Jun 112020
 


Banksy Bataclan emergency door 2018 (was stolen in 2019, recovered yesterday)

 

Pelosi Urges Confederate Statues Be Removed From Capitol (AP)
Statues of Christopher Columbus Toppled Across The US (CNN)
Walmart To Stop Keeping ‘Multicutural’ Beauty Products In Locked Displays (R.)
Latin America Hits 70,000 Pandemic Deaths, Daily Record In Mexico (R.)
BHP To Destroy At Least 40 Aboriginal Sites, Up To 15,000 Years Old (G.)
Rio Tinto Destroys 46,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Site: ‘Misunderstanding’ (G.)
Arrival Of Million By Sea Adds To UK Quarantine Doubts (Times)
UK Economy Likely To Suffer Worst COVID19 Damage – OECD (G.)
Fed Vows To Support US Economy’s ‘Long Road’ To Recovery After Dire 2020 (R.)
US Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Coming As Coronavirus Protections Expire (CNBC)
Amazon Bans Police Use Of Facial Recognition Tech – For A Year (BBC)
The Elevator Arises As The Latest Logjam In Getting Back To Work (KHN)
Lilly COVID19 Treatment Could Be Authorized For Use As Soon As September (R.)
Germany Takes In Another 249 Refugee Children From Greece (K.)
FBI Knew Steele Dossier Linked To Clinton, Dems From The Start (JTN)

 

 

Worldometer reports new cases for June 9 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 134,705. A new record.

My count from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT is about + 138,341 cases.

New deaths also rose from + 5,032 to + 5,165 (my count + 5,348)

US passed 2,000,000 cases.

 

 

 

 

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 20,852
• Brazil + 33,100
• Russia + 8,779
• India + 12,375
• Pakistan + 5,834
• Chile + 5,737

 

 

Cases 7,482,561 (+ 138,341 from yesterday’s 7,344,220)

Deaths 419,488 (+ 5,348 from yesterday’s 414,140)

 

 

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

Pelosi’s Box. She has no idea. She’s only focused on beating Trump.

Pelosi Urges Confederate Statues Be Removed From Capitol (AP)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding that [11] statues of Confederate figures such as Jefferson Davis be removed from the U.S. Capitol. In a letter, Pelosi told a House-Senate committee with jurisdiction over the controversial topic that Confederate statues “pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.” The California Democrat made the announcement on the very day President Donald Trump vowed on Twitter that he would not rename military bases honoring Confederate generals. Only a short time before Pelosi’s statement, NASCAR announced it would ban displays of the Confederate flag at its races. Confederate monuments have reemerged as a national flash point since the death of George Floyd [..]

Protesters decrying racism have targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities, and some state officials are considering taking them down. Pelosi lacks the authority to order the removal of the 11 Capitol statues honoring Confederates but is urging the little-noticed Joint Committee on the Library to vote to remove them. Senate Republicans share jurisdiction. “The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi wrote. “Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals.” The presence of statues of generals and other figures of the Confederacy in Capitol locations such as Statuary Hall — the original House chamber — has been offensive to African American lawmakers for many years.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1270150850380521475

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., was known to give tours pointing out the numerous statues. But it’s up to the states to determine which of their historical figures to display. Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. senator from Mississippi who was president of the Confederate States of America, is represented by one of two statues from that state. Pelosi noted that Davis and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, whose statue comes from Georgia, “were charged with treason against the United States.” “Several states have moved toward replacing statues and others appear headed in the same direction. This process is ongoing and encouraging,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Library Committee. “As Speaker Pelosi is undoubtedly aware, the law does not permit the Architect of the Capitol or the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library to remove a statue from the Capitol once it has been received.”

Read more …

Well, let’s see…who’s uncomfortably like Columbus?

Statues of Christopher Columbus Toppled Across The US (CNN)

As racial reckoning occurs across the country following the death of George Floyd, many Confederate statues — which some consider racist symbols of America’s dark legacy of slavery — have been removed. Now, statues of Christopher Columbus, another controversial figure in US history, are also being taken down. There have been three reports of Christopher Columbus statues being tampered with — one thrown into a lake, one beheaded, and another pulled to the ground. Columbus has long been a contentious figure in history for his treatment of the Indigenous communities he encountered and for his role in the violent colonization at their expense. In recent years, many cities and states have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, in recognition of the pain and terror caused by Columbus and other European explorers.

[..] Elsewhere in the US, about 1,000 people gathered at Byrd Park in Richmond, Virginia on Tuesday, according to CNN affiliate WTVR. The Richmond Indigenous Society said in a tweet ahead of the rally that “we are gathering at Byrd Park to protest yet another racist monument. Christopher Columbus was a murderer of Indigenous people, mainstreaming the genocidal culture against Indigenous people that we still see today. Bring your sage, drum, jingle dress, and mask!”

[..] in Boston, officials removed the Columbus statue located in the city’s North End after it was beheaded Tuesday evening. The statue, which was erected in 1979, had been previously vandalized in 2015, when it was doused in red paint and the words “Black Lives Matter” were spray-painted on the back, CNN affiliate WBZ reported “This particular statue has been subject to repeated vandalism here in Boston, and given the conversations that we’re certainly having right now in our city of Boston and throughout the country, we’re also going to take time to assess the historic meaning of this action,” Mayor Marty Walsh said, according to WBZ.

Read more …

Oh, the webs we weave: “Many companies have issued statements in support of the black community..”

Walmart To Stop Keeping ‘Multicutural’ Beauty Products In Locked Displays (R.)

Walmart Inc will stop keeping personal care products designed for people of color in locked display cases, the retailer said, after the practice drew flak online with many saying it suggested customers for these products cannot be trusted. “We have made the decision to discontinue placing multicultural hair care and beauty products in locked cases,” the company said in an email statement on Wednesday. Walmart said the practice was in place in about a dozen of its 4,700 stores in the United States and the cases were in place to deter shoplifters from products such as electronics, automotive, cosmetics and other personal care products.


[..] The change in Walmart’s policy was prompted by a June 8 CBS News report cbsloc.al/37iJZxv that a Walmart customer had complained of the practice being discriminatory against people of color, while visiting a store in the city of Denver. “The multi-cultural hair care is all locked behind the glass. That’s so ridiculous,” Lauren Epps, a black woman was quoted as saying in the report. Many companies have issued statements in support of the black community, in addition to setting up funds to fight systematic racism. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon has said the company, along with Walmart Foundation, will commit $100 million to create a new center on racial equity.

Read more …

Columbus opened the doors for the conquistadores. 500+ years later, the population still lives that.

Latin America Hits 70,000 Pandemic Deaths, Daily Record In Mexico (R.)

Latin America’s coronavirus crisis reached a grim new milestone on Wednesday with total deaths exceeding 70,000, according to a Reuters count, as Mexico hit a daily record for confirmed infections. Brazil, with the largest economy in the region, remains Latin America’s most affected country as total fatalities are just shy of 40,000, the world’s third highest death toll after the United States and Britain. In the region’s second biggest country Mexico, a new daily record of 4,883 confirmed cases was reported by the health ministry, along with 708 additional fatalities.


The daily totals bring Mexico’s overall official count to 129,184 infections and 15,357 deaths. The World Health Organization has determined that Latin America is the new hotspot for the pandemic, which began around the beginning of the year in China and quickly spread to Europe and beyond. Governments across the globe acknowledge that the real number of infected people is significantly higher than the official counts. Latin American fatalities attributed to the highly-contagious Covid-19 respiratory illness caused by the virus stand at 70,972, while total infections are at 1.45 million.

Read more …

And talking about slavery and the mistreatment of indigenous people…

BHP To Destroy At Least 40 Aboriginal Sites, Up To 15,000 Years Old (G.)

Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation, even though its own reports show it is aware that the traditional owners are deeply opposed to the move. In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”. BHP’s report in September 2019 identified 22 sites of artefacts scatters, culturally modified trees, rock shelters with painted rock art, stone arrangements, and 40 “built structures … believed to be potential archaeological sites”.


Under section 18 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act, the traditional owners – in this case the Banjima people – are unable to lodge objections or to prevent their sacred sites from being damaged. They are also unable to raise concerns publicly about the expansion, having signed comprehensive agreements with BHP as part of a native title settlement. BHP agreed to financial and other benefits for the Banjima people, while the Banjima made commitments to support the South Flank project. But the Banjima native title holders told the WA government in April they did not want any of the 86 archaeological sites within the project area to be damaged, saying the “impending harm” to the area “is a further significant cumulative loss to the cultural values of the Banjima people”.

Read more …

Autralia is built on its own unique legacy of destruction.

Rio Tinto Destroys 46,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Site: ‘Misunderstanding’ (G.)

The head of Rio Tinto’s iron ore division said he has “taken accountability” for the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site but refused to give a direct answer when asked if the company knew traditional owners did not want the rock shelter destroyed, saying: “clearly, there was a misunderstanding”. In an interview on Radio National on Friday, the chief executive of Rio Tinto iron ore, Chris Salisbury, said it it had “taken accountability” for the destruction of the site, which was one of two destroyed in a blast to expand the Brockman 4 iron ore mine last month. The two sites were located in Juukan Gorge in the Hamersley Ranges, about 300km inland from Karratha in Western Australia’s iron ore rich Pilbara region.


Traditional owners the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people only learned of the planned detonation on 15 May, nine days before it took place. They said the loss was “soul destroying”. Salisbury said the company “regrettably … thought we had a shared understanding with the PKKP about the future of the sites” and would conduct a review to learn “how did this go wrong from our point of view”. He also refused to provide a direct answer when asked if a statement released by the company last week, which suggested the PKKP had only “recently expressed concerns” about the site, was incorrect. It released another statement apologising “for the distress we caused” but not the destruction, on Sunday.

Read more …

No testing, no quarantines. More people than this arrived by air. No testing. Now that they’ve all landed and had the chance to infect Britons, there’s a quarentine.

Arrival Of Million By Sea Adds To UK Quarantine Doubts (Times)

More than 1.1 million people have arrived in the UK by sea since the start of the year without being forced to self-isolate as concerns mount over the government’s quarantine policy. Official figures show that there were 346,000 arrivals in the UK in March and April alone despite concerns over the transmission of coronavirus, casting further doubt over the government’s quarantine policy which was introduced for arrivals this week. The figures include HGV drivers, who are exempt from the quarantine measures, although it is not known how many fell into the category. Since Monday, anyone arriving in the UK by air, sea and through the Channel Tunnel rail link has been forced to spend two weeks in isolation. This includes Britons returning from abroad. The scheme does not apply to people from Ireland.


The quarantine is part of measures aimed at avoiding a second outbreak of Covid-19 but critics have questioned its value months after such curbs were introduced elsewhere. Giving evidence to MPs yesterday, Sir David Skeggs, 72, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told the home affairs committee: “These border measures would be most effective if they were done very early.” Scientists also told MPs that summer holidays abroad risked a fresh wave of coronavirus infections across Europe. Gabriel Leung, 47, a dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said it would be safest if mass-market tourism was discouraged. “I can’t imagine anybody going on holiday in any kind of destination where you go to enjoy the sun and actually doing very good hand hygiene and putting on a mask,” he said.

Read more …

Forget these predictions. Nobody has a single clue.

UK Economy Likely To Suffer Worst COVID19 Damage – OECD (G.)

Britain’s economy is likely to suffer the worst damage from the Covid-19 crisis of any country in the developed world, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. A slump in the UK’s national income of 11.5% during 2020 will outstrip the falls in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US, the Paris-based thinktank said. Germany’s decline in GDP is forecast to be 6.6% this year while Spain’s GDP will fall by 11.1%, Italy’s by 11.3 and France’s by 11.4%. The US, the world’s largest economy, is expected to take a hit of 7.3%. Highlighting the task awaiting the UK government as it seeks to ease the lockdown, the OECD warned that countries forced to impose the most draconian restrictions faced a long haul back to previous levels of activity.

Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s shadow chancellor, blamed the “deeply worrying” OECD forecast on the government’s “failure to get on top of the health crisis, delay going into lockdown and chaotic mismanagement of the exit from lockdown”, which she argued made the economic impact of the crisis worse. Responding to the report, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the UK was suffering “in common with many other economies around the world” and the priority was to “support people, jobs and businesses through this crisis – and this is what we’ve done”.


Britain, which is forecast to post an increase in unemployment to around 9%, could make its situation more difficult if it failed to secure a lasting agreement with the EU on trade and access to the single market, the OECD said. “The failure to conclude a trade deal with the European Union by the end of 2020 or put in place alternative arrangements would have a strongly negative effect on trade and jobs,” it said. Adding to pressure on No 10 to agree concessions with Brussels to secure a Brexit deal amid the economic damage caused by the pandemic, the credit ratings agency Moody’s warned that a no-deal Brexit would “significantly damage the UK’s potentially fragile recovery from its deepest recession in almost a century”.

Read more …

The Fed supports only banks. But Powell can still spout this insulting nonsense. No journalist ever openly disagrees.

Fed Vows To Support US Economy’s ‘Long Road’ To Recovery After Dire 2020 (R.)

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it plans years of extraordinary support for an economy facing a torturous slog back from the coronavirus pandemic, with policymakers projecting the economy to shrink 6.5% in 2020 and the unemployment rate to be 9.3% at year’s end. In the first economic projections of the pandemic era, U.S. central bank policymakers put into numbers what has been an emerging narrative: that the shutdowns, restrictions and other measures used to battle a health crisis will echo through the economy for years to come rather than be quickly reversed as commerce reopens.

Some 20 million or more people have been thrown out of work since February, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged it could take years for them to all reacquire jobs – an economic blow that is falling heaviest on minority communities at a time when mass protests over police brutality have thrown a new spotlight on racial inequality in the United States. Powell, acknowledging the nationwide demonstrations in his opening remarks at a news briefing, said it was now the Fed’s single-minded mission to bring the job market back to where it was at the end of last year, with the unemployment rate at a record low 3.5% and wage gains accumulating for some of the very same lower-paid workers in the service sector that have suffered most during the recent collapse.


[..] At the median, officials see the unemployment rate falling to 6.5% at the end of 2021 and 5.5% at the end of 2022 – still a full 2 percentage points above where it was at the end of last year, representing millions of lost years of work and wages. “The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment and inflation in the near term and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term,” the Fed said in its policy statement. The response has been an unparalleled level of unanimity in the outlook for monetary policy. All 17 current Fed policymakers see the key overnight interest rate, or federal funds rate, remaining near zero through next year, and 15 of 17 see no change through 2022.

Read more …

2 million evictions in the pipeline even before COVID19.

US Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Coming As Coronavirus Protections Expire (CNBC)

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. was experiencing what housing experts and advocates deemed an eviction crisis. More than 2 million people face eviction each year, far more than the number of people who faced foreclosure at the height of the 2008 mortgage crisis. Experts expect the eviction crisis to get far worse in the coming months. The Covid-19 economic recession has hit renters especially hard. They make up a disproportionate share of service sector jobs, an industry that has been decimated as a result of the coronavirus shutdowns. In fact, between March 25 and April 10 of this year, nearly half of renters aged 18 to 64 reported that they were having trouble paying their rent or utilities, were food insecure or couldn’t afford needed medical care, according to the Urban Institute.

Thousands of tenants have been missing rent payments over the past few months. People of color have fared worse than white renters due to the disproportionate job loss in their communities, the Urban Institute reports. About 25% of black and Latino renters reported not paying or deferring rent in May, compared to 14% of white renters. To keep people in their homes, the federal government banned evictions in federally assisted properties through July 25, and some cities and states, including Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, put their own temporary eviction moratoriums in place. But many of those bans begin expiring this month depending on the state, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions across the country.

Plus, the extra $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits is set to expire at the end of July. That extra money is “what has been allowing many people who have lost their jobs to continue paying rent,” Solomon Greene, a senior fellow in housing policy at the Urban Institute, tells CNBC Make It. Coupled with the end of eviction moratoriums, the U.S. is likely to experience an uptick in evictions nationwide in the coming weeks. Evicting people in the middle of a global health crisis puts them at greater risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19, turning “a catastrophe into an apocalypse,” Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative, tells CNBC Make It. “A lot of people could be on the streets,” says Carr. “Especially in places like New York City that already have a homeless problem, it could turn into a homeless nightmare.”

Read more …

For a year. That’s all you need to know. About a company that has rich contracts with US intelligence,

Amazon Bans Police Use Of Facial Recognition Tech – For A Year (BBC)

Technology giant Amazon has banned the police from using its controversial facial recognition software for a year. It comes after civil rights advocates raised concerns about potential racial bias in surveillance technology. This week IBM also said it would stop offering its facial recognition software for “mass surveillance or racial profiling”. The decisions follow growing pressure on firms to respond to the death in police custody of George Floyd. Amazon said the suspension of law enforcement use of its Rekognition software was to give US lawmakers the opportunity to enact legislation to regulate how the technology is employed.


“We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge,” Amazon said in a statement. “We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.” However, the company said that it would still allow organisations that deal with human trafficking to use the technology. Like other facial recognition products, Amazon’s Rekognition can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to very quickly compare a picture from, for example, an officer’s phone camera and try to match it with mugshots held on police databases that can hold hundreds of thousands of photos.

Read more …

You mean, that wasn’t obvious yet? Sometimes you guys surprise me.

The Elevator Arises As The Latest Logjam In Getting Back To Work (KHN)

When the American Medical Association moved its headquarters to a famous Chicago skyscraper in 2013, the floor-to-ceiling views from the 47th-floor conference space were a spectacular selling point. But now, those glimpses of the Chicago River at the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed landmark, now known as AMA Plaza, come with a trade-off: navigating the elevator in the time of COVID-19. Once the epitome of efficiency for moving masses of people quickly to where they needed to go, the elevator is the antithesis of social distancing and a risk-multiplying bottleneck. As America begins to open up, the newest conundrum for employers in cities is how to safely transport people in elevators and manage the crowd of people waiting for them.

If office tower workers want to stay safe, elevator experts think they have advice, some practical, some not: Stay in your corner, face the walls and carry toothpicks (for pushing the buttons). Not only have those experts gone back to studying mathematical models for moving people, but they are also creating technology like ultraviolet-light disinfection tools and voice-activated panels. “When there is risk of disease spreading from human to human, continuing to maintain a clean and safe vertical transportation system is critical to help people return to work and safe living,” said Jon Clarine, head of digital services at Thyssenkrupp Elevator, in an email.

After all, most elevators are inherently cramped, enclosed spaces that can barely fit two people safely spaced 6 feet apart, much less the dozen or more that elevators in commercial and residential buildings were designed to hold. They’re a minefield of buttons and surfaces tempting to touch. Air circulation is limited to what a few vents and the opening doors can manage. Plus, they’re usually mobbed during the morning, lunchtime and evening rushes.

Read more …

If news agencies write this sort of thing, while there are hundreds such products being touted, how is that not stealth advertizing and promotion?

Lilly COVID19 Treatment Could Be Authorized For Use As Soon As September (R.)

Eli Lilly and Co could have a drug specifically designed to treat COVID-19 authorized for use as early as September if all goes well with either of two antibody therapies it is testing, its chief scientist told Reuters on Wednesday. Lilly is also doing preclinical studies of a third antibody treatment for the illness caused by the new coronavirus that could enter human clinical trials in the coming weeks, Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skovronsky said in an interview. Lilly has already launched human trials with two of the experimental therapies. The drugs belong to a class of biotech medicines called monoclonal antibodies widely used to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and many other conditions. A monoclonal antibody drug developed against COVID-19 is likely to be more effective than repurposed medicines currently being tested against the virus.


Skovronsky said the therapies – which may also be used to prevent the disease – could beat a vaccine to widespread use as a COVID-19 treatment, if they prove effective. “For the treatment indication, particularly, this could go pretty fast,” he said in an interview. “If in August or September we’re seeing the people who got treated are not progressing to hospitalization, that would be powerful data and could lead to emergency use authorization.” “So that puts you in the fall time: September, October, November is not unreasonable,” he said. Coronavirus vaccines being developed and tested at unprecedented speed are not likely to be ready before the end of the year at the earliest.

Read more …

Out of over 5,000, most of whom have been in Greece for much of their entire lives.

Germany Takes In Another 249 Refugee Children From Greece (K.)

Germany has taken in an additional 249 refugee children from Greece, the country’s interior minister Horst Seehofer said Wednesday, noting that most of the minors are sick or the siblings of migrants that are already in Germany. “As the rates of coronavirus are currently at this low level, we decided as the Interior Ministry… to take in more children from Greece,” Seehofer said, noting that Germany had already received 47 refugee children in April. Seehofer said that some of his associates visited Greece last week to arrange the transfer of the children.


Six of the youngsters who were too sick to travel last week will be transferred on a subsequent trip, he said. “I always said that my migration policy includes order but also humanity,” the German minister said. Luxembourg, Switzerland, Portugal and France are among the countries that have also taken in child refugees from Greece. Many of the children being relocated belong to the ranks of unaccompanied refugee minors in Greece, who number over 5,000.

Read more …

Tomorrow’s the DC Appeals Court Michael Flynn hearing. Fireworks.

FBI Knew Steele Dossier Linked To Clinton, Dems From The Start (JTN)

Notes and emails that have been kept so far from Senate investigators show the FBI knew from its earliest interactions with Christopher Steele in July 2016 that his Russia research project on Donald Trump was connected to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. The information, so far mentioned only glancingly and in footnotes of a Justice Department report, could provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with the most powerful evidence yet to confront witnesses about why the bureau concealed the political origins of Steele’s work from the FISA court. “So far the bureau is slow-walking this stuff,” a source familiar with senators’ frustrations told Just the News. “We need to see these sort of documents before we question key witnesses.”

Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is seeking a vote later this week to authorize subpoenas that would compel the Christopher Wray-led FBI to produce witnesses and outstanding documents for the committee’s investigation of the Russia investigators. The effort to acquire the original source materials began last December after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his explosive report blaming the FBI for 17 mistakes, omissions and acts of misconduct in seeking a FISA warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. While the headlines since that report have mostly focused on FISA abuses, Senate investigators have also zeroed in on a handful of little-noticed passages in Horowitz’s narrative that reference original FBI source documents showing what agents and supervisors knew about Steele, the former MI6 agent, and the firm that hired him, Fusion GPS.

It wasn’t until late October 2017 that the public and Congress first learned that the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, hired Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS research firm to have Steele delve into Trump’s Russia connections. And FBI officials have been vague in their explanations about when they knew Steele’s research was tied to Clinton and the DNC and why they did not explicitly inform the FISA court that the Steele dossier used to secure the warrant was funded by Trump’s election opponent. But one passage and two footnotes in Horowitz’s report that have largely escaped public attention suggest the FBI agent who first interviewed Steele about his anti-Trump research in London on July 5, 2016 was aware immediately of a connection to Clinton and that a separate office of the FBI passed along information from an informant by Aug. 2, 2016 that Simpson’s Fusion GPS was connected to the DNC.

[..] The FBI notes and emails from summer 2016 are consistent with recent testimony that Steele gave in a civil case in London, where he testified he told the bureau his research and the Fusion GPS project was connected to Clinton. “I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that. But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie,” Steele testified in March under questioning from lawyers for Russian bankers suing over his research. Steele confirmed during that testimony that his notes of a 2016 FBI meeting showed he told agents about the Clinton connection.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on people’s kind donations. Since their revenue has collapsed, ads no longer pay for all you read, and your support is now an integral part of the interaction.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

 

May 022020
 


Yevgeny Khaldei – 75 years ago the Soviet banner was raised over the Reichstag. 11 million Soviet soldiers died in WW2 and three-quarters of German losses were suffered at the hands of the Red Army – May 2 1945

 

 

Opening Up (Yaneer Bar-Yam et al, New England Complex Systems Institute)
New Yorkers Face Back-to-Work Commuting Nightmare (R.)
US Approves Remdesivir for Coronavirus Treatment (GR)
80 Patients, Staff Infected at Texas Nursing Home, HCQ Saves All But 1 (GP)
Manhattan Nursing Home Reports 98 Coronavirus Deaths (G.)
New Research Suggests Significant Undercount Of Children With Coronavirus (IC)
White House Blocks Dr. Fauci From Testifying To Congress (R.)
No. 2 CDC Official Says US Missed Some Chances To Slow Virus (AP)
Cardiologists Forced To Adapt To COVID-Linked Surge In Heart Symptoms (TPM)
Over 70% Of UK COVID19 Patients In Critical Care Are Men (PA)
Hong Kong Airport Is Rolling Out Full-Body 40-Second Disinfectant Booths (BI)
Sen. Hawley Calls Out United Airlines For Cutting Wages, Benefits (DC)
Amazon Tells Investors They ‘May Want To Take A Seat’ (CNBC)
Bone-Chilling WTF Charts of the Collapse in US Fuel Demand (WS)
Slouching Toward Resolution (Jim Kunstler)
Why Julian Assange Must Urgently Be Freed (Stella Moris)

 

 

• At this point in time, the US has 5% of the world’s population, 33% of its COVID19 infections and 26% of deaths.

• The coronavirus death toll in the US climbs by 1,883 in the past 24 hours

• Death rates are slowing in most of Europe, but its virus death toll is over 140,000 out of 235,000 globally

 

 

 

Cases 3,417,482 (+ 93,547 from yesterday’s 3,323,935)

Deaths 239,895 (+ 5,424 from yesterday’s 234,471)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-

 

 

From Worldometer – Among Active cases, Serious/Critical fell to 2%

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

They thought it through.

Opening Up (Yaneer Bar-Yam et al, New England Complex Systems Institute)

Before you begin to restart the economy make sure you are not starting another economic collapse. Premature relaxation of restrictions will guarantee loss of all that was gained. A premature relaxation, even briefly, would seed new transmissions that cannot be undone within weeks. Conditions and process to follow:

1) Relax restrictions locally by geographically isolated regions (not by industry group, trade or occupation). 2) Assure that travel restrictions prevent new cases from entering. Fines or repatriation may help reduce the motivation to sneak in. 3) Stop community transmission (travelers or prior case contacts that are in quarantine when they become ill do not prevent opening up). 4) Make sure sufficient testing gives ability to identify regions free of the virus. Even after cases drop sharply, widespread testing should be continued for at least another 2 weeks to prevent clustered transmission caused by individuals with a long incubation period or false negative tests.

5) There should be no new locally transmitted cases within last incubation period of 14 days. 6) Assure facilities for isolation and medical care of positively identified cases. 7) Set up contact tracing. 8) Multiple steps should be taken to stage the relaxation of restrictions and monitor for new cases. 9) Ensure masks are worn for several weeks after opening up. 10) The last steps to take in opening up are to allow public transportation and large meetings to avoid superspreader events, and to relax restrictions on high risk institutions and vulnerable populations.

Still, while restrictions are present, some things are still possible: 1) Going outdoors in an area where other people are very rare. 2) Meeting one or two people outdoors but staying 18-27 ft (6-9 m) apart (6 ft is not enough). Closer distances are possible when wind is blowing. 3) Driving and staying in your car in low density areas.

Opening schools: 1) Start with meetings outdoors with no contact between teacher and student one on one. 2) Arrange small group meetings outdoors with no contact in areas with excellent ventilation. 3) Arrange play dates with two students, preferably outdoors. If indoors, then restrict only to connection between two families that have been safely isolating for 14 days.

Read more …

Subways and elevators are Russian roulette systems.

New Yorkers Face Back-to-Work Commuting Nightmare (R.)

Staying compliant with public safety norms in particular will push the city’s subway system, which is normally used by 1.3 million commuters every day, beyond capacity, said Kevin Kelly, a senior managing director who wrote the report for Savills, a leading broker in global commercial property sales and leasing. The report was written specifically about New York but is relevant for other large cities hobbled by the pandemic and where mass transit accounts for a majority of commuter travel. Kelly called mass transit an enormous barrier to getting people back to work in Manhattan, where the car is only used by 12% of workers commuting to jobs in the U.S. financial capital.

“The biggest bottleneck is mass transit because there’s simply no good way to get people into an office in Manhattan avoiding public transit,” said Kelly, who in a prior job helped with the spatial analysis of how disease spreads geographically at the Public Health Department of Epidemiology in Los Angeles county. Understanding where people are and how they are likely to travel is critical when studying commuting, Kelly said. The mass transit constraints will force more employees to continue working from home as companies decide how best to return to offices that until a coronavirus vaccine is found need to be less dense with new rules for everyday office etiquette.

[..] Temperature screenings in lobbies, abundant hand sanitation dispensers and one- or two-person limits in elevators are some of the changes awaiting employees on their return to the office. “The subway and mass transit are a huge variable as we start to think about coming back to work, and there really isn’t any simple answer that any one business can fix,” Kelly said in an interview. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway, city buses and two commuter rail lines, is hiring 100 monitors to check for overcrowding on trains and to ensure stations are functioning properly, an MTA spokesman said. The MTA also is waiting for guidance from public health authorities and has reached out to other mass transit systems around the world to glean best practices to ensure public safety, the spokesman said.

Public transportation is limited in New York during the pandemic for essential business or urgent medical appointments. On May 6, subway service will be halted daily for five hours starting at 1 a.m. so trains and stations can be disinfected. While a common subway train with 10 units typically moves up to 2,000 people at once, under social distancing that number shrinks to 200, or about what one car carries during rush hour, Kelly calculated in the report Savills published on Wednesday. The number of people who will be needed to regulate how many commuters travel in each subway car is another concern, he said. “Just the mechanics of that alone is pretty wild,” Kelly said.

Read more …

The only thing remdesivir is claimed to do is shorten hospital stays (and you would still need to ask how that is measured).

It does nothing to enhance chances of survival.

US Approves Remdesivir for Coronavirus Treatment (GR)

The experimental anti-viral drug remdesivir has been granted emergency authorization by the US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday to be used to treat coronavirus.The decision comes after a recent clinical trial showed the drug improved the outcomes for patients with severe Covid-19. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US released data showing the remdesivir reduced hospitalization stays by 31% compared to a placebo treatment. However, the drug did not significantly improve chances of survival. Remdesivir was created by biopharmaceutical company Gilead Science, which said it will donate 1.5 million vials of the drug to help patients in hospitals in US cities hardest hit by the coronavirus.


The donation is expected to be enough for at least 140,000 patients, depending on the number of days they need to be treated. The company said due to a limited supply, hospitals with intensive care units and other hospitals the government deems most in need will receive priority. Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Donald Trump praised the drug and called it a “very promising situation.” Remdesivir was also touted earlier in the week by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease specialist, who said that clinical trials in the United States and a number of other countries, including Greece, “shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery.”

Read more …

So you have remdesivir which does nothing really, and you have HQC which saves lives but about which all of a sudden after 70 years warnings are issued.

80 Patients, Staff Infected at Texas Nursing Home, HCQ Saves All But 1 (GP)

A nursing home in Texas has a hopeful story for those suffering with coronavirus. The Resort at Texas nursing home had an outbreak of coronavirus that infected 56 residents and 33 staff members. Dr. Robin Armstrong immediately administered hydroxychloroquine to the residents and staff members along with Zpac and Zinc. Only one nursing home patient died since the doctor prescribed the hydroxychloroquine. 55 made it. FOX7 Austin reported:

“Dr. Armstrong and others at the Resort at Texas City Nursing home knew time wasn’t on their side. “Two of our residents had symptoms and that’s when we tested everybody,” said nursing home Executive Director Jan Piveral. 56 residents and 33 staff members were COVID-19 positive. “Our Goal was to make sure we could shelter them in place so we don’t spread it to other people,” Armstrong said. “Then also at the same time treat them so they would get better.” Armstrong says he knew residents who ended up in the hospital had a higher mortality rate. “Our goal was to keep them here and treat them with the medications we had available,” he said.

When Armstrong began administering Hydroxychloroquine to it was controversial but appeared promising. “If we didn’t make the decision quickly then we could potentially lose 15 to 20% of the residents which was not an option,” said the Doctor. Armstrong’s approach was to begin administering Hydroxychloroquine a Zpac and Zinc just as soon as a resident first started showing symptoms. The patients were being monitored daily. “We did EKGs on each of these patients to make sure they didn’t have the cardiac side effects that everyone talks about,” Armstrong said. “None of our patients did.”

Armstrong doesn’t call the Hydroxychloroquine a cure and is aware of all the recent reports that say the drug shouldn’t be used to treat COVID-19. But he points out only one of the nursing homes COVID-19 patients has died. “Everyone who got on treatment who started on treatment is actually doing really well,” he said.

Read more …

One nursing home compared to another.

Manhattan Nursing Home Reports 98 Coronavirus Deaths (G.)

A nursing home in New York has reported a “horrifying” death toll of 98 people from the coronavirus as residential facilities continued to emerge as a deadly source of outbreaks across the world. The death toll at the Isabella Geriatric Center in Manhattan is one of the worst such outbreaks in the United States and caused a shock even in hard-hit New York after an official state tally of nursing home deaths listed only 13 at the home as of Friday. But officials at the 705-bed centre later confirmed that up to 46 residents who tested positive for Covid-19 had died, as well as an additional 52 people suspected to have the virus, Associated Press reported. Some died at the nursing home and some died after being treated at hospitals.

“It’s absolutely horrifying,” mayor Bill de Blasio said. “It’s just impossible to imagine so many people lost in one place.” The number of bodies became so overwhelming the home ordered a refrigerator truck to store them because funeral homes have been taking days to pick up the deceased. “Isabella, like all other nursing homes in New York City, initially had limited access to widespread and consistent in-house testing to quickly diagnose our residents and staff,” Audrey Waters, a spokeswoman for the nursing home, wrote in an email. “This hampered our ability to identify those who were infected and asymptomatic, despite our efforts to swiftly separate anyone who presented symptoms.”

Isabella also encountered staffing shortages, prompting it to hire from outside agencies and early challenges securing personal protective equipment for employees. Waters said the home finally is getting more access to testing now. A survey last month of nursing homes in New York state found that 19 had reported 20 or more deaths linked to the pandemic, raising the prospect of hundreds of unattributed Covid-19 deaths in a state where almost 24,000 people have died from the disease. The state’s health department said it has received outbreak reports from 239 nursing homes, including at least six facilities with death tolls of 40 patients or more. “The one thing we now know about the nursing homes is the status quo cannot continue to say the least,” de Blasio said. “Something very different has to happen.”

Read more …

Little killers. “..the number of kids testing positive for the virus in the U.S. is greater than the total number of confirmed cases in many countries, including Singapore, Ireland, and Mexico ..”

New Research Suggests Significant Undercount Of Children With Coronavirus (IC)

In the US, the vast majority of serious Covid-19 cases — and eight out of 10 deaths — occur in people who are at least 65. Yet newly tabulated data show that the virus is also affecting young people across the country — and in very rare cases, killing them. At least 201 infected children under age 18 have been admitted into pediatric intensive care units in the U.S., according to data from a national registry called Virtual Pediatric Systems. And at least 20 people under the age of 20 have died from the coronavirus. In New York state, which has the largest number of children severely affected by the virus, 10 children who tested positive had died as of April 30, and at least 56 children had been admitted into pediatric intensive care units.


Across the U.S., more than 24,000 children have tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to state health department data compiled by a new project, CovKid, which tracks the effects of Covid-19 on children. That total represents everyone under age 20 and includes data from New York City but not New York state and Nebraska, which have not yet reported the age breakdown of coronavirus cases. While most states are not reporting the race and ethnicity of children with the coronavirus, data from California and Illinois show that more than one third of 3,049 children who tested positive were Latino.

While the number of kids testing positive for the virus in the U.S. is greater than the total number of confirmed cases in many countries, including Singapore, Ireland, and Mexico, it is probably only a small fraction of all who have the disease, because of a shortage of tests and very limited testing of children. “The big question is how many kids are being tested?” said Elizabeth Pathak, an epidemiologist and director of the CovKid project. Without that information, it’s impossible to know how many are infected. So Pathak and several colleagues used clinical data from China to gauge infection rates in the U.S. and estimate that the total number of children infected in the U.S. is now at least 478,000.

Read more …

After all the recent hearings, why should they comply?

White House Blocks Dr. Fauci From Testifying To Congress (R.)

Top US health official Anthony Fauci will not testify next week to a congressional committee examining the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the White House said on Friday, calling it “counterproductive” to have individuals involved in the response testify. The White House issued an emailed statement after a spokesman for the House of Representatives committee holding the hearing said the panel had been informed by Trump administration officials that Fauci had been blocked from testifying.


“While the Trump administration continues its whole-of-government response to Covid-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time.” Fauci’s testimony was being sought for a May 6 hearing by a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health programmes, said spokesman Evan Hollander.

Read more …

Good cop bad cop.

No. 2 CDC Official Says US Missed Some Chances To Slow Virus (AP)

The U.S. government was slow to understand how much coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped drive the acceleration of outbreaks across the nation, a top health official said Friday. Limited testing and delayed travel alerts for areas outside China contributed to the jump in U.S. cases starting in late February, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We clearly didn’t recognize the full importations that were happening,” Schuchat told The Associated Press. [..] The CDC on Friday published an article, authored by Schuchat, that looked back on the U.S. response, recapping some of the major decisions and events of the last few months. It suggests the nation’s top public health agency missed opportunities to slow the spread.

Some public health experts saw it as important assessment by one of the nation’s most respected public health doctors. The CDC is responsible for the recognition, tracking and prevention of just such a disease. But the agency has had a low profile during this pandemic, with White House officials controlling communications and leading most press briefings. “The degree to which CDC’s public presence has been so diminished … is one of the most striking and frankly puzzling aspects of the federal government’s response,” said Jason Schwartz, assistant professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.

[..] in her article, Schuchat noted that nearly 2 million travelers arrived in the U.S. from Italy and other European countries during February. The U.S. government didn’t block travel from there until March 11. “The extensive travel from Europe, once Europe was having outbreaks, really accelerated our importations and the rapid spread,” she told the AP. ”I think the timing of our travel alerts should have been earlier.”

Read more …

Crazy choices to make.

Cardiologists Forced To Adapt To COVID-Linked Surge In Heart Symptoms (TPM)

Apart from the disease’s more well-known ravaging of the respiratory system, significant numbers of COVID-19 patients arrive at hospitals with serious heart problems, many of which first appear to be those of a heart attack but turn out to be symptoms of the coronavirus or the body’s response to it. So doctors on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic have adapted, relying on new medical research from foreign hotspots like Wuhan and Lombardy to contend with how little we still know about the virus itself. Many hospital cardiology departments, for example, have begun to take potential heart attack patients with suspected COVID-19 into their ERs to first determine whether they have contracted the virus before moving “them back into the cardiac care path,” Thomas Maddox, chair of the American College of Cardiology’s Science and Quality Committee, told TPM.

He added that in hotspots like New York City, hospitals had “moved to a lower threshold: to test, and wait until it comes back, before doing anything with the patient.” Maddox described the dilemma to TPM as a decision between bad variables. On the one hand, treating a COVID patient presenting heart symptoms as if he had a heart attack could expose the doctor. On the other, treating all patients as if they were infected with COVID could deprive those suffering from heart attacks of precious minutes. “It’s been so hard to solve,” Maddox added. “Because, at the same time, you don’t want to take somebody who is short of breath because they’re having a heart attack and delay their treatment because you send them to a COVID unit, and miss the opportunity to help out their heart.”

The symptoms appear in different ways, experts told TPM. Some patients struggle with blood clots that course throughout their body, while others have severely inflamed hearts. Others still face organ failure amid spiraling blood oxygen levels. “There’s not an easy way to tell, though, if they’re presenting so much like a heart attack,” Gulati told TPM. “We’re seeing reports of myocardial infarction when they have COVID-19, but often they aren’t always having blockages of the coronary arteries that we traditionally expect.” She added that, in COVID-19 patients, lack of blood oxygen can creep up fast, overtaxing the heart. “They are sitting there talking to you, and suddenly they go incredibly bad,” Gulati said, speaking of patients with dangerously low blood oxygen levels.

“That is a big demand on the heart, if the heart is not getting enough oxygen, and the organs aren’t getting enough oxygen. As a result, everything is compromised.” Preliminary mortality data released by the Centers for Disease Control suggests that, as the pandemic peaked in New York City, the number of people dying due to what the CDC classifies as “diseases of the heart” also peaked.

Read more …

Critical care is not a happy place.

Over 70% Of UK COVID19 Patients In Critical Care Are Men (PA)

More than 70% of patients with coronavirus admitted to critical care are men, according to new data. The figures come from the UK’s Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) and were based on a sample of 7,542 critically-ill patients confirmed as having Covid-19. Researchers found that 5,389 of these patients were men and 2,149 were women. The report, published on Friday, also found that men were more likely to die in intensive care, with 51% dying compared to about 43% of the women who were admitted. The report analysed data on patients with confirmed Covid-19 from 286 NHS critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland taking part in the ICNARC programme up to 4pm on Thursday.

The new data echoes comments of a leading expert who said that Covid-19 was just as deadly as Ebola for people admitted to hospital in the UK. Prof Calum Semple from the University of Liverpool, a consultant respiratory paediatrician at Alder Hey children’s hospital and chief investigator on a study published on Wednesday, said the data highlighted the danger of coronavirus. Research by Semple and his team found that of the total number of coronavirus patients admitted to hospital, 17% required admission to high dependency or intensive care units and of these, 31% were discharged alive, 45% died and 24% continued to be treated in hospital.

Semple explained: “Some people persist in believing that Covid-19 is no worse than a bad dose of flu. “They are gravely mistaken. Despite the best supportive care that we can provide, the crude case fatality rate for people who are admitted to hospital – that is, the proportion of people ill enough to need hospital treatment who then die – with severe Covid-19 is 35 to 40%, which is similar to that for people admitted to hospital with Ebola. It’s a really nasty disease.” The new ICNARC data also showed that around 56% of 60 to 69-year-olds, 67% of 70 to 79-year-olds, and 65% of people aged 80 and over admitted to critical care died there, compared to about 24% of people aged under 50.

Read more …

The article talks about bacteria, microbes, but not viruses. Do the people at Business Insider know the difference?

Hong Kong Airport Is Rolling Out Full-Body 40-Second Disinfectant Booths (BI)

In an effort to prevent further spread of coronavirus, Hong Kong International Airport is testing a new machine that would effectively sanitize passengers head to toe. The CLeanTech machine acts as a full-body disinfectant, killing bacteria on people’s bodies and clothing. The cleaning, which takes 40 seconds, uses an antimicrobial coating on the interior surface of the machine as well as sanitizing spray for “instant disinfection,” according to a press release shared by the airport. The machine is kept at “negative pressure to prevent cross-contamination between the outside and inside environment.” Anyone who steps inside first goes through a temperature check.


The machine is currently being used by airport staff who specifically handle public health issues for arriving passengers there. [..] In addition to the full-body machine, the Hong Kong airport has introduced other cleaning measures to assure passengers. The AA said it was piloting an invisible antimicrobial coating sprayed in all passenger facilities, including high-touch surfaces like check-in kiosks and baggage carts. And cleaning robots equipped with ultraviolet light and air sterilizers are being deployed to public areas. According to the AA, the robots can sterilize up to 99.99% of bacteria in the air and on surfaces in 10 minutes.

Read more …

It doesn’t get more American than this. Cash in the billions and fire them anyway.

Sen. Hawley Calls Out United Airlines For Cutting Wages, Benefits (DC)

Sen. Josh Hawley railed against United Airlines on Friday after employees supposedly told him the company is cutting back their wages and benefits after receiving stimulus money amid economic lockdowns. “Employees have told me the company is cutting their hours, pay & benefits immediately,” he wrote on Twitter after recalling an interaction with United Airlines employees at an airport on his way to Washington, D.C. UA, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Delta Airlines were among a handful of airline companies that accepted stimulus money, reports show. Hawley added: “This is AFTER United took billions in bailout money that was earmarked for workers. This has better not be true.”


[..] President Donald Trump signed the $2 trillion stimulus bill in March, which, among other things, includes more than $58 billion to bolster the aviation industry, with a sizable portion of it sectioned off to fund employee payroll costs through September, CNN reported April 14. The airline industry saw enormous losses after governors and mayors instituted lockdowns to slow the pandemic spread. Passenger counts have dropped nearly 100%, forcing airlines to cancel more than 70% of their flights as the international airline association estimates worldwide industry losses of $314 billion. Hawley, for his part, has been on a tear against corporate entities recently.

Read more …

Ok, maybe this is even more American. It is May, and Amazon is finally going to protect the workers it has exposed to the virus in slavery-like conditions.

But the company is not going to pay for that. The shareholders are.

If Bezos were a normal person, he would have paid for it all from his own pocket months ago, but you don’t get to be the richest man in the world if there’s a conscience in the way.

Amazon Tells Investors They ‘May Want To Take A Seat’ (CNBC)

Long-time Amazon investors shouldn’t have been surprised by a jarring quote in the company’s first-quarter earnings report Thursday: “If you’re a shareowner in Amazon, you may want to take a seat.” That’s because Amazon has been giving investors some version of that warning since it went public in 1997, letting them know it would prioritize long-term business advantages over short-term gains. Amazon said Thursday it would invest its expected $4 billion second-quarter profit in coronavirus-related efforts, including buying personal protective equipment for workers, stepping up cleaning in its facilities and building its own testing capability.

The company said that due to the investment, it expects operating income for the quarter to be as high as $1.5 billion or as low as a loss of $1.5 billion. The bold step is reflective of CEO Jeff Bezos’ approach since starting the business. “We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term,” Bezos told shareholders in a letter shortly after its IPO. “This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position.” Even back then, with the stock trading in the low double digits, Bezos warned shareholders its decisions would not look like those of other companies.

“We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages,” Bezos wrote in the 1997 letter. “Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.” Thursday’s earnings report acknowledged “these aren’t normal circumstances” and Amazon is “not thinking small.” “There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, and the best investment we can make is in the safety and well-being of our hundreds of thousands of employees,” Bezos said in a statement in the earnings release.

Read more …

There are other things in the news today that I would reserve the term bone-chilling for.

Bone-Chilling WTF Charts of the Collapse in US Fuel Demand (WS)

For gasoline, it started in mid-March when the measures to tamp down on the spread of the coronavirus took effect. For jet fuel, it started in mid-February as flight cancellation from the US to China, and then to other countries took effect. We can see this in the weekly data provided by the EIA. The EIA measures weekly consumption in terms of product supplied, such as by refineries and blenders, not by retail sales. Consumption of motor gasoline was still up 3.1% in the week ended March 13, compared to the same week last year, according to EIA data. But then demand just collapsed. In the week ended April 3, gasoline demand was down 48% compared to the same week a year earlier:

In terms of barrels per day (b/d), demand for motor gasoline was well above 9 million b/d in the four weeks up to mid-March, but then demand collapsed, down to 5.07 million b/d in the week ended April 3. Then demand ticked up. By the week ended April 24, demand was 5.86 million b/d. Those last four weeks were by far the lowest on record in the EIA’s data going back to 1991:

Consumption of jet fuel (kerosene type) collapsed even more, peaking, if you will, in the week ended April 10 with a 72% year-over-year plunge. The decline in jet fuel demand started earlier than with gasoline, as flight cancellations were starting in the second half of February:

In terms of barrels per day, demand for jet fuel collapsed to just 463,000 b/d in the week ended April 10. The last four weeks – ranging from 463,000 b/d to 800,000 b/d – were by far the lowest in the data going back to 1991:

[..] Combined, gasoline, jet fuel, and distillate consumption, plunged by 22% to 43% over the last four weeks. In terms of barrel per day, the combined consumption collapsed to a low of 8.3 million b/d in the week ended April 10 and has ticked up since then. The last four weeks, ranging from 8.3 million b/d to 9.8 million b/d, were by far the lowest in the data going back to 1991:

Read more …

There was never anything wrong with Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Strzok, Page, Comey, McCabe, Brennan should be forced to compensate Flynn out of their own savings. But he’s going to ask for $1 billion, so the state will have to pay instead.

Slouching Toward Resolution (Jim Kunstler)

General Flynn had been an irritant to the Obama administration in his role as chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He disagreed with a lot going on around him and he said so, especially the nuclear deal that was percolating with Iran. Mr. Obama canned General Flynn in 2014. Afterward, CIA chief John Brennan and DNI James Clapper put him under surveillance and played entrapment games with him, using some of the same shady characters (Stefan Halper, Richard Dearlove) who later showed up as RussiaGate players. In early 2016, Gen. Flynn joined the Trump campaign as a foreign affairs advisor and that summer made the mistake of leading the “Lock her up,” chant to a delirious crowd at the Republican Convention.

Perhaps he knew a thing or two about the activities of the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps he also knew what Jeffrey Epstein was up to. Then Mr. Trump shocked the world and won the election. Gen. Flynn was soon appointed incoming National Security Advisor. One can imagine the anxiety crackling through a Democrat-controlled Deep State on the verge of surrendering power to its enemies. The alarm bells that went off through the vast US Intel underground must have been deafening. In a panic, the Intel Community set in motion a suite of operations to get rid of both Flynn and Trump. On December 29, late in the transition-of-power, President Obama lit up a diplomatic flare by confiscating country retreat properties in Maryland and Long Island owned by the Russian embassy and expelling 35 embassy employees, supposedly as payback for Russia “interfering in the 2016 election.”

This prompted a conversation between incoming National Security Advisor Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. That cued the FBI to entrap General Flynn. The news media played along with the preposterous falsehood that high American officials should not communicate with diplomats posted to the USA. The shady gotcha interview about that with Flynn, conducted by FBI officers Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka, has been dissected to death, so I’ll spare you that, except to say that it was carried out in obvious bad faith.

Read more …

The mother of Julian’s children.

Why Julian Assange Must Urgently Be Freed (Stella Moris)

Forming a family with Julian under the circumstances was always going to be difficult, but our hopes eclipsed our fears. Initially, Julian and I managed to carve out a space for a private life. Our firstborn visited with the help of a friend. But when Gabriel was six months old, an embassy security contractor confessed to me that he had been told to steal the baby’s DNA through a nappy. Failing that they would take the baby’s pacifier. The whistleblower warned me Gabriel should not come into the embassy anymore. It was not safe. I realised that all the precautions I had taken, from piling layers on to disguise my bump to changing my name, would not protect us. We were totally exposed. These forces operated in a legal and ethical vacuum that engulfed us.

I could write volumes about what happened in the months that followed. By the time I was pregnant with Max the pressure and harassment had become unbearable and I feared that my pregnancy was at risk. When I was six months pregnant Julian and I decided I should stop going into the embassy. The next time I saw him was in Belmarsh prison. The image of Julian being carried out of the embassy shocked many. It struck a blow to my chest, but it did not shock me. What happened that morning was an extension of what had been going on inside the embassy over an eighteen-month period. After Julian was arrested a year ago, Spain’s High Court opened an investigation into the security company that had been operating inside the embassy.

Several whistleblowers came forward and have informed law enforcement of unlawful activities against Julian and his lawyers, both inside and outside the embassy. They are cooperating with law enforcement and have provided investigators with large amounts of data. The investigation has revealed that the company had been moonlighting for a US company closely associated with the current US administration and US intelligence agencies and that the increasingly disturbing instructions, such as following my mother or the baby DNA directive, had come from their US client, not Ecuador. Around the same time that I had been approached about the targeting of our baby, the company was thrashing out even more sinister plans concerning Julian’s life. Their alleged plots to poison or abduct Julian have been raised in UK extradition proceedings.

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on people’s kind donations. Since their revenue has collapsed, ads no longer pay for all you read, and your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thanks for your generosity.

 

 

 

 

Bench in library of Alexandria, Egypt

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth for your own good.