Dear Commons Community,

The coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll on the economy especially with regard to unemployment. The number of jobs lost keeps mounting, with the latest weekly total of Americans applying for unemployment benefits coming in at 860,000.

Last week’s unemployment applications brings the total amount of jobless claims to roughly 60 million since the pandemic began, wiping out the 20 million jobs added over the last decade by a three-to-one margin.

While some states have seen unemployment applications recede from record highs after the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. employment picture in March, some have suffered stubbornly high job losses months into the recovery. In some states unemployment rates shot as high as 20%.

According to the Department of Labor’s latest report (see graphic above), which breaks out the insured unemployment rate (a ratio of people on unemployment benefits divided by labor force) through August 29, Hawaii is currently suffering the worst employment picture with a nation-leading insured unemployment rate of 20.3%. California jumped up to second on the list with a similar unemployment rate at 17.3%. Nevada held firm in the third spot with its own insured unemployment rate at 15.6%. All three states are suffering from notably higher insured unemployment rates relative to the nation average for the same week at 9.3%.

New York and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico round out the top five worst job markets, with insured unemployment rates at 15% and 14.1%, respectively.

Compared to pre-pandemic levels, those unemployment rates are notably higher than the worst states listed in the week ended February 22. Back then, Alaska topped the nation with a similar unemployment rate at just 2.9%. As high as the unemployment rates are now in the hardest hit states, they have still marginally improved from peaks seen months prior. Nevada, for example, has seen its unemployment rate improve more than 10 percentage points, down to about 16% from 27% during the week ended May 9.

Looking at unemployment statistics published in August by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures unemployment by the more traditional ratio of unemployed workers to the size of the labor force, Massachusetts notched the highest unemployment rate by that metric for the month of July at 16.1% followed by New York at 15.9%.

As a Yahoo Finance review of jobless claims data showed earlier, some states are recovering more quickly than others, but all are still struggling with varying economic restrictions tied to controlling the spread of the coronavirus.

The greater concern is how long it will take for unemployment to pick up again even after a vaccine is found for COVID-19.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump was skewered yesterday for bragging that the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus would be lower if one subtracted the deaths from “blue” states. 

“The blue states had tremendous death rates,” Trump said. “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at, we’re really at a very low level.”

Trump’s boast wasn’t even factually accurate; as many critics pointed out on social media, the United States would still have one of the world’s worst tolls from the virus even without deaths from “blue” states.

According to data collected by The New York Times, 3 of the top 6 states in terms of deaths have Republican governors and 5 of the top 10 voted for Trump in 2016.

In any case, Trump is president of all 50 states, each of which is populated with both Democrats and Republicans. And the Trump administration’s delayed response to the virus ― as well as the president’s confession to Bob Woodward that he downplayed the threat early on ― impacted everyone and caused a number of needless deaths.

Tony

Dear Comments Community,

Attorney General William Barr is facing severe criticism for comparing calls for a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to slavery. “Putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest,” he said during an event at Hillsdale College. “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.” Barr also launched into a tirade against the hundreds of Justice Department prosecutors working beneath him, equating them to preschoolers and essentially saying the opinions of politically appointed Justice Department leaders are more important than those of career attorneys who have served through multiple presidencies. Barr also recently suggested charging violent protesters with the rarely used accusation of sedition — conspiracy to overthrow the US government.

Barr’s legacy as Attorney General will be that  of being the perfect toad for Trump. 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Last night, I  finished reading Brian Stelter’s book, Hoax:  Donald Trump, Fox news and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.  It is a blow by blow account of how the relationship between Trump and Fox News has evolved.  As a blurb on the inside jacket cover states, it is:  “The urgent and untold story of the deadly collusion between Fox News and Donald Trump.”   For those who follow Fox News not for its news but for its propagandistic treatment of the “news” especially on its prime time evening programs, Stelter fills in many of the gaps in stories that have been published elsewhere.  If you are someone who does not follow Fox News at all and have little or no idea of its present operation, Hoax is an eye-opener.  Below is a good review that came across my email from Mother Jones.  It includes a link to an interview with Stelter. I think you will find Hoax a quick read and thought-provoking.

Tony

—————————————————————————————

Mother Jones

September 16, 2020

It is impossible to tell the story of President Trump’s rise to power without understanding his relationship with Fox News. Together they form one of modern America’s most defining duos, argues CNN’s chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, who documents their symbiotic dance in his new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.

Through countless interviews with sources at various levels of power inside Fox, Stelter reveals how the wildly popular cable channel has subordinated journalistic integrity to President Trump’s political interests, while setting the broader daily agenda for his administration. “Every day’s a new episode,” Stelter told Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery during a livestream hosted by the Commonwealth Club of California. “Certainly Fox programs his presidency that way.”

Stelter argues there is no Trump without Fox. Trump entered the national political arena via a weekly call-in segment on Fox & Friends, during which he pioneered the racist birther lie; he regularly regurgitates talking points from Fox News’ The Five; he is emboldened by—and wed to—positive coverage from anchors like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and Tucker Carlson, whose shows reach millions every night; and Hannity is a close adviser who even stumped for the president at a rally in Missouri.

“We don’t feel we have power to fact-check Trump,” Stelter recounted being told by one Fox journalist. “We feel like we’re being squeezed out by propaganda.”

The title of Stelter’s book was inspired by back-to-back uses of the word “hoax” by Trump and Hannity to describe the emerging coronavirus crisis in the United States. Both Trump and Fox downplayed the threat at the outset, a deadly error for which they face dual culpability (but zero accountability from Fox brass)—a travesty made all the more apparent following the recent release of Bob Woodward’s tapes.

For a look inside the Fox-Trump feedback loop that has distorted truth and threatened American democracy, read Jeffery’s interview with Stelter [link.motherjones.com], or listen to their conversation on this episode [link.motherjones.com] of the Mother Jones Podcast.

—Molly Schwartz

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday morning,  the Big Ten Conference confirmed that it will return to play football this fall. The league is expected to start the season on Oct. 24, which is scheduled to allow for both a conference title game and a potential spot in the College Football Playoff.  As reported by Yahoo Sports.

“Our focus with the Task Force over the last six weeks was to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes. Our goal has always been to return to competition so all student-athletes can realize their dream of competing in the sports they love,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said in a conference statement. “We are incredibly grateful for the collaborative work that our Return to Competition Task Force have accomplished to ensure the health, safety and wellness of student-athletes, coaches and administrators.”

The decision has been expected since the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COPC) met on Sunday night, as optimism had permeated through the league. But as the days went on and information evaporated, the coaches and administrators around the league were frozen in anticipation.

In typical Big Ten fashion this most muddled of summers, it was simultaneously stunning and not surprising at all when the news leaked out over a hot mic by a Nebraska president Ted Carter.

Sources told Yahoo that multiple programs around the league met with their players in the past few days and outlined a plan on how they’d practice and be ready to play by the October dates being reported in the media. But they cautioned that plan hinged on the votes from the Big Ten COPC. That finally happened, as coaching staffs around the league had two nervous days waiting for smoke signals from the Big Ten office.

Yesterday’s news comes more than a month after the same COPC group voted 11-3 to postpone the fall season. The conference doubled down on that nearly a week later when Warren said the Big Ten COPC was “overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will not be revisited.”

The Big Ten was the first major conference to make the decision to postpone the fall and now are the first to reverse it. The Pac-12 followed the Big Ten in postponing but has no intention of following the Big Ten back to the field, as the situations in California and Oregon aren’t allowing those teams to practice. As of now, three of the 10 FBS conferences will not play this fall – the MAC, Pac-12 and Mountain West.

The delay from Sunday’s COPC meeting to today’s announcement came from finalizing details, answering last-minute questions and making sure the messaging about the reversal came across better than the initial messaging. When the Big Ten first announced its decision, Warren came under scrutiny for not sharing enough details.

What changed in less than five weeks? A confluence of medical advancements, fan blowback, political pressure and the successful start of the college football season elsewhere – especially in leagues like the ACC – all contributed to the league reversing course. Sources said that the presence of daily rapid testing, which has led to a successful start in the NFL, will be used in the Big Ten and will be a key part of the league’s messaging why it’s moving forward. 

On Sunday’s COPC call, sources told Yahoo Sports that the three different arms of the league’s return to competition task force – medical, scheduling and television – formally presented to all 14 of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors. The key medical voice has been Ohio State head team physician Dr. Jim Borchers, the medical co-chair of the return to competition task force. The presentation was said to be thorough and laid out a clear narrative as to why the league was more equipped to play than it was on Aug. 11.

“Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” Ohio State head physician Dr. Jim Borchers said in a conference statement.

“The data we are going to collect from testing and the cardiac registry will provide major contributions for all 14 Big Ten institutions as they study COVID-19 and attempt to mitigate the spread of the disease among wider communities.”

The league has made the decision to return in steps. The groundwork for Sunday’s meeting was built with an important step on Saturday. Eight of the league’s presidents and chancellors – a group known as the steering committee of the return to competition task force – heard a presentation on the medical advancements since the Big Ten’s initial vote. They agreed to pass it on to the full 14 presidents and chancellors for the vote.

Along with addressing daily rapid testing and ways to mitigate contract tracing, the Big Ten also is expected to unveil new information on myocarditis screening and the league can safely test for myocarditis in the wake of any positive tests.

The question now turns to the ability for schools to get their team prepared to play. Getting physically ready for the season is something that’s weighed heavily on Big Ten coaches. One of the league’s schools – Wisconsin – is on pause because of COVID-19 issues. Another two schools, Maryland and Iowa, just returned from a pause.

How quickly those schools could be ready to play has been a looming issue, especially with the league attempting to return to participate in the College Football Playoff. Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said that Wisconsin should be ready to play, even if they don’t start practicing again until Sept. 24 as scheduled.

“[Coach Paul Chryst] and I are on the same page on this,” Alvarez told Yahoo Sports on Saturday night. “We can have our guys ready. We could have a team ready in three weeks. We feel comfortable with that.”

The fact the Big Ten got to the point where they discussed returning is remarkable. After Warren made the decision Aug. 11 and communicated the reasoning poorly immediately after, there was silence for more than a week from the Big Ten offices. Warren then said eight days later the decision wouldn’t be revisited.

Around that time, pressure began building on all sides – players, parents, coaches, athletic directors, fans, television partners and politicians. Many thought the Big Ten rushed to make a decision, especially after building a nimble schedule that would allow them to push games back and even cancel entire weeks to accommodate the COVID-19-related disruptions that appeared inherent to the season. 

A month later – and a lot of waiting – the Big Ten is back on track to play.

Let’s hope that the all involved stay safe in the Big Ten!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Scientific American will make its first endorsement in a presidential election by endorsing Joe Biden for president.

The science and research publication is publishing the endorsement in a two-page statement in its upcoming October issue.

“Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history,” the editors wrote. “This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly.”

As would be expected of a science-focused publication, the editors rested their argument on facts and evidence, concluding that Trump’s rejection of facts and evidence “has badly damaged the U.S. and its people.”

In everything from Trump’s “dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic” to his attacks on “environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges,” Trump’s refusal to make fact-based, data-driven decisions has pushed the U.S. far off course, they argued.

The editorial board highlighted Trump’s pandemic response as a particularly deleterious example of Trump making the health and economic fallout worse ― not better. 

The statement noted that, among other failures, the president lied about the severity of the disease, leading many to believe it’s “like the flu,” when in fact he knew it was far more lethal and easily spread; he advocated for less COVID-19 testing when more would have been helpful; he failed to develop a national strategy to procure and allocate PPE, despite having been warned about COVID-19 many times in January and February; and his opposition to masks continues to defy all logic.

As the editors wrote:

If almost everyone in the U.S. wore masks in public, it could save about 66,000 lives by the beginning of December, according to projections from the University of Washington School of Medicine. Such a strategy would hurt no one. It would close no business. It would cost next to nothing. But Trump and his vice president flouted local mask rules, making it a point not to wear masks themselves in public appearances.

“His administration has been even worse for science than we feared,” Scientific American Editor-in-Chief Laura Helmuth told HuffPost in an email. “We couldn’t include all of our objections to his record in two print pages.”

Helmuth stressed that the endorsement isn’t partisan; neither major political party was even mentioned in the explanation. Biden, however, is “the clear choice when you compare the candidates on science, health, the environment and other research-related concerns.”

Congratulations to the editorial board at Scientific American.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading Norman Ohler’s, The Bohemians:  The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis.  It is the story of a husband and wife who organize a resistance movement in Berlin in the 1930s and continue it through 1942.  Harro Schulze-Boysen and his wife Libertas came from well-regarded German families, and held administrative  positions in the Luftwaffe and the German Ministry of Propaganda respectively.  They lead a network of anti-fascist fighters in Germany’s bohemian underworld of artists, writers, and philosophers.  They pass military information onto the Soviets, distribute anti-Hitler and anti-Nazi leaflets, and write essays exposing the horrors of the Third Reich.

Theirs is essentially a suicide mission because the Gestapo is unrelenting in rooting out dissidents. In 1942, Harro, Libertas and the members of their entire operation are arrested, tried and executed.  They are hanged,  their bodies dismembered and then cremated with no return of ashes to families.  Just before they are to executed, they are allowed to write letters to their loved ones.  Harro concludes his letter to his parents:

“..now I reach my hand out to you both and place here a single tear as a seal and pledge of my love.”  

It is a riveting but sad tale that Ohler has written.  I highly recommend it.

A New York Times Book Review is below.

Tony

New York Times

The Bohemians:
The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis
By Norman Ohler

Children of Holocaust survivors grow up in the war’s shadow. Unwittingly, we remain shackled to an inheritance that reverberates through generations. Yet the trauma is not limited to those close to victims. The families of the perpetrators, of those who resisted and of those who failed to act must all cope with the past.

With his opening scene, Norman Ohler masterfully establishes his trustworthiness as narrator, which is crucial as we travel with him back to the 1930s and then on through the war.

The German writer Norman Ohler begins “The Bohemians: The Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis” with a powerful scene from his own life that perfectly encapsulates the guilt, grief, anger and remorse that have haunted so many of us. As a 12-year-old, Ohler asks his beloved grandfather, his “Pa,” about his role in the war. Then an engineer, now a frail old man, he describes seeing SS guards, a freight train and then a child’s hand through a crack in the train car’s boards. But the grandfather does nothing. “I was scared of the SS,” he helplessly explains. Young Ohler is stunned, and in that moment of “stillness you could hear,” he cannot contain his hatred for his Pa.

Best known in Germany as a novelist, Ohler is also the author of “Blitzed,” a controversial 2017 best seller about rampant drug use in the Third Reich. With the opening scene of “The Bohemians,” another work of nonfiction, he masterfully establishes his trustworthiness as a narrator, which is crucial as we travel with him back to the 1930s and then on through the war. He weaves a detailed and meticulously researched tale about a pair of young German resisters that reads like a thriller but is supported by 20 pages of footnotes. “I find it particularly important in this case, where the truth has been distorted many times,” he writes, “not to add another legend but to report as accurately as possible, combining my skills as a storyteller with the responsibility of the historian.”

The story he reconstructs is that of Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen, drawing on letters, articles, diaries and interviews to acquaint us with the couple in all their complexity — engaging, bold and flawed. Harro, originally a student activist, underground writer and publisher, and eventually an employee of the German Air Ministry, is the pair’s intellectual driving force. He is ambitious and stoic, an idealist. Libertas is more whimsical, and also initially a Nazi Party member. She dreams of being a poet and is working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when she first encounters Harro. Her decision to resist seems to be based more on circumstance than principle, but she is deeply resourceful and loyal. We feel the couple’s triumphs intimately and, as the net tightens around them, their sorrows.

Young, passionate and liberal, they defy the regime with their unconventional lifestyle — including an open marriage and love of wild gatherings bringing together people of diverse backgrounds and political leanings. And, more dangerously, they pass on information about Nazi atrocities to enemies of the Reich, support Jews, produce pamphlets and establish links with Soviet intelligence. At a time when, as Ohler puts it, “propaganda and suppression increasingly dominate daily life” and “culture is being destroyed,” they cut remarkable figures.

For decades, Ohler writes, historians were reluctant to carry out a “genuine investigation” of the couple’s anti-Nazi circle. It was widely believed that German resistance spread little beyond the White Rose and the Stauffenberg plot. For political reasons, both East and West Germany subsequently sought to erase from history details of the brave resistance work of Libertas and Harro and their group. Family and friends were silenced, and in both East and West Libertas and Harro were posthumously lionized as Soviet spies. The reality was more subtle and fraught. Theirs is a tragic tale of defiance, espionage, love and betrayal.

Ohler employs the present tense throughout, imbuing his account with a sense of urgency and reminding us that the past in many ways remains our present. His only deviation into the past tense is in the foreword, where he discloses his grandfather’s agonized recollection — a failure to act for which the resistance narrative of “The Bohemians” serves as a kind of atonement.

"You're witnessing a homicidal President convening purposefully a homicidal assembly to help him get reelected," says journalist Carl Bernstein of Pres. Trump's indoor rallies.

He's called his supporters to be "sacrificial lambs," adds Bernstein. "It's astonishing." pic.twitter.com/63NQnpKkgS

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) September 15, 2020

Dear Commons Community,

Carl Bernstein slammed “homicidal” President Donald Trump for turning his own supporters into “sacrificial lambs” who could die in the service of his reelection campaign.

Bernstein’s damning assessment comes after Trump held an indoor campaign rally with a largely mask-free audience in Nevada on Sunday, breaking all guidelines for holding events amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper (see video above):  

“We are witnessing a homicidal president convening ― purposefully ― a homicidal assembly to help him get reelected as president of the United States instead of protecting the health and welfare of the people of the United States including his own supporters whose lives he is willing to sacrifice.”

Then Bernstein called out Trump for hypocrisy.  

“Here is this president who has staked part of his presidency on the right to life, particularly of the unborn,” the former Watergate reporter said. “And every day he has sacrificed the lives of thousands of Americans because he is unwilling to deal honestly, forthrightly, meaningfully with the greatest domestic crisis in our postwar history in this country.”

And he accused Trump of “the most grievous felony committed by any president in our history, probably.”

Woodward was the only one who referred to Trump as homicidal. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, said on Sunday that President Trump‘s indoor rally in Nevada is “negligent homicide.”

“What else could you call an act that because of its negligence results in the death of others?” he said. “If you have a mass gathering now in the United States in a place like Nevada or just about any other place with hundreds of thousands of people, people will get infected and some of those people will die.”

Trump for the photo-op of rallying his supporters has indeed subjected them to illness and maybe death!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Authorities over the weekend said that wildfires have killed at least 33 people from California to Washington state.

The flames up and down the West Coast have destroyed neighborhoods, leaving nothing but charred rubble and burned-out cars, forced tens of thousands to flee and cast a shroud of smoke that has given Seattle, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, some of the worst air quality in the world.  As reported by local news stations (see video above).

The smoke filled the air with an acrid metallic smell like pennies and spread to nearby states. While making it difficult to breathe, it helped firefighters by blocking the sun and turning the weather cooler as they tried to get a handle on the blazes, which were slowing in some places.

But warnings of low moisture and strong winds that could fan the flames added urgency to the battle. The so-called red flag warnings stretched from hard-hit southern Oregon to Northern California and extended through Monday evening.

Authorities last week reported as many as 50 people could be missing after a wildfire in the Ashland area. But the Jackson County sheriff’s office said late Saturday that four people had died in the blaze and that the number of missing was down to one.

At least 10 people have been killed in the past week throughout Oregon. Officials have said more people are missing from other fires, and the number of fatalities is likely to rise, though they have not said how high the toll could go as they search. In California, 22 people have died, and one in Washington state. Thousands of homes and other buildings have burned.

Barbara Rose Bettison, 25, left her farm among the trees and fields of Eagle Creek, outside Portland, when a sheriff’s deputy knocked on her door Tuesday. They drove away on a road that became an ominous dividing line, with blue skies on one side and the other filled with black and brown smoke.

She took shelter at an Elks Lodge near Portland, where evacuees wrapped themselves in blankets and set up tents out back.

“It’s terrifying. We’ve never had any form of natural disaster,” she said.

Bettison, a UPS driver, was able to get out with her chickens, rabbits and cats. She hasn’t been back, but neighbors said it is so smoky they can’t see their hands in front of their faces.

“I’m hoping there has not been too much damage because it would break my heart,” she said.

Farther south in the town of Talent, Dave Monroe came to his burned home, partially hoping he’d find his three cats.

“We thought we’d get out of this summer with no fires,” he said. “There is something going on, that’s for sure, man. Every summer we’re burning up.”

Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in the U.S. to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

The Democratic governors of all three states say the fires are a consequence of climate change, taking aim at President Donald Trump ahead of his visit Monday to California for a fire briefing.

“It is maddening right now that when we have this cosmic challenge to our communities, with the entire West Coast of the United States on fire, to have a president to deny that these are not just wildfires, these are climate fires,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

At a rally in Nevada, Trump blamed inadequate forest management, which White House adviser Peter Navarro echoed on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying that for many years in California, “particularly because of budget cutbacks, there was no inclination to manage our forests.”

Firefighter Steve McAdoo has run from one blaze to another in Oregon for six days, seeing buildings burn and trees light up like candles.

“We lost track of time because you can’t see the sun and you’ve been up for so many days,” he said. “Forty-eight to 72 hours nonstop, you feel like you’re in a dream.”

As he and his team battled the blazes, McAdoo worried about his wife and daughter at home just miles away. They evacuated safely, but at times he could communicate with them only in one-word text messages: “busy.”

My daughter, Dawn Marie, who lives further north of the fires in Poulsbo, Washington, says that for days there has been a continuous spell of smoke and a haze in the air dimming or blocking out the sun.

Tony