Corporate bailouts are top priority, as shown by Senate and Fed actions, and Trump wants the serfs to resume working despite risks…--Kansas City janitor who used to be an employee was made independent contractor, can’t pay her rent and paltry health insurance ends soon
--globally, first world nations grab meds and supplies, as third world is left to face potentially high death tolls
--in NY Times, Stanford historian Walter Scheidel recounts how the Medieval Plague thinned the serf population in Europe, and led to forced labor
--Pepe Escobar asks, who profits from the pandemic?
and the serious comic Lee Camp romps through today’s Shock Doctrine
--inmates at federal prison smuggle out video from desperate inmate after 3 die
--We announce first $100 grant from PBC Podcast Community Fund
--and also at ConsortiumNews, editor-in-chief Joe Lauria details Saudi Arabia’s unilateral Yemen cease fire, after 150 royals are infected and MBS holes up on isolated island
--Russia and Saudi have reportedly agreed to cut oil production
--today’s Covid-19 Update, edited by Linda Lewis; WashPost reporters detail Trump’s non-credible briefing comments, mixing lies and blue skies
--after Gov. Newsom sent 500 ventilators to Jared’s stockpile, Riverside County sends distress signal; Newsom gives some details of major purchase of face masks
--Melania Trump pops up to promote mask wearing that The Don eschews
--ban on masks in Hong Kong is challenged by court ruling
--Fauci pushes back on right-wing talking points that death toll is inflated, and PBC heard Limbaugh parroting them today
--newspapers are dying from impact of Covid, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer uses the contraction to finish off union busting plan
--AG Bill Barr tells Fox’s Laura Ingraham that Russiagate was travesty, will he deliver proof?
--way back when Bloomberg was spilling tons of cash in run for prez, I interviewed author Anne Kim about his demonization of minority youth for WhoWhatWhy
--now that he’s no threat to “moderate” Dems, Bernie Sanders earns faint praise from Nick Goldberg in LA Times
--and warmer praise from New Yorker’s Erich Lach
--at MintPress, Sam Husseini recaps the Sanders run and suggests a “vote-pact” for people who don’t want to vote for Biden
--facing calls for mail-in voting in November, Trump and other Repubs are pretty candid about their fear of democracy; Gabriella Novello reports at WhoWhatWhy
--Glenn Greenwald offers sterling commentary on people who choose not to vote
--Linda Tripp, widely-reviled whistleblower who taped Monica Lewinsky’s secrets about Bill Clinton, dies at age 70
--MAD magazine’s mainstay cartoonist, Mort Drucker runs out of ink, at 91
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