April 2020 Archives

A 'pandemic' contempt for medical advice characterizes the Trump/Pence regime's response to COVID-19. Many White House cheerleaders share in the Christian Right's denial of science; suppressing truth and accountability. When asked about his own culpability for delayed action in addressing the crisis, placing millions at risk of infection, Trump answered, "Yeah, no, I don't take responsibility at all."  

Trump supporters, usually enchanted with 'unitary executive' theory, now defend the President on legal grounds, arguing that the federal government has a limited role in fighting COVID-19. "Under our federal system, Washington, D.C., has only limited powers to respond to a pandemic," writes UC Berkeley Law's John Yoo. "The Constitution grants the national government a limited set of enumerated powers. Stopping the spread of disease is not among them."

Many nations, from South Korea to Germany, have done far better at responding to the virus, notes David Remnick at The New Yorker. "The pandemic is an event in the natural history of our species, but it is also a political episode. Its trajectory is shaped by policy measures specific to particular governments. The fact that the United States is experiencing tremendous losses--that it has far more covid-19 cases than any other country in the world--relates to a number of collective risk factors and The Preëxisting Condition in the Oval Office."

The Cook County Jail in Chicago is America's biggest coronavirus hotspot. Why did we allow this?

Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

"A mix of fanatical punitiveness and a callous disregard toward how much incarcerated people suffer under routine circumstances, to say nothing of during a pandemic, has made America's jails and prisons into habitats of sustained torture... 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/coronavirus-pretrial-detainees-face-possibility-death-200409190112955.html

In addition to the endangerment of 2.2 million prisoners in the U.S. -- the largest prison population per capita in the world -- activists highlight the threat to the 40 men illegally incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay, indefintely detained for 12 to 18 years, most without charge or trial.

RefuseFascism.org demands immediate release of everyone not convicted of a violent crime, and of asylum seekers and families.

"The war court where the men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks are on trial operates under classification rules that are inconsistent, complex and sometimes absurd," writes Carol Rosenberg for The New York Times: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/politics/the-growing-culture-of-secrecy-at-guantanamo-bay.html