2020-05-14: News Headlines

Makasi Motema (2020-05-14). Working class democracy and centralism. workers.org Painting shows V. I. Lenin speaking to soldiers and civilians. We are taught in school that the United States is a democracy, but this claim is completely divorced from the reality of class struggle. The wealthy ruling class, which owns the greater proportion of our economy through the stock market . . . |

Staff (2020-05-14). Coronavirus Pandemic Prompts Global Mental Health Crisis as Millions Feel Alone, Anxious & Depressed. democracynow.org Is the coronavirus pandemic generating a mental illness crisis? Millions face isolation, poverty and anxiety. We speak with psychology professor and author Andrew Solomon, as the United Nations calls on governments to put mental health "front and center" in their response to the crisis.

Staff (2020-05-14). Headlines for May 14, 2020. democracynow.org World Health Organization Says Novel Coronavirus "May Never Go Away", Whistleblower Warns U.S. Faces "Darkest Winter" Without Urgent Action on COVID-19, Trump Calls Dr. Anthony Fauci's Warning on COVID-19 and Schools "Not an Acceptable Answer", Wisconsin Stay-at-Home Orders Struck Down, Threatening New Wave of COVID-19 Deaths, Fed Reserve Chair Warns of Long Recession as Unemployment Claims Hit 36 Million, Trump Calls Democrats' Coronavirus Relief Bill "Dead on Arrival", Native Americans Make Up Half of New Mexico Coronavirus Deaths; New Orleans Sanitation Workers Strike, China to Test 11 Million Wuhan Residents…

Congressional Progressive Caucus Ctr & others (2020-05-14). Dispatch from the Frontlines: Gender Inequality and COVID-19 (CPCC). indybay.org Online livestream & Zoom…

The Commonwealth Club (2020-05-14). Nuclear Weapons: Stopping the War That No One Wants (livestream). indybay.org Online via livestream…

Tanuke Smith (2020-05-13). If we must die, don't let it be from COVID-19. peoplesworld.org Not much has changed in the Black community. The strategy of controlling wealth, access to healthcare, and the demise of African Americans is still as calculated as ever. The mainstream media reports daily on the death rate in Black communities, stemming from crime, police brutality, or COVID-19. As April arrived, the cruel face of reality …

Jack Rasmus (2020-05-13). Low-Balling the Unemployed in the Era of the 2020 Great Recession. counterpunch.org This past Friday, May 8, the US Labor Dept. released its latest jobless figures. The official report was 20 million more unemployed and an unemployment rate of 14.7%. Both mainstream and progressive media reported the numbers: 20 million more jobless and 14.7%. But those numbers, as horrendous as they are, represent a gross under-estimation of

Dave Lindorff (2020-05-13). US Jobless Rate Broke Depression-Era Record—but Most Media Missed It. fair.org The New York Times (5/9/20) featured a chart of job losses that stretched all the way down the front page. | The Bureau of Labor Statistics' eagerly awaited Friday morning Official Unemployment Rate report for April—what editors generally call the BLS's "headline" rate of unemployment —was definitely headline-worthy. This was especially evident in the next day's New York Times (5/9/20), which ran a bar chart of historic unemployment going back to 1946 across the top of the front page, and then a long red bar down the right-hand column of the entire page showing job losses for April. | It was a drama…

teleSUR (2020-05-13). Poverty Forces Chileans to Cook in 'the Common Pot'. telesurenglish.net Chile's economic crisis unleashed by RELATED: | Thousands of people living in poor neighborhoods eat ev…

The People's Collective (2020-05-13). Essential For Survival: The Need Of Global Solidarity. indybay.org People are dying, every day. Many people are dying too early. People are dying through war, poverty, disease, lack of healthcare or lack of food. People are dying of starvation. Now, in the year 2020, a new disease is spreading around the globe, killing hundreds of thousands and affecting everybody's life.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-05-13). IndustriALL questions violations of worker rights by Shell in Nigeria. peoplesdispatch.org 82% of oil giant Shell's workforce in Nigeria is sourced through labor contractors. As per IndustriALL, the workers "live in poverty with no job security, poor healthcare and little regard for health and safety."

Joseph Woss (2020-05-13). The welfare state – anchor of stability in the crisis. indybay.org Work, income and wealth must be distributed more fairly, and a number of "rules of the game" in our society must be changed. The upheaval forced by the crisis will hopefully force even hard-boiled defenders of the existing to rethink – if only because otherwise dramatic distribution conflicts threaten.

The Commonwealth Club (2020-05-13). What Does Politics Demand of Black Women? w/ Rep. Barbara Lee & others (livestream). indybay.org Online via livestream…

Dave Welsh (2020-05-12). Survival of our public postal service threatened. workers.org Fifty years ago, wildcatting postal workers shut down the U.S. mail for a week in the 1970 Great Postal Strike over poverty-level wages. President Nixon tried to use Army and National Guard soldiers to break the strike — without success. The strike resulted in creation of an independent U.S. Postal . . . |

Beau Peters (2020-05-12). Shelter-in-Place and Internet Inequality: What's the Connection? dissidentvoice.org Photo Source: Unsplash As most of the world is forced to stay home, internet and technology play essential roles in almost every aspect of the population's shelter-at-home lives. The internet keeps loved ones communicating and in touch, informs people of what's going on in the world, connects students to their teachers and professors, and provides …

RT (2020-05-12). No HEROES here: Democrats seek tax breaks for rich donors & lobbyists in $3 TRILLION Covid-19 wishlist bill. rt.com House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposed $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill contains massive tax breaks for wealthy Democrat donors and lobbyists but precious little for working Americans, and has an odd preoccupation with cannabis. | Dubbed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, the

RT (2020-05-12). Norway dipping into its massive piggy bank to battle Covid-19 crisis. rt.com Norway is set to withdraw $41 billion from its sovereign wealth fund to cushion the blow to the economy from the coronavirus crisis that has resulted in falling oil prices and the highest unemployment in the country in 75 years. | Known officially as the Government Pension Fund, it is the world's biggest wealth fund, worth over $1 trillion. The government announced on Tuesday that it will have to sharply increase spending from the fund, to avoid "sharper downturn and to help healthy companies through the crisis." | According to the Finance Ministry's mid-year fiscal review, the revised budget calls for the use…

Dean Baker (2020-05-12). The Pandemic's Catastrophic Hit to the Labor Market. counterpunch.org Temporary layoffs make up 78.3 percent of unemployment. As expected, the April jobs report showed a catastrophic hit to the labor market stemming from the pandemic. The economy lost another 20,500,000 jobs in April after losing 870,000 jobs in March. This is an order of magnitude higher than any previous two-month decline on record. The

John Buell (2020-05-12). Why Unemployment under Trump is way worse than Numbers Suggest. zcomm.org "If the protesters really wanted to protect workers, wouldn't they be demanding laws that replaced lost wages? Other developed countries have passed exactly those sorts of measures, putting their economies into a holding pattern as the pandemic passes."

ISDBICC (2020-05-12). [Research Paper] Mapping of variations in child stunting, wasting and underweight within the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2000—2017. thelancet.com CGF indicators have improved in India, but there are substantial variations between the districts in their magnitude and rate of decline, and the inequality between districts has increased in a large proportion of the states. The poor correlation between the national surveys for CGF estimates highlights the need to standardise collection of anthropometric data in India. The district-level trends in this report provide a useful reference for targeting the efforts under NNM to reduce CGF across India and meet the Indian and global targets.

teleSUR (2020-05-12). Universal Basic Income to Help Most Affected by COVID-19: ECLAC. telesurenglish.net The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said Tuesday that to face the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, governments must guarantee immediate temporary monetary transfers to satisfy basic needs, sustain the consumption of households and achieve a solid and relatively rapid recovery in the region. | RELATED: | ECLAC's Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena presented at a vi…

Project Censored (2020-05-12). The Censorship of Inequality in the Covid-19 Era: How Corporate and Market-Based Metrics Rule the News, and Why it Matters. projectcensored.org By Anthony DiMaggio The old adage that "the more things change the more they stay the same" seems particularly appropriate to media coverage in the Covid-19 crisis. Old patterns of media…

Dean Baker (2020-05-12). Pandemic Causes Loss of 20,500,000 Jobs, Unemployment at 14.7 Percent. zcomm.org The good news here is the large percentage of workers who expect to be called back by their employer, but the steps by the government to contain the pandemic and support the recovery are less encouraging…

WSWS (2020-05-12). As unemployment soars to Depression-era levels, Canada's unions endorse reckless back-to-work drive. wsws.org Nearly 7.6 million workers—equivalent to one-third of the country's total labour force—have applied for the federal government's meagre, temporary Canadian Emergency Response Benefit.

Mark Gruenberg (2020-05-11). Trumka proposes universal federal jobs payments. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON —Sticking to a here-and-now solution to coronavirus-caused joblessness, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka proposed the federal government guarantee paid employment — by actually shelling out the money — for all workers. Employers would be a pass-through, nothing more. In a 13-minute speech posted on the federation's Facebook page, Trumka said that with unemployment at highs …

Richard D. Wolff (2020-05-11). Mass Unemployment Is a Failure of Capitalism. counterpunch.org The difficulties caused to workers by record unemployment during the pandemic are a product of capitalism. Most of the time, employers decide to hire or fire workers depending on which choice maximizes employers' profits. Profit, not the full employment of workers nor of means of production, is "the bottom line" of capitalism and thus of capitalists. That is how the system works. Capitalists are rewarded when their profits are high and punished when they are not. It's nothing personal; it's just business.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-05-11). 6 months after the civic-military coup in Bolivia, Evo Morales denounces setbacks. peoplesdispatch.org Former Bolivian President Evo Morales pointed out that "fascism and racism have been reborn" in Bolivia and that "the de-facto government itself is promoting inequality"

Susan Price (2020-05-12). Tax-havened companies bailed out while poverty doubles amidst pandemic. greenleft.org.au

Zero Hedge (2020-05-11). Pompeo Likens Iran To Nazis On 2nd Anniversary Of US Nuclear Deal Exit. iranian.com Perhaps attempting to ensure the anti-Iran 'maximum pressure' campaign remains front and center, even in the midst of a pandemic and historic unemployment, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has resorted to the one of the most common — and we might note laziest — labels for America's 'enemies'. In official statements Saturday, and on the same day Russia and …

sputniknews (2020-05-12). Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Holds Press Conference After CIS Foreign Ministers' Meeting – Video. sputniknews.com The regular meeting of foreign ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) took place on Tuesday via teleconference amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.