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Unable To Handle Criticism of Coronavirus Stimulus Waste, Trump Fires Another Watchdog
“Inspectors general are typically seen as nonpolitical operatives and are tasked with an independent watchdog role, overseeing various facets of the government and checking for waste, fraud, and abuse. Trump has clashed with several of them recently as they produced documentation that he views as unflattering to his administration.
That includes Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, whom the president railed against after she released a report detailing COVID-19 testing delays and critical supply shortages at U.S. medical centers.
“Another Fake Dossier!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
Trump’s move against Glenn Fine follows the president’s Friday termination of Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, who dealt with the whistleblower report that eventually resulted in Trump’s impeachment. The president did not name a successor.”
America’s Middle Class Gets More Welfare Than the Poor
“programs for the poor are only a tiny portion of the U.S. welfare state. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than 60 percent of American households receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. To get an idea of just how big the American welfare state has become, consider that those transfer payments from the federal government are equal to 34 percent of all wages and taxes in the U.S.”
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“The largest transfer programs are the middle-class entitlements, Social Security and Medicare. In addition, a large portion of the third biggest entitlement program, Medicaid, actually goes to the middle-class elderly and disabled individuals, not the poor. Those three programs alone now make up more than half of all federal spending.”
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“we need to understand that, in practice, when an individual pays Social Security taxes, none of those taxes are set aside for that individual’s benefits. Rather, they are used to pay benefits to those who are currently retired. Social Security is merely a transfer payment from workers to retirees. In that sense, it operates exactly the same as any other transfer or welfare program.”
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“Many individuals will receive more than taxes paid plus a reasonable amount of interest on those taxes.”
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“according to the Social Security system’s trustees, the program faces a future shortfall of more than $43 trillion7 (measured in discounted present value over an infinite horizon—that is, if the government put away $43 trillion today and earned 3 percent interest on those funds, it would have enough money so that, combined with payroll taxes, it could pay all future benefits). Unfortunately, however, the federal government doesn’t have an extra $43 trillion. As a result, there is simply no way that Social Security can pay future benefits without a massive tax increase.”
3 Ways New York Botched the Coronavirus Response in March
“”Frieden said that if the state and city had adopted widespread social-distancing measures a week or two earlier, including closing schools, stores and restaurants,” the Times reported, “then the estimated death toll from the outbreak might have been reduced by 50 to 80 percent.””
Will Civil Rights in Latin America Be a Permanent Casualty of Coronavirus?
“The world response to the COVID-19 epidemic has been completely unprecedented. At the time of writing, 82 countries have restricted travel through their borders and 37 have completely closed them completely. Both the invisible and physical walls that separate the world have grown less penetrable, but no region has enacted measures as strict as Latin America, whose governments fear their vulnerable health systems will not be able to cope with widespread outbreak.
A dozen Latin American countries—with a combined population of more than 175 million people—have placed their citizens on full lockdown, a measure which some countries are enforcing by deploying soldiers to the streets.”
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“The primary barrier to governments enacting controversial power grabs are the critics and institutions who would object, so a handful of Latin American leaders are taking dramatic steps to silence those who check their power. They’re now muzzling journalists through intimidation, arrest, or character assassination.
In Honduras, the government passed an emergency measure that temporarily suspended constitutional protections on free speech for both citizens and journalists. On March 25, the Bolivian government announced a decree that allows imprisonment for up to 10 years of those who “misinform” or “promote non-compliance” with government regulation. The nonprofit Human Rights Watch has criticized the language of the law, saying it is intentionally vague and could be used to prosecute political opponents and journalists alike.
In Venezuela, freelance journalist Darvinson Rojas was arrested by Special Action Forces (FAES) and imprisoned for his coverage of the coronavirus crisis. The local Venezuelan press has covered half a dozen instances of journalists being intimidated. And on April 6, FAES arrested Luis Serrano, a civil assemblyman who would have determined the next election oversight board in Venezuela, according to WOLA, a human rights group in Latin America. They seized masks and protective gear Serrano’s organization had donated to journalists covering COVID-19 and detained politicians who’d been contradicting the government’s official coronavirus statistics, which many medical experts consider unbelievably low.
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has turned the crisis into a political weapon, claiming that the press is trying to destroy his presidency through misinformation. Despite ignoring advice from health officials within his own party about the danger of the epidemic, he used the crisis as justification to release an executive order that abolished freedom of information legislation, effectively undermining the ability of journalists or NGOs to obtain public health information. The executive order was quickly struck down by Brazil’s Supreme Court.”
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“Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia have all been heavily criticized by the United Nations for violent repression of a continent-wide wave of protests that swept through Latin America just months ago. If civil unrest flares up again over economic or health issues during the current state of emergency, protesters in many countries may find themselves facing down state forces with extralegal powers and a muzzled press.
The degree of authoritarianism varies by country”
Why Vote-by-Mail Could be a Legal Nightmare in November
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/07/danger-moving-vote-by-mail-168602
Did the $50 Billion Coronavirus Bailouts Effectively Nationalize America’s Commercial Airlines?
“The new rules, which the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) issued yesterday, provide the industry with some additional flexibility for how many flights they’ll have to perform in order to access federal funding.
But USDOT’s minimum service standards will still require air carriers to operate money-losing flights in order to access government loans and grants, wasting both industry and taxpayer dollars, and potentially setting the stage for prolonged government intervention in the passenger airline industry.”
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“the exact number of flights left up to the Secretary of Transportation to decide.”
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“These loans come with their own set of requirements. Most significantly, the CARES Act gives the Treasury Department the power to demand equity in these airlines in return for loans, which it can hold for up to five years. (The government would not get any voting power with these shares.)
“What is the government going to pay per share on this? Right now, the share price is very low, at the level of support they are holding out, you could potentially have the government be significant, major equity holders in these carriers,” says Scribner.”
How China’s fake news machine is rewriting the history of Covid-19, even as the pandemic unfolds
“By now, the early history of Covid-19 is well known, if not clear in its details. The virus was first detected somewhere around Wuhan, in Hubei province, then appears to have entered the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, from where it infected many others. Doctors in Wuhan first noticed the novel coronavirus in December and began exchanging urgent warnings. Local government authorities set out to silence them; some were detained and made to sign documents admitting wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Wuhan officials went about business as usual, which included a disastrous Lunar New Year banquet attended by about 40,000 families. Soon, many more thousands around Wuhan were infected, with hundreds dead or dying, including ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who had been punished for trying to raise the alarm.
Realizing it was in the firing line not just for running the nation that had unleashed the deadly virus on the world but also for ignoring, covering up and denying its spread, China’s Communist Party moved into damage-control mode. This included suggesting it was the United States that was responsible for the virus.
Chinese state media regularly tweet propaganda”
Coronavirus vs. Governors: Ranking the Best and Worst State Leaders
“On March 14, Stitt tweeted a picture of his family eating at a restaurant, as if he deserved an award for defying the coronavirus panic. “It’s packed tonight!” he enthusiastically shared, but facing blowback, later deleted the post.
The next day, Stitt declared a state of emergency. Then, the day after that, the governor’s spokesman said, “the governor will continue to take his family out to dinner and to the grocery store without living in fear, and encourages Oklahomans to do the same.” Stitt still has not issued a statewide stay-at-home order. In the absence of one, major Oklahoma cities have imposed their own over the past few days.
Two weeks later, Oklahoma’s rate of infection is intensifying, and testing is minimal. Stitt is not the only governor who has hesitated to implement stiff restrictions, but he may become a case study of the pitfalls of glib social media use in a time of crisis.”
Congress flummoxed by firing of top intel watchdog
“Trump has defended the firing, telling reporters on Saturday during a White House coronavirus task force briefing that the longtime public official was a “total disgrace” for the way he handled a whistleblower complaint that led to the president’s impeachment.”
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“Meanwhile, Atkinson released a lengthy statement Sunday night about his firing, asserting that Trump removed him simply for doing his job.
“It is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General,” Atkinson wrote.
Democrats have condemned the firing as an abuse of power and a brazen act of politically motivated retribution by a president emboldened after the Senate acquitted him in his impeachment trial. Republicans have been tepid in their criticism of the action, but some, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said the firing “demands an explanation,” while others largely deferred to the president’s unorthodox leadership style.”