#Missouri Public Transit Association

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Missouri House advances bill allowing guns on buses, inside churches and synagogues

By Kacen Bayless and Maia Bond

Missourians would be allowed to carry guns on public buses and inside churches and other places of worship under a bill advanced by the Missouri House Thursday.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Adam Schnelting, a St. Charles Republican, would allow people with concealed carry permits to carry guns on public transit in the state.

“We all have the potential of running into situations where we have to utilize self defense to protect ourselves and those we love,” Schnelting said on the floor Thursday. “This legislation will discourage criminal activity on our public transportation systems, but most importantly, it will ensure that we maintain our constitutional right to self defense.”

An amendment successfully added by state Rep. Ben Baker, a Neosho Republican, would also strike down the current rule banning concealed guns in places of worship without the permission of the religious leader of the congregation.

The Missouri House gave the bill initial approval on a voice vote Thursday. It will need one more vote before it heads to the Missouri Senate, which could come next week.

Democrats on Thursday criticized the legislation, saying it would broaden Missouri’s already loose gun laws as the state sees high rates of gun violence in the state’s urban areas.

“What kind of world are we creating with these kinds of laws? It’s absolute insanity, and it’s morally corrupt,” state Rep. Barbara Phifer, a St. Louis Democrat, said on the floor Thursday, referring to the amendment that allowed guns in churches.

The legislation comes amid instances of gun violence on Kansas City buses in recent years. In 2021, three people, including a police officer and a bus driver, were wounded in a shooting on a RideKC bus by a suspect in an alleged robbery. In 2017, another man was shot on a RideKC bus in downtown Kansas City after an altercation.

Kansas City saw its second-deadliest year in history in 2022 with 171 killings, marking the third year in a row with high reports of violence.

More than 150 people submitted testimony in favor of the bill when it was in the House Emerging Issues Committee earlier this month. Most supporters cited the need to protect themselves from potential criminals on buses.

Representatives and lobbyists from organizations and transit associations in the major cities in Missouri – Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield and Jefferson City – all testified against the bill.

Jennifer Harris Dault, a St. Louis Mennonite pastor, told The Star Thursday she was disappointed that Republicans were trying to allow guns in churches while ignoring calls to enact gun regulations. Mennonites are historically peaceful and her congregation would not believe in bringing guns for personal protection.

“The idea that someone could legally bring a gun into our worship space, I don’t even want to think about it,” she said. “That’s so foreign to who we are. It would be basically an attack on our religious liberty.”

The bill does include a provision that would still allow places of worship to prohibit firearms if they post signage that they’re not allowed on the property.

William Bland, a member of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, previously wrote to Missouri lawmakers in favor of the bill, saying that current law prevents Missourians from exercising their constitutional right to carry.

“This is especially dangerous late at night. CCW permit holders are not the problem. They have been photographed, fingerprinted, investigated, and vetted. They have to demonstrate competency with a firearm,” he wrote. Bland did not return a call for comment Thursday.

Kimberly Cella, the executive director of the Missouri Public Transit Association, told The Star that allowing guns on public transit would seriously jeopardize federal funding.

Cella said transit providers like OATS Transit and SMTS, Inc., which are both non-profit transit providers for most rural areas of the state, would likely face issues with gathering funding.

Those providers, Cella said, have private contracts and receive federal funding, and there are requirements in those contracts that prohibit guns on transit. The bill would jeopardize those contracts and the matched federal funding, Cella said.

Both St. Louis and Kansas City’s transit systems are bi-state operations governed by a federal compact that prohibits guns on public transit, and Cella said it is her understanding that that compact would supersede the bill and not apply to transit in those cities.

Cella said there is no proof that more guns make transit safer, and she said it puts staff members like bus drivers in more danger.

“What we’re saying is if we impair the ability of transit providers to deliver service by passage of CCW in transit, we’re really going to impact the state’s bottom line as well,” Cella said.

[reasonsforhope]

Source:

Note: Thrilling!! Very happy to be able to affirm this is real. Thanks OP!

"In the wee hours of the morning, Albuquerque, New Mexico’s City Council made its free-transit experiment permanent.

It used to cost $1 to ride the city bus. Then during the pandemic, when ridership fell off a cliff, the city used federal relief aid to fund a “zero fare” program — allowing all riders to just hop on the bus without paying a fare or swiping a pass.

Other cities, like Richmond, Virginia; Kansas City, Missouri; and Olympia, Washington, did the same.

Now, with that federal money starting to run out, cities have to decide whether zero fare is worth the cost to their transit systems.

Althea Atherton, an organizer with the Albuquerque Bus Riders Union, doesn’t drive because of a medical condition. “I use the bus to get as many places as I can that the bus can take me,” she said.

In addition to the cost savings of zero fare, she said it makes the bus more efficient. 

“We’re not waiting for everybody to pay their fare and put in their quarters and dig for their passes,” she added.

The bus should be treated like a public service, said Atherton. And the Albuquerque city councilors who voted to keep zero fare sort of agree. They say the city-funded transit agency can absorb the lost revenue, which is just 3% of the agency’s total budget, because of the benefits for riders.

“People with low incomes take transit a lot more when they have access to a free-fare transit system,” said Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. Transit connects those people with jobs, housing and social services, he said."

-via Marketplace, November 9, 2023

THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[molsons112000]

High Speed Rail Between Chicago and St. Louis | Illinois HSR

Several opportunities along this rail line, to improve communities!!!

Missouri Public Transit Association

https://mopublictransit.org › ...PDF

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PUBLIC TRANSIT IN MISSOURI

State government collects an estimated annual average of $51.0 million in annual taxes because of the direct and multiplier effects of transit (up

American Journal of Transportation

https://www.ajot.com › ajo...

St. Louis intermodal business attracts investment

Aug 19, 2024 — Infrastructure expansion project looks to increase intermodal business. Planned improvements aim to attract more manufacturing

Urban Land Magazine

https://urbanland.uli.org › ...

ULI Advisory Services: The Future of American Downtowns

Sep 27, 2024 — ULI findings in St. Louis, Missouri, emphasized the importance of strong downtown organizations to spearhead revitalization efforts. ULI.

Illinois.gov

https://www.illinois.gov › ...

Illinois Ranks #2 State in the Nation for Corporate Investment

Mar 1, 2023 — Illinois is open for business and leading the way as one of the top 10 states for corporate investment, with Chicago named the number one metro for the 10th ...

Missing: saint ‎louis ‎missouri

World Trade Center St Louis

https://worldtradecenter-stl.com › ...PDF

Planting-Seeds-of-Success-Final- ...

Analysis of data from Missouri Partnership regarding new investment in St. Louis, Missouri. 28. Data compiled by Brookings Institute from various government ...

44 pages·30 MB

High Speed Rail Alliance

https://www.hsrail.org › ...

Making Chicago - St. Louis Trains Auto Competitive

Sep 6, 2024 — Here are six reasons why: · 1) Auto competitive. A 4-hour train trip from Chicago to St. · 2) Bigger catchment area. · 3) Early morning

Why do so many trains go to Chicago?

Chicago has long been the most important interchange point for freight traffic between the nation's major railroads and it is the hub of Amtrak, the intercity rail passenger system.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org › ...

Railroads - Encyclopedia of Chicago

NextSTL

https://nextstl.com › 2011/02

Money and Speed: What to Expect from St. Louis to Chicago High ...

Feb 17, 2011 — It's cheaper to build, cheaper to operate and the time savings between 187 and 220 MPH are just too small (less than 10 minutes) to make a large ...

Houston Herald

https://houstonherald.com › ...

New 110-mph Amtrak train begins service between Chicago and St. ...

Jul 6, 2023 — Louis began on Monday of last week, allowing people to travel between the two cities faster than in previous years. ... Louis-Chicago schedules of ...

The Transport Politic

https://www.thetransportpolitic.com › ...

Major Study Advocates 220 Mph Operation on Chicago-St. Louis ...

Jun 30, 2009 — St. Louis' light rail is basically one trunk line with three termini, serving only people on one corridor and providing suburb-to-core

A city can benefit from high-speed rail through increased economic activity, job creation, reduced traffic congestion, improved regional connectivity, enhanced tourism, more sustainable transportation options, and the potential for development around train stations, promoting denser, more walkable urban environments. 

Key benefits: 

Economic Growth:

High-speed rail can attract businesses and tourists by providing faster access to other cities, leading to increased economic activity and job creation in the region. 

Reduced Traffic Congestion:

By offering a viable alternative to car travel, high-speed rail can alleviate traffic congestion on roads, especially in urban areas. 

Improved Regional Connectivity:

Connecting different cities within a region with high-speed rail can facilitate easier movement of people and goods, fostering collaboration and economic development across a wider area. 

Urban Development:

Stations located in city centers can spur development around them, leading to revitalized neighborhoods with increased housing options and amenities. 

Environmental Benefits:

High-speed rail is considered a more environmentally friendly transportation option compared to cars, contributing to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. 

Accessibility and Equity:

High-speed rail can provide affordable transportation options for people who may not have access to cars, promoting greater mobility and inclusivity. 

Tourism Boost:

By making a city more easily accessible, high-speed rail can attract more tourists, benefiting local businesses. 

Science | HowStuffWorks

8 Benefits of High-speed Trains - Science | HowStuffWorks

Feb 27, 2024 — Contents * Less Smog in the City. * Reverse Sprawl. * Increased Walkability. * More Efficient Use of Time. * Reduced Congestion. * Reduced Dependen...

Contents

Less Smog in the City.

Reverse Sprawl.

Increased Walkability.

More Efficient Use of Time.

Reduced Congestion.

Reduced Dependence on Foreign Oil.

Safer than Driving.

Economic Boost.

Feb 27, 2024

https://science.howstuffworks.com › ...

8 Benefits of High-speed Trains - Science | HowStuffWorks

Construction Briefing

https://www.constructionbriefing.com › ...

Costs are making high-speed rail more challenging to build

Mar 27, 2024 — “Design standardisation, modularisation, pre-fabrication and economies of scale are all powerful levers that developers can

YouTube · High Speed Rail Alliance

2.8K+ views · 5 months ago

Global Best Practices for Cutting the Cost of Building High Speed ...

58:11

The historic investment in intercity passenger rail is an opportunity to

High-speed rail (HSR) can be profitable by: 

Connecting major cities: The most successful HSR routes connect large cities and are optimally spaced apart to compete with air and road travel. 

Station location: Stations should be near population and economic centers. 

Speed: HSR should have a fast average speed with fewer stops and clear paths. 

Commercial freedom: HSR should have commercial freedom to maximize profit. 

Diversifying revenue: HSR can generate revenue from multiple sources, such as restaurants, shops, hotels, and apartments near stations. 

Value capture: Governments can impose taxes or assessments on the increased value of land near new HSR lines. 

Leasing land: Rail systems can lease land for development. 

Attracting passengers: HSR should be competitive with driving and flying. For example, the Brightline West trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles suburbs takes just over 2 hours, which is an attractive alternative to the 4-hour drive. 

Reducing operating costs: HSR can reduce operating costs by requiring fewer onboard staff and managing maintenance and electricity costs. 

Creating jobs: HSR can create good-paying union jobs. 

Economic activity: HSR can induce statewide economic activity by pumping money back into local and regional economies. 

L.E.K. Consulting

New Routes to Profitability in High-Speed Rail

The most successful HSR routes share some common. characteristics in that they: • Connect large cities. • Have stations located close to population and economic...

An HSR operator's commercial strategy affects both market share and profitability, and the most profitable strategy depends on the exact circumstances. For instance, a route close to the sweet spot (beating both car and air in journey times) can charge certain time-sensitive segments a premium, winning share from air.

https://www.lek.com › ...

PDF

New Routes to Profitability in High-Speed Rail

High Speed Rail Alliance

https://www.hsrail.org › s...

What makes high-speed rail successful?

Jan 21, 2023 — High-speed trains dramatically shorten travel time between stations. This effectively expands the areas that each station can serve.

Missing: features? ‎customer's

WillowTree

https://www.willowtreeapps.com › ...

How Brightline High-Speed Rail Increased Ridership & Revenue

See how Brightline created a digital experience for riders as smooth as its high-speed rail service, driving results like 70% faster in-app booking times.

Union Pacific

https://www.up.com › tr0...

Pros & Cons of Rail: Shipping Cost, Speed, Capacity and More

All rail cars have Automatic Equipment ID tags, and tag readers are positioned throughout the United States to offer a high level of shipment

[stoweboyd]

It’s Cars versus People, Again

Of course the Biden administration wants to spend infrastructure money on projects that will increase safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and, yes, drivers too. But the GOP is bristling that they want to make more roads, more lanes, and not that ‘woke agenda’.

Here’s some excerpts from a recent AP piece:

Buttigieg tells states to consider safety for road projects via Associated Press

The distribution of infrastructure money will favor things like bike paths, traffic roundabouts and enhanced sidewalks, but GOP officials have bristled over ceding power to pick their projects.

The federal government has a new warning to states seeking billions of dollars from President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law to widen roads: protect the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists or risk losing the money.

The Department of Transportation says In a report submitted to Congress on Wednesday that it will aim to prioritize the safety and health of the multiple users of a typical 21st century roadway, from riders of public transit and electric scooters to Uber rideshare pickups and people delivering goods. Projects such as bike paths and traffic roundabouts, enhanced sidewalks, pedestrian pathways to bus stops and transit lanes will be favored in the distribution of the money.

Approximately one third of U.S. traffic fatalities are people who are outside of vehicles. New data released Wednesday show 38,824 lives were lost in traffic crashes overall in 2020, with especially high levels for motorcyclists and bicyclists.

“A Complete Street is safe, and feels safe, for everyone using the street,” said Stephanie Pollack, the deputy head of the highway administration. “We can’t keep people safe on our roads if we don’t have safer roads and roads that slow down drivers to safe speeds.” At a congressional hearing Wednesday, Buttigieg said he would consider safety, climate and other factors in the award of billions in competitive grants.

Still, the effort could add to tensions with Republican-led states and governors who bristle at the notion of ceding power to pick their road projects, with some casting the bipartisan law as a vehicle for Biden’s liberal causes. Others worry that rural areas could lose in the process.

“Americans expect new roads and real infrastructure needs to be addressed — not a vehicle for the administration’s woke agenda,” said Missouri Rep. Sam Graves, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

With regard to formula funds, Buttigieg said his department will seek to work closely with states to help them understand things “they may not even have known” in regards to available money for safety. He cited the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, which provides flexible funding for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and transit capital projects, including intercity bus terminals.

The department, led by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, wants to change a longtime focus by the states to direct federal money toward adding lanes to relieve congestion and speed car flow — often at the expense of mostly nonwhite communities living next to the busy roadways.

Buttigieg has cited a need to rectify a history of racist design in roadways.

In 2020, the latest data available, U.S. traffic fatalities for Black people jumped 23 percent compared with 7 percent overall. Lower-income Black residents are more likely to live next to pedestrian crash hotspots, according to the report, and during the pandemic were disproportionately represented among essential workers who continued to travel to work, often on public transit.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 29, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis became the latest Republican governor to sign a bill making it harder for citizens to shift away from the fossil fuels that are changing the climate. The move came after Miami, which is in danger as sea levels rise, proposed cutting carbon emissions by banning natural gas infrastructure in new buildings. The bill was written by lawyers for utility companies, based on a pattern written by the American Gas Association. Lobbyists for the Florida Petroleum Association, the Florida Natural Gas Association and the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Home Builders Association, and the National Utility Contractors Association of Florida supported the bill.

Nine other Republican states have already passed similar legislation.

Republican-led states are defending the use of fossil fuels in other ways. News that President Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, was urging major U.S. banks to invest responsibly with an eye to the climate crisis, led the state treasurers of West Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and South Dakota to write to him expressing their “deep concern” that he, along with other members of the Biden administration, was pressuring banks “to refuse to lend to or invest in coal, oil, and natural gas companies, as a part of a misguided strategy to eliminate the fossil fuel industry in our country.” They accused the Biden administration of “picking economic winners and losers” according to “Biden’s own radical political preferences,” and thus depriving “the people” of agency.

Coal, oil, and natural gas are crucial to their states’ economies, they said, providing “jobs, health insurance, critical tax revenue, and quality of life.” They warned that they would withhold public funds from any banks that refused to lend to fossil fuel industries.

And yet, historically, the government has picked fossil fuels as a winner that outranks any other energy source. While Republicans tend to claim any spending for alternative energies is wasteful, a recent report by the Stockholm Environment Institute, a nonprofit think tank, says that U.S. subsidies to new oil and gas projects inflate their value by up to $20 billion per year. This would seem to fly in the face of Republican complaints about “socialism” in which the government picks winners and losers.

A recent Morning Consult poll shows that 50% of voters say climate change is a critical threat to America. Another 26% think it is important, but not critical. Among Democrats, 75% think climate change is crucial, while another 17% say it is important. Among Republicans, 21% say that climate change is crucial, while another 37% say it is important, but not crucial.

With this support for addressing climate change, why do Republicans appear to be dead set against dealing with it in a meaningful way and instead are propping up the fossil fuels that feed that change?

At the nomination hearing for now–Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who has promised to protect our lands, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Haaland that his state collects more than a billion dollars a year in royalties and taxes from the oil, gas, and coal produced on federal lands in the state, and warned that the Biden administration is “taking a sledgehammer to Western states’ economies.”

Oil produces the most revenue for Texas, which earned $16.3 billion from oil in 2019, an amount that made up 7% of the state’s revenue. Oil revenues accounted for 70% of state revenues ($1.1 billion) in Alaska in 2019, 52% of state revenues ($2.2 billion) in Wyoming in 2017, and 45% of the revenues ($1.6 billion) in North Dakota in 2017.

But production declines in the past year due to the coronavirus pandemic have hurt these fossil fuel states. Wyoming expects to have 29% less money than it expected in 2021–2022. Alaska expects an estimated 18% budget deficit in fiscal 2021. Without money coming in from fossil fuels, people will have to make up the difference by paying taxes, an unpopular outcome, especially in Republican-dominated states, or by losing even more services.

Reducing dependence on fossil fuels will also cost current jobs, and one of the hallmarks of an economy developed around an extractive industry is that it tends to have little flexibility. The rural American West was developed around extractive economies, with a few wealthy men employing lots of workers, and its limited economy means that workers cannot transition easily into other fields.

Fossil fuel advocates also contribute mightily to Republican campaigns, adding financial interest to party members’ general dislike of regulation. In Florida, utility companies employ an average of one lobbyist for every two legislators. “It’s no secret we play an active role in public policy,” a spokesman for a Florida utility told Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson in 2016.

This week, in the Pacific Northwest, temperatures in Portland, Oregon, reached 115°F; Seattle hit 108°. Canada hit its highest temperature on record: 116°F in British Columbia. Roads are buckling and power cables melting. In the New York Times today, climate scientist Michael Mann and climate communicator Susan Joy Hassol warned that the conditions of our earth will only get worse unless we do something. But, they wrote, “A rapid transition to clean energy can stabilize the climate, improve our health, provide good-paying jobs, grow the economy and ensure our children’s future.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/919/BillText/er/PDF

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article249783273.html

https://www.npga.org/news-resources/florida-enacts-law-protecting-propane-and-natural-gas/

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/local-florida-governments-cant-restrict-dirty-energy-usage-under-new-law-signed-by-desantis/

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20788734-state-treasurers-letter-to-john-kerry-on-fossil-fuel-lending-w-signatures

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/12/kerry-to-wall-street-put-your-money-behind-your-climate-pr-475565

https://newrepublic.com/article/162842/tax-breaks-fossil-fuel-companies-inflated-profits-oil-gas-drilling

https://morningconsult.com/2021/04/27/paris-agreement-climate-change-threat-poll/

https://trib.com/business/energy/rules-to-keep-coal-fired-power-plants-burning-in-wyoming-are-expected-soon/article_f6feb1f0-21c6-54b6-8de9-91cb98615263.html

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/07/massive-losses-should-be-a-warning-to-big-oil-that-its-bonanza-is-over

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-koch-brothers-dirty-war-on-solar-power-193325/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/opinion/heat-dome-climate-change.html

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.11

173 – Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia is encircled by the Quadi, who have broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeats and subdues them in the so-called "miracle of the rain". 631 – Emperor Taizong of Tang sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang. 786 – A Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca is crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh. 980 – Vladimir the Great consolidates the Kievan realm from Ukraine to the Baltic Sea. He is proclaimed ruler (knyaz) of all Kievan Rus'. 1011 – Lombard Revolt: Greek citizens of Bari rise up against the Lombard rebels led by Melus and deliver the city to Basil Mesardonites, Byzantine governor (catepan) of the Catepanate of Italy. 1118 – Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captures Azaz from the Seljuk Turks. 1157 – Albert I of Brandenburg, also called The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first margrave. 1345 – The megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners. 1429 – Hundred Years' War: Start of the Battle of Jargeau. 1488 – Battle of Sauchieburn: Fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the king. 1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon. 1594 – Philip II recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilization of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines). 1748 – Denmark adopts the characteristic Nordic Cross flag later taken up by all other Scandinavian countries. 1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef. 1775 – The American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, results in the capture of a small British naval vessel. 1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence. 1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska. 1805 – A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory. 1825 – The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City. 1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish. 1865 – The Naval Battle of the Riachuelo is fought on the rivulet Riachuelo (Argentina), between the Paraguayan Navy on one side and the Brazilian Navy on the other. The Brazilian victory was crucial for the later success of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) in the Paraguayan War. 1892 – The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia. 1895 – Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race", takes place. 1898 – The Hundred Days' Reform, a planned movement to reform social, political, and educational institutions in China, is started by the Guangxu Emperor, but is suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. (The failed reform led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.) 1901 – The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands. 1903 – A group of Serbian officers stormed the royal palace and assassinated King Alexander Obrenović and his wife, Queen Draga. 1917 – King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father, Constantine I, abdicates under pressure from allied armies occupying Athens. 1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown. 1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room". 1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey. 1936 – The London International Surrealist Exhibition opens. 1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders. 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Wuhan starts. 1940 – World War II: The Siege of Malta begins with a series of Italian air raids. 1942 – World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union. 1942 – Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance. 1944 – USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned. 1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports. 1956 – Start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riots that target minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths is reportedly 150. 1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. 1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register. 1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam. 1963 – John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would revolutionize American society by guaranteeing equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education, and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights. 1964 – World War II veteran Walter Seifert attacks an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance. 1968 – Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types. 1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first women to do so. 1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control. 1978 – Altaf Hussain founds the student political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University. 1981 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, kills at least 2,000. 1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain. 1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition. 2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. 2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress. 2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe. 2007 – Mudslides in Chittagong, Bangladesh, kill 130 people. 2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to abuses at a Canadian Indian residential school. 2008 – The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit. 2010 – The first African FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa. 2012 – More than 80 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried. 2013 – Greece's public broadcaster ERT is shut down by then-prime minister Antonis Samaras. It would open exactly two years later by then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

[phroyd]

Five months after the novel coronavirus was first detected in the United States, a record surge in new cases is the clearest sign yet of the country’s historic failure to control the virus — exposing a crisis in governance extending from the Oval Office to state capitals to city councils.

President Trump — who has repeatedly downplayed the virus, sidelined experts and misled Americans about its dangers and potential cures — now finds his presidency wracked by an inability to shepherd the country through its worst public health calamity in a century. The dysfunction that has long characterized Trump’s White House has been particularly ill-suited for a viral outbreak that requires precision, focus and steady leadership, according to public health experts, administration officials and lawmakers from both parties.

As case numbers began rising again, Trump has held rallies defying public health guidelines, mused about slowing down testing for the virus, criticized people wearing masks and embraced the racially offensive “kung flu” nickname for a disease that has killed at least 123,000 Americans.

A similarly garbled message for the country has also been put forward by the president’s top aides and other senior administration officials, who contradict one another on a daily basis. On Friday, Vice President Pence used the first White House coronavirus task force briefing in almost two months to praise Trump’s handling of the virus and cast aside concerns about a record spike in new infections.

“We have made a truly remarkable progress in moving our nation forward,” Pence said, a few minutes after announcing that more than 2.5 million Americans had contracted the coronavirus. “We’ve all seen the encouraging news as we open up America again.”

Later Friday, the United States recorded more than 40,000 new coronavirus cases — its largest one-day total.

It was the latest example of whiplash from the Trump administration, which has struggled to put forward a consistent message about the pandemic. While public health experts urge caution and preventive measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, Trump, Pence and other top aides repeatedly flout their advice, leaving confused Americans struggling to determine who to believe.

“They’re creating a cognitive dissonance in the country,” one former senior administration official said. “It’s more than them being asleep at the wheel. They’re confusing people at this point when we need to be united.”

This portrait of a nation in crisis — and its failure to contain an epic pandemic — is based on interviews with 47 administration officials, lawmakers at the national and state level, congressional staff, federal and local health officials, public health experts and other current and former officials involved in the bungled and confused response.

America’s position as the world’s leader in coronavirus cases and deaths is in large part the result of human error, and the still-rising caseload stands as a stark reminder of the blunders that have characterized the national response. Trump’s actions, and his position in the Oval Office, make him a central figure in any assessment of the country’s handling of the outbreak.

As the White House task force scaled back its meetings and stopped its public briefings in May and June, Trump seized the national spotlight and used it to shift the country’s focus from the virus to an economic comeback he branded the “TRANSITION TO GREATNESS.”

Trump’s public mentions of the coronavirus declined by two-thirds between April and early June. When he did discuss the pandemic, it was often to float misinformation about treatments, masks and testing — science-defying views that have been embraced by his supporters and top Republican lawmakers.

The White House has blocked Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from some appearances that he has requested to do in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter. White House aides have argued that television interviewers often try to goad Fauci into criticizing the president or the administration’s approach, and that Fauci is not always good about “staying on message,” in the words of a senior administration official. Aides did allow Fauci to appear on CNN recently for a town hall, the official said.

White House officials have battled for weeks over whether to hold the public coronavirus briefing, with some arguing to instead focus on other issues, such as the economy.

As local officials struggled to enforce stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, the virus continued to circulate throughout a country riven by partisan politics and devoid of a national public health strategy, said Max Skidmore, a political scientist at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and author of a book on presidential leadership during health crises.

“We’re the only country in the world that has politicized the approach to a pandemic,” he said.

Now, covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is advancing at an accelerated pace in the United States, even as other countries reopen their economies after getting their outbreaks under control. European diplomats are poised to approve an agreement that will reopen the European Union to travel from many countries but not American tourists, because the coronavirus is still raging in the United States.

In contrast, states from Arizona to Florida are pausing or reversing their attempts to reopen their economies.

The new peak in cases — coming so quickly after the first and with just months to go before a presidential election and an impending flu season — has alarmed public health experts and the president’s political allies.

“These epidemics are going to be hard to get under control,” said Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and an informal adviser to the Trump administration. He said he expects deaths to soon climb to more than 1,000 per day again. “It’s going to continue to spread until you do something to intervene. I’m not sure we are taking enough forceful action to break the trend right now.”

The president has dramatically scaled back the number of coronavirus meetings on his schedule in recent weeks, instead holding long meetings on polling and endorsements, his reelection campaign, the planned Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Fla., the economy and other topics, according to two advisers, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

While Pence continues to convene weekly calls with governors to discuss coronavirus testing, supplies and other issues, Trump no longer participates, the advisers said. Trump now receives his updates on the coronavirus effort from Pence, officials said.

Trump’s intense focus on his campaign comes as he has been sliding in public polling and trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden, who is winning support from voters who disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic and the accompanying economic recession. Some Republican officials have tried to advise the president to focus more intently on managing the public health crisis at hand, arguing that doing so would help his political standing — and theirs — while also speeding along the economic recovery.

But Trump has shown little indication that he plans to re-engage on shepherding a national coronavirus response in the wake of surging cases. He has expressed frustration to aides that he was criticized for a lack of adequate testing and is now not being given enough credit for the 500,000 daily tests that are currently being conducted, officials said. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the caseload is only going up because of the increasing number of tests, and he has openly discussed reducing testing.

“The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down,” Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter.

In several states, where hospitalizations and positivity rates are sharply increasing, Trump’s words offer little comfort to governors trying to figure out how to respond to a burgeoning crisis.

Some states are still struggling to procure testing kits and supplies for the kits, including swabs, and have pleaded for the federal government to play a larger role in coordinating purchases, resolving supply shortages and distributing the tests. Doctors and health-care facilities are still grappling with shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including private doctors’ offices that cannot perform routine procedures safely because they do not have the necessary equipment, according to the American Medical Association.

“It is not clear to us how the administration has distributed PPE across the country during the pandemic, but having a single national coordinated strategy would help ensure that states, hospitals, physician offices and other facilities have a single, centralized authority to work through to acquire essential PPE,” said American Medical Association President Susan R. Bailey.

Politicization of the pandemic has left many Republican governors to choose between staying a doomed public health course while touting economic recovery or acting on recommendations from public health experts who Trump has dismissed.

Young people are driving a spike in coronavirus infections, officials say

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has resisted calls for a statewide mask mandate, even as Florida’s cases jumped by 62 percent from its previous high of 5,511 on Wednesday to a new high of 8,942 on Friday. His argument, made publicly as recently as Thursday, is that not all parts of the state are experiencing the same level of outbreak, and therefore they should not be subject to a one-size-fits-all approach. The state announced Friday that all bars must shut down on-site consumption, three weeks after they reopened.

In Arizona, public health experts and local officials largely credit lobbying efforts by mayors for pushing Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to reverse his position and allow cities to implement mask requirements as they saw fit.

Kristen Pogreba-Brown, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, said she found it “disgusting” to watch politics penetrate considerations about public health precautions. She pointed in particular to issues of testing following the president’s erroneous suggestion that increased testing is to blame for the scope of the outbreak.

“The fact that we don’t have a federal testing program is pretty embarrassing, frankly,” she said, noting that her university is developing its own in-house testing system, because “we don’t have faith people can go out and get tested in the community.”

More than five months after the first test for the coronavirus was conducted in the United States, testing equipment is still being doled out based on which states manage to get federal officials on the phone to press their case. After a recent weekend that saw demand for testing outstrip capacity, the governor’s office in Arizona placed a call to the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Daniel Ruiz, Ducey’s chief operating officer. Within 24 hours, they had secured expedited access to a rapid Roche testing machine, he said.

Some states are banding together to issue quarantine orders against visitors from regions with rising cases, further highlighting the lack of a federal standard. Conspiracy theories about masks, vaccines and social distancing have abounded, threatening to stymie local leaders’ attempts to enforce public health guidelines.

Trump’s willingness to ignore ordinances on masks and large crowds has added to the sense of confusion, public health experts said.

“Any time there is politicization of an infectious-disease response, it makes it much harder to intervene,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. People are “less likely to actually listen to public health authorities on what are the best actions to take and how to take them because they think that everything has been politicized in that there is no truth — it’s truth from Democrats or Republicans, rather than the truth,” Adalja said.

As support for masks grows, so does the political risk in not wearing them

The White House has played a central role in undermining the kind of clear and consistent messaging experts say is necessary to mount a successful public health response to a viral outbreak, current and former administration officials said.

Top aides to Pence, including his chief of staff, Marc Short, have grown increasingly skeptical of public health officials within the administration, believing they have been wrong too many times about mitigation techniques and transmission of the virus, according to three officials familiar with the matter. Short has increasingly disagreed with public health experts in coronavirus meetings, these people said.

Trump has undermined Fauci and other health experts repeatedly, publicly dismissing their views about reopening schools, professional sports and other aspects of public life.

While Fauci has been sidelined from briefing Trump and appearing on television, economic advisers such as trade adviser Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, have been given a more prominent public role. They have often used the platform to provide false assurances that the recent surges are under control.

“We’re going to have hot spots. No question. We have it now,” Kudlow said Thursday. “And, you know, Texas and parts of the South, the Carolinas, Arizona. We just have to live with that.”

Others without a background in public health, including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have played an outsized role in guiding the federal response. Just last month, Kushner told others involved in the response that the virus was essentially under control and that there would be no second wave, a former administration official said.

White House officials, including Kushner, Deborah Birx, coordinator of the administration’s coronavirus response, and acting chief of staff Mark Meadows met Thursday to discuss what the administration should be doing to contend with the spike in cases, a White House official said. The plan is for Birx to visit the hardest-hit states to collect more information, and for officials to redirect the therapeutic drug remdesivir to states that are surging.

The official said that Birx and Fauci are also likely to do more regional TV interviews in places where cases are surging.

The White House is also expected to record public service announcements in Spanish about the coronavirus in an attempt to reach the Hispanic community, which has been hit particularly hard by the virus. A senior White House official said top administration officials have regularly offered assistance to officials in Texas, Florida, Arizona and other states. Two administration officials said there will probably be more briefings for reporters, though many are likely to be off-camera.

The partisanship that has come to surround mask-wearing was on stark display on Capitol Hill on Friday, as House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) convened a hearing of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis.

Clyburn and the other committee Democrats attended wearing masks, while the committee’s Republican members were maskless, which led to angry exchanges.

Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) accused Republican members who were maskless of provoking “terror and fear in your colleagues and perhaps your staff.”

Republicans, several of whom had worn masks into the hearing room before taking them off, contended that they could practice social distancing safely while seated maskless at the dais.

“We are six feet apart. We don’t need a mask,” said Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who is a physician.

Publicly, GOP lawmakers remain largely supportive of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, declining to put any blame on him or the federal response for the upward trend in infections. They generally say the decision-making responsibility now lies with state governments, and that individual citizens bear the onus for responsible behavior to hold down infections.

The CDC is sending teams to states experiencing outbreaks, rather than following the usual policy of waiting for states to ask for help. The agency has sent nearly 150 people out to about 20 states, a federal official said, including California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. It has about three dozen more staffers awaiting deployment to hot spots to provide technical assistance, epidemiological support, surveillance and contact tracing, the official said.

While Trump has attacked some Democratic governors for their handling of the virus, its recent spread in Republican-led states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, South Carolina and Oklahoma has complicated the politics around the president’s response.

Officials in some states that have contained much of the virus’s spread have called on Republican leaders in other states to take drastic measures to get control of the disease.

“As painful as it is, you’ve got to overdo it in terms of the aggressiveness in which you shut things down,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said in an interview.

While several Republican governors resisted shutdown efforts during the spring, some have begun to warn their residents that they are hardly immune.

Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s top health officer, told residents recently to be prepared for a lack of a hospital bed if they crash their cars or a lack of ventilators if they suffer a heart attack.

“If we’re not careful,” he said, “Mississippi will look like New York.”

Phroyd

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Exhausted cities face another challenge: a surge in violence (AP) Still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and street protests over the police killing of George Floyd, exhausted cities around the nation are facing yet another challenge: a surge in shootings that has left dozens dead, including young children. The spike defies easy explanation, experts say, pointing to the toxic mix of issues facing America in 2020: an unemployment rate not seen in a generation, a pandemic that has killed more than 130,000 people, stay-at-home orders, rising anger over police brutality, intense stress, even the weather. “I think it’s just a perfect storm of distress in America,” said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms after a weekend of bloodshed in her city. Jerry Ratcliffe, a Temple University criminal justice professor and host of the “Reducing Crime” podcast, put it more bluntly: “Anybody who thinks they can disentangle all of this probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” Through Sunday, shootings in New York City were up more than 53%—to 585—so far this year. In Dallas, violent crime increased more than 14% from April to June. In Philadelphia, homicides were up 20% for the week ending July 5 over last year at this time. In Atlanta, 31 people were shot over the weekend, five fatally, compared with seven shootings and one killing over the same week in 2019.

Congress created virus aid, then reaped the benefits (AP) At least a dozen lawmakers have ties to organizations that received federal coronavirus aid, according to newly released government data, highlighting how Washington insiders were both author and beneficiary of one of the biggest government programs in U.S. history. Under pressure from Congress and outside groups, the Trump administration this week disclosed the names of some loan recipients in the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program, launched in April to help smaller businesses keep Americans employed during the pandemic. Connections to lawmakers, and the organizations that work to influence them, were quickly apparent. Members of Congress and their families are not barred from receiving loans under the PPP, and there is no evidence they received special treatment. Hundreds of millions of dollars also flowed to political consultants, opposition research shops, law firms, advocacy organizations and trade associations whose work is based around influencing government and politics. While voting, lobbying and ultimately benefiting from legislation aren’t illegal, advocates say the blurred lines risk eroding public trust in the federal pandemic response. “It certainly looks bad and smells bad,” said Aaron Scherb, a spokesperson for Common Cause, a watchdog group that was also approved for a loan through the program.

Missouri summer camp virus outbreak raises safety questions (AP) Missouri leaders knew the risk of convening thousands of kids at summer camps across the state during a pandemic, the state’s top health official said, and insisted that camp organizers have plans in place to keep an outbreak from happening. The outbreak happened anyway. An overnight summer camp in rural southwestern Missouri has seen scores of campers, counselors and staff infected with the coronavirus, the local health department revealed this week, raising questions about the ability to keep kids safe at what is a rite of childhood for many. The Kanakuk camp near Branson ended up sending its teenage campers home. On Friday, the local health department announced 49 positive cases of the COVID-19 virus at the camp. By Monday, the number had jumped to 82.

Our Cash-Free Future Is Getting Closer (NYT) PARIS—On a typical Sunday, patrons at Julien Cornu’s cheese shop used to load up on Camembert and chèvre for the week, with about half the customers digging into their pockets for euro notes and coins. But in the era of the coronavirus, cash is no longer à la mode at La Fromagerie, as social distancing requirements and concerns over hygiene prompt nearly everyone who walks through his door to pay with plastic. “People are using cards and contactless payments because they don’t want to have to touch anything,” said Mr. Cornu, as a line of mask-wearing shoppers stood three feet apart before approaching the register and swiping contactless cards over a reader. While cash is still accepted, even older shoppers—his toughest clientele when it comes to adopting digital habits—are voluntarily making the switch. Cash was already being edged out in many countries as urban consumers paid increasingly with apps and cards for even the smallest purchases. But the coronavirus is accelerating a shift toward a cashless future. Fears over transmission of the disease have compelled consumers to rethink how they shop and pay.

The White House and AMLO (Foreign Policy) Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visits the White House today (Wednesday) for his first foreign trip since winning the presidency in 2018. His arrival in Washington on Tuesday evening was typically on-brand for the leftist leader: He flew in economy class on a commercial airliner (albeit in an exit row). Unlike Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—who spurned an invite to today’s meeting as the U.S. government threatens to place tariffs on Canadian aluminum—this summit is too good an opportunity for López Obrador to turn down. That’s largely because of the importance of the United States to Mexico’s economy—which is predicted to contract by 10.5 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. As his approval rating gradually falls along with Mexico’s economic performance, López Obrador is aiming to stay on Trump’s good side. “This is about the economy, it’s about jobs, it’s about well-being,” López Obrador said before he departed for Washington.

Berlin looks east (Foreign Policy) Germany is hoping to strengthen its economic ties with China, setting itself apart from the rest of the West and the United States in particular. Germany’s relationship with China has always been divided. On one hand, human rights issues preoccupy the German public, and figures such as Ai Weiwei and Liao Yiwu are well known there. But on the other, trade between China and Germany is significant and largely responsible for Germany’s post-2008 prosperity. The antagonism shown by President Donald Trump and his team toward German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also poisoned any attempts by the United States to sell Berlin on a split with Beijing.

OECD unemployment rate to hit record highs (Foreign Policy) The world’s wealthiest countries will see record unemployment rates as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD forecast a 9.4 percent unemployment rate across the 37 countries that make up the group’s membership, a number that could go as high as 12.6 percent if these countries see a second wave of coronavirus cases. In releasing the data, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría called on wealthy countries to better protect the economically vulnerable across their societies. “In times of crisis, ‘normality’ sounds very appealing. However, our normal was not good enough for the many people with no or precarious jobs, bad working conditions, income insecurity, and limits on their ambitions,” Gurría said.

Rioting in Serbia (Reuters) Dozens of demonstrators and police were injured in overnight rioting in Belgrade, triggered when a crowd stormed Serbia’s parliament in protest at plans to reimpose a lockdown following a surge in coronavirus cases. Footage showed police kicking and beating people with truncheons while protesters pelted officers with stones and bottles, after thousands chanting for the resignation of President Aleksandar Vucic gathered outside the building. Vucic announced the new lockdown on Tuesday, saying it was needed because of the rising number of coronavirus cases.

Top U.S. general speaks on Russian bounty case (Foreign Policy) Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, has poured cold water on recent allegations, first reported by the New York Times, of a program run by Russian intelligence offering cash to Afghan militants for killing U.S. soldiers. McKenzie called the reports “very worrisome,” but said he couldn’t point to any U.S. casualties that could have had a direct link to the alleged program. McKenzie said that Russia’s actions in Afghanistan should, however, still be watched closely.

Japan battered by more heavy rain, floods; 58 dead (AP) Pounding rain that already caused deadly floods in southern Japan was moving northeast Wednesday, battering large areas of Japan’s main island, swelling more rivers, triggering mudslides and destroying houses and roads. At least 58 people died in several days of flooding. Parts of Nagano and Gifu, including areas known for scenic mountain trails and hot springs, were flooded by massive downpours.

‘We’re next’: Hong Kong security law sends chills through Taiwan (AFP) The imposition of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong has sent chills through Taiwan, deepening fears that Beijing will focus next on seizing the democratic self-ruled island. China and Taiwan split in 1949 after nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists, fleeing to the island which Beijing has since vowed to seize one day, by force if necessary. Over the years China has used a mixture of threats and inducements, including a promise Taiwan could have the “One Country, Two Systems” model that governs Hong Kong, supposedly guaranteeing key civil liberties and a degree of autonomy for 50 years after the city’s 1997 handover. Both Taiwan’s two largest political parties long ago rejected the offer, and the new security law has incinerated what little remaining faith many Taiwanese may have had in Beijing’s outreach. Some now fear even transiting through Hong Kong, worried that their social media profiles could see them open to prosecution under the legislation.

Millions of Australians brace for lockdowns amid Melbourne virus outbreak (Reuters) Five million Australians face a heavy police clampdown from midnight on Wednesday to contain a flare-up of coronavirus cases, with checkpoints to be set up around Melbourne to ensure people stay at home.

Suleimani killing “unlawful” (Foreign Policy) In a new report, Agnès Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, concluded that the January killing of Iranian Commander Qassem Suleimani by a U.S. drone strike was arbitrary and unlawful under international human rights law, citing a lack of any imminent threat posed by Suleimani in the lead up to the assassination. Callamard will present her findings to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday. The United States left the council in 2018.

Rising food prices in Lebanon (Worldcrunch) In Lebanon, the constant change of the dollar exchange rate and a plummeting Lebanese pound have led to a 190% increase in food prices within a year. Hit with exponential inflation, French daily Les Echos notes that the country is facing its most serious economic and currency crisis since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war.

Dozen of bodies found in Burkina Faso, and rights group suspects extrajudicial killings (Reuters) At least 180 bodies have been found in common graves in Djibo, a town in the north of Burkina Faso, Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a report released on Wednesday, saying that the killings were likely carried out by government forces.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

The first transportation bill to acknowledge climate change won unanimous support Tuesday from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

How to pay for the $287 billion, five-year reauthorization bill lands in the hands of the Senate Finance Committee, where the challenge is greater than simply coming up with a 27 percent boost in funding to shore up U.S. roads and transit systems.

He said the legislation would channel $10 billion to reducing emissions and increasing the resilience of infrastructure so that it will better stand up to the impact of climate change.

“We know that the cars, trucks and vans that we drive have now become our nation’s largest source of global warming pollution,” Carper said. “These emissions accelerate and exacerbate the effect of climate change, contributing to the increasingly extreme weather events that contribute significantly to the degradation of our roadways and our bridges.”

“We have to be able to deal with the realities of more severe weather,” added Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who said that many consumers prefer electric to gas-powered cars.“This bill recognizes that transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Something needs to be done to make sure that we’re not rebuilding the same pieces of infrastructure every five, 10 years when we have a major weather event,” [Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials[ said. “We’re seeing it in some of our coastal communities, also along the Gulf Coast when we have a major weather event. You’re also seeing it in the interior part of the country in the flooding you saw, the river flooding in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri.”

[patriotsnet]

What Do Republicans Believe About Climate Change

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-believe-about-climate-change/

What Do Republicans Believe About Climate Change

Senator John Cornyn Republican Of Texas

Why Do Republicans Deny Climate Change Science?

Recently re-elected as Senate Republican whip

Cornyns view on a possible human role in climate change is insinuated for a Republican and doubly so for a Republican from oil country. Which is adamantly not to say he favors emissions regulations.

I am not one that denies that human beings have an impact on the environment, Cornyn said in a phone call with Texas reporters in May. But I am sure not willing to put the federal government in charge of trying to micromanage the environment for the United States of America, nor for us to drive up the price of energy for people on fixed income, like seniors and people of modest means, by putting restrictions in place that other nations are not.

New Caucus New Opportunity

Even broaching the topic with some political conservatives can be challenging, said U.S. Rep. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah.

He compared the reflexive reaction many conservatives have when it comes to climate change to how Democrats feel when they hear about former President Donald Trumps U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Their chest tightens, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

I think climate has been like that for Republicans, right? Just the word climate has all these agendas, the Green New Deal and Al Gore kind of associated with it, and I think thats turned them off.

Last week, Curtis launched the Conservative Climate Caucus – a group in Congress that already boasts a roster of more than 50 Republicans to try to educate colleagues and brainstorm ideas to deal with climate change.

Curtis said he envisions field trips to look at electric vehicle manufacturing or forest fire damage, a big worry in the western United States right now.

But hes not keen on virtually eliminating use of fossil fuels – something scientists say is crucial to limiting dangerous warming – instead preferring a switch to cleaner ones.

I think theres a role for fossil fuels, he said. If were able to export U.S. natural gas to China and it displaced coal, that would have dramatic impacts on worldwide carbon emissions.

Curtis acknowledged that among a certain set of conservative voters, winning heart and minds on climate change will take much more work.

Figure 9 Party Breakdown Of Opinions On Mitigation Policies On Which The Majorities Of Democrats And Of Republicans Disagree

On the other policies included in the survey, majorities of Democrats and of Republicans do not agree. Minorities of Republicans and majorities of Democrats favor carbon pricing policies and increased gasoline taxes. In general, majorities of Democrats and minorities of Republicans believe that federal stimulus packages should include provisions to invest in the development of new technologies and in maintenance to reduce future emissions.

Don’t Miss: Senate Partisan Breakdown

Same Problem Different Solution

Young conservatives like Smith and Diaz say the existence of climate change isnt up for debate.;Democrats proposed solutions to the climate;change;is where they begin to;diverge.;;

Republicans;say policies like the Green New Deal and the Biden Administrations climate plan are not effective or realistic methods to combat climate change.;

Theres a lot of enthusiasm to talk about it, Smith said. At the end of the day its really performative and it is pointless if the solutions theyre offering arent viable. They need to be ensuring that the United States makes the transition away from fossil fuels in a way that is fiscally viable for the American people.;

In line with Bidens climate plan, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a moderate Democrat,;signed an executive order in November 2020 creating the Climate Initiatives Task Force, aimed at making the state carbon neutral by 2050. But Smith called the task force;money down the;drain. He said the task force is funding research already conducted by other administrations and a;performative action.;

Its very much the case of John Bel kicking the can down the road. The task force is saying theyre going to show us the results in five years, Smith said. But itll be too late at that point.;

The House GOP recently;formed;a Republican-led group on climate change.;;

You think the guys driving a Lamborghini are getting hurt? he;said. Noits the person taking the bus.;

Senator Roy Blunt Republican Of Missouri

Recently re-elected as vice-chairman of the Senate Republican conference

Blunt has acknowledged that climate change exists and said we have a social responsibility to help the environment. He also has said, however, that the human role in climate change is unclear. understands that any energy policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gases should be carefully considered in the context of Americas already fragile economy, a spokesman for Blunt told the Springfield News-Leader in 2011. The worst outcome is that we pass policies so onerous that we drive jobs overseas to countries where they dont care as much about what comes out of their smokestacks as we do.

Recommended Reading: Republicans Wear Red

Why Republicans Still Dont Care About Climate Change

Mary Nichols has been part of the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change for about as long as anyone in American life. For years, shes directed Californias pathbreaking efforts to reduce carbon emissions as the chair of the California Air Resources Boarda position she held first in the 1970s before taking it up again in 2007. Nichols has also served at the federal level, working as the chief regulator for air pollution at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. And yet even Nichols has never seen anything that crystallizes the dangers of climate change more clearly than the historic outbreak of wildfires scorching California and other western states this year.

Yes, absolutely, she told me earlier this week, when I asked her whether this years fires are the most tangible danger to California that shes seen from climate change. Its not suddenly going to reverse itself to years when theres no fire season, or its not going to happen until October. The changes are going to be real, and they are going to be long-lasting.

What we have now is the absolute environmental demonstration or evidence of just how dramatic the impact of climate change is going to be. This is not going to stop, Browner told me. There is going to be something next year, and the year after, if we dont get on it.

Fundamental Beliefs And Attitudes

For 14 out of 21 survey questions posed to American respondents about fundamental beliefs and attitudes regarding global warming, majorities of Democrats and Republicans alike hold green opinions in 2020.

For example, 94% of Democrats believe global warming has been happening, as do 67% of Republicans. 94% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans think warming will continue in the future if nothing is done to address it. 94% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans believe that if warming has been happening, human actions have been responsible for causing it.

Majorities of Democrats and of Republicans also agree about the likely effects of global warming98% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans believe global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem for the US if nothing is done to address it. Some 97% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans believe that global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem for the world if nothing is done to address it.

However, the partisans diverge on whether specific temperature changes have been or will be bad. Whereas 88% of Democrats believe that the warming that has happened over the past 100 years was bad, only 40% of Republicans believe that. And whereas 84% of Democrats believe that a 5-degree Fahrenheit increase in world temperature over the next 75 years would be bad, only 50% of Republicans agree.

Read Also: How Many Republicans Are Registered In The Us

Only 25 Per Cent Of Republicans Believe Climate Change Is A Very Serious Problem

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

A majority of Republicans now admit that climate change does exist, according to a new poll.

The Monmouth University survey revealing a growing number of Americans acknowledge climate change is happening, and that most of them believe its becoming an issue.

Almost two-thirds of Republicans, 64 per cent, believe global warming exists. That number has increased from 49 per cent three years ago.

Climate Change Critics Lack A Consistent Message

Has Marco Rubio flip-flopped on climate change?

Those who have criticized climate change are all over the place. You have those who say were going through global cooling, or that theres nothing going on different with the weather at all, or that any changes occurring are natural, not human-made, or its the fault of other countries.

With such an inconsistent message, its no wonder that the AP-NORC poll showed only nine percent of Americans are climate deniers. While 19 percent say they are unsure, the remaining 70+ percent not only recognize the climate is changing, but most of them also trust the science that says human activity is contributing greatly to this. If climate change becomes an election issue in 2020, it doesnt look so good for the GOP and Donald Trump.

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Its All In A Name: Global Warming Versus Climate Change

More people believe in climate change than in global warming, according to a University of Michigan study published in Public Opinion Quarterly. Wording matters, says Jonathon Schuldt, a Ph.D. candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology who co-authored the study with ISR researchers Sara Konrath and Norbert Schwarz.

For the research, Schuldt, Konrath and Schwarz conducted a question wording experiment in the American Life Panel, an online survey conducted by RAND, with a national sample of 2,267 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to report their level of certainty about whether global climate change is a serious problem.

The good news is that Americans may not be as polarized on the issue as previously thought. The extent of the partisan divide on this issue depends heavily on question wording, says Schwarz.. When the issue is framed as global warming, the partisan divide is nearly 42 percentage points. But when the frame is climate change, the partisan divide drops to about 26 percentage points.

Congressman John Boehner Republican Of Ohio

Speaker of the House

Boehner reliably pleads ignorance to punt on climate change. Listen, Im not qualified to debate the science over climate change, Boehner said in May. But I am astute enough to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs. That cant be the prescription for dealing with changes in our climate.

Boehner called the US-China deal the latest example of the presidents crusade against affordable, reliable energy that is already hurting jobs and squeezing middle-class families.

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Figure 10 Party Breakdown Of Opinions On Federal Stimulus Policies On Which The Majorities Of Democrats And Of Republicans Disagree

Majorities of Democrats and minorities of Republicans favor three policies put into place by President Obama that have been rolled back by President Trump: a mandate to power plants to cut carbon emissions from the electric sector by more than 30% relative to 2005 levels; a plan for the federal government to reduce its own emissions; and a mandate to increase fuel efficiency standards of all new cars and trucks made in the United States to get at least 55 miles per gallon by 2025.

Climate Deniers In The 117th Congress

According to new analysis from the Center for American Progress, there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. All 139 of these climate-denying elected officials have made recent statements casting doubt on the clear, established scientific consensus that the world is warmingand that human activity is to blame. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries.

Read Also: Why Do Republicans Want To Get Rid Of The Epa

Democrats And Republicans Divided On Climate Change

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, speaks as Senator Ed Markey, a… Democrat from Massachusetts, right, listens during a news conference announcing Green New Deal legislation in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

How serious an issue is climate change and what should be done about it? It is not surprising that Democrats and Republicans have different views about these questions as they do about so many issues today. But what is significant now is the depth of their differences on climate change and how much those differences have grown over time. In the April issue of AEIs Political Report, we examined partisans views in recent polls and trends.

When Quinnipiac University asked registered voters in December 2018 about the extreme weather events over the past few years, 90% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans said they were related to climate change. In a similar question asked by Economist/YouGov pollstersin March 2019, 76% of Democrats said the severity of recent weather events were the result of climate change, compared to 17% of Republicans. Seventy-four percent of Republicans said these kinds of events just happen from time to time.

And what about the Green New Deal? In the limited number of polls that we have at this point, most Americans are not very familiar with it. Among those who have an opinion, Democrats are more positive than Republicans.

Figure 11 Party Breakdown Of Opinions On Obama

Of the 24 policies, 17 are favored by a majority of Independents, including the 7 that are favored by majorities of Republicans and of Democrats.

Of the seven policies favored by a minority of Independents, two are also favored by minorities of Republicans and Democrats: tax breaks to encourage nuclear power plant construction and increased consumer taxes on electricity.

Four of the other five policies favored by a minority of Independents are: increasing consumer taxes on gasoline, helping companies prevent leaks and pollution from pipelines, spending stimulus money to advance manufacturing of all-electric cars, and installing charging stations for electric cars. For the proposed policy of helping companies make batteries that are smaller and last longer, 50% of Independents were in favor.

For two policies more Republicans than Democrats are in favor, by margins of 13 and 11 percentage points respectively.

Of the remaining 22 policies, more Democrats than Republicans are in favor by margins ranging from 18 to 58 percentage points and averaging 37 percentage points.

In sum, Democrats are generally more supportive of emissions reduction policies than Republicans, and Independents are generally in between those two groups. And although majorities of both Republicans and Democrats agree with one another about some policies, they disagreed on most.

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Young Republicans See Shift In Gop: ‘from Outright Denial To Climate Caucus’

Twenty-four-year-old Republican Danielle Butcher is watching with anticipation as GOP leaders move from outright denial to now having a climate caucus a move she sees as the first step in integrating climate action into formal party policy.

Butcher, the executive vice president of the American Conservation Coalition , spoke to The Hills Equilibrium on Tuesday, just a week after Rep. John Curtis ;launched the Conservative Climate Caucus and the same day that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

The partys progress is huge, when you apply the context, Butcher said.; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

This is an excellent first step, she continued. The first thing you have to do in achieving climate action is start talking about these problems.

To Butcher, integrating climate action into Republican politics speaks to her partys historic conservation core the GOP with a deep-seated, rural heritage, was responsible for creation of the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency under former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

I also see this as us reclaiming our heritage, she said.

But with two-thirds of Americans indicating that the government should do more on climate change a stance that Butcher observed is especially true among young people” she said Republicans need to be talking about these issues and involving the younger generation in the discussions.

The GOP has notoriously struggled with young people, she added.

Climate Insights : Partisan Divide

Meet the Conservatives Lobbying Lawmakers to Act on Climate Change

A breakdown of survey results by party shows that although the views of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents differ, they also converge in ways that may be unexpected.

Report byBo MacInnis and Jon A. Krosnick75 minute read Oct. 13, 2020

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Republicans Are Not A Monolith On Climate Change

Republican lawmakers have been attacking the Biden Administrations actions to address the climate crisis. However, not all Republicans align. The party is split and the recent mass power outages during a severe storm in Texas may drive a deeper wedge into the party as Republican lawmakers were seen as having failed their constituents. In Florida, the GOP recently released a $100M+ plan to address flooding caused by climate change, although nothing to halt or reverse climate change itself. Recent polls show the fissure among Republican voters is generational and there is a substantial chasm between Democrat and Republican voters when it comes to understanding the causes and risks of climate change.

No matter what direction the political winds blow, the planet continues on its dangerous path of warming as humans continue to burn fossil fuels at an alarming rate. Scientists are increasingly warning that to avoid catastrophic impacts from climate change, the worlds governments must implement massive reductions of warming emissions and begin a drawdown of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere over the decade ahead.

For a safe and healthy future for all, endorse the;Climate-Safe California Platform;to implement scalable solutions that can reverse the climate crisis.

To learn more about how to vote for the climate, or read below.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

On Tuesday, Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL) introduced H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021. In 1965, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect the right to vote in America. That law was reauthorized on a bipartisan basis as recently as 2006.

But in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a vital piece of the Voting Rights Act, the piece requiring that the Department of Justice approve proposed changes in election rules in states with a history of racial discrimination before they went into effect. Immediately, states began to restrict access to the ballot. Then in July 2021, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Supreme Court decided that rules that impacted different populations unequally were not unfair. This decision opened the door wide to different forms of voter suppression.

What is at stake is that the Republican Party has become so extreme it can win elections only by rigging the system. When the 2020 election showed that Democrats could overcome even that year’s voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the outsized weight of rural states in the Electoral College, 18 Republican-dominated states passed 30 new, extreme voter suppression laws and, in Georgia, cleared the way for partisan appointees to replace nonpartisan election officials.

If Republican operatives can cement their control over those states despite the will of the voters, they can control the government—likely including the presidency—from their minority position.

The outrageousness of this reality has been hitting home in the last month as states dominated by Republican governors in the mold of former president Donald Trump are opposing vaccine requirements and mask mandates even as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus burns across the country. Areas where Trump is popular have a much smaller proportion of their population vaccinated than areas dominated by Democrats, mapping a deadly virus along political lines. And those deadly lines are affecting children.

Governors in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah have all banned mask mandates in schools, despite the safety recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Florida is experiencing its highest levels of infection in the course of the pandemic, and Texas governor Greg Abbott, who himself has had a breakthrough case of Covid-19, has requested 2500 healthcare workers from out of state, but both states continue to oppose mask or vaccine mandates. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold funds from schools that require masks. Abbott has threatened those who require masks with fines. Rather than encourage the use of masks and promote the free, effective vaccine, Florida and Texas officials have instead opened clinics to provide treatment with monoclonal antibodies for those suffering from the effects of Covid-19.

Republican rejection of masks and vaccines in the midst of a pandemic means that the politicians who are demanding the exposure of their citizens—including children, who are not yet eligible for vaccination—to a deadly virus are quite demonstrably members of the party that is trying to skew the machinery of our government in their favor. And, also quite demonstrably, they do not represent the majority of Americans, who do, in fact, favor vaccines and mask mandates. An Axios/Ipsos poll from two days ago shows that 69% of Americans would like to see mask mandates in public places.

It doesn’t take a poll to see that public opinion has turned against the anti-maskers.

Yesterday, the board of the largest school district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, Miami-Dade County, voted 7–1 in favor of a mask mandate, in defiance of DeSantis's executive order preventing schools from mandating masks in order to "protect parents' freedom to choose whether their children wear masks." Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho had vowed to follow the science of the issue. "For the consequences associated with doing the right thing, whatever that right thing is, I will wear proudly as a badge of honor," he said.

Businesses, too, are lining up behind vaccinations. Amtrak, Microsoft, BlackRock, Delta, Facebook, Google, United Airlines, and Walmart have all announced vaccine mandates, and Uber Eats cut ties with former NFL player Jay Cutler over his anti-mask tweets. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable, generally aligned with the right wing, are all requiring that anyone entering their offices show proof of vaccination.

Yesterday, Biden directed the Education Department to “use all available tools” to aid local governments trying to work around governors like DeSantis and Abbott. "We're not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children," he said.

Some of the same groups who oppose masks and are attacking their pro-masking neighbors were among those who attacked the country on January 6. In Missouri today, where the death rate from Covid-19 is among the worst in the country, Alabama-based anti-vaxxer Christopher Key told workers at a Walmart pharmacy that they “could be executed” for administering vaccines, a street level violence that mirrors that of the Capitol insurrection. That overlap highlights the growing extremism of the current Republican Party.

How extreme the party has become was made clear today when a fervent Trump supporter who called for the removal of all Democrats from office, 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of Grover, North Carolina, threatened to bomb the Capitol. He live-streamed his prospective attack from his truck, reciting a litany of complaints that echoed the right-wing news media. While antigovernment radicals have been a part of our national landscape since 1861, what made this particular attacker stand out was that Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) appeared to defend him.

“I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society,” Brooks stated. “The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 elections…. Bluntly stated, America’s future is at risk.” Brooks also spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally before the January 6 insurrection.

In the midst of a growing insurgency of a minority that is illustrating its willingness to sacrifice our children on the altar of ideology, stopping those extremists from manipulating the machinery of elections to seize control of the country has become imperative. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is an attempt to restore a level playing field. It expands federal voting protections to all 50 states, providing oversight of any state or local government that has had repeated election violations. It would also stop more subtle voter suppression rules, as well as stopping courts from changing election rules that disfranchise voters during an election—all methods of shifting an election that tend to suppress minority votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greeted the introduction of H.R. 4 enthusiastically, noting that “Democrats are fighting back against an anti-democratic tide, protecting access to the ballot box for every American.” Sewell added a defense of federal protection of the right to vote in the face of state attempts to take away that right: “Today, old battles have become new again as we face the most pernicious assault on the right to vote in generations,” said Sewell. “It’s clear: federal oversight is urgently needed.”

The House will take up the bill when it returns from break on August 23, but the fate of the bill will likely be determined in the Senate, where, so far, only one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is likely to support it. The bill will die there unless Senate Democrats agree to a carve out that enables them to pass it without facing a filibuster, which would enable the Republicans to kill it.

—-

Notes:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sic-transit-12

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/us/florida-desantis-executive-order-school-masks-first-legal-challenge-constitutionality/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/us/florida-miami-dade-schools-masks/index.html

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jay-cutler-cut-uber-eats-ads-over-anti-mask-views-n1276922

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2021/8/18/22629304/supreme-court-voting-rights-john-lewis-act-nancy-pelosi-terri-sewell-brnovich-shelby-county

https://www.democracydocket.com/2021/08/georgia-republicans-take-first-step-in-takeover-of-fulton-county-elections/

https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-mandates-masks-vaccinations-f0f105a7-3c2e-4953-aac9-f25516128b11.html

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/19/unvaccinated-terror-proud-boys-push-the-anti-vaccination-movement-into-a-violent-threat/

​​https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/19/1029282381/teachers-in-washington-state-must-get-vaccinated-or-they-could-be-fired

https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/81721

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-missouri-death-rates-937e6e1c17ee7a3eeff4be9c409f92a1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/19/walmart-christopher-key-anti-vaccine/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Snag a Vaccine Appointment, Then Face the Next Hurdle: How to Get There?

The airport says a lot about Cortez, Colorado: The single-engine planes that fly into its one-room airport seat nine passengers at most. The city of about 9,000 is known largely as a gateway to beautiful places like Mesa Verde National Park and the Four Corners Monument. But covid vaccines have made Cortez a destination in its own right.

This story also ran on GateHouse Media. It can be republished for free.

“We had a couple fly in to get their vaccine from Denver that couldn’t get it in the Denver metro area,” said Marc Meyer, director of pharmacy services and infection control for Southwest Health System, which includes clinics and a community hospital in Cortez. Others have come from neighboring states and as far away as California, Florida and the Carolinas. “They all come back for their second dose,” he said. “Because it’s so hard to get in the cities.”

With vaccines now becoming available to the general public in much of the country, the privilege of easy access is coming into sharper focus. On the most extreme end, vaccine tourists with means can nab inoculations, as Forbes has reported, in places such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates and even Cuba, where ads offered “mojitos and vaccine.” On the flip side, some people have found it hard to get to a vaccine appointment a few miles away.

In fact, around the same time people were flying into Cortez to get their shots, Meyer said, some locals couldn’t get to vaccine locations. That was particularly true for people who are homebound or homeless.

So Meyer and his colleagues came up with a vaccine SWAT team of sorts, composed of paramedics and a handful of ambulances stocked with vaccine vials. The team visited about 40 homebound people. For 30 or so people who are homeless in the area, Meyer snagged leftover doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine from a nearby county.

But he said he doesn’t know if his team got to everyone who wanted vaccines. “The problem with health disparities in rural areas is there’s no data,” he said. “It would be really helpful to know how many people have transportation issues.”

A KHN analysis of Colorado health department data shows that by the end of March about 43% of Coloradans who had received their first doses, and had addresses on file, got those shots outside of their home county. At least 60,000 Coloradans — about as many people as live in Grand Junction, the biggest city in western Colorado — got their first vaccine dose 50 or more miles away, as the crow flies, from their home ZIP codes.

And the state vaccinated more than 20,000 people from out of state — tourists, traveling nurses, cross-border dwellers and others whose primary residence is elsewhere — about 1% of the total number of people who had received first doses by April 1 in Colorado.

Other states have noticed similar migrations. Missouri, for example, saw an exodus of urbanites to rural areas in search of vaccines, leading critics to say doses had been misallocated in a way that neglected cities such as St. Louis.

But traveling for a vaccine requires money, flexibility with one’s time and a vehicle. Transportation was a health issue even before the pandemic, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Researchers writing in the American Journal of Public Health found that, in 2017 alone, 5.8 million people in the U.S. delayed medical care because they lacked transportation. This group was disproportionately poor and had chronic health conditions.

Access issues, Freeman said, are likely being mischaracterized as vaccine hesitancy. Even some who live in cities with robust public transportation and ride-hailing services have found themselves jumping through hoops to get to a vaccine appointment.

Bob McIntyre, 81, lives in Denver in an apartment close enough to a major highway that the traffic “sounds like ocean waves in the distance.” But he doesn’t have a car. “It’s just too expensive,” he said. Before the pandemic hit, McIntyre could walk or take public transit. With the coronavirus circulating, though, he’d rather not be closed in a box with a bunch of strangers. “So, I’ve been hermitized.”

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft have offered free rides to vaccine appointments, but McIntyre doesn’t feel safe using those services. He eventually learned of A Little Help, a nonprofit that offers everything from free yardwork to rides for covid vaccine appointments. Volunteer drivers took him to both of his vaccine slots, which were about 15 minutes from his home but otherwise would have remained out of reach.

Maggie Lea, director of programs at Mile High Connects, worries others may not be as lucky. Her organization believes more affordable and accessible transportation is key to achieving a racially and economically equitable Denver — especially right now.

“There are people who may or may not be motivated already to get the vaccine,” she said. “If they don’t have access to transport, or it’s particularly expensive for them to get over there, or burdensome for them to get to a vaccine site, we’re noticing that they just won’t go.”

Transit systems can use federal covid relief funding to help people get their vaccines, said Amy Conrick, director of the National Center for Mobility Management.

In West Texas, the SPARTAN public transit agency offers free rides to covid vaccine appointments, including many at its headquarters.

In Oxford, Ohio, older adults can get vaccinated by nurses aboard buses that accommodate oxygen tanks and wheelchairs. The city set up a hotline for residents to schedule their vaccine and transportation in one call.

“We live in a rural community where some people just don’t have internet,” said Assistant City Manager Jessica Greene.

Transit systems need to talk to public health officials, Conrick said. “Now is the time,” she said. “Well, actually, yesterday was the time.”

But many places lack decent public transit. For them, Freeman of NACCHO imagines covid shots waiting anywhere people congregate, even at NASCAR races, once the supply increases. “You should be able to just turn in any direction and be able to get a vaccine,” she said.

For now, demand is so high that vaccines go into arms as soon as they are available, Freeman said, but soon public health officials will have plenty of vaccine but a shrinking group of people who want to bother getting it. “We will hit a hard stop where we’re looking full face onto the universe of people that do not want to get the vaccine.”

Then, she said, it will be even more important for vaccination to not only be possible, but for it to be easy.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Snag a Vaccine Appointment, Then Face the Next Hurdle: How to Get There? published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Snag a Vaccine Appointment, Then Face the Next Hurdle: How to Get There?

The airport says a lot about Cortez, Colorado: The single-engine planes that fly into its one-room airport seat nine passengers at most. The city of about 9,000 is known largely as a gateway to beautiful places like Mesa Verde National Park and the Four Corners Monument. But covid vaccines have made Cortez a destination in its own right.

“We had a couple fly in to get their vaccine from Denver that couldn’t get it in the Denver metro area,” said Marc Meyer, director of pharmacy services and infection control for Southwest Health System, which includes clinics and a community hospital in Cortez. Others have come from neighboring states and as far away as California, Florida and the Carolinas. “They all come back for their second dose,” he said. “Because it’s so hard to get in the cities.”

With vaccines now becoming available to the general public in much of the country, the privilege of easy access is coming into sharper focus. On the most extreme end, vaccine tourists with means can nab inoculations, as Forbes has reported, in places such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates and even Cuba, where ads offered “mojitos and vaccine.” On the flip side, some people have found it hard to get to a vaccine appointment a few miles away.

In fact, around the same time people were flying into Cortez to get their shots, Meyer said, some locals couldn’t get to vaccine locations. That was particularly true for people who are homebound or homeless.

So Meyer and his colleagues came up with a vaccine SWAT team of sorts, composed of paramedics and a handful of ambulances stocked with vaccine vials. The team visited about 40 homebound people. For 30 or so people who are homeless in the area, Meyer snagged leftover doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine from a nearby county.

But he said he doesn’t know if his team got to everyone who wanted vaccines. “The problem with health disparities in rural areas is there’s no data,” he said. “It would be really helpful to know how many people have transportation issues.”

A KHN analysis of Colorado health department data shows that by the end of March about 43% of Coloradans who had received their first doses, and had addresses on file, got those shots outside of their home county. At least 60,000 Coloradans — about as many people as live in Grand Junction, the biggest city in western Colorado — got their first vaccine dose 50 or more miles away, as the crow flies, from their home ZIP codes.

And the state vaccinated more than 20,000 people from out of state — tourists, traveling nurses, cross-border dwellers and others whose primary residence is elsewhere — about 1% of the total number of people who had received first doses by April 1 in Colorado.

Other states have noticed similar migrations. Missouri, for example, saw an exodus of urbanites to rural areas in search of vaccines, leading critics to say doses had been misallocated in a way that neglected cities such as St. Louis.

But traveling for a vaccine requires money, flexibility with one’s time and a vehicle. Transportation was a health issue even before the pandemic, said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Researchers writing in the American Journal of Public Health found that, in 2017 alone, 5.8 million people in the U.S. delayed medical care because they lacked transportation. This group was disproportionately poor and had chronic health conditions.

Access issues, Freeman said, are likely being mischaracterized as vaccine hesitancy. Even some who live in cities with robust public transportation and ride-hailing services have found themselves jumping through hoops to get to a vaccine appointment.

Bob McIntyre, 81, lives in Denver in an apartment close enough to a major highway that the traffic “sounds like ocean waves in the distance.” But he doesn’t have a car. “It’s just too expensive,” he said. Before the pandemic hit, McIntyre could walk or take public transit. With the coronavirus circulating, though, he’d rather not be closed in a box with a bunch of strangers. “So, I’ve been hermitized.”

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft have offered free rides to vaccine appointments, but McIntyre doesn’t feel safe using those services. He eventually learned of A Little Help, a nonprofit that offers everything from free yardwork to rides for covid vaccine appointments. Volunteer drivers took him to both of his vaccine slots, which were about 15 minutes from his home but otherwise would have remained out of reach.

Maggie Lea, director of programs at Mile High Connects, worries others may not be as lucky. Her organization believes more affordable and accessible transportation is key to achieving a racially and economically equitable Denver — especially right now.

“There are people who may or may not be motivated already to get the vaccine,” she said. “If they don’t have access to transport, or it’s particularly expensive for them to get over there, or burdensome for them to get to a vaccine site, we’re noticing that they just won’t go.”

Transit systems can use federal covid relief funding to help people get their vaccines, said Amy Conrick, director of the National Center for Mobility Management.

In West Texas, the SPARTAN public transit agency offers free rides to covid vaccine appointments, including many at its headquarters.

In Oxford, Ohio, older adults can get vaccinated by nurses aboard buses that accommodate oxygen tanks and wheelchairs. The city set up a hotline for residents to schedule their vaccine and transportation in one call.

“We live in a rural community where some people just don’t have internet,” said Assistant City Manager Jessica Greene.

Transit systems need to talk to public health officials, Conrick said. “Now is the time,” she said. “Well, actually, yesterday was the time.”

But many places lack decent public transit. For them, Freeman of NACCHO imagines covid shots waiting anywhere people congregate, even at NASCAR races, once the supply increases. “You should be able to just turn in any direction and be able to get a vaccine,” she said.

For now, demand is so high that vaccines go into arms as soon as they are available, Freeman said, but soon public health officials will have plenty of vaccine but a shrinking group of people who want to bother getting it. “We will hit a hard stop where we’re looking full face onto the universe of people that do not want to get the vaccine.”

Then, she said, it will be even more important for vaccination to not only be possible, but for it to be easy.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Snag a Vaccine Appointment, Then Face the Next Hurdle: How to Get There? published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[ericvick]

Marty Walsh the mayor: A transform agent, but not by himself

Marty Walsh served as Boston’s mayor for a little more than 7 yrs, a time that unfolded mostly as a dashboard of growth and inclusion, with units of development, stasis, or misplaced ground. But in a considerably less granular future, he will be judged extra as the mayor who aided the city out of one disaster only to contend with yet another.

He introduced his to start with candidacy for Mayor of Boston in April 2013, significantly less than two weeks right after his predecessor, Tom Menino, whose fifth straight time period had been hampered by a collection of overall health problems, created it regarded he would not request a sixth. Neither conclusion was pretty shocking. As a condition agent and labor leader from Dorchester, Walsh used a long time developing alliances, navigating via differences of race, community, and social agenda. With his attention to individual get hold of and personal needs—including work opportunities in the creating trades and aid with restoration, he was groomed as a single more exponent of the “retail politics” related with his most current predecessors—Menino and Ray Flynn.

Political Template and Personal Get in touch with

Interviewed only a thirty day period into his campaign, Walsh outlined himself as a political merchandise of the city who started off out as a young foot soldier in nearby campaigns. “Being in a position to aid someone, a family member, get into detox, give counselling to a dad or mum or a thing like that,” he reported, “that means an dreadful good deal to me, and I have finished it my complete vocation. It is what I adore, it is my passion. I enjoy encouraging people. And that’s why I’m managing for mayor.”

At the identical time, Walsh praised Menino’s role in the resurgence of massive-scale development in downtown Boston and the rising Seaport District, both of which ended up accompanied by continuously higher bond rankings for the town. Vowing to be the “CFO of the City of Boston,” Walsh pressured the worth of work as the way to elevate earnings and fix challenges. It was an update of the identical growth credo that experienced held sway in Metropolis Hall considering the fact that 1949, when John B. Hynes defeated James Michael Curley.

Significantly less than a few months following Menino’s announcement, the city was rattled to its core by the bombing in the vicinity of the end line of the Boston Marathon. It was a blow to Boston’s standing as a planet-course city, but also something particular for Walsh. A person of the victims, 8-12 months-previous Martin Richard, played in the similar Minimal League where Walsh was a mentor. A handful of nights right after the bombing, 3,000 people today responded with a vigil at Garvey Playground in Dorchester. Walsh was there, searching quite much like the very same figure stockpiling 1-on-one particular contacts with voters at a polling spot or a candidate discussion board.

By means of the relaxation of 2013, Menino presided about the beginning of recovery – and also summoned the duck boats for one more Globe Series championship celebration. But the Walsh for Mayor marketing campaign signage—matching the colours of the Boston Purple Sox—also channeled the spirit of “Boston Strong” that would afterwards be revived in the “One Boston” events on the bombing’s anniversary.

Seven yrs later, with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a mayor employed to personal speaking to and whole-throated gatherings observed himself governing as a product of experience mask attire and social distancing. When the distribute of bacterial infections and fatalities overlapped with the national surge of protest more than the racial divide exacerbated by the use of drive by law enforcement, the changeover from continuity to improve became all the much more urgent. As marchers took to the streets in Boston and others throughout the place – and practically 3 months right after racial disparities have been spotlighted by Metropolis Councillor Ricardo Arroyo – Walsh declared racism a “public health and fitness crisis.”

Entrenched Divides, Struggles with Progress

If there was a racial reckoning for Walsh, it would be inaccurate to say it was sudden. Even although his co-finalist in the November 2013 election was a fellow Irish-American, John Connolly, each were being pressed to make the forged of metropolis federal government a closer match for Boston’s increasingly various populace.

In November 2014, as protests raged close to the nation following a jury refused to indict a white police officer for the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Walsh took part—mostly as a listener – in a talk-out at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. The dialogue touched on racial profiling and accountability for the actions of law enforcement. Walsh explained the challenge was also something further, which could be recognized as acknowledging its seriousness, but also the restricted powers of a single mayor.

He did provide racial range to positions with significant profile in his administration, most visibly with the city’s initially Asian-American faculty superintendent and the to start with African-American law enforcement commissioner, but also with cabinet appointments for economic development and wellbeing and human products and services. What transformed pretty small was the disproportionate share of folks of shade in positions with lower visibility and shell out.

Walsh also set additional formidable targets for range and the using the services of of Boston inhabitants on important construction jobs in Boston. But as late as 2020, community advocates have been continuing to express irritation with the lack of development. And metrics for town spending on products and products and services continued to clearly show a broad racial hole, even as late as early 2021.

For the duration of Walsh’s tenure, the dropout premiums for the Boston Community Educational facilities confirmed an overall drop and the higher college graduation amount climbed to an all-time higher in 2018, only to decrease the following year. The absence of all round development was adequate to bring about a heightened danger of intervention from the State Department of Elementary Education and learning, coming fewer than two months just after the most recent Boston College Superintendent, Brenda Cassellius, released her 5-calendar year strategic system. She is the fourth superintendent to provide underneath Walsh, creating for the optimum turnover charge of that workplace underneath any Boston mayor given that at minimum the beginning of the 20th century.

Mayor Walsh utilised an excavator to ceremonially kick off construction for A single Seaport Sq. on Nov. 14, 2014. Mayor’s Business office image by Don Harney

Growth, Displacement, Arrested Development

In his very first term, Walsh tried out to spur new varieties of growth, even for the hours when Boston’s vibrancy could be open for business enterprise. The feasible choice of Boston for internet hosting the Olympics in 2024 triggered some fleeting euphoria, but even more questions and press-again. Nor did any positive aspects materialize from an abortive proposal to use sections of the Seaport District for an IndyCar race.

Possibly the most outstanding expansion metric under Walsh was for housing generation.

He exceeded the speed in his Boston 2030 approach and even elevated the bar in 2018, right after expectations have been also revised upwards for Boston’s inhabitants expansion.

The 2018 revision set a intention of 69,000 new units by 2030, with 16,000 of them income-restricted, to be created achievable by bigger linkage contributions from developers and zoning largesse from the metropolis.

A Boston 2030 report cited a modest drop in the price tag of leasing the city’s older housing, but other figures showed some of the most economical places ended up faced with a increased rate of evictions—even right before the economic disaster brought on by the pandemic. Alongside the Fairmount/Indigo rail line—a primary conduit for transit-oriented housing, a lot of residents of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park confronted displacement or steep increases in hire.

The very same population progress that fed the supply of housing and careers also resulted in far more website traffic congestion. Walsh oversaw efforts to diversify transportation, with far more lanes for bikes and buses. But, just after a succession of fare will increase on the MBTA, the similar populace battling disproportionately squeezed by the housing marketplace struggled with the price tag of transportation and, in lots of conditions, substandard assistance.

Mayor Walsh, surrounded by associates of the Boston City Council and Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, declared the district-huge closure of all Boston Public Faculties as the Covid-19 pandemic hit the town in March 2020. Isabel Leon/Mayor’s Office picture

From Disaster Applicant to Anti-Trump Personage

The to start with crisis to confront Walsh as mayor was the closing of the Extended Island Bridge, with a have to have to uncover rapid substitution for the reduction of the island’s recovery plans and shelter potential. He responded with new amenities and new gains for transitional housing. But the troubling spectacle of unmet requires all over homelessness and drug activity at Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard—much of it gravitating to Boston from other communities – remained in location, and, through the pandemic, turned even more alarming.

In March 2020, when Boston had experienced only its second loss of life from the pandemic, Walsh brought on the retired four-star typical Stanley McChrystal as an crisis guide for pandemic response. Following intense outbreaks in northern Italy and New York Town, there was an powerful concentration on stopping bacterial infections and including potential for treatment—even if it meant shutting countless numbers of people out of operate and closing educational facilities.

Pandemic response also intended an considerable reduction effort—in some scenarios creating on grassroots efforts and assist from small business leaders. By January of this year, the “Boston Resiliency Fund” had dispersed more than $30 million, typically for simple requires and enable with remote mastering, alongside with help for first responders and healthcare staff. By the city’s count, far more than 50 percent the grants went to companies headed by gals or people today of shade. Walsh experienced to concurrently be a mayor for neighborhoods and downtown, but in a way not foreseen seven several years previously.

The racial disparities in Boston’s pandemic figures were extraordinary early on, with Blacks accounting for far more than 40 p.c of the spread almost by way of the stop of April 2020. However that determine would gradually lower to significantly less than 25 %, the number of fatalities remained disproportionately significant.

Walsh also experienced to contend with the division in between men and women who could function or analyze from home and individuals who depended on in-man or woman call for earnings and training. As he was creating his transition to become President Biden’s Secretary of Labor, inquiries about the balance in between shutdown and reopening ended up nonetheless being debated, most critically about no matter whether a distinctive mix of management and assets could have speeded up reopening of educational institutions, at the very least for early grades.

As he was on the lookout to one more election calendar year in 2021, Walsh could have followed the playbook of Donald Trump: boasting of the financial development just before a pandemic inflicted from outside the house, or even reinforcing a division concerning the champions of reopening and proponents of warning. Rather, the mayor forged himself as the anti-Trump, as he had geared up his re-election campaign 4 a long time previously, in 2017.

If Trump claimed to be the one and only person who could restore greatness on a nationwide scale, Walsh solid himself as the city’s listener, learner, and issue solver. By approving reforms in police accountability—advanced by his have undertaking power in 2020, but subsequent a push by numerous other elected officers from Boston—Walsh did invite the issue of what could possibly have been accomplished faster experienced he been extra assertive.

Even if his tenure supplied considerably less continuity than envisioned, he was continue to Trump’s reverse: an agent of improve, soon after all, but not on his personal.

Mayor Walsh exited phase remaining at Boston’s Symphony Corridor subsequent one particular of his State of the Metropolis speeches held in the live performance location. Chris Lovett picture

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