Covid-19 a license to kill: Had enough America?

What the f*^k?  At what point do the American people say enough is enough is enough?  What the f*&k does it take?  When will the American people stand up and say “stop, we can’t take it anymore?”  This is nuts.  We’ve been put through hell since the 2000 presidential coup and we are not going to take it anymore.  At what point do we say “we reject this hell that has been foisted upon us?”  At what point do we say enough is enough? 

I don’t know about you but I have had enough.  I am sick to death of the disgusting duopoly that has deliberately stagnated our country in order to enrich themselves.  I am sick of an oligarchy that passes laws that enriches themselves as they enslaves us.  Sorry, but I just can’t take it anymore.  

What does it take America?  Mitch McConnell stopped any kind of real aid to the American people and yet he does not fear the wrath of the people because he is protected by a voting system that ensures him protection from the voters.  The American electoral system is controlled by the two parties and an oligarch controlled media who ensures that no one who represents the interests of the people can ever be elected.  It sucks. 

We have been living under an unrelenting terror attacks against the American people by the so-called “intelligence agencies” paid for by our tax dollars.  Our government protects only the rich oligarchs they serve while we, the American people are on our own.  From Matt Taibbi:

Excerpt:

Taibbi Warns: Wall Street & Main Street 'Rescues' Look Increasingly Disconnected From One Another

It’s early days, but the Federal Reserve “bazooka” has mostly impacted the 1%...  Take a look at some contrasting sets of headlines.

First, from planet earth:

Weekly Jobless Claims Hit 5.425 Million, Raising Monthly Loss To 22 Million Due To Coronavirus (CNBC)

Worst Case Fears Of 20%-Plus U.S. Jobless Rate Are Now Realistic (Bloomberg)

Then from Wall Street:

Private Equity-Owned Companies Sell New Bonds in Credit Rally (Bloomberg Law)

Fed’s Historic Move Spurs Rally in Junk Bonds: 6 ETF Picks (Nasdaq.com)

As we head into the second month of pandemic lockdown, two parallel narratives are developing about the financial rescue.  In one, ordinary people receive aid through programs that are piecemeal, complex, and riddled with conditions.

A law freezing evictions applies to holders of government-backed mortgages only. “Disaster grants” are coming more slowly and in smaller amounts than expected; small businesses were disappointed to learn from the SBA early last week that aid would be limited to $1000 per employee.

A one-time “economic impact payment,” reportedly delayed so recipients could experience the thrilling visual of Donald Trump’s name on the check, might help make half a rent payment. Unemployment insurance amounts have been raised, so tip and gig workers can now be ineligible for $600 a week more than before! The cost of a coronavirus test might be free, but you test positive, you could up paying $50,000 or more in hospital costs even with insurance. And so on.

Meanwhile, “relief” programs aimed at the top income levels were immediate, staggering in size and scope, and often appeared as grants rather than loans.

Although the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue was approved unanimously, a set of tax breaks was stuck in by Republicans, in the original version of the CARES Act put forward by Mitch McConnell…

Because the CARES Act was rushed to the floor, members didn’t have all of the information they might have wanted before the vote. After the bill passed, Democratic staffers sent these tax provisions in the CARES Act, sections 2303 and 2304, to the Joint Committee on Taxation, to be scored. They were stunned to learn they would cost $195 billion over ten years.  In other words, what seemed like a run-of-the-mill offhand legislative pork provision ended up dwarfing the airline bailout and other main parts of the bill.

“The cost of caring for this small slice of the wealthiest one percent is greater than the CARES Act funded for all hospitals in America,” says Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett.      “It’s greater than CARES provided for all state and local governments.”

The JCT analysis found that 80% of the benefit of the bill went to just 43,000 taxpayers each earning over $1 million a year. The average tax break for those 43,000 individuals was $1.6 million, an interesting number when one considers the loudness of the controversy over $1,200 relief checks for everyone else…

With the Fed’s announcement on April 9th of a $2.3 trillion program that includes purchases of junk bonds, the toolkit for support of the financial economy now encompasses nearly every conceivable official response apart from subsidy of stock markets. The sheer quantity of money raining down on the finance sector appears transformational, a “joyful noise” heard around the world.

“POW!#* @  BAM&$# SMASH! @#$% KABOOM*#!@?% That’s the sound of the Fed’s big bazooka,” reads Forbes in a typical financial news report.

Had enough America?  Is there any question “for whom the bell tolls?”  At what point do the American people say enough is enough is enough?  What the f*&k does it take?  If Taibbi’s article isn’t enough for America to take up arms and clear out Washington, maybe this Russia Insider article will.

Excerpt:

ADL and Other Jewish NGO's Loot Small Business Bailout While Americans Get Shafted

Congress set aside $349 billion for small businesses in the $2 trillion stimulus bill. The ADL and other Jewish groups demanded their own $60 billion carve out. Instead, Congress added non-profits to the language of the business bailout and delegated all the lending authority to big banks.

The rollout of the program was plagued with issues – platforms crashing, banks setting their own onerous guidelines, asset cap restrictions – just about everything you can think of to prevent actual small businesses from getting the help they need quickly while ensuring the ADL and 200 other Jewish NGOs were very well taken care of.

Had enough America?  What will it take?  Who can we trust in our government?  The cockroaches are crawling out of the woodwork to capitalize on the Coronavirus.  From Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Children’sHealth Defense:

Excerpt:

U.S. Government’s $3.7 Million Grant to Wuhan Lab at Center of Coronavirus Outbreak

The Daily Mail reported that it has uncovered documents showing that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) gave $3.7 million to scientists at the Wuhan Lab at the center of coronavirus leak scrutiny. According to the British paper, “the federal grant funded experiments on bats from the caves where the virus is believed to have originated.”

Background: Following the 2002-2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak, NIH funded a collaboration by Chinese scientists, US military virologists from the bioweapons lab at Fort Detrick and National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists from NIAID to prevent future coronavirus outbreaks by studying the evolution of virulent strains from bats in human tissues.

Those efforts included “gain of function” research which is “accelerated viral evolution” to create COVID Pandemic superbugs, enhanced bat borne COVID mutants more lethal and more transmissible than wild COVID.

… these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic.

Fauci’s studies alarmed scientists around the globe who complained, according to a December 2017 NY Times article, that “these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic.” Dr. Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Communicable Disease Center told the Times that Dr. Fauci’s NIAID experiments “have given us some modest scientific knowledge and done almost nothing to improve our preparedness for pandemic, and yet risked creating an accidental pandemic.”

In October 2014, following a series of federal laboratory mishaps that narrowly missed releasing these deadly engineered viruses, President Obama ordered the halt to all federal funding for Fauci’s dangerous experiments. NIAID-funded gain of function research continued after the moratorium in a Wuhan-based laboratory. Congress needs to launch an investigation of NIAID’s mischief in China.

Had enough America?  What will it take?  While Americans have been confined to their homes since March, waiting for the measly $1,200 checks that may never come corporations, who already received their windfall party hardy.  From Alan Macleod at Mint Press:

Excerpt:

As One of the Largest Bailouts in History Looms, “Crisis-Ridden” Corporations Reap Record Profits

Once again it appears that big business will get bailed out while the American people get sold out. 

Hospitals overflowing with sick and dying patients. Overworked staff risking their lives wearing garbage bags as makeshift protective equipment against an invisible but deadly virus. Refrigerated containers left outside medical facilities, filling with the dead. Mass graves being dug in the city. It is like something out of a horror movie. But it is very real and is happening right now in America.

“We are doing the best we can,” Derrick Smith, a certified registered nurse anesthetist in New York City told Mint Press last week, “but people are dying left and right, no exaggeration.” “I’ve never imagined or seen our healthcare system take such a beating before,” he said. “This is something that none of us have ever really seen.”

Despite leaving nearly every other sector of the economy in ruins, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a windfall for the for-profit healthcare industry, which is expecting to make dazzling profits off of the crisis.

For example, United Healthcare – the country’s largest insurer, controlling over 50,000 doctors – is predicted to announce yearly profits of over $21 billion later today. That is according to former healthcare industry director turned industry whistleblower and reform advocate Wendell Potter, who yesterday accused the conglomerate of some highly unethical practices in order to cut corners.

Just as the pandemic was first hitting America, Potter says, United Healthcare began strongarming its doctors into accepting pay cuts of up to 60 percent in an effort to nickel and dime employees and ensure they were operating with the minimum number of staff possible. As a result, even patients at in-network hospitals risk receiving surprise bills after being treated by out-of-house medical professionals, seeing as United Healthcare does not directly employ enough staff.

“Patients are getting crushed financially because of UnitedHealth’s actions. And, believe it or not, some doctors may as well,” Potter says, concluding that, “As ER docs & other physicians risk their lives treating COVID-19 patients, UnitedHealth is playing games to rake in profits.”

Other big corporations winning big from coronavirus are Amazon and videoconferencing software Zoom. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his fortune swell by over $24 billion, while Zoom founder Eric Yuan’s fortune has more than doubled of late, up to $7.4 billion.

At least the healthcare industry is doing something productive as it rakes in huge profits. Other corporations stand to make billions even as their businesses are completely idle.

Free rent and welfare… for corporations

Filming has been suspended, movie theaters closed, Disney’s stores and hotels are shuttered. Disneyland is gathering dust, the once teeming theme parks now eerily silent. The company has furloughed 43,000 staff. And yet Disney’s stock price is rallying; from $85.76 per share in March to over $106 today, shareholders have seen the value of their holdings increase by 20 percent.

The reason? Because of a quarter-trillion dollar bailout of the hotel and entertainment industry that will see the largest corporations like Disney plied with cash, even as ordinary Americans will have to wait up to five months for a meager $1,200 government check. People without a bank account – i.e. the poorest in society – will be the last to receive aid.

Along with the hotel industry, USA Today suggests that large airlines are the “big winners” from Trump’s bailout package. This, despite the fact that industry is hemorrhaging money. Virtually nobody is flying, and airlines have had to refund huge numbers of travelers. Yet stockholders in big airline corporations are smiling, thanks to news of a similar bailout.

Since April 3, American Airlines shares have rallied from $9.39 to $11.94 today, a 27 percent surge. The government also rushed through laws ensuring that airlines will not have to pay rent for the next six months. Needless to say, there has not been similar legislation for American citizens laid off or self-isolating due to COVID-19.

While the government insists there will be some strings attached to one of the greatest corporate bailouts in history, it is clear that, just like in 2008, they will not insist on transformative changes within the industry.

Indeed big questions are not even being asked. How many hotels are offering their empty rooms to the homeless or to people needing to self-isolate away from family members or housemates? How many have offered to be turned into makeshift hospitals? In France, the nationalized high-speed rail service is ferrying the sick around the country from coronavirus hotspots to hospitals with free beds. Couldn’t unused planes be doing the same thing in the United States?

And if the government is essentially going to buy out every hotel or airline in the country, why not nationalize them outright and use the future dividends from a profitable industry to pay for better schools, roads and fund social programs?

Why not at least stipulate that all corporations taking money accept workers on their boards or pay all employees at least $15 per hour? Does it not make sense that a public health emergency requires a public healthcare system?

Unfortunately, it is abundantly clear for whom the government works in the U.S., and this is underlined by the lack of questioning or conditions on the bailout. Once again, it appears that big business will get bailed out and the people are getting sold out.

Had enough America?  What will it take?  While congress bails out Wall Street they are driving a stake through the heart of Main Street.  Their big corporate wet dream of privatizing the Post Office is now on the table.  From Sarah Anderson at Intrepid Report:

Excerpt:

Postal carriers are essential workers. They need a stimulus, too.

The president is trying to use the coronavirus crisis to kill the public Postal Service. We can’t let him.

The U.S. Postal Service plays a vital role in our nation’s health and stability at this time of crisis. Unfortunately, it’s financially strapped—and got just crumbs in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package recently passed by Congress.

President Trump’s response? A stream of false accusations.  “They lose money every time they deliver a package for Amazon or these other internet companies,” Trump said. “If they’d raise the prices by, actually a lot, then you’d find out that the post office could make money or break even. But they don’t do that.”

For years now, Trump has repeated the lie that USPS loses money on these deliveries, even though a task force Trump himself commissioned in 2018 contradicted it. In its most recent quarterly statement, USPS reported a 2.3 percent increase in revenue from parcel delivery and increased revenue per package.

The real cause of the Postal Service’s immediate financial crisis is the coronavirus pandemic. Mail volumes have plummeted under the economic shutdown, and package delivery profits cannot make up for the loss. USPS management has warned that mail volume and revenue could drop by 50 percent or more this year.

Support for the Postal Service crosses partisan lines. You’d think a bit more compassion might be in order at a time when postal workers are on the frontlines, straining to meet the skyrocketing need for home deliveries of essential goods.  But playing hardball on crisis aid gives Trump and his administration the leverage they’ve been seeking for years to gut the public Postal Service.

The crumbs in the stimulus law amount to $10 billion in additional debt, subject to conditions imposed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. By contrast, House Democrats had proposed a $25 billion cash infusion to prevent the Postal Service from possible collapse.

In the final law, USPS competitors Fedex and UPS got a much better deal than the Postal Service. Under the airline bailout, both of these companies are eligible for a portion of the $4 billion in cash assistance for payroll support and another $4 billion in loans and loan guarantees for air cargo carriers.

While Mnuchin’s loan conditions are not public, they likely echo recommendations from the 2018 task force he chaired, which included partial privatization, draconian cuts to wages and services, and elimination of employee collective bargaining rights.

Unlike many other industries, the Postal Service cannot furlough workers and still achieve its essential mission. Like health care professionals and emergency responders, postal workers are essential to our public health because their deliveries make it possible for people to stay at home and not spread the virus.

Millions of people are relying on them to deliver medications and other essential goods, as well as the stimulus checks they’re waiting for to help cover their bills. Come November, postal workers will also be needed to protect the integrity of our election system by facilitating vote by mail.

Without the Postal Service’s network of 157 million daily delivery points and 35,000 post offices, there would be no way to carry out these essential activities. Jacking up package delivery rates now, as Trump is demanding, would harm postal customers, particularly in rural areas—just when they need these services most.

Postal workers are rising to the challenge of a crisis unlike any we’ve ever experienced. The last thing they need is for the president to dismiss the gravity of the Postal Service’s financial situation.

The American Postal Workers Union has organized a petition demanding urgent financial support for USPS. Trump and Congress must heed their call and save our public Postal Service—and the many businesses and families that depend on it.

What the f*&k?  At what point do the American people say enough is enough is enough?  What the f*&k does it take?  We are living under a tyrannical government who despises us.  We must act now to demand our government respond to the needs of Main Street over Wall Street.  Vote out all incumbents in both parties.  We are on our own during this crisis.  We must remove this disgusting form of government that has been foisted upon us.  God help us.