Justice

It isn’t often that we see a New York Times paragraph so freighted with syrup and honeyed goo, but there it was on Sunday afternoon, like something you’d order at IHOP to beat back a hangover: “Soaring more than 50 miles into the hot, glaringly bright skies above New Mexico, Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.” Better lede: “Fulfilling his desire to beat a fellow billionaire into the lowest verge of space, notorious tax cheat Richard Branson burned some of the money he owes his home country in order to fling himself past the troposphere so he could experience weightlessness for as much time as it takes to make a decent bowel movement. An achievement that will go down in corporate history, Branson now holds bragging rights over the guy whose monopolies are eating the economy alive.” Not what I’d call the right stuff.

Poet and writer Langston Hughes, famous for his elucidations of black American life in his poems, stories, autobiographies, and histories, was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1901 or 1902. Langston...

Environment & Health New COVID Variants Threaten to Make Pandemic Permanent Economy & Labor COVID Relief Packages Dramatically Reduced Poverty. They Should Be Permanent. Economy & Labor Predatory Banks at Walmarts Made Over 100 Percent of Profits From Overdraft Fees Environment & Health Biden to Set Goal for Half of All Vehicle Sales to Be Electric by 2030 Environment & Health MO Coroner Says He Alters Death Certificates If Families Dislike COVID Inclusion Environment & Health Biden Made Big Compromises on Climate — and Movements That Backed Him Are Livid My work days move to the sound of McCoy Tyner’s mastery pouring out of the Pandora app on the television. Every so often, and always against my better judgment, I’ll flip to one of the alphabet soup “news” networks to get an update on how screwed we are. They seldom disappoint, which is to say they always do, and I flee back to the piano of the gods at speed. Lately, however, those forays to CNN or MSNBC have been fraught with a special sort of gall. In between the litany of doom that is the average break-to-break broadcast, they’ve been showing wall to wall commercials congratulating viewers on COVID being over. “It’s been a long year, but now that things are getting back to normal…” intones one, followed by another announcing “We made it!” The imagery is all sunrises and maskless couples noshing pasta in crowded restaurants, everyone wreathed in smiles and presumably vaccinated… …and then the broadcast begins again: “Good morning, I’m Fippy Fuzznerf sitting in for Ankles McGee, and here are our top stories. There were more than 96,000 new cases of COVID-19 recorded yesterday alone, a two-week increase of 131 percent. Around the world, known cases of COVID have surpassed 4 million infections. Scientists credit the dramatic infection spike in this country to the national dominance of the highly contagious Delta variant, and to the fact that millions of Americans still refuse to accept vaccination. Leading COVID expert Anthony Fauci anticipates we may see as many as 200,000 new infections per day until this new spike recedes, or until enough people have gotten vaccinated. We’ll be right back after these messages.” “…Now that the pandemic is over, isn’t it time to start planning your special vacation at last? At BookYourCrap.com, we have all the tools you need to organize the trip you’ve been dreaming about for a year…” Sigh. Thanks to the incredible bungling of this crisis for vital months by the Trump administration, that last horse appears to have left the barn. “Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term ‘herd immunity’ came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives,” reports The New York Times. “Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.” There were more than 96,000 new cases of COVID-19 recorded yesterday alone, a two-week increase of 131 percent. Of course, it is not all gloom and shadows at this juncture. The number of people dying from COVID has plummeted, thanks almost entirely to the vaccines. Vaccination rates are ever so incrementally on the rise. Those who are vaccinated currently face a very low chance of enduring a virus “breakthrough” which infects them, and those who do become infected have a much, much lower chance of hospitalization. The vaccines are not seamless, a small percentage of people who got the shot(s) are still getting damn sick, but the drear finality of mass death at the end of a ventilator tube has receded dramatically for the time being. If that were the whole story, I would just put on my mask and bend my shoulder to the task of convincing as many people as possible to get vaccinated. I will still do so every single day, but there are weevils in this loaf that threaten to ruin all the progress we have made so far. Delta, you see, is not the only variant. New ones — specifically named Epsilon and Lambda — have emerged, and early research indicates these new breeds of COVID might be far more effective at breaching our vaccine defenses than Delta. “The Epsilon and Lambda variants of COVID-19 are ‘variants of interest,’ according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and early studies show they have developed a resistance to vaccines,” reports NJ.com. “Japanese researchers found the Lambda variant, which was initially discovered in Peru and is now spreading throughout South America, is highly transmissible and more resistant to vaccines than the initial COVID-19 strain…. Meanwhile, the Epsilon variant that was initially discovered in California in 2020 is spreading in Pakistan and is proving to be resistant to vaccines, according to researchers.” The current national conversation on COVID is not broad enough. It is essential to get millions more vaccinated — it’s an absolute top priority — but we must also recognize that we’ve let this thing burn for so long that it appears to be on the edge of evolving beyond our defenses. A virus evolves within its host at an astonishing rate. Every new host gives COVID a chance to concoct a variant with the ability to turn our vaccines into white wine spritzer, and as noted, there were almost 100,000 new infections yesterday in this country alone. The variant that partly defies our vaccines may have already emerged in the form of Epsilon or Lambda, but the research on those two has only begun. The Law of Large Numbers strongly suggests the emergence of a more strongly vaccine-resistant variant is going to happen sooner or later, and thanks to our bungled response for the first year of the crisis — and to the ongoing intransigence of millions who disdain science because it makes Donald Trump look bad — the rise of such a circumstance is all but inevitable. The TV commercials are peddling an alluring fiction, but the facts are difficult to dispute: This thing is not over, and the way matters are going, it may never be over. The wolf is through the door, and the feeding is fine indeed. Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Employees of McDonald's march on the street as they protest for a raise in their minimum wage to $15 an hour, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 19, 2021.CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images Janine Jackson: “We all quit.” A very good Motherboard story about fast food, retail and hospitality workers resigning from their jobs nevertheless began by telling readers that they “may have seen photos of it go viral,” or “may have even experienced it in real life, if you’ve dined at a Chili’s or Applebee’s, and the hostess apologizes for the extra-long wait times.” A source in The New York Times explains that it’s “not about the wages of college grads going up — it’s about the wages of lifeguards at my pool.”

A federal bankruptcy judge has dismissed the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) bankruptcy claims, filed in Texas despite the organization being based in New York, for being a blatant attempt to avoid litigation over its mishandling of donor funds for the past several decades. The ruling is considered a huge blow to the gun rights organization, as it allows a lawsuit filed against the group in its home state to move forward unimpeded.

If you are part of the two million people who live in public housing, your situation involving marijuana isn’t that much different than those living in apartments or rental houses across...

Since the advent of neoliberalism 40 years ago, societies virtually all over the world have undergone profound economic, social and political transformations. At its most basic function, neoliberalism represents the rise of a market-dominated world economic regime and the concomitant decline of the social state. Yet, the truth of the matter is that neoliberalism cannot survive without the state, as leading progressive economist Robert Pollin argues in the interview that follows. However, what is unclear is whether neoliberalism represents a new stage of capitalism that engenders new forms of politics, and, equally important, what comes after neoliberalism. Pollin tackles both of these questions in light of the political implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, as most governments have implemented a wide range of monetary and fiscal measures in order to address economic hardships and stave off a recession.

The Biden administration punted on key demands from Indigenous leaders to tear down hydroelectric dams hindering salmon. But tribes won control over $1 billion for other salmon efforts. When the Biden administration...

Millions of people fear they are likely to be evicted from their homes within the next two months as a growing housing crisis threatens to explode during the fourth wave of the COVID pandemic. Only a fraction of the emergency rental relief approved by Congress has been distributed. Advocates say relief programs are marred by red tape and bureaucratic delays, raising fears that the aid will not reach struggling renters before an already flimsy federal eviction moratorium expires in October.

On Sunday, many Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities boycotted President Biden’s virtual Eid celebration. We play a statement of solidarity from legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis on Sunday for “Eid with Palestine: A Protest of the White House Eid Event.” Davis also co-wrote piece for The Nation with our guest Noura Erakat about how Erakat’s 26-year-old cousin Ahmad Erekat was shot by Israeli occupation forces after his car appeared to have accidentally crashed into a booth at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank while he was on the way to pick up his mother and sister on her wedding day. Erakat says Israel still refuses to release his body to his family. “All Palestinians are deemed a threat for their mere existence,” says Erakat. “What we see happen to Ahmad has been a pattern.”