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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
World health officials in Europe declared a global pandemic over the coronavirus yesterday morning. In the evening, Donald Trump announced a European travel ban.
Meanwhile, the ultra-wealthy retreat on private jets to remote island bunkers. Workers from Rome to Chicago are going on strike and demanding compensation during curfews.
And lastly, Bernie Sanders challenges Joe Biden to explain how he’d convince Americans under fitfty to bother to vote for him, based on the issues. Also, for some reason, Senate Republicans decided to give Biden a break on their open-ended neptoism investigation.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
For anyone who was waitiing for some kind of major announcement from the world’s foremost authorities, they’ve made it official. The World Health Organization yesterday declared a pandemic over the coronavirus.
Global and independent public health experts have issued fairly consistent guidelines – with the exception of Donald Trump’s political appointees. The White House is now classifying as secret its meetings with top federal health officials, pharmaceutical companies, and banks over the coronavirus. Foremost among the best advice we can find: Wash your hands thoroughly. Avoid unnecessary travel, close contact, and large crowds. Especially avoid hospitals, nursing homes, and other such places. Think of the most vulnerable. Do not go to work if you have even a mild cough and have traveled. We will do our best here and on the Majority Report to get you vital information, but accurate local information will be crucial in the weeks and months ahead. Check the WHO for updates as well as your city, county, and state government websites, nearest local newspaper or public radio station. Follow their social media accounts. Do not rely on secondhand information.
And be careful with the federal government. Trump and his cronies continue to lie to three hundred million Americans about the extent of the global pandemic. Yesterday Trump turned to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for advice on the coronavirus. The President himself announced new measures in an Oval Office speech last night.
Ahem -- he sounded a litlte hoarse.
Trump is banning inbound and outbound travel from Europe for at least thirty days. This takes effect Friday, March 13. The restrictions do not apply to the United Kingdom, where Trump’s ally Boris Johnson holds power, and which is no longer part of the European Union. Trump blamed EU leaders for QUOTE seeding ENDQUOTE the virus in America and said he was taking QUOTE action ENDQUOTE on Europe.
This is more about foreign policy realignment and trade war than it is about public health. German leader Angela Merkel’s speech yesterday frankly had a lot more useful information. For instance, she said seventy percent of the population would likely be infected. International health experts are virtually unanimous in condemning the slack US response. Trump is doing little more than closing borders and ramming bailouts through Congress for his friends and donors. He said QUOTE This is not a financial crisis. This just a temporary moment of time ENDQUOTE. Temporary, like the stability of the United States.
Pandemic impacts are beginning to hit North America. The stock market crashed again, more than twenty percent in a month. A recession will likely follow. The Guardian reported that many super-rich people were flying to their panic bunkers in New Zealand. Waves of layoffs were beginning in ports, travel, dining and service industries. Pro basketball is canceled.
In the US, the burden of public health response is falling to city and state leaders from Washington, DC to Washington State. Lower jurisdictions are taking it upon themselves to cancel large public gatherings, close schools, and provide economic and housing relief to at least some who need it. It is not playing out well everywhere. Atlanta canceled its state of the city address at the request of its QUOTE sponsor ENDQUOTE, Coca-Cola. Elsewhere in Georgia, indigent coronavirus patients were being relocated to a disused state park called Hard Labor Creek, once featured on the TV show Ghost Hunters. They say it’s haunted. Journalists and lawyers warned of a looming civil rights disaster in jails and prisons. An emeregency soap drive for prisoners was underway in New York. The teachers union in Chicago is demanding measures for students and families, including adequate cleaning supplies, more paid sick days, citywide meals on wheels for students, as well as internet access and computers for when campus is shut down. Further demands include debt and rent relief as well as suspensions on mortgage payments.
These measures are similar to those adopted in Italy, which is under a national lockdown. Even there, workers are striking when measures impose excessive burdens.
India and El Salvador also began restricting travel.
Despite rally cancelations by the Democratic candidates and now Trump, the 2020 presidential campaign continues.
Bernie Sanders addressed his supporters as well as the media in a speech yesterday. Sanders vowed to carry on his campaign and argued he would be the stronger candidate to face Trump. He acknowledged losing the delegate count to Joe Biden but said his campaign was winning in two crucial areas.
First, polls show voters favor his agenda. Second, he was vast majorities of voters in their twenties, thirties, and forties. Still calling Biden his friend, he challenged the former vice president to address the issues that matter to those voters in a debate still scheduled for Sunday night, as of this writing.
Sanders also appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last night. As for Biden, he announced a coronavirus advisory committee, days after Sanders held a panel on the issue and hours after Trump announced his speech to the country.
And a key Senate Republican committee chairman suddenly and unexpectedly canceled a planned supboena into an impeachment- related investigation into Biden family business dealings in Ukraine. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said he was indefinitely postponing any Biden supboenas QUOTE out of an abundance of caution ENDQUOTE. What does he know that we already don’t?
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
A judge sentenced the formerly respected, or should we say widely feared, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to twenty-three years in prison yesterday.
In addition to his extensive record of rape, stalking, and abuse, the jury heard how the producer had said actors who crossed him, like Jennifer Aniston, should be killed. Prosecutors also produced a note from Harvey’s brother Bob, who wrote to say he did not believe his brother was innocent on eight-two .
This will not be easy for many people to hear. Lawyers for the US military Iraq war whistleblower Chelsea Manning said she was recovering after attempting to take her own life in jail. Manning has been held on contempt charges and has a federal court hearing set for Friday. Supporters call it coercive incarceration and are calling for her release.
Organizers of the CPAC conservative political conference spurned Republican Senator Mitt Romney this year over his support for impeachment. But according to a new report by the Southern Povery Law Center, CPAC organizers welcomed white supremacist Republican House Rep. Steve King of Iowa. Officially, King was not on the program. But the SPLC said King gave a talk at a panel on QUOTE free speech ENDQUOTE featuring a noted Austrian fascist and Islamophobe who was convicted of hate speech in 2011, among other far right figures. For what it’s worth, this year’s CPAC may have been the vector for one of Donald Trump’s multiple known exposures to coronavirus-infected persons.
A man who sent credible death threats to Democratic House Representative Ilhan Omar was sentenced to one year in prison. Fifty-six-year old Patrick W. Carlineo, Junior, called Omar’s office last year and said he would put a bullet in her skull. Our forefathers would have done the same, he said. Omar wrote the juge and asked him to show leniency. She wrote, QUOTE The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion ENDQUOTE.
That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report, but please, wear a mask if and when you call in with updates from your area.
#AMQuickie: March 12, 2020
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn