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PBC News & Comment: Covid Response Reveals Economic Caste System

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