has profoundly influenced ancient and modern civilizations. They deserve respect, rights, and safety. Equally important, they should not be used as pawns in a costly and dirty political game in which they have no interest or choice.
Feature photo | Refugees walk next to discarded shoes and boots outside the perimeter of the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece, March 11, 2020. Aggelos Barai | AP
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net


mintpressnews--2020-03-20--The Kushner Family Could Be Getting Very Rich Thanks to the Coronavirus

Covid-19 might be decimating the economy and threatening to kill millions of Americans , but in crisis there is opportunity .
Opportunity , specifically for Joshua Kushner , brother of Jared , son-in-law and senior advisor to President Donald Trump .
Joshua is the co-founder of Oscar Health , a huge medical company that this week launched a test center locator for COVID-19 , where users input their data and are directed to one of many locations where they can receive a test .
It is highly likely that medical companies will be later reimbursed by the government for any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Oscar Health has been described as the Uber of healthcare , and like Uber , it has been criticized for unethical business practices .
In 2018 , for instance , it was condemned for selling an Obamacare insurance package with a massive $ 15,800 deductible .
Also like Uber , it has received enormous cash injections from notable investors , including in this case Alphabet ( the parent company of Google ) and billionaire tech tycoon Peter Thiel .
Jared also had a large share in the company .
And like Uber @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posting a $ 57 million loss in 2018 and a $ 110 million in 2019 .
Even superficially tested , the product Oscar has come up with has serious flaws ; Mother Jones noted that the locator incorrectly advised a Maryland resident that the nearest coronavirus test facility was in Kansas , over 1,000 miles away .
Jared , once a co-owner of the company , married Ivanka Trump in 2009 and has since become a close confidant of his father-in-law , and is a regular feature in the White House .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often cited as one of the architects of Trump ’ s Middle East Plan , the so-called “ Deal of the Century.
” The New York Times reported that he advised Trump to downplay the severity of the COVID-19 threat , and to criticize the media ’ s apparent overblown coverage , a decision that appears tragically misguided today .
That he is completely out of his depth was underscored when the Times also reported that he sought out advice from his brother Joshua ’ s father-in-law , the physician Kurt Kloss .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ public Facebook group aimed at doctors , “ If you were in charge of the Federal response to the Pandemic what would your recommendations be ?
” claiming that he had “ [ a ] direct channel to [ a ] person now in charge at White House and have been asked for recommendations.
” While Kloss is at least a doctor , the fact that the United States ’ response to a pandemic is coming third hand through a Facebook forum , rather than the Center for Disease Control ( which Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truly breathtaking .
“ In the almost 30 years of training for and practicing emergency medicine I have not been afraid until today , ” Kloss concluded .
Earlier this week it was reported that the Trump administration quietly offered a huge sum of cash to a German pharmaceutical firm in order to secure exclusive control , access and supply of any coronavirus vaccine it created , making sure it was available only on a for-profit basis .
This enraged the German government ; “ Germany is not for sale , ” replied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American pharmaceutical company Gilead is involved in a legal battle with the Chinese government to deny them the right to any potential vaccine , arguing that the Chinese would likely give it away free to the world , thus destroying their profits .
The Trump administration went from describing the incoming pandemic as a “ hoax ” to attempting to deflect the blame onto China itself , the president consistently calling COVID-19 the “ Chinese Virus , ” with corporate media , both Democrat and Republican-aligned calling for “ consequences ” for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While there is much that could be criticized , the World Health Organization has praised the overall handling of the crisis in China .
The Kushner family ’ s ties to for-profit healthcare companies underscore the myriad of conflicts of interests that billionaire businessmen have , making them particularly unsuited to holding public office .
In the 1970s , President Carter was forced to give up his peanut farm , the public considering it too much of a liability .
Today , plutocrats like Trump , Tom Steyer or Michael Bloomberg can run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
While the coronavirus spells doom for millions of Americans and their businesses , at least America can rest assured that the Kushners won ’ t go hungry .
Feature photo | President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner sit together in a motorcade vehicle on the tarmac at Des Moines International Airport en route to a campaign rally , Jan. 30 , 2020 , at Drake University in Des Moines , Iowa .
John Locher | AP Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News .
After completing his PhD in 2017 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ From Venezuela : Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary .

Covid-19 might be decimating the economy and threatening to kill millions of Americans, but in crisis there is opportunity. Opportunity, specifically for Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared, son-in-law and senior advisor to President Donald Trump. Joshua is the co-founder of Oscar Health, a huge medical company that this week launched a test center locator for COVID-19, where users input their data and are directed to one of many locations where they can receive a test. It is highly likely that medical companies will be later reimbursed by the government for any services they provide.
Founded in 2012, Oscar Health has been described as the Uber of healthcare, and like Uber, it has been criticized for unethical business practices. In 2018, for instance, it was condemned for selling an Obamacare insurance package with a massive $15,800 deductible. Also like Uber, it has received enormous cash injections from notable investors, including in this case Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and billionaire tech tycoon Peter Thiel. Jared also had a large share in the company. And like Uber, it continues to lose money, posting a $57 million loss in 2018 and a $110 million in 2019.
Even superficially tested, the product Oscar has come up with has serious flaws; Mother Jones noted that the locator incorrectly advised a Maryland resident that the nearest coronavirus test facility was in Kansas, over 1,000 miles away.
Jared, once a co-owner of the company, married Ivanka Trump in 2009 and has since become a close confidant of his father-in-law, and is a regular feature in the White House. He holds top secret security clearances and is often cited as one of the architects of Trump’s Middle East Plan, the so-called “Deal of the Century.” The New York Times reported that he advised Trump to downplay the severity of the COVID-19 threat, and to criticize the media’s apparent overblown coverage, a decision that appears tragically misguided today. That he is completely out of his depth was underscored when the Times also reported that he sought out advice from his brother Joshua’s father-in-law, the physician Kurt Kloss. Immediately afterward, Kloss posted on a public Facebook group aimed at doctors, “If you were in charge of the Federal response to the Pandemic what would your recommendations be?” claiming that he had “[a] direct channel to [a] person now in charge at White House and have been asked for recommendations.”
While Kloss is at least a doctor, the fact that the United States’ response to a pandemic is coming third hand through a Facebook forum, rather than the Center for Disease Control (which Trump slashed to the bare bones) is truly breathtaking. “In the almost 30 years of training for and practicing emergency medicine I have not been afraid until today,” Kloss concluded.
Earlier this week it was reported that the Trump administration quietly offered a huge sum of cash to a German pharmaceutical firm in order to secure exclusive control, access and supply of any coronavirus vaccine it created, making sure it was available only on a for-profit basis. This enraged the German government; “Germany is not for sale,” replied economy minister Peter Altmaier. Meanwhile, American pharmaceutical company Gilead is involved in a legal battle with the Chinese government to deny them the right to any potential vaccine, arguing that the Chinese would likely give it away free to the world, thus destroying their profits.
US pharma company Gilead, which owns the most promising COVID-19 vaccine, is booming in "pandemic stock sales," preparing to sell it for $50-100/person, and in a legal battle to deny the Chinese gov access, because China would make the vaccine free and ship it to the global south https://t.co/QmQSfnMdKI pic.twitter.com/nQcxvq4HUX — . (@mqmqqmqm) March 8, 2020
The Trump administration went from describing the incoming pandemic as a “hoax” to attempting to deflect the blame onto China itself, the president consistently calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus,” with corporate media, both Democrat and Republican-aligned calling for “consequences” for the supposed Chinese mishandling of the outbreak. While there is much that could be criticized, the World Health Organization has praised the overall handling of the crisis in China.
The Kushner family’s ties to for-profit healthcare companies underscore the myriad of conflicts of interests that billionaire businessmen have, making them particularly unsuited to holding public office. In the 1970s, President Carter was forced to give up his peanut farm, the public considering it too much of a liability. Today, plutocrats like Trump, Tom Steyer or Michael Bloomberg can run for the highest office with limited resistance. While the coronavirus spells doom for millions of Americans and their businesses, at least America can rest assured that the Kushners won’t go hungry.
Feature photo | President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner sit together in a motorcade vehicle on the tarmac at Des Moines International Airport en route to a campaign rally, Jan. 30, 2020, at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. John Locher | AP
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.


mintpressnews--2020-03-20--From Cluster Bombs to Toxic Waste: Saudi Arabia is Creating the Next Fallujah in Yemen

AL-JAWF , YEMEN — As the world ’ s focus turns to the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 pandemic , Yemenis are reeling from their own brewing tragedy , contending with the thousands of cluster bombs , landmines and other exploded munitions that now litter their homeland .
Just yesterday , a young child was killed and another was injured in the al-Ghail district of al-Jawf when a landmine left by the Saudi military exploded , witnesses told MintPress .
Outraged and terrified by the presence of these unexploded ordnances , Ahmed Sharif , a father of 9 who owns a farm in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a significant threat to our children.
” Earlier this week , thousands of cluster bombs containing between dozens and hundreds of smaller submunitions were dropped by air and scattered indiscriminately over large areas near Ahmed ’ s farm .
A large number of those munitions failed to explode on impact , creating a new threat to residents already reeling from 5 years of war , famine and an economic blockade .
The use , production , sale , and transfer of cluster munitions is prohibited under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries , but rejected by Saudi Arabia and the United States .
Saudi Arabia is estimated to have dropped thousands of tons of U.S.-made weapons in al-Jawf over the past 100 days alone .
Al-Jawf is an oil-rich province that lies in Yemen ’ s north-central reaches along the Saudi border .
The aerial campaign is likely a last-ditch effort to stem the tide of battlefield success by local volunteer fighters who teamed with Houthi forces to recapture large swaths of al-Jawf and Marib provinces .
That campaign , for all intents and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Houthis announced that their military operation – dubbed “ God Overpowered Them ” – was complete and that al-Jawf was free of Saudi occupation .
According to Houthi sources , more than 1,200 Saudi-led coalition fighters were killed or injured during the operation and dozens of Saudi troops , including officers , were captured .
The Houthis also struck deep into Saudi territory in retaliation for the more than 250 Saudi airstrikes that were carried out during the campaign .
In multiple operations , ballistic missiles and drones were used to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to officials .
Saudi losses haven ’ t been limited to al-Jawf either .
Last week , Marib province , which lies adjacent to Yemen ’ s capital of Sana ’ a , was recaptured following heavy battles with Saudi forces .
Local tribal fighters were able to clear strategic areas in the Sirwah District with the assistance of Houthi forces and take control of the town of Tabab Al-Bara and the strategic Tala Hamra hills that overlook Marib city .
Both the Saudi-led coalition and its allied militants initially admitted defeat but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ withdrawal .
Marib is now the second Yemeni governorate adjacent to Saudi Arabia to fall under the control by Yemen ’ s resistance forces in the last month , al-Jawf being the first .
Both provinces have strategic importance to Saudi Arabia and could serve as a potential launch point for operations into Saudi Arabia ’ s Najran province .
“ Saudi [ Arabia ] and America have planted our land with death ” The highly populated urban areas of Sana ’ a , Sadaa , Hodeida , Hajjah , Marib , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaigns during the Saudi-led war on Yemen , which turns five on March 26 .
The sheer scale of that campaign , which often sees hundreds of separate airstrikes carried out every day , coupled with its indiscriminate nature , has left Yemen one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world .
Since 2015 , when the war began , coalition warplanes have conducted more than 250,000 airstrikes in Yemen , according to the Yemeni Army .
70 percent of those airstrikes have hit civilian targets .
Thousands of tons of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States , have been dropped on hospitals , schools , markets , mosques , farms , factories , bridges , and power and water treatment plants and have left unexploded ordnances scattered across densely populated areas .
A significant proportion of those ordnances are still embedded in the ground or amid the rubble of bombed-out buildings , posing a threat to both civilians and the environment .
As Man ’ e Abu Rasein , a father who lost two sons to an unexploded cluster bomb in August of 2018 puts it : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have planted our land with death.
” Abu Rasein ’ s sons , Rashid , ten , and Hussein , eight , were grazing their family ’ s herd of sheep in the village of al-Ghol north of Sadaa , far from any battlefield .
They spotted an unusual looking object and like most curious young boys , picked it up to investigate .
But the object they found was no toy , it was an unexploded cluster munition dropped by a Saudi jet .
After hearing an explosion , the boys ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lying dead , covered in blood .
Since March of 2015 , Human Rights Watch has recorded more than 15 incidents involving six different types of cluster munitions in at least five of Yemen ’ s 21 governorates .
According to the United Nations Development Program ’ s Emergency Mine Action Project , some of the heaviest mine and ERW ( explosive remnants of war ) contamination is reported in northern governorates bordering Saudi Arabia , southern coastal governorates and west-central governorates , all areas surrounding Houthi-dominated regions of Yemen .
Since 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 9,000 landmines and over 116,000 explosive remnants in Yemen .
From the Yemeni war of 1994 to the six wars in Sadaa , Yemenis have suffered several wars over the last three decades .
Yet thanks to saturation of U.S. weapons , the ongoing war has brought death on a toll not seen in Yemen for hundreds of years .
In Sadaa , the Saudi coalition has a significant legacy of unexploded ordinances , up to one million according to figures provided to MintPress by the Yemeni Executive Mine Action Center ( YEMAC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Nations .
The Project Manager of YEMAC identified heavy cluster munition contamination in Saada , al-Jawf , Amran , Hodeida , Mawit , and Sanaa governorates , including in Sanaa city .
Contamination was also reported in Marib .
For the time being , YEMAC is the only organization working throughout the country during the ongoing war .
Their teams are confronted with a very complex situation , disposing of both conventional munitions and bombs dropped from airplanes , including explosive remnants of war rockets , artillery shells , mortars , bombs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bombs , and other sub-munitions and similar explosives .
In addition to killing and injuring hundreds of civilians , American-made weapons have exposed Yemen ’ s people to highly toxic substances on a level not seen since the now-infamous use of radioactive depleted uranium by the United States in Fallujah , Iraq , which to this day is causing abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects .
The hazardous chemicals from Saudi Coalition military waste , including radioactive materials , fuel hydrocarbons , and heavy metals , has already led to outbreaks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , usually in various states of destruction , contain toxic substances including PCBs , CFCs , DU residue , heavy metals , unexploded ordnances , asbestos and mineral oils .
Hundreds of these military scraps remain publicly accessible in Nihm , al-Jawf , Serwah , Marib and throughout Yemen .
Aside from the threat they pose to life and limb , unexploded ordnances contain toxic substances like RDX , TNT , and heavy metals which release significant levels of toxic substances into the air , soil and water .
According to both the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ministry of Health , which have undertaken environmental assessments on the impact of urban bombing , high levels of hazardous waste and air pollutants are already present in a populated areas Alongside the still unknown quantities of more conventional weapons remnants in Yemen , the waste from the cleanup of bombed-out buildings has been found to be especially contaminated with hazardous materials , including asbestos which is used in military applications for sound insulation , fireproofing and wiring among other things .
Fires and heavy smoke billowing over heavily populated civilian areas following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat to human health .
A common sight in many Yemeni cities since the war began , these thick clouds of toxic smoke sometimes linger for days and coat both surfaces and people ’ s lungs with hazardous toxins like PAHs , dioxins and furans , materials which have been shown to cause cancer , liver problems and birth defects .
Before the war began , most hazardous materials were trucked to Sanaa where they were separated and disposed of properly at the sprawling al-Azragein treatment plant south of the capital .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destroyed by Saudi airstrikes after the war began .
After it was bombed , puddles and heaps of toxic material were left to mix with rainwater and seep into surrounding areas .
Yemeni researchers are still trying to grasp the scale of pollution from biohazardous chemicals at the site .
Although a comprehensive nationwide environmental assessment of the impact of urban bombing in Yemen has yet to be completed , high levels of hazardous waste and air pollutants have been recorded by many hospitals and environmental agencies .
Some idea of the long-term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carried out in areas where similar toxins have been used , particularly by the United States in Fallujah , Iraq and in Vietnam , where scientific assessments have shown increased cases of birth defects , cancer and other diseases , including in U.S. veterans .
In southern Yemen , where Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates operate largely unchallenged , the coalition has been disposing of military waste in large trenches devoid of any measures to mitigate potential toxic fallout .
Waste is dumped into large holes and either detonated or simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to data from the UN Environment Program .
Yemen ’ s coastline hasn ’ t been immune either .
The country ’ s General Authority for Environmental Protection said Wednesday that the Saudi-led coalition is dumping toxic and polluted waste on the shores of Yemen and in Yemeni regional waters , causing great damage to the marine environment , the deaths of fish and marine organisms , and in some cases , actually changing the color of the sea to a toxic green .
The agency stated that in addition to dumping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unsafe fishing practices such as marine dredging and the use of explosives by foreign ships , destroying the marine environment and coral reefs .
Thousands of displaced Yemenis can not fathom returning home due to the large number of explosives potentially hidden in and around their houses .
Removing them all would require an end to the U.S.-backed war and economic blockade .
Special equipment and armored machines such as armored excavators would need to be brought in , a slim prospect in a country unable to secure even the basic stapes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impact lives and limbs , they prevent the use of potentially productive agricultural land and the rebuilding of important infrastructure .
Like many border areas in Saada and Hajjah , fertile soil in al-Jawf and Marib has become so environmentally polluted since the war began that it could take decades to recover .
Explosive remnants also prevent access to vital resources like water and firewood , cripples the movement of residents , including children traveling to school , and prevents aid from reaching those in need .
Even if the Saudi-led coalition were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the blockade , its legacy of indiscriminate bombing on such a massive scale will be felt for years to come .
Due to the intensity of the bombing , experts at the United Nations Development Program ’ s Yemeni Executive Mine Action Center estimate that clearance could take at least 100 years in larger cities .
Despite these dangers , desperate families with nowhere to go do not waste a lull in the barrage of Saudi airstrikes or a short-lived ceasefire to attempt to return home .
Feature photo | A collection of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s YEMAC project in Yemen .
Courtesy | YEMAC Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist .
He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media .

AL-JAWF, YEMEN — As the world’s focus turns to the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 pandemic, Yemenis are reeling from their own brewing tragedy, contending with the thousands of cluster bombs, landmines and other exploded munitions that now litter their homeland. Just yesterday, a young child was killed and another was injured in the al-Ghail district of al-Jawf when a landmine left by the Saudi military exploded, witnesses told MintPress. Outraged and terrified by the presence of these unexploded ordnances, Ahmed Sharif, a father of 9 who owns a farm in the district called the unexploded ordnances “a significant threat to our children.”
Earlier this week, thousands of cluster bombs containing between dozens and hundreds of smaller submunitions were dropped by air and scattered indiscriminately over large areas near Ahmed’s farm. A large number of those munitions failed to explode on impact, creating a new threat to residents already reeling from 5 years of war, famine and an economic blockade. The use, production, sale, and transfer of cluster munitions is prohibited under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international agreement recognized by over 100 countries, but rejected by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Saudi Arabia is estimated to have dropped thousands of tons of U.S.-made weapons in al-Jawf over the past 100 days alone. Al-Jawf is an oil-rich province that lies in Yemen’s north-central reaches along the Saudi border. The aerial campaign is likely a last-ditch effort to stem the tide of battlefield success by local volunteer fighters who teamed with Houthi forces to recapture large swaths of al-Jawf and Marib provinces. That campaign, for all intents and purposes, has failed.
On Wednesday, the Houthis announced that their military operation – dubbed “God Overpowered Them” – was complete and that al-Jawf was free of Saudi occupation. According to Houthi sources, more than 1,200 Saudi-led coalition fighters were killed or injured during the operation and dozens of Saudi troops, including officers, were captured. The Houthis also struck deep into Saudi territory in retaliation for the more than 250 Saudi airstrikes that were carried out during the campaign. In multiple operations, ballistic missiles and drones were used to target facilities inside Saudi Arabia, according to officials.
Saudi losses haven’t been limited to al-Jawf either. Last week, Marib province, which lies adjacent to Yemen’s capital of Sana’a, was recaptured following heavy battles with Saudi forces. Local tribal fighters were able to clear strategic areas in the Sirwah District with the assistance of Houthi forces and take control of the town of Tabab Al-Bara and the strategic Tala Hamra hills that overlook Marib city. Both the Saudi-led coalition and its allied militants initially admitted defeat but later described their loss as a tactic withdrawal.
Marib is now the second Yemeni governorate adjacent to Saudi Arabia to fall under the control by Yemen’s resistance forces in the last month, al-Jawf being the first. Both provinces have strategic importance to Saudi Arabia and could serve as a potential launch point for operations into Saudi Arabia’s Najran province.
“Saudi [Arabia] and America have planted our land with death”
The highly populated urban areas of Sana’a, Sadaa, Hodeida, Hajjah, Marib, and al-Jawf have been subjected to incomprehensible bombing campaigns during the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which turns five on March 26. The sheer scale of that campaign, which often sees hundreds of separate airstrikes carried out every day, coupled with its indiscriminate nature, has left Yemen one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world.
Since 2015, when the war began, coalition warplanes have conducted more than 250,000 airstrikes in Yemen, according to the Yemeni Army. 70 percent of those airstrikes have hit civilian targets. Thousands of tons of weapons, most often supplied by the United States, have been dropped on hospitals, schools, markets, mosques, farms, factories, bridges, and power and water treatment plants and have left unexploded ordnances scattered across densely populated areas.
A significant proportion of those ordnances are still embedded in the ground or amid the rubble of bombed-out buildings, posing a threat to both civilians and the environment. As Man’e Abu Rasein, a father who lost two sons to an unexploded cluster bomb in August of 2018 puts it: “Saudi [Arabia] and America have planted our land with death.” Abu Rasein’s sons, Rashid, ten, and Hussein, eight, were grazing their family’s herd of sheep in the village of al-Ghol north of Sadaa, far from any battlefield. They spotted an unusual looking object and like most curious young boys, picked it up to investigate. But the object they found was no toy, it was an unexploded cluster munition dropped by a Saudi jet. After hearing an explosion, the boys’ family went to investigate and found them lying dead, covered in blood.
Since March of 2015, Human Rights Watch has recorded more than 15 incidents involving six different types of cluster munitions in at least five of Yemen’s 21 governorates. According to the United Nations Development Program’s Emergency Mine Action Project, some of the heaviest mine and ERW (explosive remnants of war) contamination is reported in northern governorates bordering Saudi Arabia, southern coastal governorates and west-central governorates, all areas surrounding Houthi-dominated regions of Yemen. Since 2018 alone, the UNDP has cleared nearly 9,000 landmines and over 116,000 explosive remnants in Yemen.
From the Yemeni war of 1994 to the six wars in Sadaa, Yemenis have suffered several wars over the last three decades. Yet thanks to saturation of U.S. weapons, the ongoing war has brought death on a toll not seen in Yemen for hundreds of years. In Sadaa, the Saudi coalition has a significant legacy of unexploded ordinances, up to one million according to figures provided to MintPress by the Yemeni Executive Mine Action Center (YEMAC), an organization backed by the United Nations.
The Project Manager of YEMAC identified heavy cluster munition contamination in Saada, al-Jawf, Amran, Hodeida, Mawit, and Sanaa governorates, including in Sanaa city. Contamination was also reported in Marib. For the time being, YEMAC is the only organization working throughout the country during the ongoing war. Their teams are confronted with a very complex situation, disposing of both conventional munitions and bombs dropped from airplanes, including explosive remnants of war rockets, artillery shells, mortars, bombs, hand grenades, landmines, cluster bombs, and other sub-munitions and similar explosives.
Saudi Arabia’s toxic legacy
In addition to killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, American-made weapons have exposed Yemen’s people to highly toxic substances on a level not seen since the now-infamous use of radioactive depleted uranium by the United States in Fallujah, Iraq, which to this day is causing abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects.
The hazardous chemicals from Saudi Coalition military waste, including radioactive materials, fuel hydrocarbons, and heavy metals, has already led to outbreaks of disease. Vehicles abandoned on battlefields, usually in various states of destruction, contain toxic substances including PCBs, CFCs, DU residue, heavy metals, unexploded ordnances, asbestos and mineral oils. Hundreds of these military scraps remain publicly accessible in Nihm, al-Jawf, Serwah, Marib and throughout Yemen.
Aside from the threat they pose to life and limb, unexploded ordnances contain toxic substances like RDX, TNT, and heavy metals which release significant levels of toxic substances into the air, soil and water. According to both the Ministry of Water and Environment and the Ministry of Health, which have undertaken environmental assessments on the impact of urban bombing, high levels of hazardous waste and air pollutants are already present in a populated areas
Alongside the still unknown quantities of more conventional weapons remnants in Yemen, the waste from the cleanup of bombed-out buildings has been found to be especially contaminated with hazardous materials, including asbestos which is used in military applications for sound insulation, fireproofing and wiring among other things. Fires and heavy smoke billowing over heavily populated civilian areas following Saudi bombing runs also pose an imminent threat to human health. A common sight in many Yemeni cities since the war began, these thick clouds of toxic smoke sometimes linger for days and coat both surfaces and people’s lungs with hazardous toxins like PAHs, dioxins and furans, materials which have been shown to cause cancer, liver problems and birth defects.
Before the war began, most hazardous materials were trucked to Sanaa where they were separated and disposed of properly at the sprawling al-Azragein treatment plant south of the capital. But that plant was among the first targets destroyed by Saudi airstrikes after the war began. After it was bombed, puddles and heaps of toxic material were left to mix with rainwater and seep into surrounding areas. Yemeni researchers are still trying to grasp the scale of pollution from biohazardous chemicals at the site.
Although a comprehensive nationwide environmental assessment of the impact of urban bombing in Yemen has yet to be completed, high levels of hazardous waste and air pollutants have been recorded by many hospitals and environmental agencies. Some idea of the long-term effects can also be gleaned from studies carried out in areas where similar toxins have been used, particularly by the United States in Fallujah, Iraq and in Vietnam, where scientific assessments have shown increased cases of birth defects, cancer and other diseases, including in U.S. veterans.
In southern Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates operate largely unchallenged, the coalition has been disposing of military waste in large trenches devoid of any measures to mitigate potential toxic fallout. Waste is dumped into large holes and either detonated or simply buried, inevitably contaminating soil and groundwater according to data from the UN Environment Program.
Yemen’s coastline hasn’t been immune either. The country’s General Authority for Environmental Protection said Wednesday that the Saudi-led coalition is dumping toxic and polluted waste on the shores of Yemen and in Yemeni regional waters, causing great damage to the marine environment, the deaths of fish and marine organisms, and in some cases, actually changing the color of the sea to a toxic green. The agency stated that in addition to dumping toxic waste, the coalition was allowing unsafe fishing practices such as marine dredging and the use of explosives by foreign ships, destroying the marine environment and coral reefs.
One hundred years to safety
Thousands of displaced Yemenis cannot fathom returning home due to the large number of explosives potentially hidden in and around their houses. Removing them all would require an end to the U.S.-backed war and economic blockade. Special equipment and armored machines such as armored excavators would need to be brought in, a slim prospect in a country unable to secure even the basic stapes of life.
Explosive remnants do not just impact lives and limbs, they prevent the use of potentially productive agricultural land and the rebuilding of important infrastructure. Like many border areas in Saada and Hajjah, fertile soil in al-Jawf and Marib has become so environmentally polluted since the war began that it could take decades to recover. Explosive remnants also prevent access to vital resources like water and firewood, cripples the movement of residents, including children traveling to school, and prevents aid from reaching those in need.
Even if the Saudi-led coalition were to stop the war immediately and lift the blockade, its legacy of indiscriminate bombing on such a massive scale will be felt for years to come. Due to the intensity of the bombing, experts at the United Nations Development Program’s Yemeni Executive Mine Action Center estimate that clearance could take at least 100 years in larger cities. Despite these dangers, desperate families with nowhere to go do not waste a lull in the barrage of Saudi airstrikes or a short-lived ceasefire to attempt to return home.
Feature photo | A collection of unexploded ordnance recovered by the UNDP’s YEMAC project in Yemen. Courtesy | YEMAC
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.


mintpressnews--2020-03-20--“A Storm is Coming” – Doctors Warn of COVID-19 Wave Racking US Prisons

Amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic , doctors across the United States are warning that prisons are a ticking time bomb .
Dr. Ross MacDonald , the Chief Medical Officer for Correctional Health Services in New York City , sent a dire warning to city and state legislators yesterday .
“ We who care for those you detain noticed how swiftly you closed your courts in response to COVID-19 .
This was fundamentally an act of social distancing , a sound strategy in public health .
But the luxury that allows you to protect yourselves , carries with it an obligation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not leave them in harm ’ s way , ” he wrote , ominously adding that , “ a storm is coming ” and claiming they could no longer look the other way .
While prisons are very good at stopping humans from exiting the premises , they are powerless to stop viruses from entering .
And while the traditional image of American jails is that of isolated inmates , perhaps sharing a cell with only one other person , the reality is that huge numbers are actually locked inside large communal cells @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a perfect breeding ground for disease .
There are around 2.3 million Americans currently incarcerated , and the prison system is at over 100 percent of its capacity as a whole .
While various states ’ authorities have claimed to be taking extra precautions against the virus , Illinois prisoners report having no access to even basic sanitary products like soap or cleaning supplies , putting them at extra risk .
Iran , a country with a relatively conservative government , has released around 85,000 prisoners in an effort to combat the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ begun to do the same , but only in drips .
In an op-ed in the Washington Post , health experts wrote that “ Unless government officials act now , the novel coronavirus will spread rapidly in our jails and prisons , endangering not only prisoners and corrections workers but the general public as well , ” recommending that authorities should release all those that do not pose an immediate danger to the public , and also to reduce arrests and delay sentencing .
Immigration and Customs Enforcement , however , have used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undocumented workers .
Rachael Bedard , a doctor at the infamous Rikers Island prison in New York , revealed that inmates are petrified of contracting the illness : “ Last week I did something excruciating : I walked around from dorm to dorm talking to folks about coronavirus .
I was honest with them- that we ’ d try our best to protect them , but that this pandemic was bad and that we couldn ’ t promise to keep it out , ” she wrote on Twitter , adding that COVID-19 “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once it ’ s in , it will spread like wildfire.
” There are already reports that the virus has reached Rikers Island .
While Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that he would begin identifying candidates for release , including those with underlying health problems and those incarcerated for minor offenses , his predecessor , Mike Bloomberg , drew up a plan of action to put inmates to work digging mass graves on nearby Hart Island .
The United States has by far the largest prison population in the world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a racialized justice system and the system of cash bail all contribute to the fact that almost a quarter of all those incarcerated worldwide are American .
A recent Chinese human rights report on the U.S. highlights the country ’ s prison system as a major shortcoming .
According to the World Prison Brief , the U.S. locks up its citizens at over five times the rate China does .
As of Friday morning , the United States has announced 14,250 confirmed cases of COVID-19 , and the virus has been spotted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recommend staying inside your home as much as possible , washing your hands with soap and water regularly , and avoiding touching your face .
Many countries have already enacted a total lockdown .
MacDonald ended his message with a straightforward request to the government : “ We have told you who is at risk .
Please let as many out as you possibly can.
” If his warning is not heeded immediately , the storm may be particularly deadly .
Feature photo | A prisoner walks near his crowded living area in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brynn Anderson | AP Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News .
After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books : Bad News From Venezuela : Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary .

Amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, doctors across the United States are warning that prisons are a ticking time bomb. Dr. Ross MacDonald, the Chief Medical Officer for Correctional Health Services in New York City, sent a dire warning to city and state legislators yesterday.
“We who care for those you detain noticed how swiftly you closed your courts in response to COVID-19. This was fundamentally an act of social distancing, a sound strategy in public health. But the luxury that allows you to protect yourselves, carries with it an obligation to those you detain. You must not leave them in harm’s way,” he wrote, ominously adding that, “a storm is coming” and claiming they could no longer look the other way.
While prisons are very good at stopping humans from exiting the premises, they are powerless to stop viruses from entering. And while the traditional image of American jails is that of isolated inmates, perhaps sharing a cell with only one other person, the reality is that huge numbers are actually locked inside large communal cells, often with dozens of other people, a perfect breeding ground for disease. There are around 2.3 million Americans currently incarcerated, and the prison system is at over 100 percent of its capacity as a whole.
While various states’ authorities have claimed to be taking extra precautions against the virus, Illinois prisoners report having no access to even basic sanitary products like soap or cleaning supplies, putting them at extra risk.
Iran, a country with a relatively conservative government, has released around 85,000 prisoners in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. The U.S. has begun to do the same, but only in drips. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, health experts wrote that “Unless government officials act now, the novel coronavirus will spread rapidly in our jails and prisons, endangering not only prisoners and corrections workers but the general public as well,” recommending that authorities should release all those that do not pose an immediate danger to the public, and also to reduce arrests and delay sentencing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, have used the opportunity to increase their assault on undocumented workers.
Rachael Bedard, a doctor at the infamous Rikers Island prison in New York, revealed that inmates are petrified of contracting the illness: “Last week I did something excruciating: I walked around from dorm to dorm talking to folks about coronavirus. I was honest with them- that we’d try our best to protect them, but that this pandemic was bad and that we couldn’t promise to keep it out,” she wrote on Twitter, adding that COVID-19 “cannot be kept out, and once it’s in, it will spread like wildfire.” There are already reports that the virus has reached Rikers Island.
While Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that he would begin identifying candidates for release, including those with underlying health problems and those incarcerated for minor offenses, his predecessor, Mike Bloomberg, drew up a plan of action to put inmates to work digging mass graves on nearby Hart Island.
The United States has by far the largest prison population in the world. Draconian punishments, a for-profit prison industry, a racialized justice system and the system of cash bail all contribute to the fact that almost a quarter of all those incarcerated worldwide are American. A recent Chinese human rights report on the U.S. highlights the country’s prison system as a major shortcoming. According to the World Prison Brief, the U.S. locks up its citizens at over five times the rate China does.
As of Friday morning, the United States has announced 14,250 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the virus has been spotted in all 50 states. Health officials recommend staying inside your home as much as possible, washing your hands with soap and water regularly, and avoiding touching your face. Many countries have already enacted a total lockdown.
MacDonald ended his message with a straightforward request to the government: “We have told you who is at risk. Please let as many out as you possibly can.” If his warning is not heeded immediately, the storm may be particularly deadly.
Feature photo | A prisoner walks near his crowded living area in Elmore Correctional Facility in Elmore, Ala. Brynn Anderson | AP
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.