The numbers are in: last week, 3.2 million workers in the US filed unemployment claims. "Nearly 33.5 million applications for unemployment benefits have been filed since mid-March, according to the Labor Department, in the seven weeks since authorities widely began ordering businesses to close to combat the spread of the virus," the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. What does a leading economist think about this?
"President [Donald] Trump said Wednesday that he will continue trying to toss out all of the Affordable Care Act, even as some in his administration, including Attorney General William P. Barr, have privately argued parts of the law should be preserved amid a pandemic," the Washington Post reported Thursday. So, we are in the midst of a pandemic. That means that people get sick. As people get sick, the one thing they need is health care. Last week, another 3.2 million US workers filed claims for unemployment benefits. That means a lot of these people, having lost their jobs, have also lost their health care, since for many Americans, their health insurance is tied to their jobs. Is the president serious, or is this just more red meat rhetoric for his base as we move closer to the November election?
"In a statement Wednesday, the president said he vetoed the Iran war powers resolution that 'purported to direct me to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces in hostilities against Iran,' ... 'This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party. The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands,'” The Hill reported Wednesday. Is the president’s perception of this accurate?
According to Alan MacLeod in MintPress News, "In what has been labeled a new 'Keystone Kops Bay of Pigs,' the latest attempt to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro failed spectacularly, as both American and Venezuelan paramilitaries were immediately overwhelmed when they came into contact with the navy, or even with armed local fishermen’s collectives." The Washington Post previously reported Sunday: "The government of President Nicolás Maduro said it had thwarted an early morning invasion off its Caribbean coast on Sunday, alleging its intelligence forces had uncovered a plot, ambushed the attackers and captured or killed 10." Now more details are coming to light.
In another piece by MacLeod for MintPress, titled "Cuomo Announces Partnership with Bill Gates to 'Revolutionize' NY Schools in Wake of Coronavirus," he writes that Cuomo says "he will use the COVID-19 virus as an opportunity to 'revolutionize' the state’s school system, inviting Bill Gates to implement his controversial ideas about education." What are we to make of this? It sounds like Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine.” America’s so-called “free market” policies dominate the world -- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
GUESTS:
Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression."
Kevin Zeese — co-editor for Popular Resistance.
Dr. Gerald Horne — Professor of history at the University of Houston and author of many books, including "Blows Against the Empire: US Imperialism in Crisis."
Ricardo Vaz — Writer and editor at Venezuelanalysis.com.
Nino Pagliccia — Activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. A retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada, Pagliccia is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas, and is also the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations.”
Alan MacLeod — Academic and journalist. He is a staff writer at MintPress News and a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), as well as the author of "Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting."
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