domingo, 31 de maio de 2020

Coronavirus is our chance to completely rethink what the economy is for



Coronavirus is our chance to completely rethink what the economy is for
Malcolm Bull

The pandemic has revealed the danger of prizing ‘efficiency’ above all else. The recent slowdown in our lives points to another way of doing things

Sun 31 May 2020 12.00 BSTLast modified on Sun 31 May 2020 14.19 BST
Illustration: Matt Kenyon/The Guardian

There’s been a lot of argument about how best to handle the coronavirus pandemic, but if there are two things on which most people currently agree, it’s that governments should have been better prepared, and that everyone should get back to work as soon as it is safe to do so. After all, it seems more or less self-evident that you need to be ready for unexpected contingencies – and that it is better for the economy to function at full capacity. More PPE would have saved doctors’ and nurses’ lives; more work means less unemployment and more growth.

But there is a catch to this, and it has been at the heart of political debate since Machiavelli. It is impossible to achieve both goals at once. Contingency planning requires unused capacity, whereas exploiting every opportunity to the full means losing the flexibility needed to respond to sudden changes of fortune.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that economists started to realise that it might be better to leave a bit of slack in the economy to help cope with exogenous shocks. In the years after the Great Depression, governments saw the problem as “idle men, idle land, idle machines and idle money”. But there were also economists, such as the Englishman William Hutt, who went against the Keynesian consensus and pointed out that there were some things – fire extinguishers, for example – that were valuable precisely because they were never used. Having large stocks of PPE, underemployed nurses, or a lot of spare capacity in ICUs, falls into the same category. Idle resources are what you need in a crisis, so some degree of inefficiency isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

Trying to manage a pandemic in a world of just-in-time production lines and precarious labour brings these issues into sharper focus. On the one hand, there weren’t enough idle resources for most countries to cope adequately with the spread of the virus. On the other, the enforced idleness of the lockdown leads to calls to get the economy moving again.

For Donald Trump, the prospect of a prolonged shutdown is particularly alarming because it threatens to undermine the competitiveness of the US economy relative to other nations (notably China) that have dealt with the crisis more efficiently. That’s an argument Machiavelli would have understood very well. One of his constant refrains was that idleness could lead to what he called corruption (the diversion of resources from the public good, which Trump equates with the Dow Jones Industrial Average) – and that corruption leads inevitably to defeat at the hands of your rivals.

For Machiavelli, the contagion of corruption was spread above all by Christianity, a “religion of idleness”. And it is true that the Judeo-Christian tradition, with its sabbaths, jubilees, feast days, and religious specialists devoted to a life of prayer and contemplation rather than martial virtue, built a lot of slack into the system. Machiavelli thought it should be squeezed out through laws that would prevent surplus becoming the pretext for idleness, rather in the way that later economists looked to the pressure mechanism of competition to do the same.

But there’s a contradiction in Machiavelli’s thinking here, because he also acknowledged that one of the things every polity needed was periodic renewal and reform, and that corruption was what preceded it. So you’re in a double bind: either you can squeeze out the slack and never experience renewal, or you can court corruption and create an opportunity to start over and make things better.

With hindsight it looks like that’s one of the problems the religions of idleness tried to address, by incorporating idleness into the calendar. In ancient Hebrew tradition, there were weekly sabbaths, and every seventh year was meant to be a year of release in which the land was left to lie fallow, debts were forgiven and slaves emancipated. The idea was picked up by the Chartist William Benbow, who in 1832 used it as the model for what he called a Grand National Holiday, in effect a month-long general strike that would allow a National Congress to reform society “to obtain for all at the least expense to all, the largest sum of happiness for all”.

Benbow’s plan came to nothing, but it provides an alternative model for how the lockdown might be viewed. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has complained that the lockdown is a state of exception with an increase in executive powers and a partial abrogation of the rule of law; but the flipside is that it is the closest thing to a Grand National Holiday that most of us have ever experienced. Despite all the suffering the pandemic has caused, for many it has also meant no work, debt relief, empty roads and a rare opportunity to live on free money from the government.

Generally speaking, exogenous threats like wars or natural disasters act as pressure mechanisms forcing us to redouble our efforts to combat them together. The benefit of contagion is that the only way to combat it is to do less rather than more. That has some demonstrable advantages. There has been a dramatic global fall in carbon emissions. The only comparable reduction in greenhouse gases during the past 30 years came as the result of the decline of industrial production in eastern Europe after the fall of communism. That was managed exceptionally badly because neoliberal economists thought that what post-communist states needed was the pressure of free market competition. Shock therapy would galvanise the economy.

The pandemic has been a shock alright, but its effect has been the opposite of galvanising. People everywhere had to stop whatever they were doing or planning to do in the future. That provides an altogether different model of political change. The philosopher Walter Benjamin once noted that while Karl Marx claimed that revolutions were the locomotives of world history, things might actually turn out to be rather different: “Perhaps revolutions are the human race … travelling in this train, reaching for the emergency brake.”

Everyone keeps saying that we are living through strange times, but what is strange about it is that because everything has come to a stop, it is as though we are living out of time. The emergency brake has been pulled and time is standing still. It feels uncanny, and there’s more slack in the world economy than there ever has been before. And that means, as both Benjamin and Machiavelli would have recognised, that there is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for change and renewal.

For some, this might mean a shorter working week, or less air travel. For others, it might suggest the opportunity for a more fundamental remaking of our political system. A space of possibility has unexpectedly opened up, so although the lockdown may be coming to an end, perhaps the standstill should continue.

• Malcolm Bull teaches at Oxford. His latest book is On Mercy

Floyd's Brother: Trump 'Didn't Give Me The Opportunity To Even Speak' | ...





George Floyd’s brother says Trump ‘kept pushing me off’ during phone call

Philonise Floyd says president dismissed him during a phone conversation – he ‘didn’t give me a chance to even speak’

Martin Pengelly
@MartinPengelly
Published onSun 31 May 2020 14.35 BST

At the White House on Friday, Donald Trump said he had spoken to the family of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African American man who was killed during an arrest by police officers in Minneapolis this week.

“I just expressed my sorrow,” Trump said, adding “that was a horrible thing to witness” and saying it “looked like there was no excuse” for Floyd’s death.

But according to Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, the conversation did not go well, as he said Trump gave him little chance to express his views and appeared to have no interest in what he was trying to say.

“He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” Floyd told MSNBC on Saturday. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.’

“And I just told him, I want justice. I said that I couldn’t believe that they committed a modern-day lynching in broad daylight.”

The officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck has been charged with murder. Three other officers involved in the arrest have not yet been charged. Protests and riots have spread to many cities across the US.

Trump has been rebuked for responses which critics say have only increased tensions, including apparent threats to have looters shot and boasts about “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” awaiting protesters outside the White House.

Trump and the White House did not immediately comment on Philonise Floyd’s description of the call.

Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive challenger in the presidential election in November, also spoke to the family and issued a video address in which he called for calm.

“I asked Vice-President Biden – I never had to beg a man before – but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” Philonise Floyd said.

“I need it. I do not want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys. Nobody deserved that. Black folk don’t deserve that. We’re all dying.

“Black lives matter.”

Tory poll lead collapses as voters say Cummings should go / From rose garden to ridicule: how a week of disaster for Tories and Dominic Cummings unfolded



Tory poll lead collapses as voters say Cummings should go

More than two-thirds of voters want Dominic Cummings sacked and Tory lead over Labour plummets

Toby Helm political editor
Sat 30 May 2020 20.30 BSTLast modified on Sat 30 May 2020 21.45 BST

Boris Johnson is under fresh pressure to sack Dominic Cummings as a new poll shows that more than two-thirds of voters – including more than half of Tories – want him thrown out of Downing Street for breaching lockdown rules.

The survey by Opinium for the Observer shows a massive 81% think Cummings broke the rules. It also finds that support for the Conservatives is collapsing, with the party now just four points ahead of Labour, having had a commanding lead of 26 points just two months ago.

In the past week alone, the Tory lead has fallen by eight points, the largest weekly drop Opinium has recorded since 2017.

After several days in which the news has been dominated by the row over Cummings’ trip from London to Durham with his wife and child, and his refusal to apologise, public anger is laid bare by the poll. Some 68% think Cummings should resign. If he does not, 66% believe he should be sacked by Johnson.

As he stood by his adviser, Johnson said he would ultimately leave the public to make up their minds. The poll, and a petition calling for Cummings to be dismissed that has attracted over a million signatures, show where the balance of opinion lies.

Johnson also tried to blame the media for the story. But the poll finds that only 29% of people believe journalists have been unfair to Cummings.

By contrast, 67% do not believe Cummings’ explanation of what happened, spelt out in his unapologetic appearance in the Downing Street rose garden last week. People are particularly sceptical about the reasons he gave for a trip to Barnard Castle on 12 April after recovering from illness, with 72% saying they do not believe that he wanted a trial drive to see if his eyesight was good enough for the 250-mile trip back to London.

Just over half (52%) think Cummings’ actions will have damaged the fight against coronavirus, as the government tries to launch the track and trace system.

Opinium conducted its survey on Thursday and Friday after Johnson said he believed it was time for the country to “move on” from the the controversy: 41% agreed that the country should now “move on”, but a large minority (37%) said it should not – including almost a fifth (18%) of 2019 Conservative voters. Two-thirds (65%) said they believed Johnson was wrong to be still supporting Cummings – including almost half (48%) of 2019 Conservative voters. Just over two in five (43%) UK adults said they had lost respect for the government over its backing of Cummings – of which 45% voted Conservative in 2019.

The Tory lead of 4 points is the lowest since Johnson became prime minister. The Tories are down four points on last week, to 43% (two points below their figure at the general election). Labour is up 4 points, to 39%.


From rose garden to ridicule: how a week of disaster for Tories and Dominic Cummings unfolded

Boris Johnson said it was time to move on – but the public, the press and scores of his own MPs didn’t agree

Toby Helm and Robin McKie
Published onSat 30 May 2020 21.25 BST


As she looked out of her kitchen window towards a farm in the distance owned by Dominic Cummings’ parents, an elderly woman described her reaction on Friday to the story that had caused shock not just in rural County Durham, but across the whole country.

“I have isolated for 10 weeks. I have not seen my children since before Christmas,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. She lives in a pretty village across the valley, with a pond and village green, where life normally passes quietly by with few disturbances.

Over the past week, however, the peace has been broken and feelings have run high. “If there were stocks in the village, Dominic Cummings would be in them,” she said.

“There is not one single person around here who is not disgusted. Everyone is furious because we have all played fair. People haven’t been able to go to funerals, they haven’t been able to go to weddings, they haven’t been able to look after people who are dying.

If there were stocks in the village, Cummings would be in them. There is not one single person around here who is not disgusted
A Co Durham local

“I can’t go to see my friend in Barnard Castle who is dying and yet that four-letter word goes out for a trip.

“I was born in this county. I have never come across ill-feeling like this about anything. Everyone feels it is one law for us and one law for them. That is so unfair.”

It is now eight days since the Guardian and Daily Mirror broke the story of Dominic Cummings’ 264-mile journey with his wife and child from London to his parents’ home at the height of the lockdown, and much as Downing Street would love it to, the story is not going away.

Last Sunday – as the controversy began to dominate the news – the prime minister insisted that his most trusted and powerful adviser had done nothing wrong, either by travelling north or, when he was there, by taking a 60-mile round trip in the family car to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight on his wife’s birthday.

Boris Johnson’s defence of Cummings – when the evidence against him seems so clear to everyone – has angered and appalled not only the public at large, but also Tory MPs and the Tory press in equal measure.

The normally loyal Daily Mail reacted on Monday with an outraged front page headline next to photos of Cummings and Johnson, asking What Planet Are They On?

That same afternoon Cummings attempted an explanation in front of the cameras, portraying himself as a normal responsible dad who had left London because he was worried about his son.

During an extraordinary appearance in the Downing Street rose garden – normally reserved for the most important visitors – the man Johnson dare not sack was, however, completely unrepentant. He would not resign, he said, and had not at any point thought of doing so.

In response, MPs of all parties reported that anger from voters had been turned up to boiling point. And more media scorn poured down on the PM and his adviser. Proving that the story had dangerous levels of cut-though, even for a governing party with a large majority, the Daily Star broke its rule of ignoring politics on its front page by printing a cut-out mask of Cummings’ face with the words: Do whatever the hell you want and sod everybody else mask.

As the prime minister tries this weekend to get the country to “move on” from the Cummings row – and focus on his new track-and-trace plan to defeat coronavirus, while easing the lockdown slowly at the same time – that Daily Star front page precisely encapsulates his problem.

As one despairing Tory MP put it: “We can say move on and we can say let’s tackle Covid-19 together. But by staking everything on saving Dominic Cummings, we have lost the trust we desperately need to do exactly that. How can we ask people to obey lockdown rules when those at the top are seen to be doing as they want and are not obeying rules? The awful thing is that I think the damage is done.”

All last week the inboxes of Tory MPs were full to overflowing with emails from incredulous voters who could see the glaring contradiction in Johnson’s and his government’s position.

In the same press conferences, the health Secretary Matt Hancock was earnestly telling people it was their “civic duty” to self-isolate under the newly launched track-and-trace system if they had been near someone infected with Covid-19, while in the next breath defending Cummings for having done nothing wrong. “It is a complete disaster. It is not just about rule-breaking, it is the glaring contradictions that make nonsense of messages because Cummings is still in there,” said another senior Tory.

More than 100 Conservative members of parliament, afraid that they will never be forgiven by their electorates unless they condemn Cummings publicly, have now chosen to criticise him, risking the prime minister’s wrath.

The pressure on the prime minister will only mount further. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, has already relayed the extent of anger on the Conservative benches to Downing Street. But this week, the 1922 will meet after MPs return to parliament, and the issue is expected to dominate everything.

Some Conservatives are doing their best to cool the controversy. Charles Walker, vice-chair of the 1922 Committee, accepts that many are furious, but says there will be more important issues over which the government will have confront the people in months and years to come. “If people are very angry at the actions of Dominic Cummings, then that anger is probably only a harbinger of the greater rage to come when the forthcoming recession, or heaven forbid depression, starts to bite,” Walker says. “Then the actions of a worried father will be secondary to the reality of lost businesses, jobs and homes.”

Other Conservatives vainly try to claim the fuss is being whipped up by bitter and twisted leftwing and liberal Remainers who want revenge on Cummings for delivering Brexit for Johnson.

But saying that it is all politically motivated does not fit with the evidence, and most Tories know that. Our Opinium poll today shows that 81% of all voters think Cummings broke the rules, and that 52% of Tory supporters think he should resign. Almost half of 2019 Tory voters say their respect for the government they voted in has been reduced by the Cummings fiasco.

Writing in today’s Observer the Tory hardline Brexiter Peter Bone calls again for Cummings to go and dismisses the idea that it is Remainers stirring trouble. “The saga is now preventing the government from being able to get their message out clearly,” he writes. “Every announcement on changes to the lockdown rules, track and trace, and government support, is bogged down with questions about Mr Cummings.”

Bone adds: “I believe that Mr Cummings did break the rules. Now, if he had accepted that he had done something wrong, and apologised for it, as a fair-minded person, I would have thought that that would be the end of it. It is the insistence that he did not break the rules and the refusal to apologise that has outraged so many.”

On Thursday, as Johnson tried desperately to take stories about Dominic Cummings off the front pages and news bulletins, he announced his plans to ease the lockdown by allowing up to six people to meet outside or in each others’ gardens. They could enjoy barbecues together in the hot weather, he said. The announcement surprised many at high levels of government as they had not expected the loosening to be confirmed so soon. Some suspected it had been brought forward to distract from the Cummings row.

Now Johnson is facing new criticism for easing the lockdown too soon and risking a second wave of infections. As The Observer reports today, a group of 27 leading public health experts is warning that his refusal to sack Cummings, and his reliance on systems for track and trace that may not be ready, is a dangerous combination that has seriously undermined trust in government.

This incident will make this challenge even harder for the government to clearly communicate and explain lockdown rules
Shona Hilton, University of Glasgow

Other scientists add that the Cummings affair has blown a hole in the government’s messaging. Shona Hilton, professor of public health policy at the University of Glasgow, said: “In the weeks and months ahead, communicating the easing of lockdown restrictions is going to be a significant challenge requiring public trust in our leaders. This incident will make this challenge even harder for the government to clearly communicate and explain these rules. Politicians should not underestimate this challenge or take public support for granted.”

Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds University, agreed: “There has only been a very gradual decline in numbers of new cases of Covid-19 being reported each day. We are still getting them in their thousands and it is going to be very hard to test and trace new cases in those sorts of numbers. The margin for error is going to be very slight. And then Cummings does this. It was shocking. The message that we should just move on is not correct. We need to be led by example and not by allowing exceptions like this.”

Meanwhile, the Tories are falling fast in the polls. Their lead stood at 26 points over Labour at the end of March but is now down to four points. On Friday, a petition calling for Cummings to be sacked had gained over one million signatures. Our poll today shows 68% of people think he should resign and if he doesn’t 66% want Johnson to sack him. On Monday, Johnson said he had made clear his position on his adviser and that it was now up to the public to decide its view. It seems the public has now done so but, as yet, there is no sign the prime minister is listening.

Video appears to show NYPD truck plowing through crowd

If We Had a Real Leader



Opinion
If We Had a Real Leader
Imagining Covid under a normal president.

By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
May 28, 2020

This week I had a conversation that left a mark. It was with Mary Louise Kelly and E.J. Dionne on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and it was about how past presidents had handled moments of national mourning — Lincoln after Gettysburg, Reagan after the Challenger explosion and Obama after the Sandy Hook school shootings.

The conversation left me wondering what America’s experience of the pandemic would be like if we had a real leader in the White House.

If we had a real leader, he would have realized that tragedies like 100,000 Covid-19 deaths touch something deeper than politics: They touch our shared vulnerability and our profound and natural sympathy for one another.

In such moments, a real leader steps outside of his political role and reveals himself uncloaked and humbled, as someone who can draw on his own pains and simply be present with others as one sufferer among a common sea of sufferers.

If we had a real leader, she would speak of the dead not as a faceless mass but as individual persons, each seen in unique dignity. Such a leader would draw on the common sources of our civilization, the stores of wisdom that bring collective strength in hard times.

Lincoln went back to the old biblical cadences to comfort a nation. After the church shooting in Charleston, Barack Obama went to “Amazing Grace,” the old abolitionist anthem that has wafted down through the long history of African-American suffering and redemption.

In his impromptu remarks right after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy recalled the slaying of his own brother and quoted Aeschylus: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

If we had a real leader, he would be bracingly honest about how bad things are, like Churchill after the fall of Europe. He would have stored in his upbringing the understanding that hard times are the making of character, a revelation of character and a test of character. He would offer up the reality that to be an American is both a gift and a task. Every generation faces its own apocalypse, and, of course, we will live up to our moment just as our ancestors did theirs.

If we had a real leader, she would remind us of our common covenants and our common purposes. America is a diverse country joined more by a common future than by common pasts. In times of hardships real leaders re-articulate the purpose of America, why we endure these hardships and what good we will make out of them.

After the Challenger explosion, Reagan reminded us that we are a nation of explorers and that the explorations at the frontiers of science would go on, thanks in part to those who “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

At Gettysburg, Lincoln crisply described why the fallen had sacrificed their lives — to show that a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” can long endure and also to bring about “a new birth of freedom” for all the world.

Of course, right now we don’t have a real leader. We have Donald Trump, a man who can’t fathom empathy or express empathy, who can’t laugh or cry, love or be loved — a damaged narcissist who is unable to see the true existence of other human beings except insofar as they are good or bad for himself.

But it’s too easy to offload all blame on Trump. Trump’s problem is not only that he’s emotionally damaged; it is that he is unlettered. He has no literary, spiritual or historical resources to draw upon in a crisis.

All the leaders I have quoted above were educated under a curriculum that put character formation at the absolute center of education. They were trained by people who assumed that life would throw up hard and unexpected tests, and it was the job of a school, as one headmaster put it, to produce young people who would be “acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.”

Think of the generations of religious and civic missionaries, like Frances Perkins, who flowed out of Mount Holyoke. Think of all the Morehouse Men and Spelman Women. Think of all the young students, in schools everywhere, assigned Plutarch and Thucydides, Isaiah and Frederick Douglass — the great lessons from the past on how to lead, endure, triumph or fail. Only the great books stay in the mind for decades and serve as storehouses of wisdom when hard times come.

Right now, science and the humanities should be in lock step: science producing vaccines, with the humanities stocking leaders and citizens with the capacities of resilience, care and collaboration until they come. But, instead, the humanities are in crisis at the exact moment history is revealing how vital moral formation really is.

One of the lessons of this crisis is that help isn’t coming from some centralized place at the top of society. If you want real leadership, look around you.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Correction: May 29, 2020
An earlier version of this column misspelled the name of a college in Atlanta. It is Spelman College, not Spellman. It also omitted a word from a phrase in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln mentioned “the proposition that all men are created equal,” not “that all men are equal.”

David Brooks has been a columnist with The Times since 2003. He is the author of “The Road to Character” and, most recently, “The Second Mountain.” @nytdavidbrooks

Fire, pestilence and a country at war with itself: the Trump presidency is over



Fire, pestilence and a country at war with itself: the Trump presidency is over
Robert Reich

A pandemic unabated, an economy in meltdown, cities in chaos over police killings. All our supposed leader does is tweet

Published onSun 31 May 2020 06.00 BST

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J Trump is no longer president of the United States.

By having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office.

He is not governing. He’s golfing, watching cable TV and tweeting.

How has Trump responded to the widespread unrest following the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for minutes as he was handcuffed on the ground?

Trump called the protesters “thugs” and threatened to have them shot. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he tweeted, parroting a former Miami police chief whose words spurred race riots in the late 1960s.

On Saturday, he gloated about “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” awaiting protesters outside the White House, should they ever break through Secret Service lines.

In reality, Donald Trump doesn’t run the government of the United States. He doesn’t manage anything
Trump’s response to the last three ghastly months of mounting disease and death has been just as heedless. Since claiming Covid-19 was a “Democratic hoax” and muzzling public health officials, he has punted management of the coronavirus to the states.

Governors have had to find ventilators to keep patients alive and protective equipment for hospital and other essential workers who lack it, often bidding against each other. They have had to decide how, when and where to reopen their economies.

Trump has claimed “no responsibility at all” for testing and contact-tracing – the keys to containing the virus. His new “plan” places responsibility on states to do their own testing and contact-tracing.

Trump is also awol in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

More than 41 million Americans are jobless. In the coming weeks temporary eviction moratoriums are set to end in half of the states. One-fifth of Americans missed rent payments this month. Extra unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.

What is Trump’s response? Like Herbert Hoover, who in 1930 said “the worst is behind us” as thousands starved, Trump says the economy will improve and does nothing about the growing hardship. The Democratic-led House passed a $3tn relief package on 15 May. Mitch McConnell has recessed the Senate without taking action and Trump calls the bill dead on arrival.

What about other pressing issues a real president would be addressing? The House has passed nearly 400 bills this term, including measures to reduce climate change, enhance election security, require background checks on gun sales, reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and reform campaign finance. All are languishing in McConnell’s inbox. Trump doesn’t seem to be aware of any of them.

There is nothing inherently wrong with golfing, watching television and tweeting. But if that’s pretty much all that a president does when the nation is engulfed in crises, he is not a president.

Trump’s tweets are no substitute for governing. They are mostly about getting even.

When he’s not fomenting violence against black protesters, he’s accusing a media personality of committing murder, retweeting slurs about a black female politician’s weight and the House speaker’s looks, conjuring up conspiracies against himself supposedly organized by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and encouraging his followers to “liberate” their states from lockdown restrictions.

He tweets bogus threats that he has no power to carry out – withholding funds from states that expand absentee voting, “overruling” governors who don’t allow places of worship to reopen “right away”, and punishing Twitter for factchecking him.

And he lies incessantly.

In reality, Donald Trump doesn’t run the government of the United States. He doesn’t manage anything. He doesn’t organize anyone. He doesn’t administer or oversee or supervise. He doesn’t read memos. He hates meetings. He has no patience for briefings. His White House is in perpetual chaos.

His advisers aren’t truth-tellers. They’re toadies, lackeys, sycophants and relatives.

Since moving into the Oval Office in January 2017, Trump hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in governing. He obsesses only about himself.

But it has taken the present set of crises to reveal the depths of his self-absorbed abdication – his utter contempt for his job, his total repudiation of his office.

Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, he has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency.

He is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US

George Floyd's Final Moments Analyzed

First published in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, U.S., May 24, 2020 | By Steve Sack


Macron loses absolute majority in parliament



Macron loses absolute majority in parliament

The president’s La République en Marche group has lost 26 members in parliament since he was elected.

By RYM MOMTAZ 5/19/20, 11:33 AM CET Updated 5/31/20, 1:05 AM CET

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron narrowly lost his absolute majority in the lower house of parliament Tuesday, with the defection of seven MPs from his party La République en Marche.

The new group called "Ecology, Democracy, Solidarity" plans to advocate for "social and environmental justice" and will be the ninth in France's lower house of parliament. It will side "neither with the majority, nor the opposition" in parliament but rather vote depending on the issues according to the group's political statement.

A lower number of LREM MPs ended up defecting than first rumored. The new group has 17 members in total, mostly disgruntled leftist LREM MPs, including Cédric Villani who ran for Paris mayor against LREM's candidate Agnès Buzyn, as well as MP Matthieu Orphelin who is close to the former Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot.

"I am a leftist. To remain so, I must leave LREM," MP Aurélien Taché told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. He had joined Macron's ranks early on in his bid for the presidency and is said to have had a close relationship with the president.

Since the Yellow Jackets protest movement, there has been growing discontent among some members of LREM's left wing who say the president's party, that was meant to break the traditional left-right divide, ended up being more center-right than left.

The government disputes that accusation.

"The economic objective of the mandate was very clear from the start. Fiscal discipline, unblocking the economy, making the labor market more flexible. We implemented the 2017 program without ever straying from our center of gravity," government Spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye told Le Parisien newspaper.

A group needs 289 seats to have absolute majority in the lower house of parliament. LREM now has 288 members — down from 314 at the beginning of Macron's mandate — but the government retains a comfortable majority, thanks to the support of 46 MPs from allied group MoDem led by Pau Mayor Francois Bayrou.

Authors:
Rym Momtaz  rmomtaz@politico.eu

sábado, 30 de maio de 2020

Trump Threatens 'Vicious Dogs' and 'Ominous Weapons' Could Have Been Use...

Violent clashes outside White House as hundreds voice anger at police ki...

Durham police facing possible inquiry into handling of Cummings case



Durham police facing possible inquiry into handling of Cummings case

Force’s findings prompt complaints which could lead to misconduct investigation
Durham police said they might have intervened to send Dominic Cummings home had they caught him on the trip on 12 April.

Josh Halliday
Published onFri 29 May 2020 19.39 BST

Durham police is facing a possible inquiry into its handling of the Dominic Cummings saga after complaints were passed to its internal investigation team.

The force has received a number of complaints from members of the public angry at the way it dealt with Boris Johnson’s aide over his travels during lockdown.

It is understood the messages have been passed to the force’s professional standards department which is assessing whether to take matters further.

The force, one of the smallest in Britain, was thrust into the spotlight when the Guardian and Mirror revealed a week ago that Cummings drove 260 miles from London to his family property in Durham then made a second trip to a local beauty spot.

Following an investigation this week, Durham police said it believed the special adviser probably did break lockdown rules by embarking on a 52-mile round trip to the town of Barnard Castle with his wife and son on her birthday.

Officers might have intervened to send him home had they caught him on the trip on 12 April, or fined him if he refused, the report said.

Its investigation also concluded that Cummings did not break health protection regulations by making the 260-mile trip to Durham with his son and wife, who had coronavirus symptoms, though it made no finding in relation to the “stay at home” government guidance.

The force’s findings have been met with anger in some quarters, prompting several emailed complaints which were then passed on to its professional standards department as is protocol. The complaints were first revealed by the Telegraph on Friday.

The nature of the complaints is not known. The force’s findings published on Thursday prompted anger both from people who believe Cummings did break the law and those who believe the force should never have retrospectively investigated the matter.

A Durham constabulary spokesman said: “There is currently no investigation into the force’s handling of this inquiry.”

The professional standards department could decide to take matters further if it believes there is enough evidence to warrant a misconduct investigation. Such investigations have the authority to seize documents, interview witnesses and even arrest serving police officers.

A spokeswoman for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said no referral had been made to it from Durham police and therefore it was not conducting any investigation.

Cummings has denied any wrongdoing and said the journey to Barnard Castle on 12 April, Easter Sunday, was to test his eyesight. The prime minister and cabinet continued to stand by him on Friday.

Why is Dominic Cummings so important to Boris Johnson?

Trump threatens White House protesters with 'vicious dogs and most ominous weapons'




Trump threatens White House protesters with 'vicious dogs and most ominous weapons'
Alex WoodwardNew York
14 minutes ago

Donald Trump has threatened people protesting the death of George Floyd with "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" if they had breached the fence outside the White House, where members of the US Secret Service are "waiting for action".

In a Twitter thread posted after another night of protests and uprisings against police brutality across the US, the president suggested that US Secret Service members look forward to inflicting violence.

He also appeared to encourage counter protests, promoting "MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE".

The president said: "The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That's when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. 'We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and ... good practice."

His posts also appeared to try to undermine protesters calling for justice in the wake of killings of black men by police by saying that the US Secret Service (which he appraised as "not only totally professional, but very cool") had "let the 'protesters' scream [and] rant as much as they wanted" but "whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard — didn’t know what hit them."

Now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with murder on Friday following the killing of Mr Floyd four days earlier, when video captured Mr Chauvin kneeling into the neck of Mr Floyd for several minutes while he cried out that he couldn't breathe.

His death and the delay to place the officers at the scene in custody galvanised an uproar across the US as communities raged against police killings of black Americans and people of colour.

The president doubled down on his warning that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" — which Twitter had censored for the company's rules about messages promoting or glorifying violence — by claiming he was saying "it was spoken as a fact, not as a statement".

"It's very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media," he said on Friday.

For more than five hours that night, dozens of protesters reached the barriers in front of the White House, which was initially placed in lock down, and pushed up to face riot shields and Secret Service members.

Protestors managed to break through barricades, which were frequently replaced, as police fired pepper spray into crowds and thousands of other residents protested throughout Washington DC.

Mayor scolds violent protestors: Not in the spirit of MLK



Atlanta
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms addresses the protests outside the CNN Center over
the death of George Floyd.

Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields addresses the death of George Floyd

Atlanta police chief says 'black lives being diminished' as Floyd protests grow / VIDEO: Police Chief: "You're a real cold son of a b---h"




Atlanta police chief says 'black lives being diminished' as Floyd protests grow

Erika Shields says reaction is understandable after angry demonstrators took to the streets

Martin Farrer
Published onSat 30 May 2020 04.43 BST

Atlanta’s police chief said on Friday night she understood the anger of African American communities across the United States over the repeated deaths of black men at the hands of police forces in the county.

“Whether it’s by police or other individuals, the reality is we’ve diminished the value on their life,” Erika Shields said.

Speaking as protests raged across American cities over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and angry demonstrators took to the streets of Atlanta, Shields added the events in Minnesota were “appalling.”

Tensions in Atlanta have been running high since the the death of Ahmaud Arbery at the hands of two white men in the state of Georgia in February.

The city saw large protests on Friday night with crowds smashing windows at CNN headquarters.

“It’s a recurring narrative. We keep having this over and over,” Shields said.

Asked how police departments across the country could do better, Shields said: “The key is training and weeding out bad cops especially when you a see a pattern of bad behaviour. I think it’s getting engaged with people and getting feedback in real time … Body-worn cameras have been tremendous, because they have shown us how a person is behaving when other people aren’t around. It has taken the grey area out when we’re dealing with complaints.”

After hours of peaceful protest in downtown Atlanta on Friday, some demonstrators turned violent, smashing police cars, setting one on fire, spray-painting the logo sign at CNN headquarters, and breaking into a restaurant.

The crowd pelted officers with bottles, chanting “Quit your jobs”.

Demonstrators ignored police demands to disperse. Some protesters moved to the city’s major interstate thoroughfare to try to block traffic.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta’s mayor, addressed the protesters at a news conference: “This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. You are disgracing our city.

“You are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country. We are better than this. We are better than this as a city. We are better than this as a country. Go home, go home.”

Bottoms was flanked by rappers TI and Killer Mike, as well as King’s daughter, Bernice King. Killer Mike cried as he spoke.

“We have to be better than this moment. We have to be better than burning down our own homes. Because if we lose Atlanta what have we got?” he said.

After Bottoms appealed for calm, the violence continued. More cars were set on fire, a Starbucks was smashed up, the windows of the College Football Hall of Fame were broken, and the Omni Hotel was vandalised.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

‘Trump Whisperer’ Explains How She Gets Inside Trump’s Head For Videos |...

Brussels and Berlin reach deal on Lufthansa bailout / Link climate pledges to €26bn airline bailout, say Europe's greens / Boost for rail travel and clean mobility in EU recovery plan

Brussels and Berlin reach deal on Lufthansa bailout
Airline to give up lucrative slots at Munich, Frankfurt airports.

By JOSHUA POSANER 5/30/20, 9:01 AM CET Updated 5/30/20, 10:13 AM CET

BERLIN — Lufthansa has agreed to give up take-off and landing slots at its Munich and Frankfurt hub airports in exchange for EU approval for a €9 billion bailout from the German government.

The deal heads off a dispute between Brussels and Berlin over plans to save the country’s prized airline from the impacts of the economic crisis.

A European Commission official said Saturday morning that “commitments proposed by Germany to preserve effective competition” had paved the way for a deal on the mega bailout — the largest airline rescue announced so far.

Earlier this week, Lufthansa said it could not immediately approve the proposed government bailout due to the terms being imposed during preliminary talks with the Commission. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to have pledged a “tough fight” should EU officials try to water down Lufthansa’s position in the European aviation market in exchange for allowing the government aid.

In a statement published Saturday morning, Lufthansa said that “the scope of the conditions required in the EU Commission’s view has been reduced in comparison with initial indications.”

Under the terms of the deal, the airline said it will transfer a limited number of slots to European competitors, with those slots initially only available to new entrants at the Frankfurt and Munich airports.

A Commission spokesperson told POLITICO the deal includes “commitments from Lufthansa to make available certain slots and assets at Frankfurt and Munich airports once the airports become congested again, and enable a viable entry or expansion of activities by other airlines at these airports to the benefit of consumers and effective competition.”

The EU executive said it will now “assess Germany’s notification as a matter of priority.”

Under the terms of the bailout, the German government will take a 20 percent stake in Lufthansa and the option to increase that by an additional 5 percent. Berlin has pledged to sell its stake as soon as the company is back on its feet.

Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email pro@politico.eu to request a complimentary trial.

Authors:
Joshua Posaner


Link climate pledges to €26bn airline bailout, say Europe's greens

Environment groups insist conditions must be attached to Covid-19 rescue plan for sector

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Thu 30 Apr 2020 11.57 BSTLast modified on Thu 30 Apr 2020 12.31 BST

Air France has obtained €7bn in loans and loan guarantees from the French government acording to the airline bailout tracker compiled by Carbon Market Watch, Greenpeace, and Transport & Environment.
Airlines are seeking €26bn (£22.7bn) in state aid to deal with the economic fallout from coronavirus, according to environmental campaigners, who accuse governments of failing to attach binding climate conditions to negotiations.

Air France, which has obtained €7bn in loans and loan guarantees from the French government, and Lufthansa, currently negotiating a €9bn rescue package with Berlin, top the charts in the airline bailout tracker compiled by Carbon Market Watch, Greenpeace, and Transport & Environment.

European governments have formally agreed €11.5bn in financial aid for airlines , including a £600m loan from the UK Treasury and Bank of England for EasyJet. A further €14.6bn is under discussion, including £500m Richard Branson is seeking from the British government to aid Virgin Atlantic.

The industry is grappling with a massive fall in demand: air travel is at a near standstill, with no end in sight, owing to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

Some governments are seeking to attach strings to rescue plans. France’s minister for ecological transition, Élisabeth Borne, insisted Air France was not getting “a blank cheque”. The government has set “ecological commitments”, she said, including a 50% reduction in carbon emissions on domestic flights by 2024, as well as investing in more fuel-efficient planes.

Austria’s prime minister, Sebastian Kurz, announced his government would not help Lufthansa’s Austrian Airways operation without getting something in return, such as securing jobs in his country; while the vice-chancellor, Werner Kogler, has said he would “assume” a rescue would only happen with green conditions.


Campaigners claim none of the green strings agreed so far are binding, also pointing out that France has not set conditions on Air France’s non-domestic flights, which account for the majority of its emissions. “France’s green requests are a first but we had non-binding commitments for years and airline pollution ballooned,” said Andrew Murphy at Transport & Environment. “Marginally more efficient planes won’t put a dent in emissions if airlines still burn fossil fuels that they buy tax-free.”

The data emerged after a majority of European Union members called for a relaxation of air-passenger rights. At a virtual meeting of EU transport ministers on Wednesday evening, Germany, Spain and Romania added their voices to a statement signed by a dozen countries earlier in the day calling for an urgent change to EU rules, so airlines can reimburse cancelled tickets with vouchers, rather than cash.

The member states argued that the requirement of the 2004 EU regulation to reimburse cancelled flights in cash is adding to airlines’ cash-flow problems.

The European commissioner for transport, Adina Vălean, however, has previously said airlines can only offer vouchers if passengers accept them. Meanwhile, other member states voiced opposition to the plan, arguing it would “frustrate the legitimate expectations of passengers” according to a statement released after the meeting.




Boost for rail travel and clean mobility in EU recovery plan
29 May 2020

'A boost for rail travel and clean mobility in our cities and regions’ is included in the proposals for a major post-coronavirus recovery plan set out by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

EUROPE: ‘A boost for rail travel and clean mobility in our cities and regions’ is included in the proposals for a major post-coronavirus recovery plan for the European Union set out by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on May 27.

This includes changes to the €1·1tr Multiannual Financial Framework budget for 2021-27, and plans for a Next Generation EU recovery plan which would provide an additional €750bn on top of the MFF.

The Commission’s proposals will now be subject to negotiations between the EU member states and the European Parliament.

The Commission expects the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis to vary between sectors, with transport to be hit particularly hard. The recovery strategy encompasses the European Green Deal, with a commitment from industry to invest in cleaner and more sustainable mobility expected in return for support for recovery in the transport sector.

Plans to help create jobs will include a focus on accelerating the production and deployment of sustainable vehicles and alternative fuels, while the Connecting Europe Facility would be increased by €1·5bn to €14·521bn to help support the financing of sustainable infrastructure and a shift to clean urban travel.

Rail industry response
The Community of European Railway & Infrastructure Companies welcomed the announcement, but called for ‘greater detail and ambition’ to promote an overall shift to sustainable transport.

‘CER believes that the recovery instrument proposed by the Commission should enable movement towards green mobility, and ensure that the improvements in air quality for cities are maintained’, said Executive Director Libor Lochman. ‘CER therefore calls upon the European Council in its discussions on the Multiannual Financial Framework and recovery fund to reinforce public transport such as rail to match citizens’ ambition for a more sustainable society.’

The AllRail association of non-incumbent operators also broadly welcomed the announcement, but noted that there was a risk that public support could distort competition and jeopardise benefits gained from market opening, financial transparency and non-discrimination.

‘There is the risk that such a package could provide unfair advantages to state-owned companies, as we are witnessing already with DB in Germany’, the association explained. ‘Any recovery package for passenger rail must be fair; plans should consider all passenger rail companies, including those that are privately owned and therefore particularly vulnerable in this crisis. It should not permanently alter the structure of markets, possibly encouraging a return of monopolistic concentrations.’

AllRail warned that the potential bankruptcy of private passenger operators would put the goals of the Fourth Railway Package’s market pillar ‘out of reach forever’.

The European Rail Freight Association said it supported the allocation of an extra €1·5bn to the Connecting Europe Facility, as this is ‘crucial’ for completing transport infrastructure in general and rail freight corridors in particular. ERFA said digitalisation and technology such as automated couplings and ETCS which assist the entire sector should also be a high priority for funding.

Rail freight association Ferrmed called for the recovery plan to be managed directly by the Commission and implemented strictly according to socio-economic and environmental criteria, in order to obtain the best ‘investment to results ratio’ which ‘has largely not been met by the actions taken by member states to date’.

Ferrmed said it was necessary to end ‘once and for all’ investments of ‘a political or extravagant nature’, and instead act ‘where there really is traffic and not where the socioeconomic and, particularly, environmental impact is negligible’.

Suppliers’ association UNIFE welcomed the inclusion of ‘green and digital transitions’ as a guiding principle.

Suppliers’ association UNIFE welcomed the inclusion of ‘green and digital transitions’ as a guiding principle. It would continue to advocate for rail to have a key role in the Green Deal, and would monitor the inclusion of rail in EU member states’ national recovery and resilience planning.

UNIFE also said that from the European manufacturers’ point of view, it is important that the European Commission also made a reference to reinforced screening of foreign direct investment.