I helped organize my home town for the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.
Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders’ Dec. 24, 1968 Earthrise photograph changed the way we look at our lives. We became aware of the fragility of human society spinning through the void of space.
As we complete the 50th year since then, society changed.
The Environmental Protection Agency was created in December 1970. The Republican president led an effort to protect our natural environment through legislation including The Clean Air Act (1970), The Clean Water Act (1972), The Endangered Species Act (1973), and more. These laws made positive things possible.
50 years later our government seems ready to throw all that in the ditch because it is too much of a burden for business. Powerful interests infiltrated our government. Corporations write environmental laws that protect their interests first, rather than the common good. A form of nationalism is rising which says, “Put America first.”
We live in a global society in which we are intimately connected, as Anders’ photo suggests. Large American companies manage a global supply chain and produce much of their revenue in other countries. We are connected as the current pandemic suggests: the coronavirus does not recognize national borders.
We must transcend nationalism and consider the best interests of everyone. We must lead in a way only the United States can. On the first Earth Day we thought that was possible.
Blog for Iowa has been posting about Republicans trying to dismantle the Post Office since before it was popular. The evil GOP has been trying to close post offices for the past decade. Check out our previous articles about their efforts here and here: blogforiowa.com/2018/04/22/administration-trying-to-gut-post-office/
The coronavirus pandemic has hurt one of the oldest institutions of our country, the U.S. Postal Service, and according to Postmaster General Megan Brennan, the Postal Service is likely to run out of money by September of this year (the end of this fiscal year) if the federal government does not step in.
The Postal Service has been an essential part of American life for centuries. Not only does the USPS have 31,600 post offices around the country that service remote rural areas as well as low-income people, it employs over 650,000 people.
But Republicans have been clamoring to privatize the mail industry to support their corporate friends, and they are now hoping the USPS will go bankrupt during a global pandemic.
The federal government must protect the USPS employees, not to mention the vital materials and products these service workers are providing to our communities. From delivering medicine to the sick to vote by mail ballots the USPS’ work is a fundamental part of our nation.
To not fund and protect the USPS is an attempt by Republicans and the Trump administration to bankrupt an essential service that meets the needs of all people in this country, instead of prioritizing corporate greed.
Congress has already given more than $3 billion in taxpayer dollars to cover the research, development, and manufacturing for promising coronavirus treatments.
Despite the investment of public funds, Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have not committed to ensuring that a COVID-19 vaccine and other treatments would be affordable for all.
This virtual town hall will focus on actions Congress can take today to rein in the big drug corporations, ensure all people have access to affordable vaccines and treatment, and better combat coronavirus in our communities.
Attacks on press credibility endanger US democracy and global press freedom
The Trump administration has stepped up prosecutions of news sources, interfered in the business of media owners, harassed journalists crossing U.S. borders, and empowered foreign leaders to restrict their own media. But Trump’s most effective ploy has been to destroy the credibility of the press, dangerously undermining truth and consensus even as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to kill tens of thousands of Americans. A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said President Trump’s attacks on press credibility have been “dangerously effective.” It has issued a report on Trump (penned by former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie) and the media and has written the President asking for a meeting
Letter by CPJ to Donald Trump:
###
April 16, 2020
President Donald Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
via email
Dear President Trump,
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit, non-governmental organization, is writing to express our concerns regarding a pattern of actions by you and your administration that threatens news media and impedes the free flow of information on issues of great public interest. We cite specifically regular statements that delegitimize the role of the press; retaliation against journalists for critical coverage; prosecutions that equate leaking classified documents to the press with espionage; the harassment of journalists at U.S. borders; and limitations on access to information.
Because of those concerns, we commissioned another comprehensive report on U.S. press freedoms. Our first report, “The Obama Administration and the Press,” was published in 2013 and authored by Leonard Downie Jr., a professor of journalism at Arizona State University and former executive editor of The Washington Post, where he supervised the coverage of five administrations. Our new report, “The Trump Administration and the Media,” is also authored by Downie, who carefully details the practices and policies that we find so troubling.
Based on the report, the Committee to Protect Journalists makes the following recommendations to your administration:
Publicly recognize and affirm the role of a free press in a democracy and refrain from delegitimizing or discrediting the media or journalists performing their vital function — not least during a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Refrain from vilifying individual journalists and media outlets, including on Twitter.
Resume daily press briefings and ensure that reporters independently credentialed by the White House Correspondents Association are granted access. Ensure journalists and their associations have equal and fair access to the White House and State Department and are not punished for unfavorable coverage.
Speak to reporters on the record and avoid over-reliance on confidential briefings. Avoid the perception of political favoritism by granting presidential interviews to a range of news outlets, not just those that produce favorable coverage.
Do not retaliate against media outlets by interfering or threatening to interfere in the financial independence of their owners. Refrain from threats to rescind the broadcasting licenses of television and radio stations regarded as critical of the administration or its supporters.
Instruct all government departments to ensure timely compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests without regard to the media organizations or reporters filing those requests.
Implement, at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the recommendations laid out in CPJ’s 2018 report “Nothing to Declare,” including requiring a warrant for device searches and releasing transparency reports about such searches.
Prohibit DHS and CBP agents from asking journalists about their beats, opinions, contacts, or coverage. Provide the information related to CBP as requested in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by CPJ and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) without further delay.
End the practice of bringing espionage charges against news sources who leak classified information to journalists, as it creates a chilling effect and restricts the free flow of information on matters of public interest. Drop the espionage charges against Julian Assange and cease efforts to extradite him to the U.S.
Order the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to comply with the requirement, under the National Defense Authorization Act, to provide an unclassified report to Congress listing individuals determined to be involved in any way in the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Impose sanctions on those deemed to be responsible, including Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
We recognize that you have made yourself personally accessible to the media in a way no president has before. However, many of the actions taken by you and your administration have deepened distrust of the media, chilled national security reporting, and made it more difficult for the general public to access timely and accurate information from their government.
We respectfully request a meeting with you or someone you designate to discuss our concerns and our recommendations for improving the press freedom environment in the United States. We are happy to conduct this meeting virtually, or when current social distancing guidelines are relaxed. Thank you for your attention and we look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Carroll
Chair
Joel Simon
Executive Director
CC:
Kayleigh McEnany, White House Press Secretary
William Barr, Attorney General of the United States
Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Richard Grenell, Acting Director of National Intelligence
Kerri Kupec, Director of the Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice
If you are like our family, we have been doing much talking over the phone recently checking in on family and friends to be sure they are doing OK.
Among most of my friends and family I am the political animal. During normal times I have learned to put politics on the back burner when talking to them. For some reason it has been baked into our society that politics is not a go to subject for conversation. Thus I try to keep mention of politics to answering questions when someone asks me.
Things have changed in the past two weeks. The totally botched response to the corona virus pandemic in the US has suddenly made politics a conversationally open topic these days. While I still do not initiate the topic, I do gladly join in once the topic is breached.
So my friends and relatives have been more than happy to offer a phrase like “I can’t wait to vote that SOB out of office.” Or something like “I’d vote for anybody before I would vote for Trump.” That is usually just the tip of the conversation. Most everyone has a specific Trump complaint. Not all have to do with his botched handing of the pandemic, although most everyone mentions that.
They also ask the questions that are on most of our minds:
Where are the tests?
Where are the masks?
Whereis the protective equipment?
It has been over three months since the administration first heard about the coming pandemic. The administration has done little to nothing to help the situation.All we have really seen from the administration is constant attempts to blame others for their failures
The conversations almost always lap over into a comment such as “I could never vote for a Republican again.” “Their party has done nothing while Trump has ruined the country. You can’t trust them (Republicans).” While I have learned never to count votes until they have been cast, comments such as these are certainly encouraging.
What was also encouraging was the bravery shown by Wisconsin voters turning out in big numbers to resoundingly vote out judges appointed by Scott Walker at the state and county level.
So when I see Donny Corona on TV or hear his voice I change the channel or mute the sound. He is not welcome in our house. I am so sick of him taking all the available news space in this country.
Yet it is so comforting to hear folks I would never had guessed had such deep feelings saying such anti-Trump things. In these dark times it is giving me hope. And it seems as if the Trump effect is being felt in lower tier races, at least at the US senate and US House level. Here is hoping that Trump can take his party down all the way to the state and county level also.
Americans have always hated autocrats and oligarchs. We now have a prime example of what rule by the rich means. Essentially it means your life means nothing to them. However, we – you and I – have a super power that can finally render them powerless. We can organize and get the vote out. It has never been more important.
We have great candidates to vote for. Don’t forget that the primary to choose an opponent for Joni Ernst is June 2nd. According to my county auditor, Secretary of State Paul Pate will be sending out applications for vote by mail starting next week. Vote by mail ballots can then be sent in– or you can vote in person at your county auditor’s office – beginning May 4th.
Fauci: No Evidence That Warmer Weather Will Make Trump Disappear
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Responding to what he called “wishful thinking” on the part of millions of Americans, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday that there was “no scientific evidence” that warmer weather will make Donald J. Trump disappear.
Answering a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper, Fauci said, “There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet about how, when the warmer weather comes, maybe Trump will disappear, or at least somewhat diminish the wreckage he causes. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence to suggest that this will be the case.”
Fauci said that, based on the photographic and video record of Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, “He appears to be more active in the warmer weather.”
“When the temperature goes up, he seems to get less lethargic and goes golfing,” Fauci said. “This suggests that, when the summer months come, we could be seeing a second wave of him, unfortunately.” …
{Sigh} if only ………………..
Did anything happen last week?
In Iowa two types of facilities seem to be extreme hotspots for Covid-19 infections. One is nursing homes. What is the other?
What university and its president is being sued by its student in a class action suit for its response (reopening the campus) to the Covid-19 pandemic?
In a strange outburst during his daily presser Tuesday, the Chosen One threatened to do what to congress?
Election returns were announced in the closely watched Wisconsin primary and judicial election. Which party won the Supreme Court seat in the Wisconsin election?
Friday, Governor Reynolds announced that Iowa’s schools would do what for the rest of the school year?
Asserting his claim to constitutional authority over state governors, the Chosen One claimed his “authority was “ what?
The leader of what country is now out of the ICU and the hospital, but still not back to work?
Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden received endorsements from what two former rivals last week?
What Democratic female politician when asked if she would accept an invitation to be Biden’s VP by Rachel Maddow responded with a simple “Yes”?
What happened on the the eighteenth of April of 1775 in American history?
In South Carolina a really strange situation is developing as senate challenger Democrat Jaime Harrison has outraised what incumbent Republican?
At least one sailor has died on what Navy ship made famous by its captain’s ouster a couple of weeks ago?
Keeping with his policy of blaming all the wrong people for his failures, the Chosen One announced he was cutting off US contributions to what international organization dealing with Health?
21 years ago tomorrow, April 20, 1999, the nation was stunned with news of a massive school shooting at what school?
Appearing on CNN’s ’State of the Nation’ what member of the administration’s Covid-19 team said that “earlier mitigation could have save more lives”?
What other major endorsement did Nominee Joe Biden get last week?
In a strange series of tweets, the Chosen One called on Americans to liberate what 3 states with Democratic governors?
A delay in delivering stimulus checks is being caused because of what change insisted on by the Chosen One?
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed an election reform bill that made Election Day a state holiday in place of a holiday that honored what two Confederate heroes?
What packing plant in Sioux Falls, SD has one of the highest rates of Covid-19 infection in the country?
Bonus: Wildfires are burning very close to what highly toxic abandoned Russian nuclear plant?
An article at VOXanswers some questions many of us have been wondering:
Why has the administration and the Republican Party in general – lower level leaders like Kim Reynolds and other governors – been so inept in response to the Covid-19 crisis?
Why has the response become a political issue rather than something that unites the country in opposition to our mutual enemy from nature the Covid-19 virus?
The simple answer is that since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has morphed into an attack machine capable only of attacking enemies of their ideology. For today’s Republican, ideology is the only thing. Their existence is dependent are “owning the libs.”
On the other hand, the Democratic Party has morphed little from its roots. Democrats are still the problem solvers, the pragmatists and the party open to those who a better life for all. If anything in recent years Democrats in elective office have become more dependent on data, on science and on creating a society open and accepting of everyone.
Zack Beauchamp in his article at Vox elaborates on this, using the response to the coronavirus for illustration:
“How did the coronavirus become folded into the culture war in such a harmful way? One of the best explanations I’ve seen comes from David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College. The GOP, Hopkins writes on his personal blog, is failing on coronavirus not by accident — but because the party was built in a way that produced failure.
This analysis draws on Hopkins’s book Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats, coauthored with Michigan State’s Matt Grossmann. In the book, Hopkins and Grossman argue that there’s a fundamental structural difference between the Democratic and Republican parties: While the former is a coalition of social groups, the latter is primarily a vehicle for a single cohesive ideological movement.
This difference makes it much easier for conservative Republicans to push the party to the fringes on the right than it does for leftist Democrats to do the same. But it also means that the GOP is less able to shift its policy approach to adapt to specific policy problems: It is so consumed by ideology, so preoccupied with the war on Democrats and liberals, that it cannot countenance cooperating with them to address a shared national problem. The Republican party needs a perpetual liberal enemy.”
The lesson here is not just that today’s iteration of the Republican Party will fail in response in this case but will ultimately fail in the face of any crisis. A short mental trip back to the George W. Bush administration reminds us of their utter failure to do anything in response to the financial crisis they themselves created.
We can also look at the inappropriate response to 9/11. Rather than use data to determine the real enemy, the Bush administration attacked a third party country and got us stuck in an occupation that devoured our military and our treasury. In both cases the inadequate responses were driven by rigid ideology.
In both cases pragmatic Democratic leadership pulled us out of these crises using data driven responses even in the face of opposition from the same Republican Party that created the crises.
Similarly we saw Bill Clinton’s administration step in to staunch a looming repression brought on by the George HW Bush administration.
Republicans are long on attack rhetoric, but their responses are all driven by a rigid ideology that is dictated to them by the wealthy and the corporations. Thus their answers seldom fit the situation and almost always make a small problem into a large crisis.
In this year’s election remember that Republicans do not solve problems, Republicans create problems. Pragmatic Democrats solve problems.
This short video from Robert Reich’s Inequality Media pretty well lays out the damning timeline of Trump’s inaction on the pandemic while our fellow Americans passed the virus around. It was worse than inaction, he used the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to convince wide swaths of the country that there was nothing to worry about.
Numbers of death and disease are now coming in from Trump’s earlier highly damaging attempt to keep the country’s businesses open. On March 23rd the country had 500 deaths. On April 6th – two weeks later – the number of dead passed the milestone number of 10,000. The next Sunday, Easter Sunday April 12th, the number of dead passed 20,000. The following Thursday that number passed 30,000.
Trump is now pushing hard to “reopen” the country on May 1st. That is a Friday some 13 days out. While it is impossible to predict the future, with the kinds of increases we have seen in recent weeks it is very possible that on May 1st the number of people dead from the corona virus and the subsequent actions and inactions by our government will easily pass 100,000.
Attempting to reopen the economy will exacerbate the conditions that make passing the virus much more likely. So as if 100,000 dead isn’t enough, that will spike under open conditions. To Trump and those on the right (like Gov. Reynolds) the ideology is much more important that lives. Reynolds has made it a point of pride that she has not shut down the state even as the virus has raged through east central Iowa.
For Trump, while he may pretend it is about getting the country back to work, the real bottom line is his own re-election. Trump is a narcissistic ego maniac. He will stop at nothing – and I mean nothing – to be re-elected. May 1st will be 6 months before this year’s scheduled elections. Sacrificing several thousand Americans to get himself re-elected would mean nothing to him.
One reason this election is so important to Trump, one has to remember that there are currently several lawsuits and investigations that are in some form of purgatory because of the murkiness that courts and the current Attorney General have thrown on Trump being sued or investigated while he is president. Should he lose, that point is no longer relevant. Let the lawsuits and investigations go forward.
So Trump, his minions and the Republican Party have huge incentives to do all they can, including massive voter suppression based on using a still raging corona virus pandemic in November, to steal the next election.
Please do what you can to vote by mail this year. Also remember to let your representative know we need a functioning Post Office to ensure a functioning democracy.
Finally this little graphic someone posted on twitter a few days ago that illustrates just what Trump’s (purposeful) bungling of the pandemic has meant in the unneeded deaths of your fellow Americans:
A new epidemiology model finds that, if Trump had taken action on social distancing two weeks earlier than he did, 90% of U.S. coronavirus deaths could have been prevented.https://t.co/RbLtYqxxmHpic.twitter.com/O3TwwHt7Fi
Now we are organizing a statewide call in day demanding Reynolds enact a 6-month moratorium on new and expanding factory farm construction permits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The leadership that Reynolds appointed at the DNR has rolled back nearly all environmental protections from the factory farm industry, allowing factory farms to cram extra animals into confinements and suspending fines for environmental violations. Currently, 90% of the nitrates and 75% of the phosphorus in Iowa’s waterways come from industrial agriculture and factory farms.
Clean water is a human right and essential in moments like these. Reynolds needs to reign in the leadership she appointed at the DNR and put the interests of everyday Iowans, like clean water, above the corporate profits of the factory farm industry.
Just before COVID-19 recess of the Iowa Legislature, Senator Bolkcom urged Senators to protect the health and safety of Iowans by voting by mail in the November General Election.
Next week, we take the first step. Every registered Iowa voter will receive a vote-by-mail ballot request for the June 2 primary. Return that request, and when your primary ballot arrives, vote and mail it back.
Help show that you are ready for a safe, vote-by-mail general election this November.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
Blog for Iowa has been posting about Republicans trying to dismantle the Post Office since before it was popular. The evil GOP has been trying to close post offices for the past decade. Check out our previous articles about their efforts 
Join us, Senator Tom Harkin, and Lower Drug Prices Now for a 
Iowa Senate Democrats
