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brooklynite's JournalFormer Aides to Bernie Sanders Form a Super PAC to Support Joe Biden
Source: New York Times
Former top advisers to Senator Bernie Sanders are teaming up on a surprising new venture to try to rally progressive support for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign: a super PAC.
Jeff Weaver, who served as Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager in 2016 and as a top adviser in 2020, is leading the effort, which will focus on mobilizing the base of Sanders supporters — young people, liberals Latinos and “blue-collar progressives” — for Mr. Biden.
Other top Sanders officials from the 2020 race who will be involved include Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser who focused on Latino outreach, Tim Tagaris, who oversaw digital strategy and fund-raising, and Shelli Jackson, a California strategist for the campaign. Mark Longabaugh, who worked for Mr. Sanders in 2016 but left the 2020 campaign early on, is also part of the new group.
Mr. Sanders has railed for years against super PACs, which can accepted unlimited donations, emphasizing his reliance on millions of small contributions from supporters online to fuel his two presidential bids.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/us/politics/bernie-sanders-biden-progressive-super-pac.html
Governor Baker extends business closure order, stay-at-home advisory until May 18
Source: Boston Globe
Saying that Massachusetts is still in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Charlie Baker announced Tuesday that he is extending his order closing non-essential businesses and his stay-at-home advisory for residents until May 18. They had been slated to expire on May 4.
“I know pushing these dates back a couple of weeks is probably not what many people want to hear,” he said at a State House news conference. “We all look forward to stepping in front of this podium to tell you that we’re starting to open for business. I know that we’ll get there soon, but we have to be smart about how we do it and recognize and understand that there are risks associated with going back too soon."
He also extended the state order banning gatherings of 10 people or more.
Baker said medical and infectious disease experts have said the measures had been successful in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 3,000 state residents in less than six weeks.
Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/28/nation/coronavirus-boston-massachusetts-april-28/?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter
How Do We Rethink Public Space After the Pandemic? Start With Rolls of Tape.
New York MagazineIn the coming years, state and local governments may not have the money to throw at long-term plans and vast fixed infrastructure costs. Managing streets and public spaces, though, requires little more than tape, traffic cones, spray paint, and a sense of urgency. In a matter of weeks, officials and private citizens all over the world have jury-rigged enormous metropolitan areas. Groceries arrive by cargo bikes. Restaurants sell groceries. Sheets of stapled plastic protect cashiers. In Tel Aviv, organizers of an anti-government demonstration marked off Rabin Square to show thousands of protesters while maintaining safe distances. The result was a gathering so pointillistic that it qualifies as performance art.
As a post-lockdown city edges into view, we’ll have to develop new ways to use the places we share, from public restrooms to restaurants, classrooms, hallways, subway cars, and sidewalks. Prodded by fear and guided by tape, we will develop new social dances that resemble the formal ballroom steps of yore: “Step back, slide, turn away, and touch as little as possible.” The rules will change as the science does. We can’t yet reliably pinpoint the likelihood of being infected on a beach or a subway platform, by touching an elevator button, sitting on a park bench, or sharing a car. We don’t know how legitimately outraged to get when we feel a jogger’s wake against our cheek or whether those who have had the disease run the risk of reinfection or infecting others. We’re unsure how to feel as we move through terrain we can’t fully control; I suspect it will be a long while before most of us are willing to sit shoulder to shoulder in an auditorium, pinned in place for hours on end.
One thing is clear: The virus is redefining our relationship to both personal and public space, and we’re going to need more of both. New York, one of the world’s great pedestrian cities, is still imperfectly engineered for the COVID era. As Meli Harvey, an intrepid student of sidewalk widths (and an employee of Sidewalk Labs) has pointed out in a new interactive map, most of the city’s walkways don’t allow two passersby to give each other wide berth, let alone an ordinary crowd. And just try keeping proper distance from the person coming toward you on one of those all-too-common stretches of sidewalk segmented by scaffolding and lined with garbage bags. If the virus returns with cold weather, the first snow will dramatize how clumsily we use the space we have, leaving narrow channels alongside berms of ice and turning every corner into an impassable slough.
House not coming back to Washington next week after all, Hoyer says
Source: Roll Call
The House will not come back to Washington next week, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer told reporters Tuesday, reversing an announcement he made on a Democratic Caucus conference call the previous day.
The change of course comes as members expressed concern about returning to Washington while some areas in the region are developing into coronavirus hot spots. Hoyer said the decision to delay the return, which had been briefly scheduled for May 4, came after he talked with the Capitol physician, who said he recommended against taking the risk involved in members returning.
“The house doctor, when I talked to him yesterday, was concerned because the numbers in the District of Columbia are going up,” the Maryland Democrat said. “They’re not flat, and they’re not going down.”
Another reason the House decided to delay its return is because the chamber is not ready to vote on the next coronavirus relief bill, Hoyer said.
Read more: https://www.rollcall.com/2020/04/28/house-not-coming-back-to-washington-next-week-after-all-hoyer-says/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_content=04/28/2020
France unveils preliminary deconfinement plan
Source: Washington Post
PARIS — Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced France’s deconfinement plan on Tuesday, six weeks into a coronavirus lockdown that the government is tentatively set to relax May 11.
Speaking to Parliament, Philippe said France’s deconfinement will be gradual and geographic, with more loosening of restrictions first in certain areas of the country largely unaffected by the coronavirus.
“Never has the country been confined as it is today,” he said. “And, obviously, this cannot be sustainable.”
Philippe said the essence of the strategy would be “protect, test, isolate.” The French government has come under fire for lagging behind some of its European neighbors, especially Germany, in testing, and Philippe announced that by May 11, the goal would be to carry out 700,000 free coronavirus tests per day.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/28/coronavirus-latest-news/#link-A2YE66QG4FE2ZFKKY6PH47QXX4
Trump tells governors to 'seriously consider and maybe get going' on opening schools
Source: CNN
(CNN)President Donald Trump on Monday urged the nation's governors to "seriously consider" reopening schools as part of his push to restart the economy, though many states have already recommended against resuming the school year.
"Some of you might start thinking about school openings, because a lot of people are wanting to have school openings. It's not a big subject, young children have done very well in this disaster that we've all gone through," Trump told the governors on a teleconference call, according to audio of the call obtained by CNN.
He continued, "So a lot of people are thinking about the school openings. And I think it's something, Mike (Pence), they can seriously consider and maybe get going on it."
But this late in the school year, it's unlikely that many students will return to the classrooms in the immediate future.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/trump-governors-call/index.html
A COVID Dilemma...
1. You cannot buy a bread machine (earliest delivery I can get is June)
2. If you want to bake bread on your own, you cannot buy flour.
3. If you have flour, you cannot buy yeast.
4. If you want to try to make your own yeast you need sugar and.....flour (see 2)
Gov. Greg Abbott's stay at home order expires Thursday, and many Texas businesses may open Friday
Source: Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said his statewide stay-at-home order will expire on Thursday as scheduled, while Texas malls, stores, restaurants, movie theaters and restaurants may open the next day -- with 25% occupancy.
Barber shops, hair salons, gyms, massage establishments, tattoo parlors, video arcades and bowling alleys must wait until mid-May at the earliest to reopen, he said.
Outdoor sports such as golf and tennis may resume with no more than four participants in a match, and they must observe social distancing guidelines, he said.
Businesses will be free to choose not to open, and in less populated counties with five or fewer confirmed cases, they will be able to open at 50% capacity, he said.
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/27/gov-greg-abbott-set-to-announce-relaxing-of-coronavirus-restrictions-on-texas-business/
A Virginia preacher believed 'God can heal anything.' Then he caught coronavirus.
Source: Washington Post
Every day Landon Spradlin was growing weaker, and now, on the morning when he would leave New Orleans for the last time, the 66-year-old preacher and blues guitarist was unable to load his bags into the white Ford F-250 that was supposed to carry him home.
Ric Lyons, a fellow musician who for weeks had played and prayed with Spradlin amid the Mardi Gras crowds thronging Jackson Square, packed the truck. Spradlin’s wife, Jean, settled in the driver’s seat. Spradlin eased into the cab beside her. Racked by fits of coughing, the ordinarily talkative street minister said little as the Ford rolled east on the Twin Span Bridge across the wide, bright expanse of Lake Pontchartrain.
The world had changed since the Spradlins crossed the same bridge weeks earlier to begin their annual New Orleans street ministry. The couple from rural Gretna, Va., had arrived Feb. 18, several days before President Trump declared on Twitter that the novel coronavirus was “very much under control in the USA.” They left on March 16, the same day the president would recommend that Americans stop gathering in groups of more than 10.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/04/27/pastor-landon-spradlin-coronavirus-death/
Mistake 1: Believing the virus was a hoax.
Mistake 2: Believing Mardi Gras attendees need "saving"
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Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
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