"Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers gravely warned of a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths after the state Supreme Court's conservative majority late Wednesday struck down his stay-at-home order, siding with Republican lawmakers who sued over the restrictions," Common Drems reported Thursday. This happened while "President Donald Trump on Wednesday directly criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, for voicing caution about the push to reopen schools, downplaying the threat that COVID-19 could pose to young children and ignoring warnings that kids could spread the virus to vulnerable people," Common Dreams also reported Thursday. What are we to make of this?
"A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against President Trump, refusing to throw out a lawsuit alleging that he's violated the Constitution's emoluments clauses," The Hill reported Thursday. "The court did not rule on the merits of the case against Trump. The majority in the 9-6 decision dismissed his lawyers' argument that violations of the constitutional provisions are not grounds for a lawsuit." What does this mean going forward?
"Just under 3 million people applied for initial unemployment claims in the week ending May 9, according to Labor Department data released Thursday, as the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic continue to batter the economy," The Hill reported Thursday. As the weeks tick by, the data tells me that we ain’t looking too good here. The total number of newly unemployed Americans since the start of the pandemic is roughly 36.5 million, according to the Labor Department's data. Is there any sense of how much of this is backlog vs. how much is new layoffs?
In a new piece in MintPress News, entitled "American Weapons Manufacturers Are Thriving Even as the US Economy Suffers," Alan MacLeod reports that the US economy has crashed. "A nationwide pandemic that has (officially) claimed some 84,000 Americans has also resulted in an estimated 36 million filing for unemployment insurance and millions frequenting food banks for the first time. Yet business is booming for one unlikely industry; weapons manufacturers are busier than ever and are even advertising for tens of thousands of more workers," he notes. "Northrop Grumman announced that it was planning to hire up to 10,000 more employees this year. Airlines are being hit particularly hard, as the number of people flying on commercial planes has cratered. Raytheon, who supplies parts to civilian aircraft manufacturers, has lost a great deal of business. Yet it is still advertising 2,000 new jobs in the military wing of its business." Are these and other defense contractors ramping up for the war they know about but we don’t see, or is this just them taking advantage of the bank vault being open and no one minding the store?
In Patrick Anderson's recent MintPress News piece "The Execution of Julian Assange," he revisits the "historic role of the US government and media in retaliating against those who refuse to submit." He opens the article with a conversation between Renata Avila, a Guatemalan human rights activist who serves as legal counsel for WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange. What’s the significance of this?
GUESTS:
Richard Lachmann — American sociologist and specialist in comparative historical sociology who is a professor at the State University of New York at Albany. Lachmann is best known as the author of the book "Capitalists in Spite of Themselves," which has been awarded several prizes, including the American Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarly Book Award.
David Schultz — Professor of political science at Hamline University and author of "Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter."
Dr. Linwood Tauheed — Associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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."
Patrick D. Anderson — Visiting assistant professor of Philosophy at Grand Valley State University. His research focuses on anti-colonialism, Black radical philosophy and the connections between technology, ethics and imperialism. He also contributes to the Black Agenda Report.
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