Tag Archives: coronavirus

‘They Pointed Guns at My Kids’: Outrage After Florida Cops Raid Home of Scientist Who Refused to Censor Covid-19 Data 

‘They Pointed Guns at My Kids’: Outrage After Florida Cops Raid Home of Scientist Who Refused to Censor Covid-19 Data

“DeSantis needs to worry less about what I’m writing about and more about the people who are sick and dying.”

By Julia Conley

Data scientist Rebekah Jones on Monday evening assured Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that she would not stop reporting accurate information about the coronavirus pandemic in the state, despite a raid by state authorities at Jones’s home Monday morning which she says was aimed at silencing her. 

Jones shared a video of state police entering her home with guns drawn while her children and husband were upstairs, saying the authorities pointed the weapons at her family while executing a search warrant in regards to an unauthorized message that was allegedly sent by Jones to the state Department of Health (DOH). 

Jones, who says she was ousted from her job at the DOH in May after refusing to manipulate Covid-19 case numbers in order to gather public support for reopening the state economy, was accused of sending a message to her former DOH colleagues, calling on them to speak out about the DeSantis administration’s disinformation. 

“If DeSantis thought pointing a gun in my face was a good way to get me to shut up, he’s about to learn just how wrong he was,” Jones tweeted Monday night. “I’ll have a new computer tomorrow. And then I’m going to get back to work.”

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the agents seized several devices from Jones’ home as part of an investigation into a message she allegedly sent on November 10 using the state government’s communications platform.

The alleged message read, “Time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead… You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”

In an interview Monday night with Chris Cuomo on CNN, Jones denied gaining access to the communications platform, saying she is “not a hacker.”

 

“Pretty sure if I was gonna go through the trouble of learning how to hack, then hacking DOH of all places, I’d be damn sure to get the death count right,” she added in an interview with MSNBC. At the time the alleged text was sent, 17,460 people in Florida had died of Covid-19, but the DOH reported 17,248 deaths. 

Jones told Cuomo that she has no reason to reach out to former colleagues at the DOH, saying, “I, better than anyone, know that people at DOH aren’t going to [come forward].”

“If they didn’t come out before, when I warned everybody that DeSantis would and eventually he did get people killed, they’re not going to come out now,” Jones said.

 

Before being reportedly pushed out of her job in May, Jones designed and managed the state’s Covid-19 dashboard. She told the press that she was ordered to”manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen” and said she was forced out when she refused.

At the time of her dismissal, 46,442 Floridians had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and 1,997 had died. More than 850 new cases were reported in the state as the DeSantis administration launched Phase 1 of its reopening, allowing fitness centers, retail stores, and restaurants to operate at 50% capacity.

Just over a month later, the state was forced to reverse some of its reopening plans as Covid-19 cases surged. 

Since leaving the DOH, Jones has been reporting daily cases in school districts across the U.S. at TheCovidMonitor.com. 

“DeSantis needs to worry less about what I’m writing about and more about the people who are sick and dying,” Jones told CNN on Monday. “Doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data. Ever.”

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Source: ‘They Pointed Guns at My Kids’: Outrage After Florida Cops Raid Home of Scientist Who Refused to Censor Covid-19 Data | Common Dreams News

 

 

 

 

‘This Is Unacceptable’: Trump Administration Says Millions May Have to Wait 5 Months to Receive $1,200 Relief Check

‘This Is Unacceptable’: Trump Administration Says Millions May Have to Wait 5 Months to Receive $1,200 Relief Check

“That’s not even remotely fast enough for the millions of working people who have seen their hours slashed, their expenses rise, and their government refuse to take sufficient action.”

By Jake Johnson

More than 10 million Americans lost their jobs last month and are in desperate need of immediate financial assistance amid the coronavirus crisis, but the Trump administration said in a draft plan circulated internally Thursday that people who do not have direct deposit information on file with the IRS—a group that is disproportionately low-income—may have to wait until September to receive the one-time $1,200 payment authorized under the latest stimulus.

The IRS said in the draft plan that it intends to start sending electronic payments by late next week to those with direct deposit information on file from their 2018 or 2019 tax returns, the Washington Post reported.

“As people lose their jobs, we can’t leave them in the cold while big corporations easily access their bailout money.”
—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“However, $30 million in paper checks for millions of other Americans won’t start being sent out until April 24, as the government lacks their banking information,” according to the Post. “And some of those checks won’t reach people until September, the document shows, underscoring the reality that many Americans could have to wait five months to receive their checks.”

During a press briefing Thursday evening, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin—who just last week dismissed surging unemployment as “not relevant”—promised that Americans without direct deposit information on file will soon be able to access a “web portal” to provide their banking details to the IRS.

Patricia McLaughlin, a Treasury Department spokesperson, told the Post that “the overwhelming majority of eligible Americans” will receive stimulus payments within the next three weeks, but progressive lawmakers and advocates are warning that millions of vulnerable people—including those living on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and veteran pensions—could fall through the cracks.

“This is unacceptable,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of the possible five-month delay in an email to supporters late Thursday. “That not even remotely fast enough for the millions of working people who have seen their hours slashed, their expenses rise, and their government refuse to take sufficient action.”

“This lockdown could last for months,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “As people lose their jobs, we can’t leave them in the cold while big corporations easily access their bailout money.”

Others similarly raised alarm about the IRS’ estimated timeline, which experts warn could be derailed by technical glitches.

“This is such a stupid disaster. We did not have to have mass unemployment,” tweeted New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo. “The policy response could have been to have the government pay companies’ payroll, like European countries are doing. Instead we’re letting people lose their jobs and sending them too-small checks too late.”

The Washington Post reported that the IRS draft plan “would distribute paper checks to the lowest-income Americans first, prioritizing payments for individual taxpayers with incomes of $10,000 or less on April 24.”

“Checks for earners of $20,000 or less would be in the mail May 1, followed by those with incomes of $30,000 on May 8, $40,000 on May 15, and continuing in income increments of $10,000 each week,” according to the Post. “The IRS plans to issue about 5 million checks each week.”

Late Wednesday, the Trump administration reversed policy guidance that would have required millions of Social Security recipients to file a tax return in order to receive their payments. However, critics said the reversal needlessly leaves out many SSI recipients and veterans, potentially causing massive delays in payments.

“The president appears more interested in putting his name on the check than getting it to Americans as quickly as possible.”
—Aaron Klein, Brookings Institution

“These are important members of our communities living with additional burdens in this pandemic,” Chuck Marr, senior director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “There’s no reason to add to that burden by making them navigate filing a tax return when their government has all it needs to deposit a rebate in their bank account.”

As millions of people worry about payment delays, many others—including high school seniors, college students, and immigrant families—have learned in recent days that they are not eligible for the one-time $1,200 payments, which are part of a massive stimulus package President Donald Trump signed into law last Friday.

Aaron Klein, a fellow in economics studies at the Brookings Institution, estimated Tuesday that around 70 million Americans “are likely to have to wait at least another month, or more,” to receive their stimulus payment because they didn’t owe taxes—and thus did not file a return—in 2018 or 2019, or they did not use direct deposit for their tax refund.

“Despite being the largest economy on earth we lack both government run real-time payments and universal bank accounts, systems common among developed countries,” Klein noted. “Americans shouldn’t have to wait for Congress to act. Federal bank regulators have substantial authority to fix these problems. The Federal Reserve could require all checks under $5,000 to be immediately available to consumers, a power Congress delegated in the 1980s.”

“Ultimately, where there is a will, there is a way,” Klein wrote. “The president appears more interested in putting his name on the check than getting it to Americans as quickly as possible. The response to COVID is exposing a lot of problems ignored for too long. Add our basic banking and payment systems to this growing list.”

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Source: ‘This Is Unacceptable’: Trump Administration Says Millions May Have to Wait 5 Months to Receive $1,200 Relief Check | Common Dreams News

‘Government Needs to Step In’: Food Banks Across US Report Unprecedented Demand—and Shortages—as Coronavirus Pandemic Ravages 

‘Government Needs to Step In’: Food Banks Across US Report Unprecedented Demand—and Shortages—as Coronavirus Pandemic Ravages

“We’re seeing people from every socio-economic level because the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.”

By Julia Conley

As 6.6 million Americans filed jobless claims last week—part of at least 10 million people in the U.S. who are out of work in the last two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic—increasingly long lines at food banks across the country offered another grim illustration of the financial realities faced by the poor and working classes in the United States.

According to an investigation by The Guardian, demand at food banks has increased by eight times in some areas. About a third of people interviewed by the outlet at food banks last month had never before needed food assistance. 

Kristin Warzocha, CEO of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, said the trend was not surprising considering the precarious circumstances working Americans are accustomed to living in, with 78% of workers living paycheck to paycheck and 45% reporting that they have no savings account.

“We’re seeing people from every socio-economic level because the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck,” Warzocha told The Guardian.

The coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, spread to every state in the U.S. in March and drove governments in 38 states to direct nearly 300 million people to stay home—forcing businesses across the country to close and lay off or furlough workers.

In Cleveland, The Guardian spoke with first-time food bank visitors including a freelance photographer, a woman who worked in the hospitality industry, and a cab driver.

At St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Arizona, spokesman Jerry Brown reported that “people who knew about us because they donated or volunteered are coming in for food.”

“The 2008 recession doesn’t touch this,” Brown told The Guardian. “It’s a different ballgame.”

On social media, a number of media outlets detailed unprecedented demand and supply shortages at food banks in Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania—where Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photographer Andrew Rush posted an aerial view of hundreds of cars lined up outside the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne.

The food bank in Greater Pittsburgh reported it received more than 1,000 calls from people in need of assistance in the past two weeks. Ninety percent of the calls were from people who were newly unemployed.

In Massachusetts, a pantry in Amherst distributed 849% more food in March than it did last year.

The high demand at the nation’s food banks comes as some Americans await a means-tested one-time payment of $1,200 per adult—a figure that is projected to last the average household less than two weeks in the midst of a crisis that could go on for several months.

In order to support the rising number of Americans facing job loss and food-insecurity, Kellie O’Connell of the Lakeview pantry in Chicago told The Guardian, the federal government must take responsibility for ensuring working people in the wealthiest country in the world don’t go hungry. 

“Philanthropy and not-for-profits are not going to be able to meet food demands,” O’Connell said. “The government needs to step in.”

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Source: ‘Government Needs to Step In’: Food Banks Across US Report Unprecedented Demand—and Shortages—as Coronavirus Pandemic Ravages | Common Dreams News