Politics. Marijuana. Science. COVID-19.

Lets start with the first. Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race. Though he plans to remain on the ballots of the remaining primary states, hes effectively suspended his campaign.

Joe Biden, in response, promptly extended an impassioned 800-word olive branch to Senator Sanders and his supporters, recognizing both for shaping important political dialogue. Issues which had been given little attention or little hope of ever passing are now at the center of the political debate, Biden wrote. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to.

Biden took it one step further and committing to include Bernie and his ideals as part of his administration stating, Ill be reaching out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

At the same time, legions of devout Bernie supporters dubbed Bernie Bros remain doubtful any radical platform adoption will take form. All this has set the stage for what could be a powerfully unifying shift were Biden to reconsider his current stance on federal marijuana legalization, which remains an illicit drug at the federal level despite being medically legalized by 33 states, of which 11 also allowing for adult-use consumption.

Senator Bernie Sanders has pledged to use his power as president to legalize cannabis via executive order within his first 100 days on the job, should he be elected. His plan was unveiled at 4:20 PM EST last October, and includes plans to vacate and expunge all past marijuana-related convictions in his platform proposal by creating an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in the White House.

A big part of his marijuana plan includes reinvestment it into the marginalized, largely minority, communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, provisioning that "federal funding will be provided to states and cities to partner with organizations that can help develop and operate the expungement determination process."

Sanders plan would allot $50 billion in tax revenue generated from the sale of legal marijuana and for these equalizing and reparation measures, $20 billion of which would be used to "provide grants to entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital." Three additional $10 billion sums would be apportioned to funds or grants that aid businesses or communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.

Keeping Big Pharma and Big Tobacco from dominating a newly opened marijuana market is another essential part of Bernies federal legal marijuana approach. Companies who have formerly created cancer-causing products or have been found guilty of deceptive marketing would be banned from the industry, as would tobacco and cigarette.

To prevent marijuana market oligopolies taking form as they have in some already legal states (most notably Florida and California), market share and franchise caps will be put in place to prevent profiteering and consolidation under the Senators plan. [A]s we move toward the legalization of marijuana, I dont want large corporations profiting, he said in an interview on Showtimes Desus & Mero.

Last November, the former vice president replied to a town hall question that although he supports allowing states to determine their own marijuana policies, he is unconvinced on the science recognizing the plants relationship to other drugs. "The truth of the matter is, there has not been nearly enough evidence acquired as to whether or not it's a gateway drug," he declared.

Though Biden opposes legalization on the federal level, he has declared that anyone incarcerated for marijuana should be released and have their criminal records expunged of any marijuana charges. Biden also supports removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I drugs where it sits out-of-place alongside a motley of drugs deemed to have zero medicinal value. He proposes moving it to the Schedule II category, making the plant more easily accessible to research.

See Also: Will COVID-19 Cause The US Government To Finally Treat Cannabis As A Medicine?

While thats not nearly full federal legalization, it would be significantly more progressive than the decades-old laws marijuana finds itself trapped by today. It also illustrates some semblance of reason; no one truly believes marijuana belongs in the same drug classification as heroin, and Biden would be the first president to acknowledge and enable the medicinal value of marijuana.

But he can go a step further, and more modern, well-studied marijuana advocates can lead him there. Research already exists that correlations between marijuana and other drug use have been weakened by studies that show quite the opposite. Cannabis access has been found to be associated with reduced rates of opioid use and abuse, opioid-related hospitalizations, opioid-related traffic fatalities, opioid-related drug treatment admissions, and opioid-related overdose deaths.

A 2020 study by the Journal of Palliative Medicine found that the addition of medical marijuana to cancer patients' palliative (pain reductive) care regimen withstood the development of tolerance and reduced the rate of opioid use, over a significantly longer follow-up period than patients solely utilizing opioids. Another 2020 study found a significant reduction in opioid consumption for pain following traumatic injury when supplemented with oral synthetic THC, while opioid consumption was unchanged for controls.

Gateway Drug, it can be reliably argued, is more dated political rallying cry than modern thoughtful analysis. The marijuana research is there, Joe Biden just needs credible exposure to it.

We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said of marijuana in a globally-broadcast confession nearly seven years ago. It was a 180-degree about-face from the op-ed he wrote for Time Magazine in 2009 entitled Why I Would Vote No On Pot.

For the first time, Dr. Gupta had been exposed to the medicinal properties of cannabis, and in what would become a timeless story with rippling effects, it was a little girl who got him there.

Charlotte Figi became the nations arguably greatest exposure to the benefits of CBD oil after using it to control the constant seizures experienced from her severe Dravet syndrome at age 5. The Colorado girl experienced up to 300 grand mal seizures per week and used a wheelchair, before using CBD drastically reduced her rate of seizures.

Dr. Guptas interviews with Charlottes family, cannabis researchers, and caretakers led him on an unchartered journey to more closely examine the possibilities of cannabis as a medicine. His findings were brought to a national and global audience in a way no other medical marijuana cases had been before, igniting a momentous push toward medical marijuana reform.

On March 26, 2020, her mother, Paige Figi, wrote on Facebook that all five family members were sick with "fevers, pains, coughs" and were "struggling to breathe," before taking Charlotte to the hospital. A COVID-19 test came back negative and Charlotte was discharged from the hospital after a few days.

Two days later, she suffered another seizure, resulting in respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. On April 7, 2020, Charlotte passed at age 13.

Her death was first announced by the group co-founded by her mother through the Realm of Caring Foundation, an organization she chartered to empowering individuals, medical professionals, and the community through research-based education on hemp, CBD, medical marijuana, and THC.

"Charlotte is no longer suffering. She is seizure-free forever, Paige Figi wrote on her Facebook page. Thank you so much for all of your love."

Charlottes story brings it all together: the imperative for scientific thought and consideration in political policy for both marijuana and COVID-19. The countrys partisan split regarding the relevance and dependence on science to make informed, data-driven health and wellness political decisions will play a key factor in Novembers presidential election.

Charlotte Figi exemplifies the importance of foundationally sound policymaking. By immersing himself more deeply into marijuana research, Biden can firmly demonstrate his commitment to leading a science-first presidency one very different than what exists today.

This is Dr. Sanjay Guptas tribute to the life of Charlotte Figi:

Weve already seen Joe Biden shift to the left before. Earlier this year he pivoted to include the Sanders-championed proposal of free college and university education in his platform, announcing a policy to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000.

See Also: Nothing Silly About Psilly From Mushrooms And Its Medicinal Properties

On April 9, 2020, the former vice president proposed lowering the age eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 60 and eliminating student debt for some lower-income families. Both are issues that make up the foundation of the Sanders platform.

A shift in his marijuana thinking would be much sharper, but perhaps even politically safer.

According to apoll from the Pew Research Center 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say marijuana should be legal.At the same time, 66% of Americans favor legalization, and more than 90% support enabling physicians to prescribe medical cannabis to patients, according to an April 2018 poll from Quinnipiac University.

At the same time, a new survey conducted by IBD/TIPP, found just 34% of independent voters believe Trump is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well, surging support for Biden among those voters, 47 percent to 41 percent, respectively.

This kind of pivot could set the tone for enabling so many other things, as well, including:

Each of these will be desperately needed in the eventual wake of this COVID-19 crisis. If there were ever an ideal time for marijuana to help invigorate the U.S. economy its soon to come.

Most of all, federal marijuana legalization would be a unifying, bold move.

The desire for bold moves is what Bernie supporters are driven by, and this is one that cannabis scientists, cancer researchers, struggling farmers, poor municipalities, and tax-burdened cannabis businesses are all eager for as well.

Illustration: Andre Bourque / Image: Dreamstime.com

Andre Bourque is a cannabis industry connector, executive advisor to several cannabis companies, brand strategy advisor, and a cannabis industry analyst. In addition to Benzinga, Andres articles have been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post,Entrepreneur.com, Yahoo Finance, CIO Magazine & ComputerWorld.

You can connect with him at @socialmktgfella onLinkedIn,Twitter, andInstagram.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Continue reading here:

From Charlotte To Science: Why Now Is Prime Time For Biden To Embrace Bernie's Marijuana Legalization Plan - Benzinga

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer reacts after declaring victory in Detroit, Mich., November 6, 2018.(Jeff Kowalsky/Reuters)We should be preserving our laws and our freedom in times of crisis.

Its reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks, and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families, and the country. Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldnt be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state. Yet this is exactly whats happening.

There has been lots of pounding of keyboards over the power grabs of authoritarians in Central and Eastern Europe. Rightly so. Yet right here, politicians act as if a health crisis gives them license to lord over the most private activities of America people in ways that are wholly inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

Im not even talking about national political and media elites who, after fueling years of hysteria over the coming Republican dictatorship, now demand Donald Trump dominate state actions. Im talking about local governments.

Under what imperious conception of governance does Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer believe it is within her power to unilaterally ban garden stores from selling fruit or vegetable plants and seeds? What business is it of Vermont or Howard County, Ind., to dictate that Walmart, Costco, or Target stop selling non-essential items, such as electronics or clothing? Vermont has 628 cases of coronavirus as of this writing. Is that the magic number authorizing the governor to ban people from buying seeds for their gardens?

Maybe a family needs new pajamas for their young kids because theyre stuck a new town. Or maybe mom needs a remote hard drive to help her work remotely. Or maybe dad just likes apples. Whatever the case, its absolutely none of your mayors business.

It makes sense for places like Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland to ban large, avoidable gatherings. But it is an astonishing abuse of power to issue stay-at-home orders, enforced by criminal law, empowering police to harass and fine individuals for nothing more than taking a walk.

The criminalization of movement ends with ten Philly cops dragging a passenger off a bus for not wearing a face mask. It ends with local Brighton, Colo., cops handcuffing a father in front of his family for playing T-ball with his daughter in an empty park. It ends with three Massachusetts men being arrested, and facing the possibility of 90 days in jail, for crossing state lines and golfing a sport built for social distancing in Rhode Island.

There is no reason to close public parks, where Americans can maintain social distance while getting some air or space for their mental and physical well-being or maybe see a grandchild from afar. In California, surfers, who stay far away from each other, are banned from going in the water. Elsewhere, hikers are banned from roaming the millions of acres in national parks. Millions of lower-income and urban-dwelling Americans dont have the luxury of backyards, and there is absolutely no reason to inhibit their movement, either.

Two days before Easter, Louisville, Ky., mayor Greg Fischer attempted to unilaterally ban drive-in church services for the most holy day in Christianity. Its one thing if people are purposely and openly undermining public health. The constitutional right to assemble peacefully and protest or practice your religion, however, is not inoperable in presence of a viral pandemic.

Would-be petty tyrants, such as Dallas judge Clay Jenkins, who implores residences to rat out neighbors who sell cigarettes for putting profits over public health, forgets that we are not ruled by him, and that he is merely our temporary servant.

But its important and necessary, say the experts. Great. Convince us. Most polls show that 80-something percent of Americans will stay home for the rest of this month even if lockdowns are lifted.

The question of how many lives would be lost if we didnt shut down economy is a vital one, but it is not the only one. There is an array of factors that goes into these decisions. One of them should be preserving our laws and our freedom in times of crisis.

Reality check, writes Bethany Allen-Ebrahimianin Axios, Citywide quarantines, travel restrictions and obsessive public health checks arent authoritarian. Theyre the kind of total mobilization that happens during major national crises such as war, regardless of the system of government.

This position, often repeated, is utter nonsense. For one thing, we arent at war. There are no coronavirus spies and no coronavirus sabotage. Affixing war to societal problems the war on drugs being the most obvious example is typically a justification for expanding state power. Also, authoritarianism isnt defined as strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom except when there is a pandemic. Your declarative sentences and forceful feelings do not transform the meaning of either authoritarianism or freedom. Though if we dump our principles every time theres a crisis, they might as well.

See the original post:

Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand - National Review

I first entered the academe as a 20-year-old fresh graduate. I'd just served my term as the chairperson of our University Student Council, and was still very much involved in the student movement. When I was about to join the faculty, I remember contemplating about the way in which I should reconcile my politics with my being an instructor and a university employee. I then resolved that activism should never be deprived of rigorous academic labor, and that the academe is vain and hollow if it is dry of convictions for the oppressed and the disadvantaged.

My deepest resentment and indignation, however, is reserved for scholars and self-proclaimed experts who spin and twist academic knowledge to legitimize and validate oppression. In the Philippines, the first mass protests against President Rodrigo Duterte were held in remonstration of dictator Ferdinand Marcos burial in the Heroes Cemetery. Even the erstwhile ally of the Duterte administration, the Philippine communists, were quick to condemn the governments assault on the memory of our authoritarian past. Debates and conversations surfaced regarding historical revisionism.

My denunciation of such an act was two-pronged. First, I was angry for those who suffered and died during Marcos Martial Law, and for the country that was looted by the dead dictators family. Second, I was angry as a historian for the overt historical negationism done using state apparatus.

Some would say that the greatest failure of our geniuses was their failure to think politically. Indeed, the largest and the most massive atrocities suffered by humanity were not done spontaneously. These were products of thoughtful and careful deliberations in laboratories and conference rooms, and these would later be justified with painstaking research and theorizing.

Before the use of gas chambers in German concentration camps during the Second World War, Nazis executed the Jews and other prisoners through firing squads. After some time, they would realize that such a mechanism was inefficient and was causing too much stress and trauma to the Nazi soldiers, who usually turned to alcoholism or suicide after undertaking this ruthless task. Hence, they experimented on using poison. Gassing was impersonal, bloodless, and clean. It was mechanical. Did the chemists behind the use of Zyklon B for the extermination of Jews think about the moral and political implication of this idea?

In Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Allied forces led by the US and the UK spearheaded a well-funded project for the creation of the most advanced munitions for the war. They called this the Manhattan Project. Did the physicists of the Manhattan Project who worked diligently on the creation of nuclear weapons in the 1940s care about the repercussions of a nuclear war? Had it ever crossed their minds that the mere presence of such would dictate world politics in the succeeding Cold War decades, and the later 20th century imperialism and War on Terror?

Knowledge is hardly ever neutral. And if it is, then this neutrality is tantamount to blindness. The wisdom of Desmond Tutu is eternally true and relevant, especially for my colleagues in the academe who are responsible in purveying knowledge: If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

This is even more true in the historical discipline. As a teacher and a student of history, I always make it a point to go beyond mere presentation of facts and to move past demonstration of multiple perspectives. At the end of the day, historical discipline is a tool of issuing historical responsibility, of establishing causes, and of demanding accountability. It is a tool box in the formation of our moral judgments. Indeed, the historian is not judged by his skill in the collection of cold hard facts. As the eminent British historian E.H. Carr would put it, to praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete in his building. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function.

Unfortunately, in every oppressive regime that the world has ever seen, there has always been a guild of scholars who sided with the oppressors, not just through neutrality, but also through an active and methodical justification of the system. Nazi Germany had Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Heidegger, Fritz Lenz, and Josef Mengele. They backed up the oppressive regime by tweaking valid facts and theories to legitimize the modus vivendi of the oppressor and of their vision of the society. White supremacy, eugenics, anti-Semitism, slavery, and other systems of oppression were accepted as truths and were legitimized by academic establishments. (READ: [OPINION] The humanities vs Dutertismo)

During the American colonial period in the Philippines, American anthropologists and scientists would justify American colonization by proving the savagery and backwardness of the native population through ethnography, anthropology, and physiology. Later, American-sponsored historians would glorify the American period as a period of peace, prosperity, and relentless advancement in science, medicine, public instruction, and state modernization.

Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos economic plan was drafted by the countrys brightest technocrats, one of which was the dean of the premier University of the Philippines (UP) College of Business Administration, Cesar Virata. Marcos himself would publish scholarly works ghost-written by the most acclaimed historians and political scientists of the time. Widely known was the three-volume historical work Tadhana: The History of the Filipino People, which was said to have been penned by a group of the most brilliant historians of UP in the name of Marcos.

Ironically, this university was the epicenter of activism and resistance movement against the dictator during the Marcos years. Being the hotspot of resistance notwithstanding, some intellectuals in the university thought that in the time of injustice and oppression, their task remained the same: write and publish. This is disturbing. Academics are not slaves of academic undertakings. The task of the academic is not to proceed with neutral and apolitical theorizing especially in times of injustice. The commitment of the scholar is to the truth, but more importantly, it is in speaking truth to power. (READ: The moralist thinker in Digongs Philippines)

When Rodrigo Duterte came to power, a good number of academics and experts from different fields threw their support behind the macho brute from Mindanao. Some of them saw him as the antithesis of the establishment, a few saw him as a leader that would usher in Leftist politics in governance, while others saw him as a representation of the organic political culture of the Philippines. Almost 4 years into his presidency, with 30,000 Filipinos dead in his bloody war on drugs, and the external debt of the country increasing to P7.94 trillion, a lot of them have already changed their minds, but a good lot has remained.

Until now, Duterte is still compared to the celebrated figure of the Datu the political figurehead of Philippine ancient civilization. His perennial tardiness and the tolerance of such was justified by the concept of pakikipagkapwa an important concept in Filipino Psychology, which explains the nature and character of Filipinos relationship with one another, anchored on empathy and co-existence. Similar to what Marcos attempted to do with his Tadhana project, and several other works that provided justification for the dictators New Society trope, historical scholarship can also be used to explain and even legitimize Dutertismo.

Brilliance and acumen are proven with doctorates and countless refereed publications. But scholars are not judged by degrees and academic accomplishments alone. At the end of the day, we are judged by our moral legacy expressed through the sides that we have taken in times of both normalcy and oppression. By whom? By history. Rappler.com

Veronica Alporha teaches History at the University of the Philippines Los Baos. She acquired her MA in History from UP Diliman.

Read the original here:

[OPINION] Where should academics stand in times of injustice? - Rappler

Tiffany Hsiaos focus on small Chinese companies gives her an unique view as to how Chinas domestic economy is faring as the country tries to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. That perspective has also helped the Matthews Asia fund manager build a resilient portfolio in the face of the pandemicand before that, the trade war.

Taiwanese-born Hsiao grew up in Silicon Valley, where she watched her father help reinvent a calculator company and build the worlds first laptop computer using Intels 386 CPUan early lesson on the power of innovation. Hsiao has used that in hunting stocks for the Matthews China Small Companies fund (ticker: MCSMX). The $200 million fund has beaten 99% of its peers over her five-year tenure as lead manager. The funds 18% gain this year has trounced peers again, as well as the Chinese market and the S&P 500 index.

Barrons spoke with Hsiao to get her views on how Chinese consumers and businesses are recovering after the country eased restrictions, the risk of a second wave of outbreaks, and why the portfolio has been so resistant to a black swan development that has rattled markets. Heres a condensed version of our discussion.

Barrons: China is a couple of months ahead in dealing with this pandemic. The Chinese market had its biggest drop in early February, before the global market tanked on Feb. 20, and is still holding up. What has helped its resilience?

Tiffany Hsiao: Confidence. There are a couple layers: Within China, theres confidence the disease is controllable. They have so much in resourcesthey can make five million masks per city when they ask people to work togetherso they are confident they have the medical supplies and people working together. And because of how swift and effective the [containment] was, people are not worried about job security. We cant say that about the U.S. or Europe. Everyone at the companies we own is back at work.

Market Data Center: EMEA and Asia

And if you look at demographics, the largest cohort [of investors] is millennials. When they see a correction, they are going to participate because that is not their nest egg. They are still building it and have the ability to capture the falling knife, whereas in the U.S. and Europe, investors are depending on that money in the next 10 years.

What about Chinas lack of transparency and attempts to muffle early warnings, like from Dr. Li Wenliang, who eventually died?

When this virus first broke out, the Chinese governments response was not transparent. But in the past, you would see very draconian measures to suppress freedom of speech. This time, they let people vent their frustrations. People were creating art pieces out of that doctors picture and posting on WeChat and mourning his death. The Chinese government publicly apologized [for its treatment of Li]that in itself instilled confidence.

It was an unfortunate event, but the response from the government was so different than what we had seen before that people had a lot more confidence in the government after that, especially after they saw the virus spread outside of Chinas borders.

Barrons wants to know your thoughts on the market, the economy, and how coronavirus is impacting your investments. Results will be published along with our biannual Big Money Poll of institutional investors. Poll closes at midnight on Apr. 20. Have your say here

Are you worried about a second wave of infections?

People on the ground are not fearful. The government has put in place very cautious, but reasonable, polices around public health. Any person who returns from overseas has to self-quarantine for 14 days. They give you electronic bracelets as you enter, and track you. That type of policy broadcast to the people gives them confidence that the government is doing its job, so they can safely go do theirs.

In terms of valuation, the Chinese onshore equity markets have not corrected much since the Covid-19 outbreak. There is risk that if a second infection shuts down the economy for longer, valuations could become even more stretched in the near term.

Small businesses are hurting in the U.S. How are they doing in China?

[Chinas] stimulus has been very measured, such as a deferred social security tax and local tax rebates. On top of that, a lot of the more wealthy parts of the economythe landownersvoluntarily offered two months of free rent and no collections on debt. Here in San Francisco, a lot of restaurants are going out of business because landlords refuse to do that.

How has consumer or corporate behavior changed?

We are a heavy investor in software, including China Youzan (8083.Hong Kong), which is the equivalent of Shopify, and helps mom-and-pops sell anything. As soon as everyone shut down, their users went through the roof, as companies tried to go from bricks-and-mortar to online. China is very dynamic. Small- to medium-size-business owners are very nimble. And theres still demand: People still need to eat and have kids entertained with educational programming. Their basic needs havent changed; they just need a different way to get it.

People are also embracing the digital economy even more. The e-commerce adoption rate is already much higher than in the U.S., with about 25% of retail sales done online compared with 11% in the U.S. In the past, people just ordered clothes or electronics and now are ordering groceries. During the crisis, they are also having kids educated online. We own Koolearn Technology Holding (1797.Hong Kong), an online education company that was ready with content and had teachers trained.

Have any trends been derailed?

Travel is a very large part of consumer discretionary spending. The Chinese love to go overseasand now they cant. And as we emerge from this crisis, there is a fear of racism, so [travel] will [continue to] be impacted.

Theres also some time shifting: Real estate transactions were down a lot in the first quarter, but theyre starting to bounce back in cities like Nanjing. The line to go see [a new listing] was wrapped around the building. Theres pent-up demand.

How will a recession in the U.S. or Europe affect Chinas recovery?

We need to see a more effective response globally to provide a stronger backdrop for China to recover. This was supposed to be a great growth year: A lot of businesses were holding back their checkbooks for three years, [waiting] for a resolution to the trade war to deploy the capital.

What concerns you at this point?

Policy missteps as the Chinese government tries to gauge the severity of unemployment. The situation is fluid, since many workers are still in process of returning to their normal jobs. However, if countries outside of China continue to suffer from Covid-19, then those jobs may not be waiting for workers as they return.

Some natural Darwinism to clean the economy of inefficient businesses is not a bad thing, but we need supportive policies to redirect those displaced into other productive industries. From a stock perspective, the stronger surviving companies will gain market share faster.

How do you invest around that?

We stress-test every company through all types of scenarios. When you are investing in a country as big as China, something will always go wrong. I call them black ducks [instead of swans] because they are not as rare as you think. If its not this virus, its going to be a natural disaster or something else.

We want the highest return on capital possible. To do that, we tilt toward asset-light companies that dont have much balance-sheet risk. Our companies never depended on [debt], and their products are intellectual-property driven and can be used digitally and remotely. So weve been very insulated, especially year to date.

China was trying to become more self-sufficient as tensions with the U.S. escalated. Has that been derailed by the latest crisis?

The self-sufficiency theme is alive and well. When the government was thinking about how to stimulate the economy, that was the first area it looked atinvesting more in semiconductors, biotech, and software. The chairman of our largest position, Silergy (6415.Taiwan), the largest analog semiconductor company in China, told me the company will grow revenue 20% to 30% unhindered, because the areas they invest in are the areas the government wants to speed up5G infrastructure, health-care equipment, and data centersas more people work from home and embrace the digital economy.

Chip companies have seen disruptions during this crisis. What about Silergy?

If you need 2,000 components, then youll have disruption. But a lot of the products they are making need 200 to 300 components that they can source domestically. We are very careful and have very limited exposure to the heavy industrial supply chain, because there will be a lot of disruption.

Health care makes up 20% of your portfolio. What is the draw?

Part of it is my constant paranoia that something is going to go wrong, so half [of the allocation] pertains to basic stuff like vaccinesincluding CanSino Biologics (6185.Hong Kong), which is doing clinical trials in Seattle for a coronavirus vaccine medical waste, and companies trying to develop strong health-care infrastructure to keep 1.4 billion people healthy so it doesnt turn into a social problem.

And the other half?

Its focused on human DNA; 99.9% is similar, but that small difference results in Caucasian and Asians having very different critical-illness disease types, especially with cancer. In Asia, the more prevalent cancer types are of the liver and stomach, whereas those are designated by U.S. Food and Drug Administration as orphan diseases, with fewer than 200,000 new diagnoses in the U.S., compared with 1.2 million new diagnoses of liver and gastric cancers in China.

In the past, China relied on the Western world for medical advances and newer therapies. But as the drugs become more DNA-based, you need to come up with drugs that fit the Asian DNA better, so we focus on scientists who earned their stripes at Western companies and start their own businesses, like Innovent Biologics (IVBXF), whose management is top-notch talent from global drugmakers like Roche, Applied Genetic Technologies, and Eli Lilly. Its a top oncology biopharma company that focuses on drugs for Asias prevalent cancer indications and has a very strong pipeline of innovative, novel therapies in addition to blockbuster drugs.

The crisis has raised concerns about liquidity, as some markets have seized up. Have you encountered any problems?

Chinese small-caps comprise the worlds largest small-cap asset class. It surpassed the U.S. two years ago in terms of liquidity, number of stocks listed, and total market cap listed. If you are worried about liquidity, Chinese small-caps are much more liquid than the U.S.and have done much better year to date.

What happens if tensions between the U.S. and China escalate again?

A third of our portfolio are trade war beneficiariescompanies that help China turn self-sufficient. The other two-thirds are steady compounderscompanies that make soy sauce, education companies, and property managementand are not going to be affected if theres a trade war. If you hit [companies] with a couple of black swans and you still need to buy them, those are the kinds of companies we want to own.

Thanks, Tiffany.

Corrections & Amplifications The Matthews China Small Companies fund has gained 18% so far this year. An earlier version of the article listed the 3-year average return instead of the year-to-date figure.

Write to Reshma Kapadia at reshma.kapadia@barrons.com

See the original post here:

Chinas Small Companies Are Beating Almost Every Market. Here Are The Best Sectors. - Barron's

coronavirus,

Researchers in NSW are set to test cancer drugs for use in the fight against COVID-19. The project comes amid a worldwide push to repurpose existing drugs with antiviral properties to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, alongside global efforts to produce a vaccine. A vaccine is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to develop, so antiviral treatments are considered crucial to prevent deaths. And even if a vaccine is found, antivirals will be needed because vaccines aren't perfect. Two professors, Hubert Hondermarck and Nathan Bartlett - of the Hunter Medical Research Institute and University of Newcastle - are leading the project. As the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began causing global havoc, Professor Hondermarck realised some cancer drugs should be explored as a possible treatment. "There are indeed biochemical reasons to believe they could work. And this is really a war. Just like for a war, we need to try everything we can to defeat the enemy," Professor Hondermarck said. The pre-clinical research will be done in vitro with donated human-airway cells. Professor Hondermarck [a cancer biochemist] approached Dr Bartlett [a virologist] with the idea of testing some cancer drugs. Their partnership represented a coming together of two disciplines - cancer biology and virology. The pair pinpointed a link between growth factor receptors, which promote many cancers and viral infections. They will test two categories of drugs used in the treatment of cancer - "growth factor receptor blocking monoclonal antibodies" and "tyrosine kinase inhibitors". "I've been working on growth factor receptors for many years, so I know those molecules very well," Professor Hondermarck said. "Viruses use the same molecules that cancer cells use to proliferate. "I was aware of previous work done using growth factor inhibitors to target other viruses like influenza and dengue fever." This previous work went largely unnoticed as there wasn't a pressing need for this type of medicine. "It was more or less forgotten," he said. Dr Bartlett said there was good evidence to suggest these cancer drugs could inhibit viral infections, "particularly through blocking growth factor receptors". "These receptors are hijacked by viruses. By inhibiting the activity of these receptors, you can also inhibit the ability of viruses to replicate." Dr Bartlett said a research grant application had been submitted to the federal government to fund the research. "This is a government scheme aimed at fast-tracking clinically approved drugs that might be effective against coronavirus," he said. The government is expected to make a quick decision on which projects get funded, given the circumstances. "We've got all the systems set up to do this straight away," Dr Bartlett said. The pair's research project will also test the capacity of other drugs to treat COVID-19, including the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin. "There's a range of drugs approved for other uses that there's reasonably good evidence to suggest might be effective against coronavirus," Dr Bartlett said. "The advantage of those drugs is they've already been through the approval process for another disease, so they don't need to go through the rigorous type of pre-clinical safety testing that a completely new drug has to go through."

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/3AijacentBN9GedHCvcASxG/3d28b93e-e47a-4bcc-bec5-9895567bfb70.jpg/r0_221_6720_4018_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Researchers in NSW are set to test cancer drugs for use in the fight against COVID-19.

The project comes amid a worldwide push to repurpose existing drugs with antiviral properties to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, alongside global efforts to produce a vaccine.

A vaccine is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to develop, so antiviral treatments are considered crucial to prevent deaths. And even if a vaccine is found, antivirals will be needed because vaccines aren't perfect.

Two professors, Hubert Hondermarck and Nathan Bartlett - of the Hunter Medical Research Institute and University of Newcastle - are leading the project.

As the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began causing global havoc, Professor Hondermarck realised some cancer drugs should be explored as a possible treatment.

"There are indeed biochemical reasons to believe they could work. And this is really a war. Just like for a war, we need to try everything we can to defeat the enemy," Professor Hondermarck said.

The pre-clinical research will be done in vitro with donated human-airway cells.

Professor Hondermarck [a cancer biochemist] approached Dr Bartlett [a virologist] with the idea of testing some cancer drugs.

Their partnership represented a coming together of two disciplines - cancer biology and virology.

They will test two categories of drugs used in the treatment of cancer - "growth factor receptor blocking monoclonal antibodies" and "tyrosine kinase inhibitors".

"I've been working on growth factor receptors for many years, so I know those molecules very well," Professor Hondermarck said.

"Viruses use the same molecules that cancer cells use to proliferate.

"I was aware of previous work done using growth factor inhibitors to target other viruses like influenza and dengue fever."

This previous work went largely unnoticed as there wasn't a pressing need for this type of medicine.

"It was more or less forgotten," he said.

Dr Bartlett said there was good evidence to suggest these cancer drugs could inhibit viral infections, "particularly through blocking growth factor receptors".

"These receptors are hijacked by viruses. By inhibiting the activity of these receptors, you can also inhibit the ability of viruses to replicate."

Dr Bartlett said a research grant application had been submitted to the federal government to fund the research.

"This is a government scheme aimed at fast-tracking clinically approved drugs that might be effective against coronavirus," he said.

The government is expected to make a quick decision on which projects get funded, given the circumstances.

"We've got all the systems set up to do this straight away," Dr Bartlett said.

The pair's research project will also test the capacity of other drugs to treat COVID-19, including the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin.

"There's a range of drugs approved for other uses that there's reasonably good evidence to suggest might be effective against coronavirus," Dr Bartlett said.

"The advantage of those drugs is they've already been through the approval process for another disease, so they don't need to go through the rigorous type of pre-clinical safety testing that a completely new drug has to go through."

See more here:

Cancer drugs will be tested for use as antiviral treatments against COVID-19 at Hunter Medical Research Institute - Newcastle Herald

A moment of ironic notoriety, amid COVID-19

My fellow Gen Xers hello there! Circa 74 here; it was a vintage year. Full bodied. Oaky. Top notes of vanilla. Granted, its more palatable once you look past the oil crisis, the college campus trend of streaking, and the culmination of Watergate ending with President Nixons resignation a mere month after I was born. But there were nuggets of perfection, too. Like the continued success of All in the Family, a groundbreaking and important TV show I didnt come to fully appreciate until I was an adult, of course.

So anyway. Here we are. How you holding up? Howre you fairing, my fellow lost generation pals, during this global pandemic that has us on lock-down, sort of like a virtual house arrest?

Whats that? Youre doing just fine, thankyouverymuch? Funny; I kinda thought so. Me too!

After all, I think we may be the only generation who doesnt have any problem whatsoever with staying the eff at home to ride out this unprecedented global pandemic. Social distancing? Shelter at home? We were made for this sh*t. Though the summertimes of our collective childhood were spent outdoors til the street lights came on, during the school year, we all knew that latchkey kid translated to shelter at home.

So I say again: Gen X was made for this sh*t.

We were the kids who went from having a Carol Brady mom figure at home, to having two yuppy, full-time professional working parents seemingly overnight. There were no family meetings or pep talks to prepare us for this; it just happened whether we liked it or not (feelings be damned!)

Were the ones who were forced to grow up with self-reliance before we were even ready for it. Were the ones who went straight from the comfort of Moms fresh baked cookies served hot after school, to whiling away afternoons however we saw fit hours upon hours spent at home (or elsewhere) with little to no parental oversight.

We werent forced to have playdates or attend extra-curricular enrichment activities. Our babysitters consisted of MTV and Oprah Winfrey.

As latchkey kids, we had to entertain and protect ourselves when we werent quite old enough, and nourish ourselves before we could properly cook. Which meant meals of bologna sandwiches, if we were feeling responsible. Otherwise, it was Nabisco snack classics straight out of the box, like Tid-Bits or Doo-Dads (personally, I preferred combining the two). Maybe Jello pudding pops for dessert, or a giant bowl of Fruit Loops eaten on the carpeted floor, no more than 10 inches away from the TV screen.

Speaking of food, hell. Were the generation that could survive for days-on-end eating nothing but maybe a can of Planters Cheez Balls and a box of Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups.

Gen X was totally made for this sh*t.

As for entertaining ourselves during this oddly familiar house arrest time? Well, that comes naturally for us Gen Xers.

Hunkering down with days-worth of video games and mindless TV is like comfort food for our souls. Pure nostalgic bliss. Tuning out the entire world from beneath our (knockoff) Sony stereo headphones? Absolutely. Give us the chance to live in complete autonomy over our music intake (even if it is only the same 10 or 12 songs), and we will not disappoint. In fact, you might not know it, but these are exactly the things that Gen X does whenever we take off work for a mental health day.

As Gen Xers, we were the last generation to experience an old-school, hands-on, down & dirty, outdoor childhood that was led (or taught) by the Baby Boomers. We took what little we learned from the pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, kid mentality, and tossed out the rest.

Using paddles as a form of in-school discipline was slowly phasing out, but it was not so passe that teachers had lost respect (or was that fear that we felt?) Either way, they were able to control their classrooms by the sole presence of one. A worn-out, used paddle hanging on the classroom wall was a relic that served as both threat and badge of honor, while simultaneously reminding you that the game was all about power and control. And it was not fixed in your favor.

One teacher at my school was notorious for her hanging wood paddle because it also featured the signatures of each student scrawled out in Sharpie whod received a paddling at her hands.

When the materialism and corporate greed of the 80s fascinated the world at large, us Gen X kids didnt invest too much energy. We knew better, for we saw the rise and fall of many things in the span of just one decade. Technology that proved here today, gone tomorrow Sony cassette tape walkmans, and later, discmans; Kodak Disc cameras; VCRs, Betamax.

We withstood dot matrix printers, cumbersome telephone books and yellow pages, floppy disks, classroom overheard projectors, and other now obsolete technology and we werent phased by the coming and going of any of it.

We were made for this sh*t.

Were the generation who grew up weary of stranger danger but not until after having enjoyed at least a handful of more innocent years where we didnt know stranger danger.

That innocence was ripped away from us like everything else, seemingly overnight along with Adam Walsh, non-childproofed medicine containers as used in the Tylenol murders, and the ability to ever enjoy Halloween as kids again. (Allegations of razor blades found in apples and candy, and fearful mothers ensured that.) With at least a decade to go before the emergence of the internet and Snopes, how else were we supposed to quash urban legends?

Were the generation that lived through Reagan, and dear God, Reaganomics, which hollowed out the middle class:

When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in todays dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical raw capitalism, what we call Reaganomics, or supply side economics, our nations largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour.

Reaganomics killed Americas middle class, by Thom Hartmann

Gen X were born in the eras of Roe v. Wade, the Vietnam war, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the murder of John Lennon. We lived through the Challenger explosion as kids, and 9/11 as parents. Some of the shaping events of our generation were the end of the Cold War, the beginning of personal computing, and an overall Jan Brady feeling of being invisible. Or rather, lost. A tiny generation sandwiched between two considerably larger ones: the Boomers and Millennials.

We had to grow up during Nancy Reagans just say no campaign, and the this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs; any questions? commercials. Along with the crack epidemic and the ubiquitous war on drugs.

We survived the AIDS crisis, televangelists screaming against sodomy, and gay conversion therapy. We survived our parents shock and horror over MTV and gender-bending musicians like Boy George (Culture Club), Prince, Robert Smith (The Cure), David Bowie, and so many others. Oh and how could I forget Annie Lennox? To this day I can still remember a heated argument in 1984 with my Mom, whereby I tried (in vain) to convince her that Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics (who I was watching on TV) was indeed a woman.

No, honey, my Mom protested. Women dont have sideburns growing out of their heads like that. I gave up. It was a futile attempt to make her understand the wonders of stage makeup.

For many Gen Xers, including myself, music was our only connection to anything resembling an identity.

Unlike our parents, we survived (indeed, thrived) from attending diverse public schools. As we grew older we learned about mass incarceration especially of black men. With Anita Hills revolutionary testimony and the help of some third wave feminists, we Gen Xers were the precursor to the #MeToo movement (which, incidentally, was the inception and vision of a black woman named Tarana Burke, not Alyssa Milano).

Most of us occupy a new sandwich space: between caring for aging parents and caring for our own growing kids. On top of that, our generation currently carries the highest debt load, and are simultaneously trying to plan for our kids college years, and our own retirements. Were financially f*ked, for the most part. But not jaded. Sarcasm is our native language. And humor is a mighty fine coping mechanism; it has served us well through dark periods before.

Thanks to our distrust in authority figures and our tendency to question everything, were pretty good at fending for ourselves. Thats not to say we cant be useful or helpful when need be. Were also the ones who serve to bridge the gap between the non-tech-savvy Boomers and the digital native Gen Zers.

Were the only generation who introduced both our parents and our kids to Facebook which most respectable Gen Xers have now fled from, seeing as how its been completely overtaken by Boomers and now tends to be an endless void of hollow gestures and trends pushed by the subtle art of online peer pressure.

Gen Xers may have chased the millennials and Gen Z off Facebook before the Boomers ever thought to, but then Gen Z opened up a whole new world for us. They showed us all the fun stuff, like TikTok, and finsta accounts, and the now-defunct Vine. And its contagious. Even political leaders from Gen X have paved the way showing these diverse generations how to connect and engage with constituents via various social media outlets.

As Gen Xers, we may be small but were mighty. We were built to survive, were highly adaptable, and we know how to quietly seize the right opportunities in the right time. You might call us opportunistic survivors, kinda like rats or cockroaches or bottom feeders in the fish tank. (And you know, those creatures dont die off so easily.)

All in all, Gen Xers feel like we were handpicked and placed on Earth exactly for this type of important moment in history, when the world would depend on us to do our part by sheltering at home. It kinda feels like our whole lives have been leading up to this one point where our nation would, at long last, call upon us to do absolutely nothing. On that, we promise to deliver.

But. Dont call us slackers. Were not slackers. Thats purely myth. We just know how to relax properly.

Go here to read the rest:

Gen X Strong: An Ode To The Lost Generation In A Global Pandemic - Elemental

Joe Biden just received a glowing endorsement from his former boss, Barack Obama, but Donald Trump, the president in every disaster movie ever made, can now claim support of another prominent black leader although when we saw prominent," we mean just heard about him today." Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday that he's all in for a second Trump term, which America couldn't possibly survive.

The economy is in shambles. More than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs within the past month, and that includes almost 500,000 Georgians. This is a pre-COVID tap dance for the president. Jones needs new material.

Yes, Trump signed a mostly meaningless executive order in 2017 that physically moved the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from Betsy DeVos's gingerbread house inside the Department of Education over to the White House itself. Kellyanne Conway took photos of the event with her dirty feet on the Oval Office couch. Trump's still practically racist in every way.

Jones praises Trump's "criminal justice initiatives." There's the "First Step" program he grudgingly signed as a favor to his useless son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kim Kardashian also convinced Trump to release Alice Marie Johnson (possibly in exchange for Kanye West's soul). Jones notes that Johnson had repeatedly petitioned Obama for clemency but been denied, so we should now trust the guy who still wants to execute the Central Park Five.

Apparently, Trump's "leadership" on criminal justice reform is a stark contrast from Biden's, as Jones explains with bogus rightwing talking points we'll have to endure until November.

What a maroon! Trump's first attorney general was white supremacist Jeff Sessions, and Trump didn't fire him because Sessions wanted to escalate the War on Drugs. No, he got canned because he wouldn't serve as Trump's personal lawyer.

Trump bungled the nation's response to the coronavirus, which is currently targeting black people like New York's old stop-and-frisk" policy. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Jones says he plans to remain a Democrat, but other Democrats aren't on board with Jones remaining in office. Democratic Party of Georgia Chairwoman Nikema Williams released this scathing statement Tuesday.

Jones represents Georgia's 91st District, which includes the heavily Democratic DeKalb County. He's described himself as a conservative Democrat" who supports gun rights and tough immigration laws. He's also reportedly made offensive comments about Georgia's only transgender elected official, Stephe Koontz. He voted twice for George W. Bush but, hey, so did Colin Powell, probably. He's also kept photos of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on his desk, which we hope was for target practice.

Rhonda Taylor, who does not support Trump because she's black and conscious, is running against Jones in the upcoming Democratic primary. Unless she keeps nude photos of Robert E. Lee on her desk, she has our unconditional support.

[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Follow Stephen Robinson on Twitter.

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.

Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations. Please click the clickie, if you are able!

Here is the original post:

Black GA Dem Endorses Donald Trump From Alternate Reality Where That Makes Sense - Wonkette

Letter to the Editor:

It was just last week, March 19, 2020, when the most cogent, most concise examination of our societys response to the drug problem that I have read in any newspaper appeared in the Douglas County Herald.

Tom Kara, from Norwood, Missouri, took the time to construct, polish, and submit for publication a truly excellent Letter to the Editor: that touched upon just about every important aspect of the War On Drugs.

Every paragraph provides useful beginning for conversations that address that War from the deplorable lack of attention paid to more serious problems we face every day, to the irrational business model that actually encourages penal incarceration as a private sector revenue generator.

I feel confident that the Publisher will submit Tom Karas Letter to the Editor for some sort of award that newspapers must surely present to those civilians who take the time to enhance our periodicals with letters such as this one.

Tom Karas letter critiquing our War On Drugs and the Letter to the Editor below it from Blue Barringer writing to the question How can I be of use? in reference to the coronavirus thing are examples of the ideas that local residents can submit for publication in the Douglas County Herald.

As is the case with so many other subscribers, we look for the Letter to the Editor section as soon as we get our hands on the paper. There are so many good ideas and so much talent here among local residents that it is a mystery why so few letters show up. It is a fact that the Herald will print just about any letter that is decently expressed and signed. We look forward to the time when the section in the Douglas County Herald called Letter to the Editor becomes Letters to the Editor on a regular basis. Why not contribute your two cents? Tom Kara and Blue Barringer have.

Wayne William Cipriano

Douglas County

Related

Continued here:

Letter to the Editor - Douglas County Herald

What if the vaccine thats eventually developed is so large in scope it includes the words of UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres and Pope Francis?

I revisitGuterres words of a week ago: The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives. We must, he said, silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes . . . to help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy.

And several days later,the pope, delivering his weekly blessing not from St. Peters Square but from the papal library, called on the world to stop every form of bellicose hostility and to favor the creation of corridors for humanitarian help, diplomatic efforts and attention to those who find themselves in situations of great vulnerability.

"What if war and xenophobia were understood to be not business as usual, the equivalent of self-defense and always necessary (at least when we do it) and thus something to be funded without questionyear after year, decade after decade, century after centurybut rather, the Pandemic That Doesnt End?"

My heart, hearing such pleas, cries: what if . . . what if . . .what if?

What if idealism were the essence of human politics, not its scapegoat? What if war and xenophobia were understood to be not business as usual, the equivalent of self-defense and always necessary (at least when we do it) and thus something to be funded without questionyear after year, decade after decade, century after centurybut rather, the Pandemic That Doesnt End?

Just to clarify the matter, I would make a slight amendment to the words of Pope Francis and Secretary-General Guterres: We need a global ceasefire right now not merely so that we can address, and halt, the spread of COVID-19 after which we can go back to murder, torture, sanctions and such . . . the business of teaching our enemies their lessons and/or simply eliminating them but rather, we need a global ceasefire because this is what we have always needed.

I would make a further clarification. Ceasefire sounds like a temporary halt. We need a permanent halt: to war, xenophobia, the false divisiveness of national borders. And this will not happen merely by political authorization, any more than the coronavirus can be ordered by some powerful leader to cease and desist its destructive impact on the human race. Just as much as we need medical vaccines, we need social vaccines.

And even as we talk about waging war on COVID-19, that is not what is going to work. Remember all the wars weve waged over the last half century or so? Weve waged a war on drugs, cancer, crime and poverty even obesity, for Gods sake. And, oh yes, terror. Indeed, evil itself. How did those wars turn out?

In America in my lifetime, war has not been a vehicle for positive outcomes, but for normalizing a particular kind of process in which a White Houses caprices and a populaces complacency expand indefinitely,Adam Weinsteinwrote recently at The New Republic. He makes note of Joe Bidens dismissal, in his latest debate with Bernie Sanders, of Medicare for All as crucial in dealing with COVID-19.

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Get our best delivered to your inbox.

It has nothing to do with Medicare for All, Biden declared. That would not solve the problem at all. Were at war with the virus. Were at war with the virus. It has nothing to do with co-pays or anything. . . . People are looking for results, not a revolution.

Weinstein writes: This argument was couched as common sensedeal with the problem in front of youbut it was the opposite. Rather than lay out an achievable but ambitious long-term goal to protect Americans, Biden is focused on an impossible and open-ended mission: victory over a virus. Affordable health care for all? Theres no time for that malarkey now, jack. Havent you noticed theres a war going on?

In other words, Biden was calling for the opposite of a ceasefire. He seemed to be revving up all that war requires of us, whatever that might be. His declaration of war against a virus sounded excruciatingly like George W. Bushs declaration of war against evil, and the axis thereof. Well take it out with some shock-and-awe bombing. What could be simpler?

And this, precisely, is the problem with war. Before its a realityfire and blood, severed limbs and collapsing infrastructure, anguish, death and hell (for some)its a declaration, a call for national unity against, ta tum, THE ENEMY. This mixes ever so nicely with politics. A leaders job is a lot easier if he or she has a good enemy to rally his constituents against.

In President Donald Trumps Oval Office address yesterday about the threats of the novel coronavirus, he went out of his way to label it a foreign virus,Ben Zimmerwrites at The Atlantic, pointing out that members of the Trump administration have routinely called it the Wuhan virus or Chinese coronavirus.

When it comes to the popular naming of infectious diseases, xenophobia has long played a prominent role, he writes, quoting Susan Sontag that there is a link between imagining disease and imagining foreignness. It lies perhaps in the very concept of wrong, which is archaically identical with the non-us, the alien.

Another twist on this is that members of Team Trump, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have been pushing, according to theNew York Times, for aggressive new action against Iran and its proxy forces and see an opportunity to try to destroy Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq as leaders in Iran are distracted by the pandemic crisis in their country.

The irony here is savage. The calls for ceasefire are not coming from those in command of armies, who instead are looking for whatever opportunity might exist in the current crisis. Yet when I think of what will save humanity from the looming pandemicand from everything else that endangers them, including themselvesI can see this much: Developing a vaccine requires studying andunderstandingthe virus, not waging war against it.

See the rest here:

The Fury and the Folly: We Need a Vaccine to Stop Endless War - Common Dreams

SINGAPORE: Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt achieved greatness leading the US in war.

Maybe thats why so many other US presidents describe their actions in militaristic terms.

President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty" in 1964.

Seven years later, President Richard Nixon did the same with a "war on drugs".

In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W Bush declared a war on terror.

But, when the enemy cannot be found on a battlefield, uniting the nation to your cause becomes much more difficult, legally and politically.

These wars had varying degrees of success.

Johnson used his war on poverty as a lever to pass social welfare legislation that may have otherwise been blocked by Congress. Today, the poverty rate is roughly 12 per cent, down from the 19 per cent when Johnson made his declaration. A good result, but far from total victory.

Nixons war on drugs had some elements of success, such as the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency. The on-going opioid crisis, however, shows that war continues to rage.

While there have been no foreign terror attacks in the US since 2001, the war on terror has no end in sight.

Now, US President Donald Trump describes the COVID-19 pandemic as our big war.

The United States must achieve a better result in this war than in the ones against poverty, drugs and terror.

It will take a blend of war time and peace time leadership from the president to do so most effectively.

SINGAPORES SLOGAN FOR FIGHTING ITS WAR: #SGUNITED

No comparison between Singapore and the US works in the context of fighting this pandemic.

With less than 6 million people, medical resources which can be easily concentrated and the ability to essentially close off its borders, Singapore can better contain COVID-19 than can even just New York City.

Still, the language of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in bringing Singapore together would work in the United States.

What makes Singapore different from other countries is that we have confidence in each other, we feel that we are all in this together, and we do not leave anyone behind. This is SG United, we are SG United.

Donald Trump can learn from Prime Minister Lee in how to unite a country in fighting this war.

WAR EXPANDS A PRESIDENTS AUTHORITY

The US Constitution checks the authority of the president.

In times of war, greater powers are granted to the president, though one of the countrys Founding Fathers, James Madison, warned,war is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandisement, so even then, the powers are not absolute.

In World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt united the country population with his speeches (a date which will live in infamy) coupled with wartime powers to achieve that victory.

As part of the all-out war effort, GM converted all of its factories to produce US$12 billion worth of airplanes, trucks, tanks, guns and shells for the US military in the largest commercial-to-military war production effort in American history.

The entire country united in fighting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

WARTIME AUTHORITY LESS WHEN NO ENEMY TO SURRENDER

Much of the modern emergency authority President Trump can wield derives from the vast authority granted to Roosevelt during World War II.

At nearly every turn since, those grants have been tempered by Congress and the Supreme Court to reflect the constitutional balance of powers.

Indeed, during the Cold War, the Supreme Court drew a sharp distinction between the severity of the threat faced during WWII as opposed to the Korean War and curtailed an attempt by President Truman to force steel industry activity during a work stoppage.

Towards the end of the Vietnam War, Congress sought to restore the balance of power even in times of war and regain congressional authority to declare war with the War Powers Act in 1973.

The clear lesson of these refinements in presidential emergency powers bears significant relevance as President Trump leads the country to defeat the novel coronavirus.

Now, the strength to act decisively will be greatest when bipartisan support exists in Washington DC, and state and local leaders across the nation are treated as equal members of the war council.

TRUMPS COVID-19 WAR ACTIONS

There have been no complaints when President Trump uses his executive authority to lead the battle against the coronavirus. All of his actions have been supported.

He invoked the Defense Production Act to order GM to speed up production of ventilators in one of its auto plants.

The Pentagon dispatched its two Navy hospital ships, one each in New York and Los Angeles, and deployed Army hospital units to other locations.

Trump also ordered some former service members to return to active duty to assist in the coronavirus response.

But there are limits to the presidents authority.

Members of Congress plus state and local officials have autonomous powers needed to win this war.

For the president to lead them, they have to want to follow him.

DEMOCRATS NOT WELCOME IN THE OVAL OFFICE

Only Congress can provide funding for this war effort.

Without their appropriation, the President has no money to spend.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate worked together to pass the US$2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, believed to be the largest in US history.

For every glimmer of hope like the recently passed aid package, there are conflicting signals bipartisanship will not be celebrated such as when President Trump signed the bill into law, he did not invite a single Democrat for the Oval Office ceremony while hosting multiple Republicans.

Celebrating only with members of his own party highlights he does not fully grasp the importance of his leading all of the country.

More importantly, President Trump also set up a potential battle with Democrats over his desire to exercise unilateral authority over key oversight provisions in the law.

Moreover, this stimulus will not be enough. He needs to work with Congress on the next one to win this war, and possibly another after.

After Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared that, the presidents denial at the beginning was deadly, the President described her as a sick puppy.

Washington needs to be #DCUnited on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

GOVERNORS ARE THEIR OWN GENERALS

The president serves as the nations Commander-in-Chief.

But what happens when the enemy is a virus within the country and the army fighting the battle is not the US military?

Those leading todays war are the governors of each state. And these generals do not report to the president.

Before Trump announced the extension of the social distancing guidelines to Apr 30, Maryland's Republican Governor Larry Hogan said he was prepared to ignore President Trump if he reverted to his "very harmful" message of reopening large sections of the economy by Easter.

The president and the governors need to work together. They need to be consulted before actions are contemplated or mused about to the public.

Yet, President Trump proclaims he will not work with those he deems unworthy.

For example, he accused Democratic governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, of not being appreciative of his coronavirus efforts and said he had directed Vice-President Mike Pence not to call him.

He did the same with regard to Michigan GovernorGretchen Whitmer, also a Democrat when he said: Dont call the woman in Michigan.

THE COUNTRY WANTS TO BE UNITED

Americans unite behind presidents when victory is a national imperative.

The war against the coronavirus must be won. And it will. But when? And at what cost?

President Trump discussed how certain parts of the country could re-open for business by Easter.

That leads to questions about the presidents total commitment to the cause.He also continues to favour his party.

Elements of his language seemed to change at his press briefing on Sunday (Mar 29).

In announcing his extension of the social distancing measures to Apr 30, he said: Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.

Will that approach remain? Will his rhetoric follow?

Imagine if President Trump acts upon the mission set forth for his country by Prime Minister Lee: We do not leave anyone behind.

Leave no one behind. A universal tradition. And one needed now more than ever.

Downloadourappor subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak:https://cna.asia/telegram

Steven R Okun and Thurgood Marshall Jr served in the Clinton administration as Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Transportation and White House Cabinet Secretary, respectively. Mr Okun serves as senior adviser for global strategic consultancy McLarty Associates in Singapore. Mr Marshall practices law in Washington.

Continue reading here:

Commentary: Trump fights a two-front war on the coronavirus - CNA

Donald Trump has admitted the US governments emergency stockpile of protective equipment is nearly exhausted because of the extraordinary demands of the coronavirus pandemic.

The shortage was first reported by the Washington Post, which said the supply of respirator masks, gloves and other medical supplies was running low.

Trump, who has been criticised for a lack of central planning, confirmed on Wednesday: It is, because were sending it directly to hospitals. We dont want it to come to the stockpile because then we have to take it, after it arrives, and bring it to various states and hospitals.

The president had urged states to make a deal and buy personal protective equipment (PPE) directly from manufacturers, he added. Weve asked states where they have large manufacturers of different types of equipment to use those local factories, those local plants and have it made directly, ship it right into the hospitals.

Trump continued: Were shipping things right in. We have, as you know, almost 10,000 ventilators which we need for flexibility. Its sounds like a lot but its not.

The national guard had been authorised to move equipment into hospitals when necessary, he added.

Citing officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the Post reported that the depletion of the national stockpile left the White House and states competing for PPE in a freewheeling global marketplace rife with profiteering and price-gouging.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had shipped or delivered 11.6m N95 respirators, 26m surgical masks, 5.2m face shields, 4.3m surgical gowns, 22m gloves, and 8,100 ventilators, the White House said on 28 March.

But Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, has complained that Fema contributes to a bidding war between states for ventilators, likening the situation to eBay. Other state governors and city mayors have complained of a chronic lack of test kits, masks and ventilators.

Wednesdays White House coronavirus taskforce briefing made an unusual start as Trump was first joined by the attorney general, William Barr; the secretary of defense, Mark Esper; and top military officials, who did not seem concerned with physical distancing.

And with America still digesting predictions that up to 240,000 people could die from the pandemic, the president instead focused on drug cartels a familiar applause line at his campaign rallies.

The president announced the sending of navy ships toward Venezuela as the US intensifies counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific following a drug indictment against Nicols Maduro, who still controls the country.

Trump said: As governments and nations focus on the coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain. We must not let that happen.

Esper added: The Venezuelan people continue to suffer tremendously due to Maduro and his criminal control over the country, and drug traffickers are seizing on this lawlessness.

The link to the coronavirus seemed tenuous at best. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters: We came upon some intelligence some time ago that the drug cartels as a result of Covid-19 were going to try to take advantage of the situation and try to infiltrate additional drugs into our country.

As we know, 70,000 Americans die on an average annual basis to drugs. Thats unacceptable. Were at war with Covid-19, were at war with terrorists, and we are at war with the drug cartels, as well. This is the United States military. You will not penetrate this country. You will not get past Jump Street. You are not going to come in here and kill additional Americans.

The president was asked about reports that China had undercounted its coronavirus cases. He said: Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and Im being nice when I say that ... As to whether or not their numbers are accurate, Im not an accountant from China.

Some viewers dismissed the Venezuela announcement as another Trump stunt. Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary, tweeted: Turning this off now. This is just completely ridiculous and dishonest. But its what weve come to expect from Trump and his Administration.

Eventually the defence officials left the podium and were replaced by Trumps health experts Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci. The president against defended his preparations for the pandemic and denied he was at fault for a slow start in testing, claiming he inherited a very broken system. He praised healthcare workers as warriors.

Trump predicted a fast recovery for the economy once the virus had passed and expressed hope that Congresss next emergency relief bill will including spending on infrastructure.

And the president, who had sought on Tuesday to prepare the nation for unfathomable loss of life, nevertheless could not resist some levity. He said of Fauci: He was a great basketball player, and mused: I have hundreds of millions of people. Number one on Facebook ... Did you know? I just found out. When a Fox News reporter asked him a tough question, the president snapped: What are you, working for CNN?

Excerpt from:

Trump says US stockpile of protective equipment nearly gone amid coronavirus - The Guardian

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Govt must repeal the ban on alcohol and cigarettes, says Prof JP Van Niekerk.

The government must unban the sale of alcohol and cigarettes while South Africa is in lockdown, says the South African Drug Policy Initiative.

Despite the good intention of the ban, it fails to consider the harm that its application will cause to addicts.

In the case of alcohol, an addict cannot simply stop drinking without risking a host of detrimental health effects such as psychosis, seizures or even death.

Kieno Kammies interviewed Prof JP Van Niekerk of the South African Drug Policy Initiative.

The South African Drug Policy Initiative is a group of experts that came together to provide the government with evidence-based policies to reduce the harms of drug use

Evidence shows that the War on Drugs caused more problems than it did good

Its highly discriminatory. The vast majority of the population are unable to stock up

For more detail, listen to the interview in the audio below.

Visit link:

Unban the sale of alcohol and cigarettes! - South African Drug Policy Initiative - CapeTalk

The following is a reflection by social anthropologist Mary Racelis on a first-person account by Barangay Captain Filomena Cinco on the state of her community during the coronavirus crisis.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. You can read Part 1, Captain Cinco's account, here.

It is clear that with almost military precision the word has gone down from the Department of Interior and Local Government that the impending health crisis must be dealt with as yet another War. Millions have been placed under lockdown for the good of all. The barangay officials mobilize to put a surveillance system in place and enforce discipline with police and military standing by. However, even as government expects the citizenry to listen to it, the opposite does not seem to apply unless the Barangay Captain is someone like Kap Mena, as she is fondly called.

Having organized the communitys Peoples Organization many years ago, initially to resist distant relocation in favor of onsite upgrading or nearby relocation, she and the women leaders have seen the years of struggle bear fruit. Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Legarda has successfully negotiated with the national government for decent housing onsite and nearby. Its largely women members have become a powerful force in urban poor communities, speaking up for themselves in local and national government meetings.

It was Kap Menas accountability to the community while fulfilling her role as barangay official that highlighted her distinctive leadership. Urged to run for election as Barangay Captain, she did and won. She serves not only her informal settler neighbors but the entire constituency of low- to middle- to high-income families, business establishments, and colleges that make up her Sampaloc constituency. Filomena G. Cinco is now serving her third term. Her active, highly-organized community has been recognized by the City of Manila by twice awarding Barangay 412 the title of Most Outstanding Barangay (All Category-level) 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. Peoples participation is Kap Menas strength and the communitys pride.

The Estero de San Miguel and its overflow population soon to move to the nearby Jesse M. Robredo Village close to Malacaang are known to be among the most dynamic in Metro Manila. In confronting national and local officials, their Peoples Plan in hand, they have successfully won the concessions sought. In the War on Drugs, Kapitana Cinco and her Councilors made an agreement with the Station Commander that any tokhang raiders would have to go through her first. A late night notification would, therefore, alert her and her team to ring a bell arousing the community. Designated committees would accompany the police to the house of the alleged drug user. With people watching, no nanlaban episode occurred. Upon the arrest of the individual, the police leader would sign documents testifying that the suspect had left the barangay alive and in his custody. Kapitana Cinco and the community are proud to say that not a single EJK happened on their watch. (READ: 4 out of 5 Filipinos worry over extrajudicial killings SWS)

She now reiterates her constituents cry that COVID-19, while meriting concern and preparation, is not really the peoples immediate worry. Rather, it is the widespread loss of daily incomes and jobs of thousands of informal sector earners resulting from the sudden lockdown. Tricycle and jeepney drivers now sit idly by their vehicles, parked unused in the alley. A wife selling vegetables in the Legarda market can no longer get there to bargain with her suki (favored customers). Gone from the sidewalks are the university belt students stopping to buy the cheap homemade bead bracelets or decorated combs an enterprising young Estero woman has made at home. Nor can her teenaged brother standing close by continue to ladle out fishball meriendas. All that is gone. Most have no savings. And they are asking, where will we get money to buy food? (READ: [OPINION] Lets not forget the poor during the coronavirus pandemic)

Food packs are on their way, people are told. They dutifully get on a line that snakes back and forth in the community, longer than usual because of the one meter physical distancing order. The recently passed RA 11469 Bayan to Heal as One law offers hope, but will their P5,000-P8,000 emergency cash come soon enough to stave off hunger? Might the government flush with money push aside the timely and helpful assistance provided from the beginning by civil society partners? Should the 4Ps recipients, the poorest with many children, worry because of the rumors that they may not be eligible for the Bayan to Heal subsidies since they already receive in some cases as much as P2,000 a month?

In the meantime, must a mother borrow from the 5:6 lender or sell her small TV? Should her kumadre next door pawn the treasured earrings that she inherited from her grandmother? These anguished questions are raised again and again. How will they manage until the money arrives? How long must the money be made to last? And then what? When can they start working again? Will they still have jobs once the lockdown is lifted?

The issue, Kapitan Cinco makes clear, is not that people dont believe COVID-19 is a serious threat. They know it is. So they are doing what government says they should to minimize its impact. She has relied on the trust built up around her leadership to make that happen. What appalls her constituents is how little recognition appeared to have been given beforehand to the impact of the lockdown on the urban poor. Why did the authorities not work out plans to protect the thousands of daily wage informal sector worker families with virtually no savings? Why doesn't the government even now organize the same kind of systematic priority attention to the economic threats facing the urban poor as it gives the impending health threat? They fear that when the surge of COVID-19 cases zooms upwards, their all-around vulnerability will disproportionately appear in the death statistics.

With her long experience in community organizing and effective governance in urban poor communities, Barangay Kapitan Cinco believes that people can help weather the COVID-19 onslaught if the city and national authorities listen to them, welcome their participation in planning and implementation, and draw on their innate humanitarian values. They want officials to act quickly and effectively because as they have appealed to the President, We will not die from COVID-19 but from hunger! Rappler.com

Mary Racelis is a social anthropologist who teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines. She is Board member of Urban Poor Associates.

Go here to read the rest:

[OPINION] A reflection on Kap Mena, Estero de San Miguel, and the coronavirus - Rappler

President Trump says he views the battle against the coronavirus through the lens of a wartime president. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

President Trump says he views the battle against the coronavirus through the lens of a wartime president.

On March 18, in the midst of a presidential news conference on the coronavirus, Donald Trump compared himself to a "wartime president."

This president has never been shy about casting himself in heroic roles. But his attempt to adopt the military mien raised more than a few eyebrows under the circumstances.

When a reporter referred to the battle against the virus as a war, Trump picked up on it immediately. "It is the invisible enemy," he said. "I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president."

Some of the commentary that followed dwelt on how Trump sat out Vietnam, the war of his own draft-age youth, with deferments for college and then for bone spurs in his foot (a diagnosis The New York Times has reported came from a doctor who was a tenant of Trump's wealthy father).

Others recalled candidate Trump saying in 2015: "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." Since then, he has been equally flattering about his own strategic vision, saying: "I think I would have been a good general." But the several generals who served in Trump's inner circle in his first two years in office including chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Adviser and H.R. McMaster are all conspicuous by their absence now.

There is, of course, nothing new about using war as a metaphor for a national mission. President Ronald Reagan declared a War on Drugs in the 1980s; President Lyndon Johnson a War on Poverty in the 1960s. In between, Jimmy Carter called the need to conserve energy in the 1970s "the moral equivalent of war."

But if Americans are accustomed to such language, they also expect it to be matched by governmental mobilization and performance on a broad scale. So the deeper skepticism that greeted Trump's use of the phrase "wartime president" may be related to his record as commander in chief battling the "enemy" to date.

Yuval Levin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, this week praised "a more intense focus by the president on the problems we face." But he immediately worried that the president "has not been willing to speak to the public about the nature of the threat to the capacity of our health system."

In other words, duck and cover is not a good look for a wartime leader.

Mixed messages

First informed of the virus and its threat in January, Trump was loath to acknowledge it as a problem. He barred travelers from China on Jan. 31 (a decision he now touts on a daily basis, as he vilifies "the Chinese virus"), yet he also continued to dismiss the seriousness of the virus itself. And he maintained that denial for the next four weeks, a potentially crucial period during which the coronavirus was spreading throughout the U.S.

Throughout these early weeks of the year, there were elements of the government's disease-fighting establishment that were scrambling to deal with mounting cases in the U.S. (amid reports of rampant infection in parts of Europe).

But even as March began, the public Trump was not entirely on board. He continually downplayed the virus, saying it probably wouldn't amount to much in the U.S. and would soon be gone. Go about your business, he seemed to be saying, nothing to see here. And all the while, the virus was spreading and the chances of slowing and containing it were diminishing.

Presidential historian Richard Norton Smith summed up the president's attitude this way in an interview with The Chicago Tribune editorial writer Steve Chapman: "He wants to take credit for D-Day without accepting responsibility for Pearl Harbor."

On March 13, Trump gave in and declared a national emergency under the Stafford Act to free up various resources that could have been deployed weeks earlier. But in his news conference that day, he also promised a national Google project to link prospective patients to testing and treatment later that weekend. The company had to announce that, while one of its affiliated companies was working on a prototype of such a program, it would only be available in a few California counties.

Even in the past week, Trump continued to talk about a vaccine coming "very soon" and anti-malaria drugs that could be available "almost immediately" with a lot of promise for use against the coronavirus. It was left to Anthony Fauci, the government's leading expert on infectious disease control since the 1980s, to ratchet back these claims albeit gently and without criticizing the president, who continued to make the claims over the weekend.

The holding out of such hopes, and the continual references to defeating the virus sooner than experts say is possible, mix the messages emanating from the commander in chief. In one moment he says stay at home and save lives, in the next he offers an entirely alternative outlook.

Wartime presidents

When Americans think of wartime leadership, they are most likely to recall Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, the presidents in office for World War II and the Civil War, respectively.

In her prize-winning volume Team of Rivals, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin recounts how Lincoln was able to assemble a Cabinet of men who had been his political enemies and detractors. One, the Ohio lawyer Edwin Stanton, had referred to Lincoln in the 1850s as "that long-armed Ape."

Writes Goodwin: "Unimaginable as it might seem, after Stanton's bearish behavior, at their next encounter six years later, Lincoln would offer Stanton 'the most powerful civilian post within his gift' the post of secretary of war."

Indeed, Stanton went on to organize the war effort that preserved the Union. In similar fashion, eight decades later, Roosevelt entrusted much of America's war effort to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall later praised as "the organizer of victory" by Churchill himself.

Together, Marshall and Roosevelt would orchestrate the talents and egos of an exceptional cast of American commanders in Europe and the Pacific. The former included Eisenhower, whom Marshall plucked from a desk job in the Office of War Plans, promoted, and watched become the 34th president of the U.S. Various biographers of FDR (such as Joseph E. Persico in Roosevelt's Centurions) have seen his style of management as essential to winning the world's most destructive and consequential war to date.

Neither Lincoln nor FDR lived to see the end of their monumental wartime works. But they showed unmistakable qualities in common as they performed in office and then positioned others to finish the job. Both were masterful managers of other people, giving their subordinates power and freedom to bring their own genius to bear and playing them off against each other with interpersonal savvy and a measure of humor.

Eisenhower was the last general to become president. The first was, of course, George Washington, followed by Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison (the latter five all being Civil War generals).

Others with significant military backgrounds included William McKinley, a brevet major in the Civil War, Theodore Roosevelt, who led a combat unit (the Rough Riders) in the Spanish American War as a colonel, and Harry Truman, an artillery officer in World War I. Both John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush saw combat as Navy lieutenants in World War II (Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan served in that conflict in non-combat roles).

Somewhat surprisingly, only one of these war-veteran presidents ever asked Congress for a declaration of war (McKinley, somewhat reluctantly, against Spain in 1898).

The other presidents who sought such declarations were James Madison (War of 1812), James K. Polk (Mexican War), Woodrow Wilson (World War I) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (World War II). None had much of a personal military history, although FDR had been assistant secretary of the navy.

Declarations of war

In the past 75 years, the notion of formal declarations of war has gone out of fashion. Truman and Johnson sought and received the support of Congress for major U.S. troop commitments in Korea (1950) and Vietnam (1964) that became protracted and costly wars even though undeclared. The onus of these conflicts contributed to both men deciding not to seek re-election, Truman in 1952 and Johnson in 1968.

The first President Bush got Congress to approve his military effort to remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in what became the Persian Gulf War of 1991. That brief tour de force sent his approval skyward, peaking at 89% in the Gallup Poll. But the public soured somewhat on Bush when a recession began later in that same year, and he was defeated in a three-way presidential contest in 1992.

His son, George W. Bush, who served in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973 but did not go to Vietnam, also sought congressional buy-in for major troop deployments after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His first authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) was approved overwhelmingly in the fall of 2001 and is still used to justify various actions taken against what are deemed terrorist targets.

A separate AUMF was approved late in 2002 for use against Iraq, and this time the U.S. forces took Baghdad and drove Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein from power. What became known as the Iraq War enjoyed initial support from the public but became unpopular as the occupation of that country went on. Bush narrowly won a second term and his party lost control of both chambers of Congress in the elections of 2006.

In sum, the experiences of "wartime presidents" since FDR should be enough to give a successor pause before invoking that phrase.

Continue reading here:

Trump Tries On The Mantle Of 'Wartime President' - NPR

The War On Drugs played their first shows in a year at the end of 2019, perhaps an indication that the follow-up to 2017s A Deeper Understanding is on the way. Maybe the band would have gone on tour this year to road-test new material as well, but with COVID-19 keeping everyone at home, that aint happening anytime soon. A pandemic-suppressing quarantine isnt keeping Adam Granduciel from showing off his new tunes, though.

Starting at 6PM ET, the foremost Warrior On Drugs is logging on to Instagram Live to play some new recordings/rough mixes through the speakers. Because everything must have a quippy topical name right now, hes calling it #QuaranTones, but we arent complaining because NEW WAR ON DRUGS, WOO!!! Granduciel explained the agenda on IG yesterday:

This week well go downstairs and Live for season 1 episode 1 of #QuaranTones . Lets listen to some new, almost finished songs, some experiments, some old multi tracks, or maybe well just listen to Automatic for the People through a Dimension D.Check back for when..stay healthy and safe xoxo

Head over to the bands IG account on mobile starting at 6PM ET to behold what Granduciel has in store.

UPDATE: Granduciel debuted mixes of three new songs, played an acoustic In Reverse and answered questions from friends and fans. Watch below.

More:

Watch The War On Drugs Debut New Songs On Instagram Live - Stereogum

Students for Sensible Drug Policy is a club here on campus that is dedicated towards a great course. MCLAs SSDP club is connected to the international organization for SSDP, that works with colleges globally.

According to ssdp.com, they are working towards, replacing the war on drugs with policies rooted in evidence, compassion and human rights. SSPD has 5,000 active members, made up of young people and students and mobilizes from 300 schools around the world.

Bridget Boryles 20, SSDP President, has made it her mission to help bring attention to this organization and topic to the MCLA campus.

Ive seen the way the war on drugs can really hurt people so I really care about this, she said. I know that there are so many other people that are affected by this so I just think its important that we raise our voices. We as young people have a lot of power to make change.

One of the ways works towards change is acting as a resource to students.

Our whole thing is that we dont judge people. We are here to help people and point them to the resources they need, Broyles said. We are also here to help people bring action on campus or in the community if they see a policy that they think is unfair then we can help them to combat that policy. Thats what were all about.

Broyles finds it is important to fight against the stigma surrounding people who struggle with addiction.

People who use substances are some of the vulnerable people and a lot of times the war on drugs often perpetuates itself in ways that predominantly affect marginalized groups, Broyles said. Weve had conversations about the way the war on drugs targets black men specifically.

The war on drugs is just another avenue to target people of color, poor people, and queer people. Its a problem and it needs to be talked about more openly and more honestly because its still seen as something that is so taboo, she continued.

The club works towards eliminating these stigmas and invites conversation regarding the war on by providing an environment for an open discussion through their various events.

Weve had fun events with food and drinks that were more of a party setting, Broyles said. Its just an opportunity for us to have a conversation about substances in am more fun setting rather than a, Im going to sit here in lecture you sort of setting.

They also have hosted more informational and educational events that help with campus and community harm reduction.

We had recently had a Narcan training where someone from Tapestry came by and she had a whole presentation about what Narcan is, what you can use it for, and distributed Narcan to everyone who came to the event for free, Broyles said.

In the future, Broyles hopes to see more engagement from other students within the club because of the importance of the subject matter.

Were looking really to partner with other clubs. We want to work with anyone whos interested and has some way to relate their club to drug policy, she said.

Read more:

SSDP Club Educates the Campus on Drug Policy - The Beacon

Everything about the coronavirus crisis looks and feels like a war that is all the more unsettling because the enemy is invisible and immune to brute force. Yet amid all the signs of conflict declarations of emergency, mobilizations of National Guard troops, the exercise of extraordinary powers there is enduring constitutional danger in treating this crisis like a war. When this pandemic is over, generations will have to deal both with its terrible human toll and with the constitutional changes it yields.

Wars transform political systems, often in ways that are difficult to reverse. So do major crises. Even as Americans understandably focus their attention on the dire public health emergency the nation faces, they should allot some consideration to the effect of our response on the nations constitutional fabric. The political system that emerges from this pandemic is almost certain to concentrate more power perhaps power of an acutely intimate nature, the kind that decides personal matters of life and death in the national government generally and in the president specifically.

This particular crisis, which requires prolonged attention to detail and the magnanimity to set personal and partisan grievances aside, does not play to President Trumps strengths. His propensity for short-term thinking was evident in his preposterous suggestion Tuesday that, against all the available evidence about public health, he wanted the country opened up, and just raring to go, by Easter. But in constitutional terms, his own personal capacity to rise to this moment is less important than whether the nation should want a lasting concentration of more power in executive hands. Even if Mr. Trump were better suited to the moment, that would not mean future presidents should have more power.

War, James Madison wrote, is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. That has been true of nearly every war the nation has fought. In many cases, emergency powers have been temporarily necessary but permanently transformational. Madisons warning holds for war metaphors as well. The nations wars on poverty, drugs and other problems have all concentrated power in the federal government and the men we have chosen to lead it. Presidents who, as Madison noted, wield the power and wear the laurels of war have an incentive to encourage this.

Mr. Trump has already declared himself a wartime president. That is unsurprising. What is more troubling is the eagerness of legislators for him to act that way.

Recent weeks have witnessed a curious constitutional inversion: legislators eager to surrender power to a president reluctant to wield it. This was perhaps most evident in the crisis posture of Chuck Schumer, the Senates Democratic leader. He repeatedly pressed Mr. Trump to declare a national emergency under the disaster-related Stafford Act only to release a statement after it happened urging the chief magistrate not to indulge his autocratic tendencies. If Mr. Schumer was concerned about those tendencies, why was he so eager to give Mr. Trump more power? That power may have been justified, at least temporarily. Emergency powers often are. The problem is that they accumulate and endure long after the emergency ends.

The constitutional system of separation of powers was not designed to work with the legislature heaping power on the president and then pleading with him not to abuse it. Federalist 51 famously described a mechanism by which competing ambitions to exercise power would keep each branch from encroaching on the other.

There is an excellent argument to be made that this crisis requires an unusual degree of presidential authority, regardless of whether one wishes a different president could wield it. It is understandably difficult to look beyond the crisis now, but constitutional questions must be considered without regard to the temporary occupant of any office. Whoever is president, the key is that additional powers conferred on the executive be given only temporarily, with Congress holding the leash.

That is the inverse of how this crisis has unfolded. Having been pressured to declare a national emergency, Mr. Trump unsurprisingly swung for the constitutional fences. He declared an emergency not only under the Stafford Act which releases disaster-relief funds but also under the National Emergencies Act, which could trigger dozens of statutory provisions, many of which do not bear on this crisis.

What is particularly disturbing about this procedure is that the National Emergencies Act effectually empowers presidents to retain emergency authority until they decide to give it up. An emergency declaration can be renewed by the president and terminated only by a joint resolution of Congress that requires the presidents signature. The expectation that presidents will voluntarily renounce emergency authority runs contrary to all assumptions the constitutional order makes about the seductions of power, which, as Federalist 48 noted, is of an encroaching nature.

It is especially disturbing that Mr. Trump was goaded into invoking the Korean War-era Defense Production Act, which enables presidents to direct industrial production toward war needs when national security or natural disaster requires it. The fact that the act has been amended to apply to domestic emergencies underscores the tendency of emergency powers to expand. What about Mr. Trumps erratic response to the coronavirus pandemic thus far from his early flattering of China to his repetitive efforts to minimize the crisis inspires confidence in his ability to command the industrial capacity of the nation?

Even if one granted the defensible premise that the national government needs to do more to force industry to produce emergency medical supplies, equating domestic crisis with foreign war is dangerous. War powers are notoriously difficult to contain once unleashed. They tend, instead, to metastasize, as in a recent Justice Department request to allow indefinite detention without trial during emergencies. More broadly, crisis powers tend to remain in presidential hands once the immediate danger passes, especially when wars do not have clear beginnings and ends.

Witness the fact that the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force remains in effect nearly 19 years later. Americans born after it was enacted will be eligible to vote in the next election. They are also serving in the seemingly endless conflicts that have ensued. In the case of 9/11, the preoccupation was with emergency action at all costs. We are still grappling with the constitutional fallout a generation later.

The coronavirus crisis could prove even more insidious. Mr. Trumps use of the National Emergencies Act to help fund his border wall shows how tempting that kind of power can be. If war statutes are converted to domestic use, Democrats might consider what will happen if Mr. Trump who has already likened illegal immigrants to invaders declares a metaphorical war on them.

Similarly, Republicans should survey the powers being conferred on Mr. Trump and ask whether they would be comfortable with Joseph R. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for president, invoking national security powers for urgent wars that address his priorities, like climate change or gun control. It may be a far leap from here to there. It is also now a shorter one.

None of these is equivalent to the genuine and immediate crisis the coronavirus presents. But all of them serve as warnings that the powers will not easily go away when this crisis ends. Far from it: We risk becoming inured to them and legitimating their future use.

These scenarios are all the more disconcerting for being so preventable. Congress has shown in recent days that it has the capacity to act in times of crisis. It overwhelmingly passed an initial round of emergency measures, which Mr. Trump promptly signed into law.

It is true that the economic bailout was delayed by disagreement on the proper extent of government authority and the responsibilities of corporations that receive public money. But now above all times, and with $2 trillion at stake, that was a debate worth having.

Instead of bending wartime statutes to domestic use or activating emergency statutes laced throughout the federal code, Congress could have identified the specific powers Mr. Trump needed to deal with this crisis and conferred them on a temporary and renewable basis. That would have left it up to Congress, not the president, to decide how long these exceptional executive powers were available.

It is difficult to make room for constitutional considerations while a pandemic is sweeping the nation and overwhelming health systems. But this is when those considerations matter most, because they establish precedents that do not end with the crises that produce them.

Crisis both necessitates constitutional protections and tests our willingness to adhere to them. Perhaps the coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to show that another element of the constitutional system the citizenrys willingness to consider constitutional questions even when they seem remote from immediate emergencies is resilient too.

Greg Weiner (@GregWeiner1) is a political scientist at Assumption College, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of The Political Constitution: The Case Against Judicial Supremacy.

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

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

View post:

Are We Sure We Want to Give Trump War Powers? - The New York Times

A medical officer checks devices at an emergency hospital, handling coronavirus disease in Jakarta, Indonesia March 23, 2020. (Antara Foto, Hafidz Mubarak/Reuters via Indonesia Out)

Today on the menu: the different forms the world is utilizing to battle the coronavirus, from massively stepping up respirator production to creating treatments for those with the virus.

The Five Fronts

Theres no getting around it: The news is grim, and its going to be grim for a while. You can choose whatever metaphor you like; I prefer to describe this as the coronavirus bombing Pearl Harbor and leaving our medical Pacific Fleet in ruins. We never sought this fight and most of us were oblivious to the threat as it gathered. Now, after suffering our first shocking losses, we know we have no choice but to fight this lethal enemy. We dont know how long this fight is going to last. We know we are certain to suffer casualties. But we have no choice but to fight this virus with everything weve got; unchecked coronavirus would not destroy America, but it would inflict unbearable losses and alter it irrevocably.

Perhaps it is worth remembering Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940:

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

A plan for final victory is already taking shape. The United States of America, and the rest of the world, are attacking this threat on five key fronts.

Discovering and developing the vaccine.

Coronavirus is probably going to be a factor in our lives until late 2021. This doesnt mean the current conditions will continue for another 18 months, just that we need to be prepared for the discovery, manufacturing, and distribution of a vaccine to take that long.

Yes, it is possible we could get lucky and the vaccine will be widely available before then. You probably saw the news of the first experimental vaccine trials that began last month. The good news is that at least 44 different projects to develop a vaccine are in development around the world. There are probably more great medical minds, with more resources and equipment and funding, attacking the coronavirus than have ever been thrown at any health problem ever before in human history.

(The Chinese government claims it will have a vaccine by April for emergency situations. But we all know China lies.)

Stanley Plotkin invented the rubella vaccine in 1964. He told Science magazine, There may be advantages to having more than one anticoronavirus vaccine because if and its a big if one needs millions of doses, asking a single manufacturer to produce enough for the world is unlikely. One is going to need multiple manufacturers and if there are multiple effective vaccines so much the better. I am not arguing for the selection of a single coronavirus vaccine unless there are difficulties with others.

Expanding hospital capacity.

Youve been hearing about flattening the curve, in an attempt to keep the number of cases below the threshold of the medical systems ability to treat everyone. Theres a horizontal line on the chart used to visualize this that represents medical system capacity. But that line doesnt have to remain flat. The right moves can increase the capacity of our medical system.

Seattle already has two hospital tents on soccer fields.

In New York, theyre starting:

Four 250-bed federal emergency hospitals will be built in the Javits Center over the next 7 to 10 days.

The hospitalsare being built by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Construction material for the hospitals had already started to arrive as Cuomo spoke. Each of the hospitals will be 40,000 square feet and be staffed by 320 federal staff members.

Cuomo also said 30,000 retired healthcare workers are answering the call and have enlisted to help in New Yorks coronavirus response.

All across the country, local and state leaders are looking at closed hospital facilities and either reopening them or preparing to reopen them.

Philadelphia is contemplating reopening Hahnemann University Hospital. In California, Long Beach Community Hospital is reopening. In New York, DeGraff Memorial Hospital in North Tonawanda may reopen. The New Jersey Department of Health is working to re-open Inspira Medical Center Woodbury in Gloucester County. This country has 155 closed rural hospitals.

Each one of those adds a couple hundred more beds and capacity to handle non-coronavirus health care that cannot be delayed.

Making more masks.

Mask production is expanding: 3M has ramped up production of N95 respirators and doubled its global output to nearly 100 million per month; in the United States we are producing 35 million respirators per month. Fiat Chrysler will start manufacturing face masks in the coming weeks and expects to be able to create 1 million per month. (One unnerving detail: The automaker confirmed to TechCrunch that production capacity is being installed this week at one of its factories in China.)

Those homemade ones might help somewhat, but they are not really a suitable substitute for health-care workers and others likely to be exposed to the coronavirus.

Making more ventilators.

Americas auto-making factories to the rescue!

Ford said it will work with3M to produce a new kind of Powered Air-Purifying Respirator for healthcare workers. A PAPR has a clear mask that fits over the face. Air is drawn in through a tube connected to a pump that filters the air. The PAPR will be made using parts from both Ford and 3M, the automaker said, including fans used in the Ford F-150s optional ventilated seats.

Fordsaid it is exploring the possibility of producing the device at one of its Michigan factories. 3M will also make the respirators at its own factory, Ford said.

The automaker also said it will work with the United Auto Workers Union to assemble clear plastic face shields that protect people from possibly infectious bodily fluids. The Ford-designed masks are being tested at Detroit-area hospitals. They could be used by healthcare workers, but also others, such as store clerks, who must regularly deal with the public.

Ford is also using 3D printers at its Advanced Manufacturing Center to create disposable air-filtering respirator masks. Once approved, Ford said, the company could initially 1,000 masks per month but hopes to increase production as quickly as possible.

Finally, something that might make that GM bailout worthwhile:

General Motors said last Friday that it was going to work with Ventec Life Systems to help increase its production of ventilators for hospital patients. On Monday, the two companies announced that Ventec is now planning exponentially higher ventilator production as fast as possible as a result of the partnership.

Also notice this detail from a March 22 announcement from Food and Drug Administration, which suggests that one possible solution is on the bedside tables of millions of Americans.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), auto-CPAP, and bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP or BPAP) machines typically used for treatment of sleep apnea (either in the home or facility setting) may be used to support patients with respiratory insufficiency provided appropriate monitoring (as available) and patient condition.

Its hard to get a sense of how many CPAP machines are out there, but one manufacturer, ResMed, said in 2018 it had millions of patients. One company estimates 5 million Americans use CPAP machines.

Making more treatments for those who have coronavirus.

I cant believe I have to say this, but do not eat fish tank cleaner to prevent coronavirus.

Right now, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating two drugs that are approved to treat other diseases (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) and another, more experimental drug (remdesivir). Around the world, 40 studies for coronavirus drugs have begun but are not yet recruiting for clinical trials and 49 are recruiting.

With progress on these five fronts, we can gradually lift the social distancing, shelter-in-place, lockdowns, and those loosely enforced curfews. In time, as the country adjusts, state and local governments will reevaluate whether all of these restrictions makes sense for every area. For example, right now, California is in lockdown, meaning everyone is expected to stay home except to get food, care for a relative or friend, obtain health care or go to an essential job. But as of this writing, 16 counties have no reported cases (mostly rural ones).

ADDENDUM: Thank you to Michael Brendan Dougherty for the kind words on the most recent edition of The Editors, and thanks to Kevin Holtsberry for his high praise as well.

See original here:

The War on Coronavirus Advances on Five Different Fronts - National Review

With help from David Lim

House and Senate divided on coronavirus drug payments and testing requirements.

Advertisement

New York begins trials for two potential treatments, heralded by Trump.

Gileads antiviral gets a rare disease nod ensuring 7 years of market exclusivity.

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Prescription Pulse! Do you work for a hospital? What's the status of your personal protective gear? Is your hospital able to perform its own testing? Tell us what you're seeing. This survey is for our reporting only. We wont publish your name without contacting you for permission. And keep sending pharma/device news and tips Sarah Owermohle ([emailprotected] or @owermohle), David Lim ([emailprotected] or @davidalim) and Arthur Allen ([emailprotected] or @ArthurAllen202).

Sign up for POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition, your daily update on how the illness is affecting politics, markets, public health and more.

CONGRESS AT WAR OVER THIRD CORONAVIRUS PACKAGE A new rescue plan from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would, among other things, require insurers to eliminate co-pays on coronavirus treatments and bolster test reporting.

While Pelosi's draft bill has no chance of being enacted, it provides a laundry list of the kind of measures Democrats are pushing as talks over a historic stimulus package hit a rough patch in the Senate. Heres how the Senate Republican plan and Pelosis differ on pharma and devices:

Paying for drugs. While health plans would have to fully cover coronavirus treatments at no extra expense, theyd be reimbursed for their patients cost-sharing. But in addition to waiving treatment costs, Pelosis bill also orders plans to leave out certain barriers to accessing medicines, like prior authorization requirements, that could slow down use of coronavirus-targeting drugs.

House Democrats had struggled to get drug affordability language into the first stimulus package in the face of GOP opposition. The Senate version shields patients from out-of-pocket payments for tests but does not make the same assurances for medicines. Nothings been approved for Covid-19 yet, so its unclear what the bill for treatment would even be.

Tracking tests. The House bill would require states and local governments, labs and health systems to report real-time data coronavirus testing results. Democrats also want specific details from severe outcomes to be reported a step public health researchers say is needed to have a better understanding of how the disease is affecting different patient populations.

It is unclear if the House bill provides $5 billion in funding that commercial labs have sought. The Senate version did not contain such money, much to chagrin of groups like the American Clinical Laboratories Association.

ANTIBIOTIC MEASURE DROPPED FROM SENATE VERSION Meanwhile, a provision to boost payments for much-needed antibiotics has been dropped from the Senate GOP stimulus package, aides and lobbyists confirm. A corresponding measure was not in the House bill.

Conversations are ongoing, but its looking pretty grim, said one policy expert close to negotiations. The provision, drawn from the bipartisan DISARM Act, S. 1712 (116), would have boosted Medicare payments for antibiotics.

Proponents of the measure say its not just about bolstering the beleaguered antibiotic industry, which has been wracked by bankruptcies and mergers. The ongoing pandemic is about a virus but many people who contract a virus actually end up dying from secondary infections, especially if they are in the hospital on a ventilator that can be susceptible to bacteria, argued the policy expert.

Is that the case with coronavirus? Too early to say, the experts say. But a few research papers are starting to give us that smoke.

TRUMP TOUTS NY TRIALS President Donald Trump is hanging big hopes for defeating the coronavirus on a drug trial starting soon in New York, touting the potential benefits of an experimental combination that is only in the early stages of research.

That therapy probably is looking very, very good, and the trial could start as early as Tuesday, Trump said at a Monday night press briefing on the coronavirus.

Two clinical trials are set to begin in the state as early as this week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday morning ahead of the president's briefing.

Cuomo and Trump have clashed in recent weeks over the federal response to the pandemic and states needs, but Trump on Monday pointed to New Yorks upcoming trials as evidence that swift progress was being made against the virus that has infected nearly 40,000 people in the country so far. New York, now considered the U.S. epicenter of the outbreak, has reported nearly 21,000 known cases.

We are dealing there well together, Trump said of Cuomo on Monday night, later adding that the governor has been working very hard."

One trial would combine the antibiotic zithromax and the decades-old drug hydroxychloroquine, originally developed to fight malaria. The president has named-checked the drug in recent press conferences as a promising option for treating patients who contract the virus, despite research being in the early stages.

Bioethicists and policy experts have warned against overpromising on chloroquine, which is also used against lupus and arthritis, because it's not yet clear how effective it is against the coronavirus and its side effects could be serious.

The second trial could begin as early as this week to test infusing a serum from recovered Covid-19 patients into current patients to boost their immunity to the virus, Cuomo said.

The plasma technique, first used in the 1890s, is still occasionally employed in critical situations Chinese scientists have used it in the current pandemic as well. But it has had a mixed record: In a trial using plasma against the Ebola virus, 31 percent of participants died, compared to 38 percent who died while receiving only supportive care, with researchers reporting that the technique "was not associated with a significant improvement in survival."

CORONAVIRUS A RARE DISEASE? Apparently so, according to an FDA decision Monday to designate Gileads experimental antiviral remdesivir an orphan drug. The designation gives Gilead seven years of market exclusivity and a 25 percent tax credit if it makes it to market. But Covid-19 has already infected 375,000 people worldwide and at least 39,000 people in the U.S., with no signs yet of abating. Some governors have warned that 40 percent to 60 percent of people could be infected if certain measures are not taken hardly the definition of rare.

The designation, in fact, does not take projected figures into account so even though public health experts expect many more domestic cases, coronavirus is still a rare disease, for now. And the FDA cannot rescind the designation just because case load grows over 200,000, its benchmark for the classification.

The intellectual property NGO Knowledge Ecology International quickly slammed the decision. "Everyone wishes this was a rare disease, but unfortunately, it isnt, and the testing will certainly confirm that shortly," the organization wrote in a statement.

House Democrats also might not be thrilled. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform last year grilled Gilead CEO Daniel ODay over the drugmakers patents and prices for HIV medicines. Some argued that the government should ignore the exclusivity on patents on a prevention drug, Truvada, that they said federally funded scientists at the CDC had a role in developing.

INSULIN GOES BIOLOGIC Grandfathered biologic drugs officially transitioned to a new regulatory pathway on Monday, a move aimed at opening the door to more affordable insulin as well as certain fertility drugs, human growth hormone and other substances.

New versions of insulin will now be classed with vaccines and therapeutic proteins and can be fast-tracked when shown to be similar to or interchangeable with FDA-approved biologics. There is no true generic insulin on the market now, partly because the conventional pathway made it difficult to make identical products.

FDA published a final rule Feb. 20 outlining the application process for the new pathway for biological products. In a release Monday, FDA deputy commissioner Amy Abernethy and drugs chief Janet Woodcock called it a historic day and a landmark moment.

FDA IS WARNING CONSUMERS ABOUT FAKE TESTS The agency says that while it is working with developers on coronavirus tests that may include at-home sample collection, there is no FDA-approved at-home test to date, and consumers should be wary of any product making such a representation.

Fraudulent health claims, tests, and products can pose serious health risks, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement Friday.

PUBLIC HEALTH LABS GET SWAB REFRESH The labs are receiving more than 200,000 swabs from the Strategic National Stockpile in response to a supply crunch for basic testing materials, Scott Becker, the CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, told POLITICO on Sunday.

A backlog of samples to be tested for coronavirus at commercial labs will be resolved by mid-week, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Sunday.

Pence also said the administration would give all commercial labs guidance to prioritize in-patient testing, so that patients who have been checked into hospitals for the coronavirus or coronavirus-like symptoms could be tested more quickly.

MEETING THE VENTILATOR DEMAND CPAP devices can be converted into ventilators during the coronavirus outbreak, FDA said in guidance over the weekend.

The policy allows hospitals to repurpose existing products to meet major shortages in the United States during the coronavirus outbreak.

ResMed Chief Medical Officer Carlos Nunez told POLITICO that modifications to its in-market CPAP machines to support more advanced modes of respiratory aid requires careful assessment to ensure risk is acceptable.

We have an opportunity to convert the manufacturing resources typically used for PAP devices to support manufacturing bilevel and non-invasive ventilation devices that are more suited to the care of COVID-19 patients, Nunez said. The company is in the process of doubling its normal manufacturing levels for invasive-capable and non-invasive ventilators.

Ventilators normally used in other environments, such as ambulances, could be used for long-term care, the guidance says.

Still, groups including the American Hospital Association and state leaders like Cuomo argue the federal governments actions are inadequate and that Trump should use the Defense Production Act to compel manufacturers to boost supply of ventilators, personal protective equipment and testing supplies.

We cant just wait for companies to come forward with offers and hope they will, Cuomo tweeted Monday. This is a national emergency.

HOW DO YOU DOLE OUT IN A PANDEMIC? Two articles in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday examine the question of how to ethically allocate scarce medical resources and ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rationing is already here. In the United States, perhaps the earliest example was the near-immediate recognition that there were not enough high-filtration N-95 masks for health care workers, prompting contingency guidance on how to reuse masks designed for single use, the medical ethicists wrote. They also note that hard decisions about which patients get intensive care beds and ventilators during a severe outbreak are on the horizon.

STATES STRATEGIZE ON TESTING New York is shifting its remote testing away from worried well residents and New Yorkers experiencing mild Covid-19 symptoms to prioritize the sick, the de Blasio administration said Sunday. The city canceled a remote testing site at Pier 88 the same day and shut down one of the public hospital systems sites in the Bronx on Monday, Amanda Eisenberg reports.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that NYC Health + Hospitals is about 10 days away from reaching its capacity for Covid-19 patients. He also warned of looming equipment shortages.

I think were about 10 days away now from seeing widespread shortages of really fundamental supplies, from ventilators, surgical masks the things that are absolutely necessary to keep a hospital system running, de Blasio said during an interview on CNN. And we have seen next to nothing from the federal government at this point.

Meanwhile in Florida, a small battalion of University of Florida researchers will be at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community north of Orlando, where they will administer 400 to 500 coronavirus tests daily to eldery patients even asymptomatic Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday.

ANGRY STATE LEADERS PUSH BACK ON MASK SHIPMENT CLAIMS Governors, mayors and front-line health care workers confronting rising numbers of critically ill coronavirus patients said Sunday they have not received meaningful amounts of federal aid including the shipments of desperately needed masks and other emergency equipment that administration officials say they have already dispatched.

Several Democratic governors are demanding a more coordinated national response to get supplies as fast as possible to where they are needed most critically, Alice Miranda Ollstein reported. But Trump hit back at the governors' televised pleas, tweeting Sunday that they "shouldn't be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings." He told the governors the federal government's role is to be there "to back you up should you fail, and always will be!"

HHS OIG put out a fraud alert Monday warning the public of coronavirus schemes like telemarketing calls seeking personal details such as Medicare information.

More:

Congress at war over third coronavirus package - Politico

We published the results in our first issue of the year 2000, at a time when people were looking forward to the start of a new millennium, and the responses ranged from fun and flippant to rigorous and wonky. (You can read that original feature here. You can find out whether some of those wishes came true here.)

But 2000 was a long time ago. It was before 9/11, the war on terror, the Great Recession, the first African-American president, and the vicious resurgence of white nationalism. And locally, the Twin Cities had yet to construct a failed mall at Block E and numerous (yet-unfailed) sports stadiums, or witness the rise of a vibrant restaurant culture. Prince was very much alive. The future those people were asked to imagine? Were living in it.

That got us wondering how people would answer the same question today. And so we asked. Artists and politicians, historians and poets, comedians and restaurateurswe wanted to hear from them all.

And then... well, the future took an unexpected turn. As you read these answers, remember that we received them before we found ourselves in a national health crisis whose effects could reshape how we live at a fundamental level. Nobody can predict how the Twin Citiesor Minnesota, or the U.S., or the worldwill change as a result.

Then again, who can ever predict how things will change? Whatever happens in the upcoming months, however disruptive, there will be a future. And if we have to rebuild, here are some ideas for the planners of tomorrow to kick around. Keith Harris

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Chad Kampeevent promoter, Flip Phone

I know people from St. Paul wont like this, but the big thing I would love to see would be Minneapolis and St. Paul becoming one large city together to create a dynamic cultural landscape. This would make it easier for everyone to get to the cities shared resources, to get out of that mentality of Im going from one city to another. If I could just snap my fingers, there would be just one major downtowntheyre so far from each other now that people who live in one never go to the other.

Dayna FrankPresident and CEO, First Avenue Productions

Minneapolis-St. Paul needs to continue working on improving the quality of life for every single resident. We top a ton of stunning lists, and we should, but we cant ignore the lists on which we place last. The Twin Cities needs to work for all residents. We need to improve access to steady and meaningful employment, to transportation and to affordable housing, while we focus on improving equitable access to things that bring us joy, like our parks, lakes, and our brilliant entertainment scene.

That and a Twins World Series victory would be nice.

Todd KemeryVice President, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Minnesota Chapter

As a quadriplegic and a wheelchair user, if I had the power to prioritize anything, it would be snow removal at all curb cuts and draining any water or slush in front of them. Piles of snow and slush obviously block the path of travel of those with mobility issues, but what is often not considered is proper drainage. When I encounter any standing water or slush, my ability to see the surface is gone. I cant see any hidden trip hazard, and if I trip or get seriously stuck on an extremely cold day, theres the potential for frostbite or worse. Having a spinal cord injury/disorder or any neuromuscular condition that results in limited or missing muscle control means cold and muscle groups begin to stiffen after five to ten minutes. The danger then becomes the inability to push or control a wheelchair or to transfer in or out of a vehicle, transfer in or out of a wheelchair, or to open doors and push buttons. Tragic results can escalate quickly if someone is stuck out of doors and cant use their hands or arms.

Hodan HassanMinnesota state representative, District 62A

I would love to see the opioid epidemic combatted. I hope members of our community are not dying of overdose or committing suicide because we dont have comprehensive mental healthcare. Opioids are an acute problem in my districtif you walk around in the Franklin Avenue and Bloomington Avenue area, you can see syringes everywhere. We need to fund the problem appropriatelylast session we did get $40 million from big pharma, but I think we already know what the problem is. Many of the communities struggling with opioids have huge historical trauma, of poverty, racism, discrimination. Being homeless is hard, poverty is hard, and its expensive to be poor, so people are finding ways to deal with their pain.

Kim Bartmannrestaurateur

Twenty years ago [when I responded to this same question], I was an angry tree-hugger, despondent about the potential bulldozing of the Camp Coldwater Spring, and yes, selfishly, my long-time spot for walking with friends and dogs along the river and in the woods. Now Im what Id like to call a tree-hugger with stats, having built LEED-certified projects and engaged in sustainable business practices for 20 years. Yes, Im still angry about some of our MnDot decisions, like the one where a train could have been put in an existing trench where density and people already are for $50 million, as opposed to through 45 acres of woods and under a lake for $2 billion. My hopes for our city are many, but responsible use of our lands as a way to ensure our Norths clean air and water is high up on my list for my kids future.

Saymoukda Vongsay poet/playwright

I want to live in a foragable city. I want to see fruits and vegetables growing abundantly. Replace empty lots, bare exterior walls, and abandoned structures with edible flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables. Make every block look like a salad. Pea pods climbing the IDS tower. Beautiful and delicious. Clean our rivers and lakes and let herbs and watercress take over. End plastic bottles and grow crunchy watercucumbers, chestnuts, bean sprouts, and jicama. Give everyone olive oil and salt for on-the-go/anytime-anyplace simple dressing.

Also, chandeliers hanging on all the trees because we all deserve a bit of fancy in our lives.

Peter Rachleffco-executive director, East Side Freedom Library

Id like to change the teaching of American history in the public schoolsits content and its pedagogy. The content should include attention to the expropriation of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans, the exploitation of immigrants, conflicts around race, class, and gender, and how these experiences and issues are inter-related. The pedagogy should include techniques that empower students as the tellers of stories, as being responsible for defining critical issues and shaping narratives. At the East Side Freedom Library we have seen the value of such changes in the hundreds of middle and high school students who have engaged with us through the National History Day program. These changes can impact how young people understand themselves and their place in American history.

Maria Regan Gonzalez Mayor of Richfield

Id eliminate the sweeping racial inequities we face in outcomes and opportunities, making us one of the worst places in the country to live for people of color. We need a Twin Cities region where homes, affordable quality child care, health, leadership positions, educational attainment, well-paying jobs, and access to opportunities are afforded to everyone, not just some. Could you imagine a Twin Cities region that would instead be recognized for its ability to truly welcome and leverage diversity as an asset? We have the tools to make this a reality, like the ability to substantially invest in community-based solutions and getting serious about resourcing, hiring, electing, investing in, and retaining leaders of color to be successful across all industries and sectors.

Jeremiah EllisonMinneapolis City Council Member, Ward 5

I would lower rentsboth housing and commercial rent, especially the storefronts that small businesses operate out of, whether this means rent stabilization or rent control. The mayor and I have been working on a few things, and were looking to everything were able to doand learning what we can and cant do. As the city becomes less and less affordable for working-class folks, the task seems daunting. But were gonna put our money where our mouth is.

Fancy Ray McCloney The Best Lookin Man In Comedy

Three ways to change the Twin Cities for the better: 1. Lower parking rates in downtown areas. Businesses are hurting in both downtowns. 2. No more winter weather after January 15. Snowbirds would stay here year round. 3. More Prince and Fancy Ray murals around the Cities. Prince makes Minneapolitans proud and Fancy Ray makes those same folks feel good.

Ann Kim Restaurateur

I hope to see Minneapolis/St. Paul be the epicenter of innovation in food, the arts, technology, medical advancements, and climate change. This may seem like a grandiose vision, but if you dont see it, you cant be it. Theres no reason why the Twin Cities cant be looked to like New York or L.A. as an incubator for innovation and trendsetting. We just have to claim it, commit to it, support it, and do it. I believe this can be done by working collaboratively with leaders across disciplines to see where our individual/organizational goals intersect to support the greater vision of excellence. It starts from the top with inspired leaders working toward a long game, taking meaningful risks, thinking big, embracing change, and telling fear to fuck off.

Mitra JalaliSt. Paul City Council member, Ward 4

I want to see our city have a mix of more new and integrated neighborhoods, with some of these really thriving, long-time communities of color able to stay in the city, and build wealth, and have political empowerment. I want the character of the city to feel palpably different. Our community has, to many, felt like an old town, that the loudest voices are wealthier white homeowners, whose priorities are reflected. Were actually 51 percent renters, a majority are people of color and indigenous, and the median age is 31. I want us to be more weird, and be more new-feeling.

Rana MayComic

April 2020: Donald Trump and Mike Pence die, and many people break quarantine to celebrate. Some of them die.

April 2021: The pandemic funeral episode of Greys Anatomy is the most watched event in TV history.

September 2021: A vaccination is available, but only for the elderly. People fake passports and dye their hair gray. Vaccine doses are transported on buses full of sneezing children so they dont get robbed.

2023: One lab working on a cheaper vaccine accidentally creates winged cats who can fly up to 100 miles. The cats congregate in the trees like crows and hunt people.

2031: The newly installed cat-person dictator is laser focused on cat-related policy, but still grants universal healthcare, subsidized housing for all, prison reform, and immigration reform. Everyone is forced to have one cat. Unless theyre allergic.

Tricia Heuring co-founder, Public Functionary

Instead of the city holding vacant spaces for wealthy developers to turn into luxury housing, underutilized space would be gifted to community organizers and arts leaders who live in that neighborhood. Systems could be set up so that organizers would have at least a year, rent-free, to design their space and operations with and for their communities. Each space would come with a two-year start-up operating grant, so they are resourced from day one. Perhaps then we would have inclusive, accessible multi-disciplinary community and art spaces that pass from generation to generation in every. single. neighborhood.

Free Black Dirt artist collective

If Free Black Dirt ruled the world (imagine that?)or the microcosm of it within Minneapoliswe would center healing and reparations as a vision for transformation in our city for indigenous, black, POC, and refugee communities, whove been historically foreclosed from wealth and are currently being gentrified from the center of our city. Some specific programs we would put into establishment are:

A reparations-funded network of beautiful healing spaces and spas, with an array of healing modalities from acupuncture, bodywork, herbalism, and other ancestral therapies. Historically oppressed and marginalized communities would get access. So many crystals and images of powerful BIPOC ancestors.

A queer, black imagitorium and library with extended fellowships for reading and retreat. There will be copious pillows, tea, and treats.

Implementing a radical healing of the K-12 Minnesota curriculum that centers the history, futures, and resilience of indigenous, black, POC, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ communities in our state, as well as an analysis of the destructiveness and persistence of white supremacy in our world.

Amazing and abundantly funded art programs in ALL neighborhoods for people of all ages to learn visual art, dance, theater, meditation, plus roller skate and dream!

Create a free and mandatory therapeutic program for all white-bodied folks and people of European descent to do some deep dive healing around whiteness and white supremacy. Something like a Hazelden for whiteness.

Legalizing cannabis with a reparations focus for the black, brown, and low-income people who suffered most under the war on drugs to have prioritized access to the industry.

Clean, beautiful, spacious, and eco-friendly housing for all, with edible gardens and community space for peace and pleasure.

An anti-gentrification plan and task force.

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME.

Read the original 2000 story "When You Wish Upon a City" here.

Read our follow up about how many of those wishes came true here.

See the original post:

2020 vision: What should the Twin Cities look like tomorrow? - City Pages