theintercept--2020-03-18--Can the Coronavirus and the Stock Market Meltdown Break America’s Addiction to Fantasy?

In reality , America ’ s stock market wealth was always a mirage , one which we now see dissolving in front of us .
It ’ s dangerous for us to hope it will reappear , because it ’ s a distraction from the real world that we have to focus on more than ever .
On the other hand , this should terrify everyone .
Even now , the president of the United States is lost in a fantasy world .
Even worse , Trump ’ s fantasy is shared by many Americans .
In this imaginary world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the little flickering numbers on our iPhone ’ s Stocks app go up .
It ’ s therefore also a disaster if the little numbers go down .
On the one hand , this was hilarious , since on Monday , the Dow had its second-worst day in history .
Trump did not send out any signed charts about this .
After President Donald Trump ’ s press conference on the new coronavirus on Friday , he triumphantly sent supporters a signed chart showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up sharply as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , given that the most powerful people in the country dreamed up these reveries in the first place because they find them so self-flattering and useful .
They won ’ t want us to wake up .
But we should give it a shot , because we ’ re literally dying in our metaphorical sleep .
The good news — if there is any — is that this is an opportunity .
As the stock market inevitably plunges further , we can use this moment to discard our fantasies about it — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous delusions that plague America , in our thinking about everything from health care to government spending to war and peace .
Individuals can get rich during bubbles by selling to suckers .
And those holding the bubbly asset can feel richer than they are , until the bubble bursts .
But bubbles can ’ t make everybody richer , no matter how much the president tweets about it .
But nothing like that has been happening .
American productivity , the most important factor in increasing economic well-being , has been growing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stock market had been careening further and further out of whack with the underlying real economy .
It ’ s just been a financial bubble , like the housing bubble that led to a second Great Depression a decade ago or the dot-com bubble before that .
It would be one thing if America ’ s corporations had been producing incredible amounts of the real wealth we need now — say , hospitals with huge negative-pressure isolation wards or factories across the U.S. that can quickly churn out Covid-19 tests , ventilators , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as nice if they ’ d been spawning invention after invention , curing Alzheimer ’ s , decarbonizing the economy , and turning ocean water into something we can drink .
In reality — the same place where we have bodies and can be killed by the coronavirus — the stock market run-up during Trump ’ s presidency has been generally irrelevant or even bad for most of us .
And its fall will be irrelevant or even good .
So let ’ s focus on the real world .
In the real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands .
We need to pay anyone who ’ s sick to stay home .
We have to figure out ASAP whether we should cross our fingers and hope private pharmaceutical companies develop a patented vaccine , or if it makes far more sense for the government to directly fund research on the condition that the vaccine be made publicly available .
We have to get as many people as possible out of prison for their own well-being , and so that jails don ’ t become pullulating centers of an infection that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can actually pay attention to the real world during this bracing crisis , we might gain the confidence to keep doing it afterward .
One of our most bizarre delusions , manifested in the Democratic presidential primary , is that we can ’ t have Medicare for All unless we figure out how to pay for it .
In reality , Medicare for All would either cost as much as we ’ re currently paying or save America money .
Between government and private spending , our current monstrous hybrid system spends more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ product on health care , twice the average for the other 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development .
Even worse , health care costs are going up faster than the economy is growing .
That means that if nothing changes , the 18 percent number will continue to increase .
This is already a genuine drain on the U.S. and will eventually cause something to break .
The only solution to this problem that any country has ever discovered is universal health care .
A unified system that covers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bargain with providers and hold costs down .
So while Medicare for All would require more spending by the federal government , individuals would spend so much less in premiums , deductibles , and copays that we ’ d almost certainly come out ahead overall — plus we ’ d never have to think about paying doctor ’ s bills again .
In other words , in reality , the only question is how we can possibly pay for the status quo .
This total disconnect from the real world was embodied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s lament that Medicare for All would eliminate millions of private health insurance jobs .
Yes , it would — and that ’ s the point .
At best , these jobs are pointless bureaucratic time-wasting ; at worst , they involve preventing patients from getting health care .
If Buttigieg thinks that ’ s a good thing , he should propose hiring millions of Americans to play World of Warcraft all day long and occasionally go to emergency rooms and strangle people .
Finally , even if Medicare for All did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than our current system in isolation , it would still be a huge bargain — both in pure financial terms and otherwise .
Tons of uninsured people not getting tested for the coronavirus is going to end up costing a lot of actual money .
Then there are things that aren ’ t measured by the GDP , such as how nice it is when your grandmother doesn ’ t die alone and untreated in quarantine .
Everyone old enough to read this lived through America ’ s catastrophic bungling of the real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative estimate shows there were 20 kajillion articles about the collapse of the big banks in late 2008 .
But that was always a sideshow , while barely anyone paid attention to the big tent : the effects of the bubble ’ s deflation on the real economy .
In reality , by the time of the Wall Street cataclysm in September 2008 , the depression had already been in progress for almost a year .
The real estate bubble had caused an increase in construction activities equal to 4 percent of GDP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billion .
This created huge numbers of jobs for construction workers , real estate agents , and the entire industry .
Also , because homeowners mistakenly believed themselves to be richer than they were , they spent more than they would have otherwise , adding another $ 400 billion in demand and creating more jobs .
When housing prices peaked at the beginning of 2007 , unemployment was 4.5 percent .
But then the bubble began to collapse .
Now the process worked in reverse , sucking out almost $ 1 trillion in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the problem , not the stock price of JPMorgan Chase .
What we needed at that point was to replace that lost demand with a massive expansion of government spending .
What we got instead was the Wall Street bailout and the Obama administration ’ s utterly inadequate stimulus plan .
After everything was said and done , it added a mere $ 150 billion per year to the economy .
Even worse , Barack Obama then immediately pivoted to deficit reduction , slowing the economy further .
Unemployment went up to 10 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left office in January 2017 , it was still higher than its pre-depression level .
The proof of this vile pudding was in the eating .
Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression and World War II by focusing on reality and letting go of America ’ s fantasies about fiscal probity .
People needed jobs , so the government hired them .
We needed to beat Nazi Germany , so Roosevelt increased federal spending by 400 percent .
This gave the Democrats political dominance for decades .
Obama responded to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centrality and significance of Wall Street , and the brilliance of its titans .
The result was the obliteration of the Democratic Party in Washington , D.C. and nationwide , and then President Donald Trump .
Our Fantasy of Our Own Power and Benevolence Our most treasured pipe dream is that we can maintain control over the Middle East forever .
Nicholas Burns , a former Bush administration official who now is one of Joe Biden ’ s top foreign policy advisers , has explained that “ the United States is the major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continue to be and is not going away.
” For decades , we were convinced that we ’ d be able to engage in the ultraviolence needed to maintain this dominance with no consequences for the U.S .
In reality , in 2001 , 19 men from Saudi Arabia , Egypt , Lebanon , and the United Arab Emirates hijacked American planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon .
This was a sudden intrusion of the most concrete facts imaginable .
Yet our fantasy was so powerful , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to consciousness .
Instead , we made the fantasy yet more elaborate .
“ Why do they hate us ?
” George W. Bush asked in an address to Congress nine days after the attacks .
The answer : “ They hate our freedoms.
” Incredibly enough , the fantasy then became even more ornate .
In order to defend ourselves from the freedom-haters , we were going to liberate Iraq and install a small-d democratic government — all led by an American political faction that is manifestly incompetent and openly loathes democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this disaster for the rest of our lives .
But there was no time to rest because we were then onto the next aspect of our fantasy : that we desperately needed to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons .
Moreover , it was crucial that we continue stopping them until the end of time , even as Iran would continue to be surrounded by aggressive nuclear powers , including us .
In reality , Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program after 2003 , and its leaders probably do not want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if Iran did obtain them it would certainly be no more irrational than the nuclear-armed United States and Israel .
Nonetheless , Obama accepted the fantasy premise — that Iran had a nuclear weapons program and this was a genuine threat to America — and brokered a deal with the Iranian government on that basis .
Then Trump arrived , tore everything up , and added even more brutal sanctions on Iran .
Today , in reality , a staggering Iran , short of money and medical supplies , has been incapable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Atlantic puts it : “ When the final history of the coronavirus epidemic of 2020 is written , it may go something like this : The disease started in China , but it became finally and irrevocably uncontained in Iran.
” The Iranian government might have failed even if we hadn ’ t spent years trying to throttle the country .
But we will never know .
What we can say for sure is our fantasy about a largely imaginary danger blinded us to an extremely real danger .
What It Takes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1984 , ” George Orwell included sections from a book written by one of the characters , Emmanuel Goldstein .
Goldstein is the never-seen leader of the resistance to Oceania ’ s tyrannical government .
“ All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers , ” Goldstein writes .
However , “ war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality .
… Physical facts could not be ignored .
In philosophy , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , two and two might make five , but when one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four .
… War was a sure safeguard of sanity .
… While wars could be won or lost , no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
” America ’ s rulers in this age have done a great job imposing a false view of the world on us .
In fact , even many of them have come to believe in it .
But with the worldwide pandemic we now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something akin to war .
As in war , physical facts can ’ t be ignored .
Let ’ s face the reality that right now , two plus two absolutely has to equal four — and then not forget that it still does when we come out on the other side .

After President Donald Trump’s press conference on the new coronavirus on Friday, he triumphantly sent supporters a signed chart showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average going up sharply as he spoke.
On the one hand, this was hilarious, since on Monday, the Dow had its second-worst day in history. Trump did not send out any signed charts about this.
On the other hand, this should terrify everyone. Even now, the president of the United States is lost in a fantasy world. Even worse, Trump’s fantasy is shared by many Americans. In this imaginary world, we can all get rich if the little flickering numbers on our iPhone’s Stocks app go up. It’s therefore also a disaster if the little numbers go down.
In reality, America’s stock market wealth was always a mirage, one which we now see dissolving in front of us. It’s dangerous for us to hope it will reappear, because it’s a distraction from the real world that we have to focus on more than ever.
The good news — if there is any — is that this is an opportunity. As the stock market inevitably plunges further, we can use this moment to discard our fantasies about it — and then let go of the many other dangerous delusions that plague America, in our thinking about everything from health care to government spending to war and peace.
This will be tough, given that the most powerful people in the country dreamed up these reveries in the first place because they find them so self-flattering and useful. They won’t want us to wake up. But we should give it a shot, because we’re literally dying in our metaphorical sleep.
BIGGEST STOCK MARKET RISE IN HISTORY YESTERDAY! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2020
In reality — the same place where we have bodies and can be killed by the coronavirus — the stock market run-up during Trump’s presidency has been generally irrelevant or even bad for most of us. And its fall will be irrelevant or even good.
It would be one thing if America’s corporations had been producing incredible amounts of the real wealth we need now — say, hospitals with huge negative-pressure isolation wards or factories across the U.S. that can quickly churn out Covid-19 tests, ventilators, and vaccines. It would be almost as nice if they’d been spawning invention after invention, curing Alzheimer’s, decarbonizing the economy, and turning ocean water into something we can drink.
But nothing like that has been happening. American productivity, the most important factor in increasing economic well-being, has been growing quite slowly. In general, the stock market had been careening further and further out of whack with the underlying real economy. It’s just been a financial bubble, like the housing bubble that led to a second Great Depression a decade ago or the dot-com bubble before that.
Individuals can get rich during bubbles by selling to suckers. And those holding the bubbly asset can feel richer than they are, until the bubble bursts. But bubbles can’t make everybody richer, no matter how much the president tweets about it.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
So let’s focus on the real world. In the real world, we have to wash our hands. We need to pay anyone who’s sick to stay home. We have to figure out ASAP whether we should cross our fingers and hope private pharmaceutical companies develop a patented vaccine, or if it makes far more sense for the government to directly fund research on the condition that the vaccine be made publicly available. We have to get as many people as possible out of prison for their own well-being, and so that jails don’t become pullulating centers of an infection that spreads to everyone else.
If we can actually pay attention to the real world during this bracing crisis, we might gain the confidence to keep doing it afterward.
The Fantasy of “Paying for” Universal Health Care
One of our most bizarre delusions, manifested in the Democratic presidential primary, is that we can’t have Medicare for All unless we figure out how to pay for it. In reality, Medicare for All would either cost as much as we’re currently paying or save America money.
Between government and private spending, our current monstrous hybrid system spends more than 18 percent of our gross domestic product on health care, twice the average for the other 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Even worse, health care costs are going up faster than the economy is growing. That means that if nothing changes, the 18 percent number will continue to increase. This is already a genuine drain on the U.S. and will eventually cause something to break.
The only solution to this problem that any country has ever discovered is universal health care. A unified system that covers everybody has the power and moral authority to bargain with providers and hold costs down. So while Medicare for All would require more spending by the federal government, individuals would spend so much less in premiums, deductibles, and copays that we’d almost certainly come out ahead overall — plus we’d never have to think about paying doctor’s bills again. In other words, in reality, the only question is how we can possibly pay for the status quo.
This total disconnect from the real world was embodied by former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s lament that Medicare for All would eliminate millions of private health insurance jobs. Yes, it would — and that’s the point. At best, these jobs are pointless bureaucratic time-wasting; at worst, they involve preventing patients from getting health care. If Buttigieg thinks that’s a good thing, he should propose hiring millions of Americans to play World of Warcraft all day long and occasionally go to emergency rooms and strangle people.
Finally, even if Medicare for All did somehow end up costing a little more than our current system in isolation, it would still be a huge bargain — both in pure financial terms and otherwise. Tons of uninsured people not getting tested for the coronavirus is going to end up costing a lot of actual money. Then there are things that aren’t measured by the GDP, such as how nice it is when your grandmother doesn’t die alone and untreated in quarantine.
The Fantasy of Wall Street’s Importance
Everyone old enough to read this lived through America’s catastrophic bungling of the real estate bubble in the 2000s. A conservative estimate shows there were 20 kajillion articles about the collapse of the big banks in late 2008. But that was always a sideshow, while barely anyone paid attention to the big tent: the effects of the bubble’s deflation on the real economy.
In reality, by the time of the Wall Street cataclysm in September 2008, the depression had already been in progress for almost a year. The real estate bubble had caused an increase in construction activities equal to 4 percent of GDP, at the time about $560 billion. This created huge numbers of jobs for construction workers, real estate agents, and the entire industry. Also, because homeowners mistakenly believed themselves to be richer than they were, they spent more than they would have otherwise, adding another $400 billion in demand and creating more jobs.
When housing prices peaked at the beginning of 2007, unemployment was 4.5 percent. But then the bubble began to collapse. Now the process worked in reverse, sucking out almost $1 trillion in demand from the economy.
That was the problem, not the stock price of JPMorgan Chase. What we needed at that point was to replace that lost demand with a massive expansion of government spending. What we got instead was the Wall Street bailout and the Obama administration’s utterly inadequate stimulus plan. After everything was said and done, it added a mere $150 billion per year to the economy.
Even worse, Barack Obama then immediately pivoted to deficit reduction, slowing the economy further. Unemployment went up to 10 percent. Incredibly enough, when he left office in January 2017, it was still higher than its pre-depression level.
The proof of this vile pudding was in the eating. Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression and World War II by focusing on reality and letting go of America’s fantasies about fiscal probity. People needed jobs, so the government hired them. We needed to beat Nazi Germany, so Roosevelt increased federal spending by 400 percent. This gave the Democrats political dominance for decades. Obama responded to his depression by holding onto fantasies about the centrality and significance of Wall Street, and the brilliance of its titans. The result was the obliteration of the Democratic Party in Washington, D.C. and nationwide, and then President Donald Trump.
Our Fantasy of Our Own Power and Benevolence
Our most treasured pipe dream is that we can maintain control over the Middle East forever. Nicholas Burns, a former Bush administration official who now is one of Joe Biden’s top foreign policy advisers, has explained that “the United States is the major power in the Middle East and will continue to be and is not going away.”
For decades, we were convinced that we’d be able to engage in the ultraviolence needed to maintain this dominance with no consequences for the U.S. In reality, in 2001, 19 men from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates hijacked American planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
This was a sudden intrusion of the most concrete facts imaginable. Yet our fantasy was so powerful, even this didn’t jar us to consciousness. Instead, we made the fantasy yet more elaborate. “Why do they hate us?” George W. Bush asked in an address to Congress nine days after the attacks. The answer: “They hate our freedoms.”
Incredibly enough, the fantasy then became even more ornate. In order to defend ourselves from the freedom-haters, we were going to liberate Iraq and install a small-d democratic government — all led by an American political faction that is manifestly incompetent and openly loathes democracy.
We’ll be paying for this disaster for the rest of our lives. But there was no time to rest because we were then onto the next aspect of our fantasy: that we desperately needed to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Moreover, it was crucial that we continue stopping them until the end of time, even as Iran would continue to be surrounded by aggressive nuclear powers, including us.
In reality, Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program after 2003, and its leaders probably do not want nuclear weapons now. Also in reality, if Iran did obtain them it would certainly be no more irrational than the nuclear-armed United States and Israel.
Nonetheless, Obama accepted the fantasy premise — that Iran had a nuclear weapons program and this was a genuine threat to America — and brokered a deal with the Iranian government on that basis. Then Trump arrived, tore everything up, and added even more brutal sanctions on Iran.
Today, in reality, a staggering Iran, short of money and medical supplies, has been incapable of dealing with the coronavirus. As The Atlantic puts it: “When the final history of the coronavirus epidemic of 2020 is written, it may go something like this: The disease started in China, but it became finally and irrevocably uncontained in Iran.” The Iranian government might have failed even if we hadn’t spent years trying to throttle the country. But we will never know. What we can say for sure is our fantasy about a largely imaginary danger blinded us to an extremely real danger.
What It Takes to Wake Up
In his novel “1984,” George Orwell included sections from a book written by one of the characters, Emmanuel Goldstein. Goldstein is the never-seen leader of the resistance to Oceania’s tyrannical government.
“All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers,” Goldstein writes. However, “war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. … Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four. … War was a sure safeguard of sanity. … While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.”
America’s rulers in this age have done a great job imposing a false view of the world on us. In fact, even many of them have come to believe in it.
But with the worldwide pandemic we now face, we are going to experience something akin to war. As in war, physical facts can’t be ignored. Let’s face the reality that right now, two plus two absolutely has to equal four — and then not forget that it still does when we come out on the other side.


theintercept--2020-03-18--Mass Immigration Prosecutions on the Border Are Currently on Hold. What Comes Next Is Uncertain.

While much of the nation ’ s immigration and detention apparatus marches on in the face of the deadly coronavirus pandemic , one of the most controversial immigration enforcement programs of the past 15 years was brought to a rare halt on Monday , with courts across the border suspending mass prosecutions of immigrants accused of crossing the border illegally .
In Tucson , Arizona , where groups of up to 70 people at a time are routinely prosecuted under the program known as Operation Streamline , federal defense attorneys showed up to court on Monday to find the building @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In San Diego and South Texas , meanwhile , federal public defenders received word from the U.S. Attorney ’ s Office that the government would not be prosecuting individuals accused of crossing the border illegally for the first time .
The same was true in New Mexico , where federal public defender Stephen P. McCue said it ’ s not uncommon for attorneys in the state ’ s Las Cruces division to see up 100 defendants in court to face low-level border crossing charges in a single day .
“ There ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when all the defendants are all chained up in the courtroom , and you have to talk to them through an interpreter , ” McCue told The Intercept .
“ Under the best circumstances , it ’ s chaotic , and it ’ s simply not compliant with the health declarations that New Mexico has in place or that the federal government has in place.
” The nation ’ s two central border crossing laws are commonly referred to by their sections in Title 8 of the U.S. Code ; 1325 stipulates that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country without papers , and 1326 makes it a felony to reenter the country after being removed by the government .
Though nearly everything that happens in the immigration legal sphere is a civil matter , enforcement of these two criminal laws has been a driving force in making immigration the leading category of crime on the federal docket .
Recently , the statutes provided the basis for the Trump administration ’ s “ zero tolerance ” initiative , in which thousands of children were forcibly separated from their parents , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particular that former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro called for in his bid for the White House .
In addition to contributing to a historic shift in immigration enforcement , Operation Streamline has become an unparalleled pipeline for the criminalized gathering of human bodies on the border — an obvious problem as the highly contagious coronavirus continues to spread and cases continue to mount .
In interviews , federal public defenders and court officials across the border described variations in how suspensions of these prosecutions are currently playing out .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Arizona , and California all said that 1325 prosecutions in their areas had been paused , only McCue , in New Mexico , said his state had halted 1326 reentry prosecutions as well .
And even then , the defense attorney stressed , the pause is limited to those who have been previously deported but do not have prior criminal history beyond that .
“ I think it ’ s very much to their credit that they ’ ve suspended it , ” McCue said of the government ’ s decision not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ noted , this does not mean “ they ’ ve opened up the border.
” Pausing or declining to criminally prosecute an individual for crossing the border without papers may remove them from the Justice Department ’ s criminal justice system , but they still have Department of Homeland Security ’ s court and detention system to contend with .
“ These people are still being deported , ” McCue said .
“ There are still civil sanctions being imposed on these people , but they ’ ve curtailed the federal crime side @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Sources who spoke to The Intercept expressed uniform uncertainty about where the current hold on criminal border-crossing prosecutions will go to next .
On Tuesday night , the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is pushing forward with a plan to “ immediately turn back all asylum seekers and other foreigners trying to cross the southwestern border illegally , ” ensuring that migrants and “ asylum-seekers would not be held for any length of time in an American facility nor would they be given due process.
” In Arizona , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she assumes that her state ’ s current one-week pause on Streamline hearings will be extended , though she couldn ’ t say for certain .
The hold on prosecutions was designed to “ give ourselves a pause , ” Lucas told The Intercept , “ to figure out how we ’ re going to handle these proceedings from here forward.
” Lucas added that her office was working the U.S. Attorney ’ s Office , the Marshals service and immigration attorneys in devising a path forward .
All of those entities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the numbers and the transporting of these individuals , and housing them all in one area and bringing them into the courthouse.
” While the Department of Justice did not respond to questions regarding the suspended prosecution of the border-crossing statutes , a press officer at the U.S. Attorney ’ s Office in Arizona provided The Intercept with a memo that Attorney General William Barr sent to federal prosecutors nationwide Monday .
Though the document did not address border-crossing statutes specifically , Barr did direct his attorneys to work closely with the chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that every appropriate precaution is taken to protect the health of those who practice in or are called before our courts.
” Laura Conover , the Criminal Justice Act representative for hundreds of private lawyers who often provide legal defense for Streamline defendants in Tucson , told The Intercept that she first became concerned about the continuation of the enforcement program last Wednesday .
“ My sense was that Streamline was literally the epitome of a massive gathering of people.
” Conover had spent her day fielding questions from concerned lawyers and U.S @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evening watching as her husband , a community college administrator , and his colleagues reached the conclusion that it was necessary to suspend onsite learning at campuses in southern Arizona .
The following morning , Conover sent a memo to two supervising judges in Tucson laying out her concerns .
“ If conditions are not safe enough right now for college students to remain on campus , then I must very humbly request that Streamline proceedings be temporarily suspended , ” she wrote .
“ All detainees who are brought in to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an immune system compromised to various degrees by exhaustion and dehydration.
” Just last month , a federal judge in Arizona issued a permanent injunction against the Border Patrol ’ s Tucson sector , after a seven-day trial offered evidence of squalid and inhumane conditions in the agency ’ s holding cells .
“ Those detention conditions are highly favorable for the spread of germs , ” Conover wrote .
“ Unlike other illnesses dealt with before , officials are concerned that patients may be positive for Covid before they are symptomatic.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outstanding efforts by court administration and the Marshals , it seems that court staff present in the [ Operation Streamline ] courtroom in the morning , interpreters , deputy Marshals , attorneys , the detainees , and the bench are at a much higher risk than other populations currently receiving protection right now , ” Conover went on to say .
“ This request is not made lightly .
In fact , it is made with great trepidation .
But it seems incumbent on me as representative of the panel to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been a core component of the U.S. approach to border enforcement for three consecutive presidential administrations .
For border hawks , the program is a key node in the government ’ s so-called consequence delivery system .
For critics , the program is routinely held up as a glaring example of government resources gone to waste , and bedrock notions of American justice gone haywire .
Southern Arizona has long been home to the nation ’ s largest and most active Streamline pipeline .
Typically , the people who appear in Streamline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , days , or sometimes weeks trekking through one of the most dangerous ecosystems on the planet — the Sonoran Desert — a journey that experts say is inherently compromising for the body ’ s immune system .
They are then held for hours or days in the notorious Border Patrol detention cells cited in last month ’ s trial , often at one of the agency ’ s remote outposts .
From there , they are generally moved onto buses , which private contractors then drive to downtown Tucson .
The exhausted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bowels of the federal courthouse to appear before a judge , often dressed in the same clothes they wore when they crossed the desert .
For years , chained immigrant defendants in Arizona testified to their charges en masse , still wearing their chains — an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit eventually put a stop to that .
These days , the defendants remove their shackles in a hallway outside the courtroom , appear in smaller groups and enter pleas individually .
The feeling of a conveyor belt prosecutions , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judge Bernardo P. Velasco boasted that his personal “ record ” for prosecuting dozens of defendants under Streamline was 30 minutes .
The Streamline suspension comes as stakeholders from across the immigration enforcement world are increasingly sounding the alarm that , in the shadow of the coronavirus , the nation ’ s detention and court system is a source of mounting danger for virtually everyone it touches — especially the tens of thousands of men , women , and children currently in government custody .
On Sunday night , the leading unions representing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as a national association of more than 15,000 immigration attorneys and law professors , issued an unprecedented joint letter calling for the immediate shut down of immigration courts across the country .
“ Our nation is currently in the throes of a historic global pandemic , ” the groups wrote .
Shortly before midnight last night , the Department of Justice announced by tweet that it was postponing immigration hearings at several courts across the country .
Conover , who is currently running for Pima County attorney , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s continuation was not easy .
“ It ’ s sort of like looking at just a huge behemoth , a massively funded program , and saying we should pause this , ” she explained .
“ Writing that memo to the bench about a program that ’ s so powerful and so entrenched was a really frightening moment , to be honest , ” she said .
“ But I couldn ’ t not write it .
”

While much of the nation’s immigration and detention apparatus marches on in the face of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, one of the most controversial immigration enforcement programs of the past 15 years was brought to a rare halt on Monday, with courts across the border suspending mass prosecutions of immigrants accused of crossing the border illegally.
In Tucson, Arizona, where groups of up to 70 people at a time are routinely prosecuted under the program known as Operation Streamline, federal defense attorneys showed up to court on Monday to find the building’s usual mass hearings were canceled. In San Diego and South Texas, meanwhile, federal public defenders received word from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the government would not be prosecuting individuals accused of crossing the border illegally for the first time. The same was true in New Mexico, where federal public defender Stephen P. McCue said it’s not uncommon for attorneys in the state’s Las Cruces division to see up 100 defendants in court to face low-level border crossing charges in a single day.
“There’s no such thing as social distancing when all the defendants are all chained up in the courtroom, and you have to talk to them through an interpreter,” McCue told The Intercept. “Under the best circumstances, it’s chaotic, and it’s simply not compliant with the health declarations that New Mexico has in place or that the federal government has in place.”
The nation’s two central border crossing laws are commonly referred to by their sections in Title 8 of the U.S. Code; 1325 stipulates that it is a misdemeanor offense to enter the country without papers, and 1326 makes it a felony to reenter the country after being removed by the government. Though nearly everything that happens in the immigration legal sphere is a civil matter, enforcement of these two criminal laws has been a driving force in making immigration the leading category of crime on the federal docket. Recently, the statutes provided the basis for the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” initiative, in which thousands of children were forcibly separated from their parents, and it was the elimination of 1325 in particular that former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro called for in his bid for the White House.
In addition to contributing to a historic shift in immigration enforcement, Operation Streamline has become an unparalleled pipeline for the criminalized gathering of human bodies on the border — an obvious problem as the highly contagious coronavirus continues to spread and cases continue to mount.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
In interviews, federal public defenders and court officials across the border described variations in how suspensions of these prosecutions are currently playing out. While defense attorneys in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California all said that 1325 prosecutions in their areas had been paused, only McCue, in New Mexico, said his state had halted 1326 reentry prosecutions as well. And even then, the defense attorney stressed, the pause is limited to those who have been previously deported but do not have prior criminal history beyond that. “I think it’s very much to their credit that they’ve suspended it,” McCue said of the government’s decision not to bring those cases but, he noted, this does not mean “they’ve opened up the border.”
Pausing or declining to criminally prosecute an individual for crossing the border without papers may remove them from the Justice Department’s criminal justice system, but they still have Department of Homeland Security’s court and detention system to contend with. “These people are still being deported,” McCue said. “There are still civil sanctions being imposed on these people, but they’ve curtailed the federal crime side of prosecutions temporarily until the dust settles.”
Sources who spoke to The Intercept expressed uniform uncertainty about where the current hold on criminal border-crossing prosecutions will go to next. On Tuesday night, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is pushing forward with a plan to “immediately turn back all asylum seekers and other foreigners trying to cross the southwestern border illegally,” ensuring that migrants and “asylum-seekers would not be held for any length of time in an American facility nor would they be given due process.”
“There’s no such thing as social distancing when all the defendants are all chained up in the courtroom, and you have to talk to them through an interpreter.”
In Arizona, Acting District Court Executive Deb Lucas said she assumes that her state’s current one-week pause on Streamline hearings will be extended, though she couldn’t say for certain. The hold on prosecutions was designed to “give ourselves a pause,” Lucas told The Intercept, “to figure out how we’re going to handle these proceedings from here forward.” Lucas added that her office was working the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Marshals service and immigration attorneys in devising a path forward. All of those entities, Lucas said, “are concerned about the numbers and the transporting of these individuals, and housing them all in one area and bringing them into the courthouse.”
While the Department of Justice did not respond to questions regarding the suspended prosecution of the border-crossing statutes, a press officer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona provided The Intercept with a memo that Attorney General William Barr sent to federal prosecutors nationwide Monday. Though the document did not address border-crossing statutes specifically, Barr did direct his attorneys to work closely with the chief judges in their districts “to ensure that every appropriate precaution is taken to protect the health of those who practice in or are called before our courts.”
Laura Conover, the Criminal Justice Act representative for hundreds of private lawyers who often provide legal defense for Streamline defendants in Tucson, told The Intercept that she first became concerned about the continuation of the enforcement program last Wednesday. “My sense was that Streamline was literally the epitome of a massive gathering of people.”
Conover had spent her day fielding questions from concerned lawyers and U.S. Marshals. She then spent her evening watching as her husband, a community college administrator, and his colleagues reached the conclusion that it was necessary to suspend onsite learning at campuses in southern Arizona. The following morning, Conover sent a memo to two supervising judges in Tucson laying out her concerns.
Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants
“If conditions are not safe enough right now for college students to remain on campus, then I must very humbly request that Streamline proceedings be temporarily suspended,” she wrote. “All detainees who are brought in to the Special Proceedings room in Tucson arrive with an immune system compromised to various degrees by exhaustion and dehydration.” Just last month, a federal judge in Arizona issued a permanent injunction against the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, after a seven-day trial offered evidence of squalid and inhumane conditions in the agency’s holding cells. “Those detention conditions are highly favorable for the spread of germs,” Conover wrote. “Unlike other illnesses dealt with before, officials are concerned that patients may be positive for Covid before they are symptomatic.”
“Given all this, and despite the outstanding efforts by court administration and the Marshals, it seems that court staff present in the [Operation Streamline] courtroom in the morning, interpreters, deputy Marshals, attorneys, the detainees, and the bench are at a much higher risk than other populations currently receiving protection right now,” Conover went on to say. “This request is not made lightly. In fact, it is made with great trepidation. But it seems incumbent on me as representative of the panel to do so.”
Launched in 2005, Streamline has been a core component of the U.S. approach to border enforcement for three consecutive presidential administrations. For border hawks, the program is a key node in the government’s so-called consequence delivery system. For critics, the program is routinely held up as a glaring example of government resources gone to waste, and bedrock notions of American justice gone haywire.
Southern Arizona has long been home to the nation’s largest and most active Streamline pipeline. Typically, the people who appear in Streamline there have been arrested after spending hours, days, or sometimes weeks trekking through one of the most dangerous ecosystems on the planet — the Sonoran Desert — a journey that experts say is inherently compromising for the body’s immune system. They are then held for hours or days in the notorious Border Patrol detention cells cited in last month’s trial, often at one of the agency’s remote outposts. From there, they are generally moved onto buses, which private contractors then drive to downtown Tucson. The exhausted men and women are then marched through the bowels of the federal courthouse to appear before a judge, often dressed in the same clothes they wore when they crossed the desert.
For years, chained immigrant defendants in Arizona testified to their charges en masse, still wearing their chains — an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit eventually put a stop to that. These days, the defendants remove their shackles in a hallway outside the courtroom, appear in smaller groups and enter pleas individually. The feeling of a conveyor belt prosecutions, however, remains. In 2014, former Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco boasted that his personal “record” for prosecuting dozens of defendants under Streamline was 30 minutes.
The Streamline suspension comes as stakeholders from across the immigration enforcement world are increasingly sounding the alarm that, in the shadow of the coronavirus, the nation’s detention and court system is a source of mounting danger for virtually everyone it touches — especially the tens of thousands of men, women, and children currently in government custody. On Sunday night, the leading unions representing Immigration Customs Enforcement prosecutors and immigration judges, as well as a national association of more than 15,000 immigration attorneys and law professors, issued an unprecedented joint letter calling for the immediate shut down of immigration courts across the country. “Our nation is currently in the throes of a historic global pandemic,” the groups wrote.
Shortly before midnight last night, the Department of Justice announced by tweet that it was postponing immigration hearings at several courts across the country.
Conover, who is currently running for Pima County attorney, said that her decision to speak out over Streamline’s continuation was not easy. “It’s sort of like looking at just a huge behemoth, a massively funded program, and saying we should pause this,” she explained. “Writing that memo to the bench about a program that’s so powerful and so entrenched was a really frightening moment, to be honest,” she said. “But I couldn’t not write it.”


theintercept--2020-03-18--Yemen’s Health Care System, Battered by War, Braces for Coronavirus

Organization has yet to announce a case of Covid-19 in Yemen , but a new report sheds light on how years of attacks , many targeting hospitals and clinics , have helped push the country ’ s health system past the breaking point .
The report , produced jointly by Physicians for Human Rights and the Yemen-based human rights organization Mwatana for Human Rights , documents four years of attacks against health care facilities in the country , part of a global trend that has led to a record rise in attacks on health care workers and facilities in war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , cross-checked with witness statements , photographs , and media and NGO reports , the report documents 120 attacks against medical facilities across 20 of Yemen ’ s 22 governorates between March 2015 , when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates started a war there with U.S. backing , and the end of 2018 .
The report is the most comprehensive attempt to document attacks on medical facilities in the conflict to date , and sheds important light on an already overwhelmed health system that is struggling to cope with the fallout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and escalating violence .
“ When you look at it , it ’ s really a death by a thousand cuts situation , ” said Kristine Beckerle , the legal director for accountability and redress at Mwatana for Human Rights .
“ Yemen ’ s health sector hasn ’ t been stretched to its limits ; it ’ s far beyond its limits.
” Of the attacks documented in the report , 35 were aerial assaults by the Saudi and Emirati coalition , and involved bombing raids on 32 separate medical facilitates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the facilities in question , destroying vital medical units and causing widespread disruptions in access and service provision , ” the report says .
Forty-six of the attacks were from ground-launched mortars or rockets , mainly operated by the Houthi rebel group or their allies , and nine were attempts by Houthi forces to occupy or commandeer medical facilities .
Rayan Koteiche , one of the authors of the report and a Middle East and North Africa researcher for Physicians for Human Rights , told The Intercept that all warring parties were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Saudi and Emirati air forces to the Yemeni government they support and the Houthis , who occupy the capital of Sana ’ a in the North .
“ They ’ ve all been perpetrating violations of international humanitarian law by attacking — repeatedly — the health infrastructure and medical personnel in Yemen , ” Koteiche said .
Years of restricted access and infrastructure damage , as well as attacks against hospitals and other facilities , have left the country ’ s health system unable to respond to preventable diseases , let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We ’ re not talking about buying hand sanitizer or disinfectant .
People can ’ t even purchase soap in some places .
You have to think about the basic measures people are taking to protect themselves — those might be largely unavailable to people in Yemen.
” During the war , the health care system has been strained by preventable diseases , and the breakdown in sanitation led to the largest cholera outbreak in modern history , reaching more than a million cases .
Before the war , Yemen was heavily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of whom have returned home — and imported virtually all of its pharmaceuticals and medical equipment .
“ Cholera is a pretty good example of a disease that shouldn ’ t exist anywhere on the planet where there is the bare minimum response capacity from a medical system , ” Koteiche said .
Import and access restrictions from a Saudi and Emirati naval blockade , fighting , and siege-like conditions across swaths of the country have led to shortages in medicine and equipment .
And while comprehensive data on the number of health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.N. Office of for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said that only 51 percent of the country ’ s health centers “ remain fully functional.
” In recent days , authorities in Yemen have taken steps to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to the country .
Both the Houthis and internationally-backed government have halted flights and urged travelers to self-quarantine .
The internationally-backed government has also ordered school closures .
But Beckerle said that the health system in the country is far from ready to tackle advanced preparations for a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stores of medical equipment , like ventilators .
“ The conversation is , can you get to a hospital , and do they have electricity ?
” Beckerle said .
“ And that is daily life .
”

The World Health Organization has yet to announce a case of Covid-19 in Yemen, but a new report sheds light on how years of attacks, many targeting hospitals and clinics, have helped push the country’s health system past the breaking point.
The report, produced jointly by Physicians for Human Rights and the Yemen-based human rights organization Mwatana for Human Rights, documents four years of attacks against health care facilities in the country, part of a global trend that has led to a record rise in attacks on health care workers and facilities in war zones.
Based on nearly 200 interviews, cross-checked with witness statements, photographs, and media and NGO reports, the report documents 120 attacks against medical facilities across 20 of Yemen’s 22 governorates between March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates started a war there with U.S. backing, and the end of 2018.
The report is the most comprehensive attempt to document attacks on medical facilities in the conflict to date, and sheds important light on an already overwhelmed health system that is struggling to cope with the fallout from years of malnutrition, preventable diseases, and escalating violence.
“When you look at it, it’s really a death by a thousand cuts situation,” said Kristine Beckerle, the legal director for accountability and redress at Mwatana for Human Rights. “Yemen’s health sector hasn’t been stretched to its limits; it’s far beyond its limits.”
Of the attacks documented in the report, 35 were aerial assaults by the Saudi and Emirati coalition, and involved bombing raids on 32 separate medical facilitates. “Most airstrikes caused significant damage to the facilities in question, destroying vital medical units and causing widespread disruptions in access and service provision,” the report says.
Forty-six of the attacks were from ground-launched mortars or rockets, mainly operated by the Houthi rebel group or their allies, and nine were attempts by Houthi forces to occupy or commandeer medical facilities.
Rayan Koteiche, one of the authors of the report and a Middle East and North Africa researcher for Physicians for Human Rights, told The Intercept that all warring parties were guilty of attacks against medical facilities, from the Saudi and Emirati air forces to the Yemeni government they support and the Houthis, who occupy the capital of Sana’a in the North.
“They’ve all been perpetrating violations of international humanitarian law by attacking — repeatedly — the health infrastructure and medical personnel in Yemen,” Koteiche said.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Years of restricted access and infrastructure damage, as well as attacks against hospitals and other facilities, have left the country’s health system unable to respond to preventable diseases, let alone a pandemic, Beckerle said. “We’re not talking about buying hand sanitizer or disinfectant. People can’t even purchase soap in some places. You have to think about the basic measures people are taking to protect themselves — those might be largely unavailable to people in Yemen.”
During the war, the health care system has been strained by preventable diseases, and the breakdown in sanitation led to the largest cholera outbreak in modern history, reaching more than a million cases. Before the war, Yemen was heavily dependent on foreign medical workers — many of whom have returned home — and imported virtually all of its pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.
“Cholera is a pretty good example of a disease that shouldn’t exist anywhere on the planet where there is the bare minimum response capacity from a medical system,” Koteiche said.
Import and access restrictions from a Saudi and Emirati naval blockade, fighting, and siege-like conditions across swaths of the country have led to shortages in medicine and equipment. And while comprehensive data on the number of health facilities in Yemen is not public, the U.N. Office of for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said that only 51 percent of the country’s health centers “remain fully functional.”
In recent days, authorities in Yemen have taken steps to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to the country. Both the Houthis and internationally-backed government have halted flights and urged travelers to self-quarantine. The internationally-backed government has also ordered school closures.
But Beckerle said that the health system in the country is far from ready to tackle advanced preparations for a pandemic, such as increasing hospital beds or stores of medical equipment, like ventilators.
“The conversation is, can you get to a hospital, and do they have electricity?” Beckerle said. “And that is daily life.”


theintercept--2020-03-18--Illinois Used Nearly 50 Facilities for Low-Income Seniors in Chicago as Polling Locations on Tuesday

push forward with in-person elections on Tuesday , local election officials across Illinois relocated hundreds of polling locations due to concerns about exposing particularly vulnerable populations to the novel coronavirus .
Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ahead of the election were particularly stark .
“ If you are an older person , stay home and away from other people , ” the latest guidelines read .
“ If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk ( for example , a condition that impairs your lung @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system ) , stay home and away from other people.
” Gatherings of more than 10 people were discouraged for everyone .
Yet , despite precautions the state claimed it would take , counties and cities were left scrambling to move polling locations last minute .
In Chicago , nearly 200 sites were relocated , causing confusion for voters .
And nearly 50 housing facilities for low-income seniors were used as polling locations , according to the website of Chicago ’ s Board of Election Commissioners .
Jane Addams Senior Caucus , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial justice for seniors , condemned the decision .
Among the senior facilities still open as polling sites were 25 senior public housing buildings managed by the Chicago Housing Authority .
“ The decision to hold the elections at all today is a public health risk for everyone , ” Kelly Viselman , the group ’ s organizing director , said on Tuesday .
“ The specific decision to allow polling places to be open at CHA senior buildings puts low-income seniors , an already high-risk population , at even greater risk .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ group is also calling for new emergency protocols in the city ’ s senior buildings , including food and medication delivery , an updated cleaning regimen , and nurses or trained healthcare workers on site .
Billionaire Democratic Gov .
J.B. Pritzker endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden on the eve of the primary .
Even as nearby Ohio Republican Gov .
Mike DeWine used emergency authority to postpone the voting , Pritzker insisted it go forward .
With 155 delegates , Illinois is the sixth largest prize of the primary .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confusion and anxiety , as poll workers complained of critical shortages of staffing and cleaning supplies and election officials reported anemic turnout .
Biden was declared the winner with more than 909,000 votes to Sanders ’ s 555,000 .
It ’ s not clear yet how many of those were early votes and how many were cast in person .
In the night ’ s biggest upset , insurgent Marie Newman unseated longtime Rep. Dan Lipinski , whose family had held the congressional seat for nearly 30 years .
Difficulties for voters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where the first Covid-19 death was announced Tuesday .
A grassroots group representing seniors in the Chicago area warned that the election had jeopardized the health of older people , who appear more likely to become seriously ill from the virus .
To date , Illinois has confirmed 160 coronavirus cases , most of them concentrated in the Chicago area , and one death from the disease .
On Monday , Pritzker declined to postpone the election , saying at a news conference , “ We do believe it ’ s safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and we think that the election will go on just fine.
” Pritzker endorsed Biden ’ s presidential bid the same day .
The spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said Tuesday morning that the city ’ s election officials had privately urged the governor to call off in-person voting .
“ This was a snowball we could all see coming down the hill , ” said spokesperson Jim Allen .
A spokesperson for Pritzker shot back that this was “ a lie.
” The four states that were set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Florida , and Ohio — took varying levels of precaution to protect vulnerable voters from exposure to Covid-19 .
Before DeWine took the extraordinary step of barring Ohio ’ s elections as a public health emergency , the state ordered that all polling locations at nursing homes and senior residential facilities be relocated .
Last week , the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners opted to close all of the city ’ s designated polling locations inside nursing homes .
A number of privately managed senior housing facilities later withdrew as voting sites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A spokesperson for the Chicago Housing Authority said , “ The locations of polling places were determined by the Chicago Board of Elections and CHA was assured by election board officials that every precaution regarding cleaning would be in place .
CHA has not received any complaints about polling places at our properties.
” Meanwhile , 50 polling locations canceled “ last minute , ” according to election authorities , leading to a scramble on Tuesday morning .
Some poll workers reported having to turn away voters who arrived because voting materials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , observers took to Twitter to express their dismay at two-hour waits for seniors and crowds in excess of 150 people , despite the governor ’ s recently issued ban on large gatherings .
The problems were compounded by a shortage in election judges , a role often filled by retirees and older people .
As scores of election judges dropped out leading up to the primary , city elections officials issued a plea on Monday for younger residents to sign up to help , boosting the pay offered and waiving certain training @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resident of a senior public housing building that served as a polling place today , said he voted midday with relatively little difficulty .
Election judges were wearing masks , and the community room where voting took place was blocked off from the residential area .
But Durkin expressed concern over the impact the pandemic would have on the primary season .
“ I think the whole election is being altered by what ’ s going on , ” he said .
“ People have asked me over the last few days , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before ?
But even at my age , no one has seen anything like this before.
” Donald Bell , a resident of Town Hall Senior Apartments , said that he called the Board of Elections to resign as an election judge on Monday out of health concerns .
“ I ’ ve been an election judge for over 30 years , ” he said .
“ It was a heavy decision .
The responsibility for actually conducting the election skews heavily to those people that are at the highest risk .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with this emotional crisis of doing our duty or protecting our own health .
”

In order to push forward with in-person elections on Tuesday, local election officials across Illinois relocated hundreds of polling locations due to concerns about exposing particularly vulnerable populations to the novel coronavirus. Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ahead of the election were particularly stark.
“If you are an older person, stay home and away from other people,” the latest guidelines read. “If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk (for example, a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people.”
Gatherings of more than 10 people were discouraged for everyone. Yet, despite precautions the state claimed it would take, counties and cities were left scrambling to move polling locations last minute. In Chicago, nearly 200 sites were relocated, causing confusion for voters. And nearly 50 housing facilities for low-income seniors were used as polling locations, according to the website of Chicago’s Board of Election Commissioners.
Jane Addams Senior Caucus, which advocates for social, economic, and racial justice for seniors, condemned the decision. Among the senior facilities still open as polling sites were 25 senior public housing buildings managed by the Chicago Housing Authority.
“The decision to hold the elections at all today is a public health risk for everyone,” Kelly Viselman, the group’s organizing director, said on Tuesday. “The specific decision to allow polling places to be open at CHA senior buildings puts low-income seniors, an already high-risk population, at even greater risk. That’s extremely concerning.”
The group is also calling for new emergency protocols in the city’s senior buildings, including food and medication delivery, an updated cleaning regimen, and nurses or trained healthcare workers on site.
Billionaire Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden on the eve of the primary. Even as nearby Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine used emergency authority to postpone the voting, Pritzker insisted it go forward. With 155 delegates, Illinois is the sixth largest prize of the primary. The day’s voting was marred by confusion and anxiety, as poll workers complained of critical shortages of staffing and cleaning supplies and election officials reported anemic turnout.
Donald Bell resigned as an election judge on Monday. “We shouldn’t have to be faced with this emotional crisis of doing our duty or protecting our own health,” he said.
Biden was declared the winner with more than 909,000 votes to Sanders’s 555,000. It’s not clear yet how many of those were early votes and how many were cast in person. In the night’s biggest upset, insurgent Marie Newman unseated longtime Rep. Dan Lipinski, whose family had held the congressional seat for nearly 30 years.
Difficulties for voters and poll workers were especially acute in Chicago, where the first Covid-19 death was announced Tuesday. A grassroots group representing seniors in the Chicago area warned that the election had jeopardized the health of older people, who appear more likely to become seriously ill from the virus.
To date, Illinois has confirmed 160 coronavirus cases, most of them concentrated in the Chicago area, and one death from the disease. On Monday, Pritzker declined to postpone the election, saying at a news conference, “We do believe it’s safe. We’ve certainly consulted experts, and we think that the election will go on just fine.” Pritzker endorsed Biden’s presidential bid the same day.
The spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said Tuesday morning that the city’s election officials had privately urged the governor to call off in-person voting. “This was a snowball we could all see coming down the hill,” said spokesperson Jim Allen. A spokesperson for Pritzker shot back that this was “a lie.”
The four states that were set to vote yesterday — Arizona, Illinois, Florida, and Ohio — took varying levels of precaution to protect vulnerable voters from exposure to Covid-19. Before DeWine took the extraordinary step of barring Ohio’s elections as a public health emergency, the state ordered that all polling locations at nursing homes and senior residential facilities be relocated.
Last week, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners opted to close all of the city’s designated polling locations inside nursing homes. A number of privately managed senior housing facilities later withdrew as voting sites, but CHA-managed senior buildings did not.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Housing Authority said, “The locations of polling places were determined by the Chicago Board of Elections and CHA was assured by election board officials that every precaution regarding cleaning would be in place. CHA has not received any complaints about polling places at our properties.”
Meanwhile, 50 polling locations canceled “last minute,” according to election authorities, leading to a scramble on Tuesday morning. Some poll workers reported having to turn away voters who arrived because voting materials were never delivered.
At other locations, observers took to Twitter to express their dismay at two-hour waits for seniors and crowds in excess of 150 people, despite the governor’s recently issued ban on large gatherings.
The problems were compounded by a shortage in election judges, a role often filled by retirees and older people. As scores of election judges dropped out leading up to the primary, city elections officials issued a plea on Monday for younger residents to sign up to help, boosting the pay offered and waiving certain training requirements.
Tom Durkin, an 81-year-old resident of a senior public housing building that served as a polling place today, said he voted midday with relatively little difficulty. Election judges were wearing masks, and the community room where voting took place was blocked off from the residential area.
But Durkin expressed concern over the impact the pandemic would have on the primary season. “I think the whole election is being altered by what’s going on,” he said. “People have asked me over the last few days, have you ever seen anything like this before? But even at my age, no one has seen anything like this before.”
Donald Bell, a resident of Town Hall Senior Apartments, said that he called the Board of Elections to resign as an election judge on Monday out of health concerns. “I’ve been an election judge for over 30 years,” he said. “It was a heavy decision. The responsibility for actually conducting the election skews heavily to those people that are at the highest risk. We shouldn’t have to be faced with this emotional crisis of doing our duty or protecting our own health.”


theintercept--2020-03-18--Trump Shrugs Off Spike in Anti-Chinese Racism, Even in His White House

was any doubt that President Donald Trump is inciting racism by blaming China for the global coronavirus pandemic , and referring to the pathogen as “ the Chinese virus , ” one of his own aides made a racist joke to a Chinese-American reporter at the White House on Tuesday .
“ This morning a White House official referred to Coronavirus as the ‘ Kung-Flu ’ to my face , ” the CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang reported on Twitter .
“ Makes me wonder what they ’ re calling it behind my back , ” added Jiang , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West Virginia .
As more reports of hatred directed at Chinese-Americans circulated , Trump was asked on Wednesday morning about the racist jibe , and whether him labelling the virus Chinese fuels the racist backlash .
The president refused to denounce his aide and denied any responsibility for Asian-Americans being targeted .
A day earlier , Trump had defended repeatedly calling the pathogen “ the Chinese virus , ” saying it was a justified response to the promotion of a conspiracy theory , by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian , that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by an American soldier during the Military World Games in Wuhan , China , in October .
The World Health Organization ’ s executive director for emergencies , Dr. Mike Ryan , was asked to comment on Wednesday about Trump ’ s language and the backlash from his implicit effort to blame China .
“ We ’ ve been very clear right since the beginning of this event that viruses know no borders and they don ’ t care your ethnicity or the color of your skin or how much money you have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s really important that we be careful in the language we use , lest it lead to profiling of individuals associated with the virus .
This is just something we need to all avoid , ” Ryan said .
“ It ’ s easy to make comments that are not intended to do that but ultimately end up having that outcome , ” he added .
“ The pandemic influenza of 2009 originated in North America .
We didn ’ t call it the North American flu , ” Ryan observed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is a time for facts .
This is a time to move forward together to fight this virus together , ” he concluded .
“ There is no blame in this.
” As Associated Press journalist in Beijing confirmed that Trump ’ s words are alienating even otherwise pro-American people there .
Marian Wang , a senior news producer at “ Last Week Tonight with John Oliver , suggested that Trump ’ s racist taunting just “ gives the Chinese government even more fuel for inflaming anti-American nationalism.
” As is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appears to have absorbed this nativist talking point from his favorite television channel , Fox News .
Last week , Tucker Carlson opened his show with a monologue seething with resentment at the idea that it was racist for him to call the pathogen “ the Chinese Coronavirus.
” The opportunity to both blame China for the crisis and mock liberals for being offended at the racist overtones has led Fox to fill the airwaves with such language .
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used the term “ Wuhan virus ” in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” the morning show Trump consumes religiously .
Last week , the spokesman for China ’ s foreign ministry responded by urging his Twitter followers to visit a fringe Canadian website which speculated the virus might have been created at an American biological weapons lab .
Amid the escalating tensions between China and the United States , China ’ s foreign ministry also withdrew the press credentials of American correspondents who report for The Washington Post , The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday .
Updated : Wednesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ET This article was updated with a new headline and to add comments on Wednesday from President Donald Trump and Dr. Mike Ryan , the executive director of emergencies for the World Health Organization .

In case there was any doubt that President Donald Trump is inciting racism by blaming China for the global coronavirus pandemic, and referring to the pathogen as “the Chinese virus,” one of his own aides made a racist joke to a Chinese-American reporter at the White House on Tuesday.
“This morning a White House official referred to Coronavirus as the ‘Kung-Flu’ to my face,” the CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang reported on Twitter. “Makes me wonder what they’re calling it behind my back,” added Jiang, who was born in China but raised in West Virginia.
As more reports of hatred directed at Chinese-Americans circulated, Trump was asked on Wednesday morning about the racist jibe, and whether him labelling the virus Chinese fuels the racist backlash. The president refused to denounce his aide and denied any responsibility for Asian-Americans being targeted.
WATCH: @Yamiche asked the president if using the term "Chinese virus" to describe novel coronavirus puts Asian Americans at risk of being targeted. President Trump: "No, not at all. I think they probably would agree with it 100%." pic.twitter.com/BGHe10PFQ0 — PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) March 18, 2020
A day earlier, Trump had defended repeatedly calling the pathogen “the Chinese virus,” saying it was a justified response to the promotion of a conspiracy theory, by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, that the virus might have been introduced to China by an American soldier during the Military World Games in Wuhan, China, in October.
“It did come from China, so I think it’s a very accurate term.” President Trump said he used the term "Chinese virus" because he didn't appreciate China saying the U.S. military gave the coronavirus to China pic.twitter.com/oTDuYbw6Pq — Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) March 17, 2020
The World Health Organization’s executive director for emergencies, Dr. Mike Ryan, was asked to comment on Wednesday about Trump’s language and the backlash from his implicit effort to blame China. “We’ve been very clear right since the beginning of this event that viruses know no borders and they don’t care your ethnicity or the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank. So, it’s really important that we be careful in the language we use, lest it lead to profiling of individuals associated with the virus. This is just something we need to all avoid,” Ryan said. “It’s easy to make comments that are not intended to do that but ultimately end up having that outcome,” he added.
“The pandemic influenza of 2009 originated in North America. We didn’t call it the North American flu,” Ryan observed. “This is a time for solidarity. This is a time for facts. This is a time to move forward together to fight this virus together,” he concluded. “There is no blame in this.”
As Associated Press journalist in Beijing confirmed that Trump’s words are alienating even otherwise pro-American people there.
Trump repeatedly and deliberately calling COVID-19 "Chinese virus" is enraging some of the most cosmopolitan, open-minded, America-friendly people from China I know. Words matter. If the U.S. keeps up the racial rhetoric, it risks alienating its few remaining friends in China. pic.twitter.com/VZVz8XpCqn — Dake Kang (@dakekang) March 18, 2020
Marian Wang, a senior news producer at “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, suggested that Trump’s racist taunting just “gives the Chinese government even more fuel for inflaming anti-American nationalism.”
As is so often the case, the president appears to have absorbed this nativist talking point from his favorite television channel, Fox News. Last week, Tucker Carlson opened his show with a monologue seething with resentment at the idea that it was racist for him to call the pathogen “the Chinese Coronavirus.”
We must remain calm but not complacent about the Chinese Coronavirus. We addressed it on tonight’s show. We hope you’ll watch if you missed it.https://t.co/elhyObX1oV — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 10, 2020
The opportunity to both blame China for the crisis and mock liberals for being offended at the racist overtones has led Fox to fill the airwaves with such language.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used the term “Wuhan virus” in a recent appearance on “Fox and Friends,” the morning show Trump consumes religiously.
On Fox & Friends, Mike Pompeo and Pete Hegseth try to rebrand the coronavirus as "Wuhan virus." (h/t .@tylermonroe7) pic.twitter.com/6FuCSxMHxt — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) March 6, 2020
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the former presidential candidate, advised the White House and Fox News that a deadly infectious disease cannot be fought with bigotry.
I've said it once & I'll say it again loud enough for the @WhiteHouse, @FoxNews, & everyone else to hear: coronavirus does not discriminate. Bigotry against people of Asian descent is unacceptable, un-American, & harmful to our COVID-19 response efforts. — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 17, 2020
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, also condemned Trump for stoking racism.
Dear @realDonaldTrump: There’s a difference between saying a virus came from China versus calling it a Chinese virus. Asian Americans have already been assaulted because of this type of rhetoric. Can you please stop this unnecessary language? We all need to work together. https://t.co/9p9SE7xBGv — Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 17, 2020
With Asians experiencing increased racism b/c of #COVID19, it’s simply irresponsible&wrong for Trump to stoke fear by calling it the “Chinese Virus.” Pandemics don’t care about race, ethnicity or anything else. We must do better. Be kind, wash your hands & #StayHealthy. — Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) March 17, 2020
Fox also offered a platform, last month, to Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, who attacked Chinese officials struggling to contain the outbreak by floating the conspiracy theory that China might have created the virus as a biological weapon.
Tom Cotton reiterates his suggestion that the Coronavirus originated at a super-lab in Wuhan pic.twitter.com/i1cSNSqU0d — Acyn (@Acyn) February 16, 2020
Last week, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry responded by urging his Twitter followers to visit a fringe Canadian website which speculated the virus might have been created at an American biological weapons lab.
Amid the escalating tensions between China and the United States, China’s foreign ministry also withdrew the press credentials of American correspondents who report for The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Updated: Wednesday, March 18, 3:00 p.m. ET
This article was updated with a new headline and to add comments on Wednesday from President Donald Trump and Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of emergencies for the World Health Organization.


theintercept--2020-03-19--Republican Operative in Press Corps Helps Trump Use Briefing on Pandemic to Attack Critics

, Donald Trump has turned the daily White House briefings on the coronavirus pandemic sharply political in recent days , seizing the podium from health experts to air grievances , make false promises about drug treatments and rile up his base .
On Thursday , he was aided in this effort by a bizarre question from Chanel Rion , a Republican political operative who has been granted a White House press pass to represent One America News , a far-right cable channel dedicated to praising Trump .
When the president chose Rion to ask the final question of the briefing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was expecting a softball , commenting , “ OAN .
Very good .
Thank you very much .
They treat me very nicely.
” Rion , who recently accompanied the president ’ s lawyer , Rudy Giuliani , to Ukraine to publicize conspiracy theories about former Vice President Joe Biden , first asked Trump if he considered the term “ Chinese food ” to be racist .
When he said that he did not , she asked if the president agreed with her assessment that “ major left-wing news media , even in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese Communist Party narratives ” by asking if Trump had incited a racist backlash by labelling the pathogen “ the Chinese Virus.
” “ Is it alarming , ” Rion continued , “ that major media players , just to oppose you , are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda , Islamic radicals and Latin gangs and cartels — and they work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team ?
” As the health professionals behind him shifted uneasily , Trump singled out The Wall Street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Times for criticism — just as the Chinese Communist Party had two days earlier , when it expelled correspondents from those newspapers for reporting aggressively on China ’ s handling of the outbreak .
After ranting about reports from the newspapers that laid bare his administration ’ s failure to adequately prepare for the pandemic , or even test for the virus at levels reached by less wealthy countries like South Korea , Trump concluded , “ the press is very dishonest.
” “ But more than dishonest , ” Rion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state propaganda overseas.
” “ Well I think they do , ” Trump agreed .
“ They are siding with China.
” On Wednesday , Rion had appeared on OAN to accuse “ CNN and other partisan networks of corrupting the reliability of unnamed sources in the name of anti-Trump political activism.
” After Trump ’ s performance on Thursday , which also included making the false claim that chloroquine had been approved by the FDA to treat Covid-19 , the former NPR host Michele Norris suggested on Twitter that she had seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who once worked in the White House as President Jimmy Carter ’ s chief speechwriter , agreed with Norris .
“ Yes .
And cable outlets should stop covering them live , ” he wrote .
“ They ’ re actively *lowering* level of public knowledge by doing so — and repeating the mistake they made [ with ] wall-to-wall coverage of rallies in 2015 and 2016.
” Without live coverage , Fallows added , “ Trump will stop showing up ; scientists can speak.
” The president ’ s bizarre exchange with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but was likely no surprise to Trump , who was seen embracing the OAN host at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month , an image she proudly shared on Instagram .
Like the channel she works for , Rion makes little attempt to disguise her political support for Trump .
Her social media accounts are filled with pro-Trump posts and photographs of herself with the president ’ s family , including his daughter Ivanka and daughter-in-law Lara , captioned with fawning remarks .
Before being hired by OAN , Rion tried to help her fiance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican nomination for Senate in Missouri , running on a far-right , pro-Trump platform .
Sykes fell short , but not before drawing national attention by denouncing feminists as “ she devils , ” and saying that he expected his future wife to have dinner ready for him every night at 6 p.m .

Deprived of rallies , Donald Trump has turned the daily White House briefings on the novel coronavirus pandemic sharply political in recent days, seizing the podium from health experts to air grievances, make false promises about drug treatments, and rile up his base.
On Thursday, he was aided in this effort by a bizarre question from Chanel Rion, a Republican political operative who has been granted a White House press pass to represent One America News, a far-right cable channel dedicated to praising Trump.
When the president chose Rion to ask the final question of the briefing, he made it clear that he was expecting a softball, commenting, “OAN. Very good. Thank you very much. They treat me very nicely.”
Rion, who recently accompanied the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to Ukraine to publicize conspiracy theories about former Vice President Joe Biden, first asked Trump if he considered the term “Chinese food” to be racist. When he said that he did not, she asked if the president agreed with her assessment that “major left-wing news media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives” by asking if Trump had incited a racist backlash by labelling the pathogen “the Chinese virus.”
“Is it alarming,” Rion continued, “that major media players, just to oppose you, are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels — and they work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?”
As the health professionals behind him shifted uneasily, Trump singled out the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times for criticism — just as the Chinese Communist Party had two days earlier, when it expelled correspondents from those newspapers for reporting aggressively on China’s handling of the outbreak. After ranting about reports from the newspapers that laid bare his administration’s failure to adequately prepare for the pandemic, or even test for the virus at levels reached by less wealthy countries like South Korea, Trump concluded, “the press is very dishonest.”
“But more than dishonest,” Rion interjected, “they are siding with state propaganda overseas.”
“Well, I think they do,” Trump agreed. “They are siding with China.”
On Wednesday, Rion had appeared on OAN to accuse “CNN and other partisan networks of corrupting the reliability of unnamed sources in the name of anti-Trump political activism.”
After Trump’s performance on Thursday, which also included making the false claim that chloroquine had been approved by the FDA to treat Covid-19, former NPR host Michele Norris suggested on Twitter that she had seen enough.
Okay. This needs to be said. We NEED daily briefings from CDC & public health officials. We NEED to hear from epidemiologists and virologists and disease trackers. These daily rambling WH briefings w/ the chest pounding abt progress don’t assuage fear. Just the opposite. — Michele Norris (@michele_norris) March 19, 2020
James Fallows, a journalist who once worked in the White House as President Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter, agreed with Norris. “Yes. And cable outlets should stop covering them live,” he wrote. “They’re actively *lowering* level of public knowledge by doing so — and repeating the mistake they made [with] wall-to-wall coverage of rallies in 2015 and 2016.” Without live coverage, Fallows added, “Trump will stop showing up; scientists can speak.”
The president’s bizarre exchange with Rion left many watching reporters aghast, but was likely no surprise to Trump, who was seen embracing the OAN host at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, an image she proudly shared on Instagram.
Like the channel she works for, Rion makes little attempt to disguise her political support for Trump. Her social media accounts are filled with pro-Trump posts and photographs of herself with the president’s family, including his daughter Ivanka and daughter-in-law Lara, captioned with fawning remarks.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Before being hired by OAN, Rion tried to help her fiance, Courtland Sykes, secure the 2018 Republican nomination for Senate in Missouri, running on a far-right, pro-Trump platform. Sykes fell short, but not before drawing national attention by denouncing feminists as “she devils” and saying that he expected his future wife to have dinner ready for him every night at 6 p.m.