MoA—Despite the so called lockdown the number of new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. is barely sinking. It is only because the heavy outbreak in New York is now in decline that the number sinks at all. In most other states the numbers are just stable or still rising. But the White House and many state governors are lifting the restrictions and want everybody to go back to a normal life. This won’t work.
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Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges discuss the capitalist/imperialist disease eating the world alive today in all its manifestations: wars and runaway corruption; ecocide in plain daylight, the plotting of nuclear wars right under our noses, plus the consequent liberal betrayals (including the sheepdogging of figures like Bernie Sanders); the absence of a real left, the stunning (and unchallenged) cynicism and hypocrisy of the US political elites, the vile servility of the (largely) upper middle-class media personnel, and the coming corporatist repression.
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PASQUALINA CURCIO—Compared to China, the prevalence rate of Covid-19 in the US is 25 times that of the Asian giant and the mortality rate is 23 times higher.
Despite the criminal blockade, the unconventional war against the Venezuelan people and the recent onslaught of U.S. imperialism including threats of invasion, the prevalence rate of the coronavirus in Venezuela (0.57 people infected per 100,000 inhabitants) is 267 times lower than that of the U.S. and the mortality rate (0.03 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) is 184 times lower than that of the northern country.
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WAYNE MADSEN—Another leader who did his very best to spread the coronavirus was Brazil’s Bolsonaro. After having spent time with Trump at the U.S. president’s Mar-a-Lago “billionaire’s compound” in Palm Beach, Florida, the close contact between the U.S. and Brazilian delegations resulted in positive coronavirus tests from members of Bolsonaro’s delegation, as well as Trump’s party, including the mayor of Miami, Francis X. Suarez.
After Bolsonaro and his virus-infected delegation returned to Brazil from Florida, Bolsonaro called the quarantine actions of Brazilian state governors and other officials to thwart the spread of the virus, which had already infected 200 people, “paranoia” and “extremism.”
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JOHN BUELL—Klein is surely correct to be concerned. President Trump proposed temporary cuts in the payroll tax as a fiscal stimulus. This act would in effect partially defund Social Security, forcing Democrats to choose between a tax increase or reductions in or means testing the program. Turning Social Security into a means tested program would undermine its popularity and probably destroy it, a long time goal of conservative Republicans and neolibereal Democrats.
