theintercept--2020-04-25--With Millions Unable to Pay for Housing Next Month, Organizers Plan the Largest Rent Strike in Nearl

With Millions Unable to Pay for Housing Next Month, Organizers Plan the Largest Rent Strike in Nearly a Century

picture of the state of American dissent during the coronavirus pandemic ?
Take an overview of media coverage from the last week .
The press focused disproportionate attention on a few hundred white reactionaries , in a small number of states , rallying against social distancing measures — buoyed , of course , by tweets from President Donald Trump .
Meanwhile , some of the most radical and righteous acts of mass resistance this country has seen in decades — from a wave of labor strikes to an explosion of mutual aid networks — are earning but a fraction of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right-wing protesters .
Based on mainstream news coverage alone , for instance , you ’ d likely never know that organizers and tenants in New York are preparing the largest coordinated rent strike in nearly a century , to begin on May 1 .
At least 400 hundred families who live in buildings each containing over 1,500 rent units are coordinating building-wide rent strikes , according to Cea Weaver , campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All , a New York-based coalition of tenants and housing activists .
Additionally , over 5,000 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to refuse to pay rent in May .
Precise strike numbers will be impossible to track , but the number of commitments alone points to a historic revival of this tenant resistance tactic .
Coordinated rent strikes of this size in New York City haven ’ t been seen since the 1930s , when thousands of renters in Harlem and the Bronx successfully fought price gouging and landlord neglect by refusing to pay rent en masse .
The numbers committing to a rent strike might seem insignificant compared to the millions who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strike , but simply will not be able to pay rent in the coming month .
By the first week of April , one-third of renters nationwide — approximately 13.4 million people — had not paid rent ; since then , 26 million workers have joined the ranks of the unemployed .
Meanwhile , government stimulus checks of $ 1,200 are disorganized , overdue , and woefully inadequate .
The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New York City , for example , was $ 2,980 last year .
The federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of course , unavailable to many immigrants .
Since we can therefore expect nonpayment of May ’ s rent to reach an unprecedented scale anyway , the idea of advocating for a rent strike might at first seem moot .
Organizers of the rent strike , however , make clear the action ’ s relevance .
The slogan of the rent strike campaign says it all : “ Can ’ t pay ?
Won ’ t pay !
” The reframing of nonpayment as a strike — an act of collective resistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort of capitalist ethic that accords moral failing to an individual ’ s inability to pay a landlord .
“ We don ’ t need to organize a rent strike to be able to say that millions of New Yorkers will not pay their rent on May 1 , ” Weaver told me .
The call to a rent strike thus poses a crucial question to tenants who can ’ t afford rent , Weaver said : “ Do you want to do that alone ?
Or do you want to do that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are also in your situation and are calling for a deep and transformative policy solution .
It ’ s better if we can do this together.
” For tenant organizers on the front lines of New York ’ s housing crisis , which far predated the pandemic , the answer is clear .
“ The rent strike is a cry for dignity : We are all deserving of a home , no matter the color of our skin , financial status , or culture , ” said Donnette Letford , an undocumented immigrant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group New York Communities for Change .
Until a month ago , Letford had worked as a home health care attendant .
Her employer of over 10 years passed away , having contracted Covid-19 .
She is now jobless and mourning in quarantine , having cared for her employer until her death .
“ Under any circumstances , a loss like that is hard to bear , but during a pandemic it ’ s devastating , ” Letford , a mother of one , noted in an email , urging others to join @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis is making clear what many tenants have known for a long time : We are all just one life event — the loss of a job , a medical emergency — away from losing our homes.
” those who are able to pay May ’ s rent to refuse to do so in solidarity with those who can ’ t .
The move is aimed at pressuring city and state leadership to respond in the only way appropriate to the exacerbated housing crisis : by canceling rent .
Before housing rights advocates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mass rent strike , they had been calling , along with a small number of lawmakers , for a temporary rent suspension .
And while New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo introduced a crucial eviction moratorium , without also canceling rent during this time , back pay will accrue and the threat of future evictions looms over millions of renters who have lost all sources of income .
The rent strike is an unambiguous escalation to demand robust action from Albany .
“ We ’ re still calling to # CancelRent and reclaim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the rent strike , ” Weaver said .
“ So far , our cries for help have been ignored in Albany .
In fact , they ’ ve done the opposite of ignore us .
Gov .
Cuomo rammed through an austerity budget that harms low-income tenants and homeless New Yorkers .
In the face of sustained unemployment and a never-before-seen eviction crisis , they are offering nearly nothing.
” Like the historic rent strikes of the 20th century , which led to some of the first rent control laws in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demands .
According to a petition from Housing Justice For All , strikers want a statewide rent cancellation for four months , “ or for the duration of the public health crisis — whichever is longer ” ; a rent freeze and the assurance that every tenant is given the right to renew their lease at the same price ; and that the government “ urgently and permanently rehouse all New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and invest in public and social housing across our state.
” As Weaver put it , “ One way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some form of government intervention.
” She added , “ But we need to make sure that government intervention happens on our terms .
We are escalating to collective non-compliance with rent in order to force a crisis.
” to calls for rent cancellations and strikes are as predictable as they are unfounded .
Most common among them is the claim that small landlords , who survive and pay mortgages through collecting rent , will face ruination .
Yet it is well within the government ’ s capacity to provide relief and support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ payments should be canceled too .
Some of the nation ’ s better lawmakers are trying to pass bills that combine rent and mortgage cancellations on a national level .
On Wednesday , Rep. Ilhan Omar , D-Minn. , introduced the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act , which would provide rent and mortgage forgiveness while also providing relief to landlords to assist with lost payments .
Passing such legislation in Washington is perhaps a Sisyphean task , but it ’ s more feasible on a state level .
The problem is the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , were truly the “ crisis daddy ” he ’ s been nauseatingly hailed to be , he could make it a swift reality in New York .
Meanwhile , it should go without saying that large real estate corporations and powerful landlords can take the hit of a few months ’ canceled rent and deserve no less , after years upon decades of exploitative and extractive capital accumulation at the expense of tenants .
Prior to the pandemic — and thanks to the tireless work of tenants ’ unions , activists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York in 2018 — a number of pro-tenant legislative reforms were passed last year .
These laws , while welcome , were but a small step in the right direction to undo the decades of unchallenged complicity between New York ’ s politicians and the mighty real estate lobby .
For rent strike organizers , the ideal is by no means a return to a pre-crisis status quo .
As Weaver put it , “ We ’ re demanding that we not return to the world we lived in pre-Covid — a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ millions of people living just one paycheck away from an eviction.
” Phara Souffrant Forrest , a nurse and a tenant rights activist who is currently campaigning to become a New York State Assembly member , asked voters in her Brooklyn district of Crown Heights to sign a petition for rent cancellation .
“ We received a huge amount of support for it , but then it was as if we were talking to ourselves , we weren ’ t getting any response , ” she told me , decrying the lack of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that 44 percent of her district was already “ rent burdened ” before the pandemic , meaning that over one-third of their paychecks went to rent and utilities .
Four in 10 of the entire country ’ s 43 million renters are in the same position .
Souffrant Forrest is organizing alongside rent strikers in the explicit recognition that the power structures by which housing is organized need to be toppled — now and long after the coronavirus crisis has passed .
“ We need to support candidates who believe that housing is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the knowledge that all too few such politicians currently exist , the nurse and organizer has been calling up her neighbors and telling them about the rent strike .
“ Housing is a human right ” has long been the cry of tenant organizers and social-justice fighters .
What would it mean , though , to have a system in which housing were in fact treated as a universal human right ?
You wouldn ’ t have to pay to access those rights , for one .
A rent strike is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to housing to be recognized ; it ’ s instead an immediate and embodied claiming of that right .
The strike makes demands , yes , but also provides an end in itself .

Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP
Want a grim picture of the state of American dissent during the coronavirus pandemic? Take an overview of media coverage from the last week. The press focused disproportionate attention on a few hundred white reactionaries, in a small number of states, rallying against social distancing measures — buoyed, of course, by tweets from President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, some of the most radical and righteous acts of mass resistance this country has seen in decades — from a wave of labor strikes to an explosion of mutual aid networks — are earning but a fraction of the media focus accorded to fringe, right-wing protesters.
Based on mainstream news coverage alone, for instance, you’d likely never know that organizers and tenants in New York are preparing the largest coordinated rent strike in nearly a century, to begin on May 1.
“The rent strike is a cry for dignity: We are all deserving of a home, no matter the color of our skin, financial status, or culture.”
At least 400 hundred families who live in buildings each containing over 1,500 rent units are coordinating building-wide rent strikes, according to Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, a New York-based coalition of tenants and housing activists. Additionally, over 5,000 people have committed, through an online pledge, to refuse to pay rent in May.
Precise strike numbers will be impossible to track, but the number of commitments alone points to a historic revival of this tenant resistance tactic. Coordinated rent strikes of this size in New York City haven’t been seen since the 1930s, when thousands of renters in Harlem and the Bronx successfully fought price gouging and landlord neglect by refusing to pay rent en masse.
The numbers committing to a rent strike might seem insignificant compared to the millions who don’t frame nonpayment as a strike, but simply will not be able to pay rent in the coming month. By the first week of April, one-third of renters nationwide — approximately 13.4 million people — had not paid rent; since then, 26 million workers have joined the ranks of the unemployed.
Meanwhile, government stimulus checks of $1,200 are disorganized, overdue, and woefully inadequate. The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, for example, was $2,980 last year. The federal government’s pitiful offering is also, of course, unavailable to many immigrants. Since we can therefore expect nonpayment of May’s rent to reach an unprecedented scale anyway, the idea of advocating for a rent strike might at first seem moot.
Organizers of the rent strike, however, make clear the action’s relevance. The slogan of the rent strike campaign says it all: “Can’t pay? Won’t pay!” The reframing of nonpayment as a strike — an act of collective resistance — is a powerful rejection of the sort of capitalist ethic that accords moral failing to an individual’s inability to pay a landlord.
“We don’t need to organize a rent strike to be able to say that millions of New Yorkers will not pay their rent on May 1,” Weaver told me. The call to a rent strike thus poses a crucial question to tenants who can’t afford rent, Weaver said: “Do you want to do that alone? Or do you want to do that connected to a movement of people who are also in your situation and are calling for a deep and transformative policy solution. It’s better if we can do this together.”
For tenant organizers on the front lines of New York’s housing crisis, which far predated the pandemic, the answer is clear. “The rent strike is a cry for dignity: We are all deserving of a home, no matter the color of our skin, financial status, or culture,” said Donnette Letford, an undocumented immigrant from Jamaica and a member of the group New York Communities for Change.
Until a month ago, Letford had worked as a home health care attendant. Her employer of over 10 years passed away, having contracted Covid-19. She is now jobless and mourning in quarantine, having cared for her employer until her death. “Under any circumstances, a loss like that is hard to bear, but during a pandemic it’s devastating,” Letford, a mother of one, noted in an email, urging others to join the rent strike. “The Covid-19 crisis is making clear what many tenants have known for a long time: We are all just one life event — the loss of a job, a medical emergency — away from losing our homes.”
Organizers are asking those who are able to pay May’s rent to refuse to do so in solidarity with those who can’t. The move is aimed at pressuring city and state leadership to respond in the only way appropriate to the exacerbated housing crisis: by canceling rent.
“In the face of sustained unemployment and a never before seen eviction crisis, they are offering nearly nothing.”
Before housing rights advocates in New York escalated calls for a mass rent strike, they had been calling, along with a small number of lawmakers, for a temporary rent suspension. And while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced a crucial eviction moratorium, without also canceling rent during this time, back pay will accrue and the threat of future evictions looms over millions of renters who have lost all sources of income. The rent strike is an unambiguous escalation to demand robust action from Albany.
“We’re still calling to #CancelRent and reclaim our homes — that is the demand of the rent strike,” Weaver said. “So far, our cries for help have been ignored in Albany. In fact, they’ve done the opposite of ignore us. Gov. Cuomo rammed through an austerity budget that harms low-income tenants and homeless New Yorkers. In the face of sustained unemployment and a never-before-seen eviction crisis, they are offering nearly nothing.”
Like the historic rent strikes of the 20th century, which led to some of the first rent control laws in New York, the coming strike makes specific demands. According to a petition from Housing Justice For All, strikers want a statewide rent cancellation for four months, “or for the duration of the public health crisis — whichever is longer”; a rent freeze and the assurance that every tenant is given the right to renew their lease at the same price; and that the government “urgently and permanently rehouse all New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and invest in public and social housing across our state.”
As Weaver put it, “One way or another, we are looking at some form of government intervention.” She added, “But we need to make sure that government intervention happens on our terms. We are escalating to collective non-compliance with rent in order to force a crisis.”
Concerns in response to calls for rent cancellations and strikes are as predictable as they are unfounded. Most common among them is the claim that small landlords, who survive and pay mortgages through collecting rent, will face ruination. Yet it is well within the government’s capacity to provide relief and support for landlords in these situations: Mortgage payments should be canceled too.
Some of the nation’s better lawmakers are trying to pass bills that combine rent and mortgage cancellations on a national level. On Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., introduced the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, which would provide rent and mortgage forgiveness while also providing relief to landlords to assist with lost payments.
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Passing such legislation in Washington is perhaps a Sisyphean task, but it’s more feasible on a state level. The problem is the political will: If Cuomo, for instance, were truly the “crisis daddy” he’s been nauseatingly hailed to be, he could make it a swift reality in New York. Meanwhile, it should go without saying that large real estate corporations and powerful landlords can take the hit of a few months’ canceled rent and deserve no less, after years upon decades of exploitative and extractive capital accumulation at the expense of tenants.
Prior to the pandemic — and thanks to the tireless work of tenants’ unions, activists, and a few progressive Democrats elected in New York in 2018 — a number of pro-tenant legislative reforms were passed last year. These laws, while welcome, were but a small step in the right direction to undo the decades of unchallenged complicity between New York’s politicians and the mighty real estate lobby. For rent strike organizers, the ideal is by no means a return to a pre-crisis status quo. As Weaver put it, “We’re demanding that we not return to the world we lived in pre-Covid — a world with 92,000 homeless New Yorkers and millions of people living just one paycheck away from an eviction.”
“We’re demanding that we not return to the world we lived in pre-Covid.”
Phara Souffrant Forrest, a nurse and a tenant rights activist who is currently campaigning to become a New York State Assembly member, asked voters in her Brooklyn district of Crown Heights to sign a petition for rent cancellation. “We received a huge amount of support for it, but then it was as if we were talking to ourselves, we weren’t getting any response,” she told me, decrying the lack of action from sitting lawmakers. She noted that 44 percent of her district was already “rent burdened” before the pandemic, meaning that over one-third of their paychecks went to rent and utilities. Four in 10 of the entire country’s 43 million renters are in the same position.
Souffrant Forrest is organizing alongside rent strikers in the explicit recognition that the power structures by which housing is organized need to be toppled — now and long after the coronavirus crisis has passed. “We need to support candidates who believe that housing is a human right,” she said. In the knowledge that all too few such politicians currently exist, the nurse and organizer has been calling up her neighbors and telling them about the rent strike.
“Housing is a human right” has long been the cry of tenant organizers and social-justice fighters. What would it mean, though, to have a system in which housing were in fact treated as a universal human right? You wouldn’t have to pay to access those rights, for one. A rent strike is not a request for the human right to housing to be recognized; it’s instead an immediate and embodied claiming of that right. The strike makes demands, yes, but also provides an end in itself.


theintercept--2020-04-25--As a Federal Halfway House Confirms Its First Covid-19 Case, Resident Who Raised Alarms Is Sent Back

As a Federal Halfway House Confirms Its First Covid-19 Case, Resident Who Raised Alarms Is Sent Back to Jail

Richard Carrillo described inadequate protections from the coronavirus by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a North Dakota halfway house , a resident at his facility tested positive for Covid-19 — and Carrillo was detained and jailed .
Carrillo , 42 , had raised concerns in an account published by The Intercept on April 15 .
He was detained late Thursday morning outside the halfway house in Fargo , which is run by the nonprofit Centre Inc. His girlfriend , who was present , said that two U.S. marshals took Carrillo into custody while he was on a break from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They said he had committed a violation but did not elaborate .
“ Both me and him asked what was the violation for and they wouldn ’ t tell us , ” she said , only that “ he violated something at the place that he was staying.
” Carrillo was taken two hours north of Fargo to the Lake Region Law Enforcement Center in Devils Lake , North Dakota .
Carrillo ’ s mother , Denise Johnson , who had to go to the Centre Inc. facility to collect his belongings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had caused a “ disruption ” at the halfway house .
But both she and Carrillo believe that he was detained in retaliation for speaking to the media .
In a phone call from the jail Thursday night , Carrillo told his mother that he thought the halfway house was “ making an example of him.
” In a series of messages sent from the jail on Friday , Carrillo told The Intercept that he was transported along with three other people in a van to Devils Lake and then told that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 14 days .
He was not charged or given any explanation apart from what his mother was told — that “ someone made the decision to have me removed because I have been a nuisance.
” Carrillo also said he was not feeling well , describing a light cough and a sore throat , which he fears may be a sign of Covid-19 .
Masks are not being provided at the jail , but staff are taking temperatures .
Johnson first approached The Intercept with fears over the BOP handling of the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ custody .
Carrillo , who was released from the Federal Correctional Institution Otisville in New York on March 24 , took a Greyhound bus to Fargo .
In conversations with The Intercept , he expressed alarm over the lack of precautions upon his arrival at the halfway house , especially because of the time he spent at Port Authority in New York City , the epicenter of the virus .
He said he was told he would be quarantined upon his arrival at the Centre Inc. facility but instead was placed in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from another federal prison and allowed to mix with residents and staff .
He was also required to seek work , which meant going to job interviews without any protection .
A few days after The Intercept published its story , a resident at the Centre Inc. halfway house tested positive for Covid-19 .
Executive Director Josh Helmer confirmed the case in an email on April 21 , writing that the test result had been discovered on April 19 .
The next day the resident was moved to “ a different community location @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Department of Health recommendations.
” That man , The Intercept learned , is being housed at a hotel in Fargo .
According to a source familiar with the situation , the man arrived at the halfway house in late March and shared a room with four other people .
He also worked in the kitchen , packing lunches for residents going outside the facility for work , while wearing a mask .
The man was removed from his room after his positive test was discovered .
Helmer said the facility was unaware @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results .
“ The individual was tested as a result of other scheduled medical procedures , ” he wrote .
The Covid-19 case fulfilled Carrillo ’ s worst fears about the possibility that the virus would get into the facility .
After the resident tested positive , Carrillo confined himself to his dorm as much as possible , began using a bandana as a mask , and submitted paperwork requesting a transfer to home confinement , which would be especially practical since he already wears an ankle bracelet and has a home just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was detained , Carrillo told The Intercept that he and another resident had been bringing their meals back to their dorm in order to avoid the communal dining area , only to be told that this was forbidden .
“ I know I ’ m not very liked right now by the staff , ” he said .
Carrillo also said that his case manager had spoken to him about his statements to The Intercept , saying that she would have to inform the BOP .
“ I go , ‘ Am I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong ?
’ ” he said .
“ And she goes , ‘ Well , I ’ m not saying that .
I don ’ t know if there ’ s gon na be any trouble about it.
’ ” As of Friday evening , Carrillo did not know why he was being held at the jail .
No new charges have been brought against him .
“ They are not giving me no hearing or nothing at all , ” he wrote .
Staff just said he was on a “ BOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technically in BOP custody rather than on probation .
He was released to the halfway house to finish his sentence based in part of good behavior during his time in prison .
This means the bureau can technically transfer Carrillo to whatever facility it deems necessary — and one Lake Region staffer said that the BOP is transferring people in custody from Fargo to Devils Lake because the former is a Covid-19 “ hot spot.
” “ So they sent them this way as a precaution to keep them safe , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he was moved as punishment for making his concerns public .
And he still does not understand why , if this is really a matter of public safety , he can not be transferred to do the rest of his time under home confinement .
With BOP claiming to be reducing prison transfers systemwide amid the pandemic , it seems counterproductive at best to move a man who may have been exposed to the virus in one facility to a new jail where the virus could potentially take hold .
Helmer said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ our referral source/contract oversight contact personnel ” but had not received a response .
In an email , BOP spokesperson Emery Nelson did not answer any questions about Carrillo ’ s arrest but shared the same information that can be found on the bureau ’ s Inmate Locator .
“ For safety and security reasons , ” he wrote , “ we do not discuss conditions of confinement for any particular inmate .
”

Days after Richard Carrillo described inadequate protections from the coronavirus by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a North Dakota halfway house, a resident at his facility tested positive for Covid-19 — and Carrillo was detained and jailed.
Carrillo, 42, had raised concerns in an account published by The Intercept on April 15. He was detained late Thursday morning outside the halfway house in Fargo, which is run by the nonprofit Centre Inc. His girlfriend, who was present, said that two U.S. marshals took Carrillo into custody while he was on a break from his job at a nearby grocery store. They said he had committed a violation but did not elaborate. “Both me and him asked what was the violation for and they wouldn’t tell us,” she said, only that “he violated something at the place that he was staying.”
Carrillo was taken two hours north of Fargo to the Lake Region Law Enforcement Center in Devils Lake, North Dakota. Carrillo’s mother, Denise Johnson, who had to go to the Centre Inc. facility to collect his belongings, said she was told her son had caused a “disruption” at the halfway house. But both she and Carrillo believe that he was detained in retaliation for speaking to the media. In a phone call from the jail Thursday night, Carrillo told his mother that he thought the halfway house was “making an example of him.”
In a series of messages sent from the jail on Friday, Carrillo told The Intercept that he was transported along with three other people in a van to Devils Lake and then told that he was being placed in 23-hour lockdown for 14 days. He was not charged or given any explanation apart from what his mother was told — that “someone made the decision to have me removed because I have been a nuisance.” Carrillo also said he was not feeling well, describing a light cough and a sore throat, which he fears may be a sign of Covid-19. Masks are not being provided at the jail, but staff are taking temperatures.
Johnson first approached The Intercept with fears over the BOP handling of the coronavirus because she has two sons in federal custody. Carrillo, who was released from the Federal Correctional Institution Otisville in New York on March 24, took a Greyhound bus to Fargo. In conversations with The Intercept, he expressed alarm over the lack of precautions upon his arrival at the halfway house, especially because of the time he spent at Port Authority in New York City, the epicenter of the virus. He said he was told he would be quarantined upon his arrival at the Centre Inc. facility but instead was placed in a room with a man who had come from another federal prison and allowed to mix with residents and staff. He was also required to seek work, which meant going to job interviews without any protection.
A few days after The Intercept published its story, a resident at the Centre Inc. halfway house tested positive for Covid-19. Executive Director Josh Helmer confirmed the case in an email on April 21, writing that the test result had been discovered on April 19. The next day the resident was moved to “a different community location to self-quarantine in accordance with the CDC and Department of Health recommendations.” That man, The Intercept learned, is being housed at a hotel in Fargo. According to a source familiar with the situation, the man arrived at the halfway house in late March and shared a room with four other people. He also worked in the kitchen, packing lunches for residents going outside the facility for work, while wearing a mask. The man was removed from his room after his positive test was discovered. Helmer said the facility was unaware he had been tested until learning the results. “The individual was tested as a result of other scheduled medical procedures,” he wrote.
The Covid-19 case fulfilled Carrillo’s worst fears about the possibility that the virus would get into the facility. After the resident tested positive, Carrillo confined himself to his dorm as much as possible, began using a bandana as a mask, and submitted paperwork requesting a transfer to home confinement, which would be especially practical since he already wears an ankle bracelet and has a home just minutes away. The day before he was detained, Carrillo told The Intercept that he and another resident had been bringing their meals back to their dorm in order to avoid the communal dining area, only to be told that this was forbidden. “I know I’m not very liked right now by the staff,” he said.
Carrillo also said that his case manager had spoken to him about his statements to The Intercept, saying that she would have to inform the BOP. “I go, ‘Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong?’” he said. “And she goes, ‘Well, I’m not saying that. I don’t know if there’s gonna be any trouble about it.’”
As of Friday evening, Carrillo did not know why he was being held at the jail. No new charges have been brought against him. “They are not giving me no hearing or nothing at all,” he wrote. Staff just said he was on a “BOP hold.” Indeed, Carrillo is still technically in BOP custody rather than on probation. He was released to the halfway house to finish his sentence based in part of good behavior during his time in prison. This means the bureau can technically transfer Carrillo to whatever facility it deems necessary — and one Lake Region staffer said that the BOP is transferring people in custody from Fargo to Devils Lake because the former is a Covid-19 “hot spot.” “So they sent them this way as a precaution to keep them safe,” he said.
Nevertheless, Carrillo is certain that he was moved as punishment for making his concerns public. And he still does not understand why, if this is really a matter of public safety, he cannot be transferred to do the rest of his time under home confinement. With BOP claiming to be reducing prison transfers systemwide amid the pandemic, it seems counterproductive at best to move a man who may have been exposed to the virus in one facility to a new jail where the virus could potentially take hold.
Helmer said he forwarded The Intercept’s questions to “our referral source/contract oversight contact personnel” but had not received a response. In an email, BOP spokesperson Emery Nelson did not answer any questions about Carrillo’s arrest but shared the same information that can be found on the bureau’s Inmate Locator. “For safety and security reasons,” he wrote, “we do not discuss conditions of confinement for any particular inmate.”


theintercept--2020-04-26--The Life and Death of Jerry Givens, Virginia’s Executioner-Turned-Abolitionist

on Facebook earlier this month when he noticed someone liking a series of pictures on his page .
They were all old photos of his friend and fellow anti-death penalty activist Jerry Givens .
“ It occurred to me to check his page , ” Bonowitz said .
And that ’ s how he found out that Givens had died .
He had Covid-19 .
Givens , 67 , was on the board of Death Penalty Action , an abolitionist group Bonowitz co-founded in 2017 .
He was the unlikeliest of allies .
In his previous life working for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been the state ’ s chief executioner .
Between 1982 and 1999 , he carried out 62 executions : 25 in the electric chair and 37 using lethal injection .
During much of that era , Virginia was second only to Texas in killing the condemned — “ the bad old days , ” according to Michael Stone , executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty .
Givens lost his job and his anonymity after being arrested for money laundering in 1999 .
After a stint in federal prison , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compartmentalize what he had done .
The executions had seeped into his mind , impacting other aspects of his life .
Givens was seeking help with a legal matter a couple of years after his release when he was put in touch with Jon Sheldon , a capital defense attorney who was then the board chair of VADP .
Their conversation turned to Givens ’ s years working for the state .
Sheldon immediately saw the significance of his story .
“ Jerry was very cautious , ” Sheldon recalls .
At that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about his role with the Department of Corrections.
” He asked to meet Sheldon somewhere they were not likely to be seen , suggesting a truck stop on I-95 , just north of Richmond .
There , Givens talked while Sheldon listened .
“ I remember thinking to myself , ‘ Man , this guy has PTSD , ’ ” he said .
But Givens also struck him as thoughtful and kind .
Eventually Sheldon convinced Givens to share his story .
Over time , Givens ’ s views on the death penalty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a job he did as professionally and humanely as possible became a practice that he could no longer defend .
He became a public figure , speaking to reporters and testifying at legislative hearings .
“ I never remember him turning down a request to speak or to be interviewed , ” Stone said .
“ He would even happily talk to high school kids doing papers about the death penalty.
” “ He was on a bit of a mission , ” Bonowitz said .
“ He felt like he had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what he could about a system that he was a part of but understood was wrong.
” Givens had particular credibility among those who supported executions in the name of law and order .
In 2012 , as California organizers were pushing Prop 34 , a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty , Bonowitz brought Givens on a speaking tour that took them through the Central Valley , a conservative part of the state .
Former Florida State Prison Warden Ron McAndrew joined them ; he and Givens bonded during the road @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get up about eight or 10 miles over the speed limit , Jerry would nudge me with his leg , ” McAndrew recalled .
To McAndrew , Givens was a kindred spirit .
“ We talked about the executions that we ’ d been involved in .
And how they had affected us personally.
” McAndrew had shared his own story publicly only after years of nightmares and heavy drinking .
It was a relief “ to admit to a large group of people that I had been traumatized by this work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ been traumatized.
” Together they had been like “ a little secret club , ” he said , who would talk to each other on the phone , “ sort of helping each other out like alcoholics , I guess you could say.
” In California , telling their stories back to back , McAndrew saw the impact when Givens spoke .
“ You could look out into an audience and you could tell that he ’ d gotten to them , ” he said .
He found that they had different styles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McAndrew , it came from a combination of religion and years of therapy insisted upon by his wife .
As for Givens , “ he found his resolve through faith.
” It is hard to be sure how Givens contracted the coronavirus .
Early reports linked his illness to a revival in early March at the Cedar Street Baptist Church in Richmond , where Givens sang in the choir .
A week after the event , the local health department notified the church that an attendee had tested positive for Covid-19 .
Givens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Givens began feeling sick in mid-March and was diagnosed with pneumonia .
He was prescribed antibiotics but got worse .
A few days after he was admitted to the hospital , he tested positive for Covid-19 .
Before long , he was on a ventilator .
Like many others who have succumbed to the virus , Givens seemed to be doing better before he died .
Every day the family received a phone call in the morning and one at night — the updates signaled improvement .
On April 13 , Travers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the phone , and they were “ praising God over how good he was doing and there was some good progress.
” But just a couple of hours later , the phone rang again .
“ And I could hear my mother ’ s screaming and crying.
” On his Facebook page and memorial guestbook , mourners described Givens as a father figure , coach , and mentor who cared deeply for young people .
“ He was always there for us to talk with us if we needed to , and he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the right direction , ” Travers said .
Givens had seen violence in the neighborhood where he grew up ; he lost his father to drugs , leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings on her own .
As a kid , he wanted to be a police officer and then a professional football player .
Instead , in 1974 , he took a job with the Virginia Department of Corrections .
In a short memoir published in 2012 , Givens recalled how he was approached by his boss to participate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all met in one room in the basement of A-Cell House , a place we call East Basement or Death Chambers , ” he wrote .
The space had not been used since the early 1960s .
When the state prepared to resume executions in 1982 , Givens had to shift the way he saw himself , from someone who would have saved the lives of the men on his watch to someone who could kill them .
“ I knew at that moment that I would have to transform myself into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote .
Givens never told his family what he was doing .
Travers just remembers how his uniforms were always clean and crisp as he went to work .
“ We were just thinking he was a guard , ” she said .
“ I think all of us thought that.
” Givens ’ s sister Evelyn told Richmond Magazine how the family found out about his past , by reading about it in a news report on his arrest .
“ It hurt me because I ’ m against the death penalty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole family is .
I tried to blot it out of my mind .
I tried not to think about it , but sometimes I would , and I ’ d think , ‘ Oh , he killed 62 people.
’ ” “ I think he regretted it , ” she went on .
“ I think he felt some kind of way about it .
I also wondered how it might affect his mind to keep something like that locked up inside .
He had to have God in his life for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because that has to be a stressful thing .
You see it on TV , you see the families of those executed , and you say to yourself , ‘ Oh , I was the one who contributed to that .
I was the one who carried out the execution.
’ Do you go to God and say , ‘ God forgive me ?
’ And if God can forgive you , then you have to forgive yourself.
” Not everyone was able to forgive Jerry Givens .
Within the abolitionist movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men he killed — there were many people who simply could not get past what he had done .
And yet his life also provided powerful testimony to what abolitionists often preach : that everyone is more than their worst acts ; that everyone has the capacity to change .
“ Even if people are disgusted by what he did , ” Bonowitz said , “ there ’ s a truth about what comes out of his mouth that ’ s undeniable.
” Givens may have been unique in many ways , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from their proximity to executions .
“ I think it is important to understand that capital punishment produces a lot of collateral damage , ” Stone says , from jurors to judges to lawyers and families on both sides of the case .
“ And many of them are traumatized by that experience.
” At one of his final public events last year , Givens carried that warning to a church in Terre Haute , Indiana , where the Trump administration planned to restart federal executions after 16 years .
Bonowitz had organized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city , which included screenings of a documentary about Givens titled “ In the Executioner ’ s Shadow.
” It told the story of Earl Washington Jr. , who came within days of the electric chair only to later be exonerated .
That he came so close to killing Washington shook Givens .
He wondered if any of the men he killed had been innocent too .
Afterward Givens took questions .
He wore a dark suit coat , glasses , and a gold watch .
One man asked how his job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never discussed it with my kids , ” Givens answered .
If he had , “ then they would have to go through what I go through.
” Later Givens joined his fellow activists at a nearby Denny ’ s .
Sitting at the end of the table , he shared his concerns over the danger of botched executions like that of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma .
States were playing “ Russian roulette ” with lethal injection , he said .
Whoever the federal government hired to carry out the executions in Terre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be inexperienced .
Givens had been disturbed by the switch from electrocutions to lethal injection in Virginia .
The former was swift — and only required him to push a button , he said .
But as he told the filmmakers , lethal injection put him “ at the end of each syringe .
I ’ m pushing the poison down the tube into the body .
So I ’ m more attached to this person.
” One of the chemicals he used was a paralytic that immobilized the condemned .
Today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not always effective at anesthetizing a person , leading to a silently tortuous death .
Over dinner , Givens said he never saw any signs of suffering .
But he couldn ’ t be sure .
The conversation turned to the way different states handled executions .
In some states , executions take place away from death row , carried out by staffers who do not know the person they are about to kill .
This is meant to make it easier on prison employees .
But Givens pushed back .
It didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
“ Killing is killing.
” “ People think you can do something like that and then go home and forget about it , ” he went on .
“ No .
It ’ s something that is stuck with you.
” I asked him if he was still in touch with the men who he worked with at the prison .
He said he was .
But he would never reveal their names .
“ I was sworn to a secret , ” he said .
“ And I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Not Promised Givens was buried at Richmond ’ s Oakwood Cemetery on April 18 .
“ He was in a beautiful black suit with a tie and a handkerchief to match .
And his glasses , ” Travers said .
Only 10 people were allowed at the funeral , but there were singers and a eulogy by his pastor from Cedar Street Baptist Church .
A slideshow featured photos of family vacations along with his anti-death penalty work .
Afterward , the family released a bunch of balloons in his honor , burgundy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington Redskins , his favorite football team .
Then they drove home in separate cars .
Someday there will be a gathering in his honor , Travers said , hopefully featuring his favorite foods — “ probably shrimp , collard greens , potato salad , homemade rolls .
Some of his brother-in-law ’ s homemade cakes.
” But for now they have to grieve apart .
One of the last times he spoke to his family before he died , Givens asked them not to worry , saying “ he was ready if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Travers said .
In his book , titled “ Another Day Is Not Promised , ” he wrote that taking the lives of so many men had taught him “ to appreciate my own life that God has given me.
” But this doesn ’ t make his death any less painful for those who knew him .
Givens had a lot of living left to do .
He was still speaking , still writing letters against executions .
He wanted to see more states abolish the death penalty , especially Virginia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bonowitz against the planned federal executions .
Travers has invited people to donate to Death Penalty Action in his name .
Givens had ordinary plans too .
To go to lunch in Richmond with Sheldon , the man who first brought him into the movement .
To go fishing in Florida with McAndrew , who had invited him to stay at his home .
To spend time with his beloved wife and family , including his niece .
He used to have dinner with her and her mother almost every Sunday , Travers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ He was my card partner , ” she said .
“ I don ’ t know what I ’ m gon na do now .
”

Abe Bonowitz was on Facebook earlier this month when he noticed someone liking a series of pictures on his page. They were all old photos of his friend and fellow anti-death penalty activist Jerry Givens. “It occurred to me to check his page,” Bonowitz said. And that’s how he found out that Givens had died. He had Covid-19.
Givens, 67, was on the board of Death Penalty Action, an abolitionist group Bonowitz co-founded in 2017. He was the unlikeliest of allies. In his previous life working for the Virginia Department of Corrections, Givens had been the state’s chief executioner. Between 1982 and 1999, he carried out 62 executions: 25 in the electric chair and 37 using lethal injection. During much of that era, Virginia was second only to Texas in killing the condemned — “the bad old days,” according to Michael Stone, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Givens lost his job and his anonymity after being arrested for money laundering in 1999. After a stint in federal prison, he found it harder and harder to compartmentalize what he had done. The executions had seeped into his mind, impacting other aspects of his life. Givens was seeking help with a legal matter a couple of years after his release when he was put in touch with Jon Sheldon, a capital defense attorney who was then the board chair of VADP. Their conversation turned to Givens’s years working for the state. Sheldon immediately saw the significance of his story.
What he once saw as a job he did as professionally and humanely as possible became a practice that he could no longer defend.
“Jerry was very cautious,” Sheldon recalls. At that time, “he had mixed feelings about his role with the Department of Corrections.” He asked to meet Sheldon somewhere they were not likely to be seen, suggesting a truck stop on I-95, just north of Richmond. There, Givens talked while Sheldon listened. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Man, this guy has PTSD,’” he said. But Givens also struck him as thoughtful and kind. Eventually Sheldon convinced Givens to share his story.
Over time, Givens’s views on the death penalty evolved. What he once saw as a job he did as professionally and humanely as possible became a practice that he could no longer defend. He became a public figure, speaking to reporters and testifying at legislative hearings. “I never remember him turning down a request to speak or to be interviewed,” Stone said. “He would even happily talk to high school kids doing papers about the death penalty.”
“He was on a bit of a mission,” Bonowitz said. “He felt like he had a purpose and perhaps an obligation to fix what he could about a system that he was a part of but understood was wrong.”
Givens had particular credibility among those who supported executions in the name of law and order. In 2012, as California organizers were pushing Prop 34, a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty, Bonowitz brought Givens on a speaking tour that took them through the Central Valley, a conservative part of the state. Former Florida State Prison Warden Ron McAndrew joined them; he and Givens bonded during the road trip. “Every time Abe would get up about eight or 10 miles over the speed limit, Jerry would nudge me with his leg,” McAndrew recalled.
To McAndrew, Givens was a kindred spirit. “We talked about the executions that we’d been involved in. And how they had affected us personally.” McAndrew had shared his own story publicly only after years of nightmares and heavy drinking. It was a relief “to admit to a large group of people that I had been traumatized by this work. And a lot of my friends had been traumatized.” Together they had been like “a little secret club,” he said, who would talk to each other on the phone, “sort of helping each other out like alcoholics, I guess you could say.”
In California, telling their stories back to back, McAndrew saw the impact when Givens spoke. “You could look out into an audience and you could tell that he’d gotten to them,” he said. He found that they had different styles and different ways of coping. For McAndrew, it came from a combination of religion and years of therapy insisted upon by his wife. As for Givens, “he found his resolve through faith.”
Locked Up Inside
It is hard to be sure how Givens contracted the coronavirus. Early reports linked his illness to a revival in early March at the Cedar Street Baptist Church in Richmond, where Givens sang in the choir. A week after the event, the local health department notified the church that an attendee had tested positive for Covid-19.
Givens’s niece, Valerie Travers, said Givens began feeling sick in mid-March and was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was prescribed antibiotics but got worse. A few days after he was admitted to the hospital, he tested positive for Covid-19. Before long, he was on a ventilator.
Like many others who have succumbed to the virus, Givens seemed to be doing better before he died. Every day the family received a phone call in the morning and one at night — the updates signaled improvement. On April 13, Travers recalls, her mother had gotten off the phone, and they were “praising God over how good he was doing and there was some good progress.” But just a couple of hours later, the phone rang again. “And I could hear my mother’s screaming and crying.”
On his Facebook page and memorial guestbook, mourners described Givens as a father figure, coach, and mentor who cared deeply for young people. “He was always there for us to talk with us if we needed to, and he wanted to make sure we went in the right direction,” Travers said. Givens had seen violence in the neighborhood where he grew up; he lost his father to drugs, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings on her own. As a kid, he wanted to be a police officer and then a professional football player. Instead, in 1974, he took a job with the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Jerry Givens with Abe Bonowitz, center left, outside the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 at the annual Fast and Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty event. Photo: Scott Langley
In a short memoir published in 2012, Givens recalled how he was approached by his boss to participate in the execution team. “We all met in one room in the basement of A-Cell House, a place we call East Basement or Death Chambers,” he wrote. The space had not been used since the early 1960s. When the state prepared to resume executions in 1982, Givens had to shift the way he saw himself, from someone who would have saved the lives of the men on his watch to someone who could kill them. “I knew at that moment that I would have to transform myself into the mindset of an executioner,” he wrote.
Givens never told his family what he was doing. Travers just remembers how his uniforms were always clean and crisp as he went to work. “We were just thinking he was a guard,” she said. “I think all of us thought that.” Givens’s sister Evelyn told Richmond Magazine how the family found out about his past, by reading about it in a news report on his arrest. “It hurt me because I’m against the death penalty,” she said. “My whole family is. I tried to blot it out of my mind. I tried not to think about it, but sometimes I would, and I’d think, ‘Oh, he killed 62 people.’”
“I think he regretted it,” she went on. “I think he felt some kind of way about it. I also wondered how it might affect his mind to keep something like that locked up inside. He had to have God in his life for support mentally, physically, and emotionally, because that has to be a stressful thing. You see it on TV, you see the families of those executed, and you say to yourself, ‘Oh, I was the one who contributed to that. I was the one who carried out the execution.’ Do you go to God and say, ‘God forgive me?’ And if God can forgive you, then you have to forgive yourself.”
Trauma and Forgiveness
Not everyone was able to forgive Jerry Givens. Within the abolitionist movement — and among the families of the men he killed — there were many people who simply could not get past what he had done. And yet his life also provided powerful testimony to what abolitionists often preach: that everyone is more than their worst acts; that everyone has the capacity to change.
“Even if people are disgusted by what he did,” Bonowitz said, “there’s a truth about what comes out of his mouth that’s undeniable.” Givens may have been unique in many ways, but there are countless others who carry trauma from their proximity to executions. “I think it is important to understand that capital punishment produces a lot of collateral damage,” Stone says, from jurors to judges to lawyers and families on both sides of the case. “And many of them are traumatized by that experience.”
At one of his final public events last year, Givens carried that warning to a church in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Trump administration planned to restart federal executions after 16 years. Bonowitz had organized a series of events in and around the city, which included screenings of a documentary about Givens titled “In the Executioner’s Shadow.” It told the story of Earl Washington Jr., who came within days of the electric chair only to later be exonerated. That he came so close to killing Washington shook Givens. He wondered if any of the men he killed had been innocent too.
“People think you can do something like that and then go home and forget about it. No. It’s something that is stuck with you.”
Afterward Givens took questions. He wore a dark suit coat, glasses, and a gold watch. One man asked how his job had impacted his children. “I never discussed it with my kids,” Givens answered. If he had, “then they would have to go through what I go through.”
Later Givens joined his fellow activists at a nearby Denny’s. Sitting at the end of the table, he shared his concerns over the danger of botched executions like that of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. States were playing “Russian roulette” with lethal injection, he said. Whoever the federal government hired to carry out the executions in Terre Haute, they were almost certainly going to be inexperienced.
Givens had been disturbed by the switch from electrocutions to lethal injection in Virginia. The former was swift — and only required him to push a button, he said. But as he told the filmmakers, lethal injection put him “at the end of each syringe. I’m pushing the poison down the tube into the body. So I’m more attached to this person.” One of the chemicals he used was a paralytic that immobilized the condemned. Today we know that the three-drug cocktail was not always effective at anesthetizing a person, leading to a silently tortuous death. Over dinner, Givens said he never saw any signs of suffering. But he couldn’t be sure.
The conversation turned to the way different states handled executions. In some states, executions take place away from death row, carried out by staffers who do not know the person they are about to kill. This is meant to make it easier on prison employees. But Givens pushed back. It didn’t make a difference who did it. “Killing is killing.”
“People think you can do something like that and then go home and forget about it,” he went on. “No. It’s something that is stuck with you.” I asked him if he was still in touch with the men who he worked with at the prison. He said he was. But he would never reveal their names. “I was sworn to a secret,” he said. “And I’ve stuck to it.”
Another Day Is Not Promised
Givens was buried at Richmond’s Oakwood Cemetery on April 18. “He was in a beautiful black suit with a tie and a handkerchief to match. And his glasses,” Travers said. Only 10 people were allowed at the funeral, but there were singers and a eulogy by his pastor from Cedar Street Baptist Church. A slideshow featured photos of family vacations along with his anti-death penalty work.
Afterward, the family released a bunch of balloons in his honor, burgundy and gold, the colors of his beloved Washington D.C. football team. Then they drove home in separate cars. Someday there will be a gathering in his honor, Travers said, hopefully featuring his favorite foods — “probably shrimp, collard greens, potato salad, homemade rolls. Some of his brother-in-law’s homemade cakes.” But for now they have to grieve apart.
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One of the last times he spoke to his family before he died, Givens asked them not to worry, saying “he was ready if the worst were to happen,” Travers said. In his book, titled “Another Day Is Not Promised,” he wrote that taking the lives of so many men had taught him “to appreciate my own life that God has given me.” But this doesn’t make his death any less painful for those who knew him. Givens had a lot of living left to do. He was still speaking, still writing letters against executions. He wanted to see more states abolish the death penalty, especially Virginia. And he wanted to keep fighting alongside Bonowitz against the planned federal executions. Travers has invited people to donate to Death Penalty Action in his name.
Givens had ordinary plans too. To go to lunch in Richmond with Sheldon, the man who first brought him into the movement. To go fishing in Florida with McAndrew, who had invited him to stay at his home. To spend time with his beloved wife and family, including his niece. He used to have dinner with her and her mother almost every Sunday, Travers said. They would play spades. “He was my card partner,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do now.”


theintercept--2020-04-27--In Just Months, the Coronavirus Kills More Americans Than 20 Years of War in Vietnam

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now the most poignant monument on Washington D.C. ’ s National Mall .
Designed in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate named Maya Lin , the memorial consists of polished black granite panels that form a 125-degree angle and are inscribed with the names of the U.S. military dead from that conflict .
The two walls , low at the ends and high where they meet in the middle , list the deceased chronologically – an individual accounting , day by day , of each American life lost .
It took twenty years , from 1955 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lose 58,220 men and women — 47,434 in combat — to the nation ’ s most divisive conflict since the Civil War .
In less than four months , just as many Americans will have died from the Covid-19 pandemic — the toll , on Sunday , stood at 55,383 , a few thousand shy of the total number killed in Southeast Asia .
In short order , America will pass that appalling milestone .
If this is indeed a war , as President Trump has described it — in his words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war against the invisible enemy ” — a question can be asked : Where and how will the dead of this conflict be memorialized ?
Will a president who staked his legacy on a “ big beautiful wall ” along the Mexican border actually be remembered for a very different wall — one that bears the names of scores of thousands of Americans who died on his watch ?
This wall could be inscribed with the names of all those who perished on the front lines of this pandemic , like Vitalina Williams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grocery store worker in Massachusetts ; Ferdi German , 41 , an Army veteran who worked as a subway car inspector in New York City ; Craig Franken , a 61-year-old – married for nearly 20 years – who worked at the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls , South Dakota ; and four members of the Franklin family from New Orleans , 86-year-old Antoinette and her sons Herman , 71 , Timothy , 61 , and Anthony , 58 , who survived a previous cataclysm — hurricane Katrina , associated with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. president — only to succumb to another disaster , 15 years later .
Then there are the healthcare workers , the doctors , nurses , EMTs , and other medical professionals who – like so many of the Army medics and Navy corpsmen whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial – ran toward danger and sacrificed their lives in an effort to save their fellow Americans .
These courageous people include Celia Yap-Banago , 69 , an immigrant from the Philippines who spent nearly 40 years as a nurse at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Missouri and fell ill after caring for a patient believed to have had Covid-19 and Madhvi Aya , a 61-year-old Indian immigrant who worked as a physician ’ s assistant at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn , New York and treated Covid-19 patients wearing only a surgical mask .
About 300 feet from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands a sculpture made by Glenna Goodacre , who died , at age 80 , on April 13 .
Modeled after Michelangelo ’ s “ Pietà , ” it depicts three women in uniform surrounding – and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wounded male G.I .
“ The emphasis of this tribute is centered on their emotions — their compassion , their anxiety , their fatigue , and above all , their dedication , ” said Goodacre when the statue was unveiled .
Could there be a better template for a sculpture honoring the efforts of healthcare workers like Yap-Banago and Aya to accompany a wall memorializing the fallen of this pandemic ?
American presidents touted progress during the disastrous war in Vietnam .
“ We can rightly judge… that the progress of the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely , if not completely impossible , if America ’ s sons and others had not made their stand in Vietnam , ” said President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968 .
In August 1972 , his successor , Richard Nixon said : “ I pledged to seek an honorable end to the war in Vietnam .
We have made great progress toward that end.
” Trump has repeatedly revived the Vietnam War-tainted phrase “ light at the end of the tunnel ” during this pandemic and similarly claimed headway despite the increasing deaths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the virus , the data and facts on the ground suggest that we ’ re making great progress , ” he said recently during his own version of the five-o ’ clock follies .
Last week , Trump suggested that the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic might top out at 50,000 American lives lost .
“ We did the right thing , because if we didn ’ t do it , you would have had a million people , a million and a half people , maybe 2 million people dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we ’ re going toward 50 , I ’ m hearing , or 60,000 people.
” An April 20 prediction of an American death toll of 50,000 was as unrealistic as Trump ’ s baseless January claim that “ we have [ Covid-19 ] totally under control , ” and his February fictions that the virus “ will go away in April ” and “ within a couple of days [ the number of Americans with Covid-19 ] is going to be down to close to zero.
” Earlier this month , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump also touted the fruits of his efforts along the Mexican border .
“ We ’ re up to about 168 miles of wall , ” he boasted .
But having devoted far more time and energy over the past three years to that project than to pandemic preparedness , the body count of Americans killed by Covid-19 during his tenure has , in four months , exceeded two decades of armed conflict in Southeast Asia .
( The number of Vietnamese civilians killed during those years is estimated at about two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst-case scenario forecast of U.S. deaths without efforts to slow the coronavirus through social distancing . )
It took two 200-foot walls made up of 70 separate panels to list the more than 58,000 dead on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial .
Just how many names – of grocery store employees , warehouse workers , delivery drivers , custodians , meat-packing plant workers , doctors , nurses , and EMTs – will need to be etched into a Covid-19 memorial won ’ t be known for years .
Some projections put the total number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August .
The White House previously warned of the possibility of as many as 240,000 fatalities .
Some estimates put the number at 300,000 Americans lost to the disease over the next several years .
For now , we need to keep counting the fallen and begin thinking about how to memorialize all the heartache , all the deaths faced alone , all the bodies consigned to mass graves , all the lives lost too soon .
We already know that a wall to honor America ’ s Covid-19 casualties would be big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , however poignant the design , however it stirs the soul , however iconic it becomes , there ’ s never going to be anything beautiful about it .
Nick Turse , a contributing writer for The Intercept , is the author of “ Kill Anything That Moves : The Real American War in Vietnam .
”

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Born in controversy, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now the most poignant monument on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall. Designed in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate named Maya Lin, the memorial consists of polished black granite panels that form a 125-degree angle and are inscribed with the names of the U.S. military personnel dead from that conflict. The two walls, low at the ends and high where they meet in the middle, list the deceased chronologically — an individual accounting, day by day, of each American life lost.
It took 20 years, from 1955 to 1975, for the United States to lose 58,220 men and women to the nation’s most divisive conflict since the Civil War. In less than four months, just as many Americans have died from the Covid-19 pandemic — the toll, on Tuesday, hit 58,947, surpassing the total number killed in Southeast Asia. If this is indeed a war, as President Donald Trump has described it — in his words, “We’re waging a war against the invisible enemy” — a question can be asked: Where and how will the dead of this conflict be memorialized?
Will a president who staked his legacy on a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border actually be remembered for a very different wall: one that bears the names of scores of thousands of Americans who died on his watch? This wall could be inscribed with the names of all those who perished on the front lines of this pandemic, like Vitalina Williams, a 59-year-old immigrant from Guatemala and grocery store worker in Massachusetts; Ferdi German, 41, an Army veteran who worked as a subway car inspector in New York City; Craig Franken, a 61-year-old – married for nearly 20 years – who worked at the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and four members of the Franklin family from New Orleans, 86-year-old Antoinette and her sons Herman, 71, Timothy, 61, and Anthony, 58, who survived a previous cataclysm — Hurricane Katrina, associated with (and exacerbated by) a prior U.S. president — only to succumb to another disaster, 15 years later.
Then there are the health care workers, the doctors, nurses, EMTs, and other medical professionals who — like so many of the Army medics and Navy corpsmen whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — ran toward danger and sacrificed their lives in an effort to save their fellow Americans. These courageous people include Celia Yap-Banago, 69, an immigrant from the Philippines who spent nearly 40 years as a nurse at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri and fell ill after caring for a patient believed to have had Covid-19 and Madhvi Aya, a 61-year-old Indian immigrant who worked as a physician’s assistant at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and treated Covid-19 patients wearing only a surgical mask.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
About 300 feet from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands a sculpture made by Glenna Goodacre, who died, at age 80, on April 13. Modeled after Michelangelo’s “Pietà,” it depicts three women in uniform surrounding — and one of them gently cradling — a wounded male GI. “The emphasis of this tribute is centered on their emotions — their compassion, their anxiety, their fatigue, and above all, their dedication,” said Goodacre when the statue was unveiled. Could there be a better template for a sculpture honoring the efforts of health care workers like Yap-Banago and Aya to accompany a wall memorializing the fallen of this pandemic?
For years, American presidents touted progress during the disastrous war in Vietnam. “We can rightly judge … that the progress of the past three years would have been far less likely, if not completely impossible, if America’s sons and others had not made their stand in Vietnam,” said President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968. In August 1972, his successor, Richard Nixon, said: “I pledged to seek an honorable end to the war in Vietnam. We have made great progress toward that end.” Trump has repeatedly revived the Vietnam War-tainted phrase “light at the end of the tunnel” during this pandemic and similarly claimed headway despite the increasing deaths. “As we continue our battle against the virus, the data and facts on the ground suggest that we’re making great progress,” he said recently during his own version of the 5 o’clock follies.
Last week, Trump suggested that the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic might top out at 50,000 American lives lost. “We did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead,” he said. “Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people.” An April 20 prediction of an American death toll of 50,000 was as unrealistic as Trump’s baseless January claim that “we have [Covid-19] totally under control,” and his February fictions that the virus “will go away in April” and “within a couple of days [the number of Americans with Covid-19] is going to be down to close to zero.”
Earlier this month, at one of his coronavirus press briefings, Trump also touted the fruits of his efforts along the Mexican border. “We’re up to about 168 miles of wall,” he boasted. But having devoted far more time and energy over the past three years to that project than to pandemic preparedness, the body count of Americans killed by Covid-19 during his tenure has, in four months, exceeded two decades of armed conflict in Southeast Asia. (The number of Vietnamese civilians killed during those years is estimated at about 2 million, nearly the same as the worst-case scenario forecast of U.S. deaths without efforts to slow the coronavirus through social distancing.)
It took two 200-foot walls made up of 70 separate panels to list the more than 58,000 dead on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Just how many names — of grocery store employees, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, custodians, meatpacking plant workers, doctors, nurses, and EMTs — will need to be etched into a Covid-19 memorial won’t be known for years. Some projections put the total number at more than 67,000 Covid-19 deaths by August. The White House previously warned of the possibility of as many as 240,000 fatalities. Some estimates put the number at 300,000 Americans lost to the disease over the next several years.
For now, we need to keep counting the fallen and begin thinking about how to memorialize all the heartache, all the deaths faced alone, all the bodies consigned to mass graves, all the lives lost too soon. We already know that a wall to honor America’s Covid-19 casualties would be big, far too big. And we know, however poignant the design, however it stirs the soul, however iconic it becomes, there’s never going to be anything beautiful about it.
Nick Turse, a contributing writer for The Intercept, is the author of “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.”
Update: April 28, 2020
This story has been updated to note that the Covid-19 death toll has now surpassed the Vietnam War toll.


theintercept--2020-04-27--Mehdi Hasan and Rev. William Barber on Bailing Out People, Not Corporations

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The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan spoke with Rev. William Barber on Covid-19, poverty in America, and the coronavirus stimulus bill that handed out trillions of dollars to corporations and gave crumbs to working people. How did the bill fail to meet the needs of poor and working Americans, and what would a just and equitable stimulus look like?


theintercept--2020-04-27--Big Plastic Asks for $1 Billion Coronavirus Bailout

is asking Congress for $ 1 billion to bail out plastic recycling during the coronavirus crisis .
“ Recycling is an essential service and consumers are demanding products with more recycled content , ” an alliance of industry groups that included Dow , the American Chemistry Council , Berry Global Group Inc. , and the Plastics Industry Association wrote in an April 16 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House members .
“ In order to meet the demands of this crisis , we need investment now.
” The companies and industry trade groups seeking the money are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reference to the Recover Act , a bill introduced in the House in November that calls for allocating $ 500 million to recycling infrastructure over five years .
In their letter , which was first reported in Plastics News , members of the coalition “ implore ” the House members to include the Recover bill “ in any infrastructure package Congress considers either in response to the COVID-19 pandemic or separately ” and to double the original funding request , noting that “ We feel the time and need is right to seek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But others feel that the middle of a deadly pandemic , when millions of people don ’ t have enough money to pay rent and eat , is not the right time for the plastics industry to seek a government bailout .
“ Having multinational companies with their tin cups out asking for taxpayer dollars at this moment in time is wrong , ” said Judith Enck , founder of the environmental group Beyond Plastics .
“ We need the federal spending to go to things like more testing , contact tracing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to attempts to prop up the feeble plastics recycling infrastructure.
” It ’ s worth noting that the companies now seeking additional taxpayer dollars to fund recycling already have hundreds of billions at their disposal to pay for the processing of the products they create .
The 223 companies that belong to and fund the American Chemistry Council and the Recycling Partnership — both of which signed the letter — include 60 publicly held companies with a combined revenue of $ 2.7 trillion and net profit of $ 210 billion .
The American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represents some of the biggest plastic manufacturers in the world , including Dow Chemical , LyondellBasell , ExxonMobil Chemical Company , SABIC , BASF , Chevron Phillips Chemical Company , and Lanxess .
The Recycling Partnership is an organization focused on recycling policy that is funded by trade groups and big brands .
Just five of the beverage companies that support it — Coca-Cola , PepsiCo , Danone , Unilever , and Nestle — spent more than $ 24 billion on advertising alone in 2019 .
In its letter , the coalition notes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a reduction in plastics recycling , as “ many localities have reduced/eliminated recycling collection or suspended enforcement of bottle deposit laws , greatly reducing a much-needed manufacturing feedstock.
” Yet , because recycled plastic generally costs more than “ virgin ” plastic , the demand for recycled plastic was already weak and declining long before the pandemic .
A downturn in plastic recycling could interfere with pledges made by Coca-Cola and other companies to include more recycled plastic in their packaging .
But many big beverage companies , including Coke , have long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to dramatically increase recycling rates .
Asked whether the coronavirus crisis might make it harder to meet its commitments , Coke emailed a statement , saying , “ While the pandemic will create temporary challenges , we remain focused on our goals .
Through a partnership with our beverage industry , we took action in 2019 to create a $ 100 million fund , matched three to one by other grants and investors , to improve sorting , processing and collection of recyclables in U.S. communities with the biggest infrastructure gaps.
” As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. is in the midst of a recycling crisis and has never managed to recycle even 10 percent of its plastic .
The rest is either burned , sent to landfills , or littered .
While the Recover Act would address the problem by subsidizing the recycling process with government funds , another bill , the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act , would instead put the financial onus for recycling back onto the companies that make and use plastic .
Sen. Tom Udall , who introduced the Break Free From Plastic Pollution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has criticized the plastics industry for “ relying on local taxpayers and beach-combing volunteers ” to clean up the mess .
Udall is similarly disdainful of the industry ’ s most recent attempt to get additional funding tied to the Covid-19 outbreak .
“ By asking for a billion-dollar handout , Big Plastic is trying to maintain what already is the status quo : that is , taxpayers funding and taking responsibility for the waste of plastic producers , ” Udall wrote to The Intercept in response to questions about the industry letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic , plastic pollution will still be at crisis levels — and matters may be even worse , as industry tries to exploit this pandemic to leverage more marketing for single-use products.
” Udall was referring to recent attempts by the plastic industry to use the coronavirus crisis as a justification for rolling back bans on plastic bags and producing more single-use products .
In March , the Plastics Industry Association wrote to the secretary of Health and Human Services , Alex Azar , asking him to “ make a public statement on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single-use plastics.
” The group also supplied its member companies with form letters requesting that their businesses that make single-use plastics , including packaging , be deemed essential .

The plastic industry is asking Congress for $1 billion to bail out plastic recycling during the coronavirus crisis. “Recycling is an essential service and consumers are demanding products with more recycled content,” an alliance of industry groups that included Dow, the American Chemistry Council, Berry Global Group Inc., and the Plastics Industry Association wrote in an April 16 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House members. “In order to meet the demands of this crisis, we need investment now.”
The companies and industry trade groups seeking the money are calling themselves the Recover Coalition, a reference to the Recover Act, a bill introduced in the House in November that calls for allocating $500 million to recycling infrastructure over five years. In their letter, which was first reported in Plastics News, members of the coalition “implore” the House members to include the Recover bill “in any infrastructure package Congress considers either in response to the COVID-19 pandemic or separately” and to double the original funding request, noting that “We feel the time and need is right to seek a program of $1 billion.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
But others feel that the middle of a deadly pandemic, when millions of people don’t have enough money to pay rent and eat, is not the right time for the plastics industry to seek a government bailout. “Having multinational companies with their tin cups out asking for taxpayer dollars at this moment in time is wrong,” said Judith Enck, founder of the environmental group Beyond Plastics. “We need the federal spending to go to things like more testing, contact tracing, investments in clean energy — and not to attempts to prop up the feeble plastics recycling infrastructure.”
It’s worth noting that the companies now seeking additional taxpayer dollars to fund recycling already have hundreds of billions at their disposal to pay for the processing of the products they create. The 223 companies that belong to and fund the American Chemistry Council and the Recycling Partnership — both of which signed the letter — include 60 publicly held companies with a combined revenue of $2.7 trillion and net profit of $210 billion.
The American Chemistry Council is a trade group that represents some of the biggest plastic manufacturers in the world, including Dow Chemical, LyondellBasell, ExxonMobil Chemical Company, SABIC, BASF, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, and Lanxess. The Recycling Partnership is an organization focused on recycling policy that is funded by trade groups and big brands. Just five of the beverage companies that support it — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Danone, Unilever, and Nestle — spent more than $24 billion on advertising alone in 2019.
In its letter, the coalition notes that the coronavirus crisis has led to a reduction in plastics recycling, as “many localities have reduced/eliminated recycling collection or suspended enforcement of bottle deposit laws, greatly reducing a much-needed manufacturing feedstock.” Yet, because recycled plastic generally costs more than “virgin” plastic, the demand for recycled plastic was already weak and declining long before the pandemic.
A downturn in plastic recycling could interfere with pledges made by Coca-Cola and other companies to include more recycled plastic in their packaging. But many big beverage companies, including Coke, have long opposed bottle bills that have been shown to dramatically increase recycling rates.
Asked whether the coronavirus crisis might make it harder to meet its commitments, Coke emailed a statement, saying,“While the pandemic will create temporary challenges, we remain focused on our goals. Through a partnership with our beverage industry, we took action in 2019 to create a $100 million fund, matched three to one by other grants and investors, to improve sorting, processing and collection of recyclables in U.S. communities with the biggest infrastructure gaps.”
As The Intercept has previously reported, the U.S. is in the midst of a recycling crisis and has never managed to recycle even 10 percent of its plastic. The rest is either burned, sent to landfills, or littered. While the Recover Act would address the problem by subsidizing the recycling process with government funds, another bill, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, would instead put the financial onus for recycling back onto the companies that make and use plastic.
Sen. Tom Udall, who introduced the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act in the Senate in February, has criticized the plastics industry for “relying on local taxpayers and beach-combing volunteers” to clean up the mess. Udall is similarly disdainful of the industry’s most recent attempt to get additional funding tied to the Covid-19 outbreak.
“By asking for a billion-dollar handout, Big Plastic is trying to maintain what already is the status quo: that is, taxpayers funding and taking responsibility for the waste of plastic producers,” Udall wrote to The Intercept in response to questions about the industry letter. “When we surface from this pandemic, plastic pollution will still be at crisis levels — and matters may be even worse, as industry tries to exploit this pandemic to leverage more marketing for single-use products.”
Udall was referring to recent attempts by the plastic industry to use the coronavirus crisis as a justification for rolling back bans on plastic bags and producing more single-use products. In March, the Plastics Industry Association wrote to the secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, asking him to “make a public statement on the health and safety benefits seen in single-use plastics.” The group also supplied its member companies with form letters requesting that their businesses that make single-use plastics, including packaging, be deemed essential.


theintercept--2020-04-27--House Democrats Call for Hazard Pay, Workplace Protections for TSA Agents and Other Federal Workers

150 House Democrats , led by Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey , Mark Pocan of Wisconsin , and Salud Carbajal of California , urged congressional leadership in a letter on Monday to include worker safety provisions protecting front-line federal workers in the upcoming coronavirus response legislation .
In the letter , which was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy , progressive and moderate Democrats call for an emergency temporary standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration , or OSHA , to protect essential federal workers who face elevated risk of exposure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay , parity in union bargaining , and expanded telework .
OSHA , an agency of the Labor Department , recently put out guidelines detailing steps workplaces can take in response to the pandemic — but the agency ’ s recommendations aren ’ t mandatory or being enforced .
An emergency temporary standard , Democratic lawmakers say , would make the worker protections enforceable .
For the last several rounds of negotiations over coronavirus relief , Democrats have advocated for expanding these protections to at-risk workers , including health care providers and support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency , and TSA agents .
But Republicans continue to oppose it .
“ Further , as federal workers continue to ensure that critical operations continue during this pandemic , many have already contracted COVID-19 , some have died , and thousands more remain at risk for infection , ” the letter reads .
“ This is why it is critical that any new legislation to respond to this pandemic include provisions to protect and support federal workers.
” In an interview with The Intercept , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of federal employees not covered under Title 5 of the U.S. Code , including Transportation Security Administration officers and certain Federal Aviation Administration employees , who don ’ t receive many of the basic workplace rights given to the majority of the federal workforce .
“ There ’ s a stubbornness about this group of individuals who are on the front lines every day , ” Watson Coleman said .
The New Jersey lawmaker added that these employees “ tend to be the lower paid ones ” and experience high turnover in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not protected , if we can ’ t ensure that they ’ re not affected by the virus — that they ’ re not contagious or exposed .
Think of how that translates into exposing the thousands of people that will be going through the airports , ” she continued .
As part of the demands outlined in the letter , Democrats are calling for the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act ( H.R .
1140 ) — which passed the House in March with bipartisan support and would give TSA workers collective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CARES 2 , the next federal stimulus package .
“ But it hasn ’ t been taken up by the Senate , Mitch McConnell doesn ’ t seem to have any interest whatsoever in protecting workers and protecting individuals , ” Watson Coleman added .
“ He just seems to be focused on the wealthy businesses and the wealthy individuals.
” Last month , Pelosi , with Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone and House Committee on Education and Labor Chair Bobby Scott , emphasized the need for improved OSHA regulations for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a press call that it ’ s a top Democratic priority for the fourth coronavirus bill , adding that “ if we fail to act , we will be making the situation even more dangerous.
” Scott said they pushed to include legislation requiring OSHA to adopt an emergency temporary standard in the last coronavirus bill , but it was blocked by Senate Republicans and the Trump administration .
Carbajal told The Intercept that he ’ s hopeful at least some of their Republican colleagues come on board .
“ I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the other side would not sign on to this , ” he said .
“ This is really about doing what ’ s right and not what ’ s political .
”

More than 150 House Democrats, led by Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, and Salud Carbajal of California, urged congressional leadership in a letter on Monday to include worker safety provisions protecting front-line federal workers in the upcoming coronavirus response legislation.
In the letter, which was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, progressive and moderate Democrats call for an emergency temporary standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to protect essential federal workers who face elevated risk of exposure to Covid-19 with provisions that include increased hazard pay, parity in union bargaining, and expanded telework.
Related Small Business Rescue Money Flowing to Major Trump Donors, Disclosures Show
OSHA, an agency of the Labor Department, recently put out guidelines detailing steps workplaces can take in response to the pandemic — but the agency’s recommendations aren’t mandatory or being enforced. An emergency temporary standard, Democratic lawmakers say, would make the worker protections enforceable.
For the last several rounds of negotiations over coronavirus relief, Democrats have advocated for expanding these protections to at-risk workers, including health care providers and support personnel at the Department of Veterans Affairs, employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and TSA agents. But Republicans continue to oppose it.
“Further, as federal workers continue to ensure that critical operations continue during this pandemic, many have already contracted COVID-19, some have died, and thousands more remain at risk for infection,” the letter reads. “This is why it is critical that any new legislation to respond to this pandemic include provisions to protect and support federal workers.”
In an interview with The Intercept, Watson Coleman noted that there are thousands of federal employees not covered under Title 5 of the U.S. Code, including Transportation Security Administration officers and certain Federal Aviation Administration employees, who don’t receive many of the basic workplace rights given to the majority of the federal workforce. “There’s a stubbornness about this group of individuals who are on the front lines every day,” Watson Coleman said. The New Jersey lawmaker added that these employees “tend to be the lower paid ones” and experience high turnover in their departments.
“If they’re not protected, if we can’t ensure that they’re not affected by the virus — that they’re not contagious or exposed. Think of how that translates into exposing the thousands of people that will be going through the airports,” she continued.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
As part of the demands outlined in the letter, Democrats are calling for the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act (H.R. 1140) — which passed the House in March with bipartisan support and would give TSA workers collective bargaining rights — to be included in CARES 2, the next federal stimulus package. “But it hasn’t been taken up by the Senate, Mitch McConnell doesn’t seem to have any interest whatsoever in protecting workers and protecting individuals,” Watson Coleman added. “He just seems to be focused on the wealthy businesses and the wealthy individuals.”
Last month, Pelosi, with Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone and House Committee on Education and Labor Chair Bobby Scott, emphasized the need for improved OSHA regulations for workers’ safety. She told reporters in a press call that it’s a top Democratic priority for the fourth coronavirus bill, adding that “if we fail to act, we will be making the situation even more dangerous.” Scott said they pushed to include legislation requiring OSHA to adopt an emergency temporary standard in the last coronavirus bill, but it was blocked by Senate Republicans and the Trump administration.
Carbajal told The Intercept that he’s hopeful at least some of their Republican colleagues come on board. “I don’t see why our Republican colleagues on the other side would not sign on to this,” he said. “This is really about doing what’s right and not what’s political.”


theintercept--2020-04-27--In Just Months, the Coronavirus Is Killing More Americans Than 20 Years of War in Vietnam

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now the most poignant monument on Washington , D.C. ’ s National Mall .
Designed in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate named Maya Lin , the memorial consists of polished black granite panels that form a 125-degree angle and are inscribed with the names of the U.S. military personnel dead from that conflict .
The two walls , low at the ends and high where they meet in the middle , list the deceased chronologically — an individual accounting , day by day , of each American life lost .
It took 20 years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States to lose 58,220 men and women — 47,434 in combat — to the nation ’ s most divisive conflict since the Civil War .
In less than four months , just as many Americans will have died from the Covid-19 pandemic — the toll , on Sunday , stood at 55,383 , a few thousand shy of the total number killed in Southeast Asia .
In short order , America will pass that appalling milestone .
If this is indeed a war , as President Donald Trump has described it — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re waging a war against the invisible enemy ” — a question can be asked : Where and how will the dead of this conflict be memorialized ?
Will a president who staked his legacy on a “ big , beautiful wall ” along the Mexican border actually be remembered for a very different wall : one that bears the names of scores of thousands of Americans who died on his watch ?
This wall could be inscribed with the names of all those who perished on the front lines of this pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigrant from Guatemala and grocery store worker in Massachusetts ; Ferdi German , 41 , an Army veteran who worked as a subway car inspector in New York City ; Craig Franken , a 61-year-old – married for nearly 20 years – who worked at the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls , South Dakota ; and four members of the Franklin family from New Orleans , 86-year-old Antoinette and her sons Herman , 71 , Timothy , 61 , and Anthony , 58 , who survived a previous cataclysm — Hurricane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by ) a prior U.S. president — only to succumb to another disaster , 15 years later .
Then there are the health care workers , the doctors , nurses , EMTs , and other medical professionals who — like so many of the Army medics and Navy corpsmen whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — ran toward danger and sacrificed their lives in an effort to save their fellow Americans .
These courageous people include Celia Yap-Banago , 69 , an immigrant from the Philippines who spent nearly 40 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Center in Kansas City , Missouri and fell ill after caring for a patient believed to have had Covid-19 and Madhvi Aya , a 61-year-old Indian immigrant who worked as a physician ’ s assistant at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn , New York , and treated Covid-19 patients wearing only a surgical mask .
It took two 200-foot walls made up of 70 separate panels to list the more than 58,000 dead on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial .
Just how many names — of grocery store employees , warehouse workers , delivery drivers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctors , nurses , and EMTs — will need to be etched into a Covid-19 memorial won ’ t be known for years .
Some projections put the total number at more than 67,000 Covid-19 deaths by August .
The White House previously warned of the possibility of as many as 240,000 fatalities .
Some estimates put the number at 300,000 Americans lost to the disease over the next several years .
For now , we need to keep counting the fallen and begin thinking about how to memorialize all the heartache , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bodies consigned to mass graves , all the lives lost too soon .
We already know that a wall to honor America ’ s Covid-19 casualties would be big , far too big .
And we know , however poignant the design , however it stirs the soul , however iconic it becomes , there ’ s never going to be anything beautiful about it .
Nick Turse , a contributing writer for The Intercept , is the author of “ Kill Anything That Moves : The Real American War in Vietnam @ @