Never mind it is Spare the Air Day, fires are raging and the Pandemic shows no sign of abating. It’s easy to forget that America leads the planet in Covid-19 fatalities.

Soon we will reach the 200,000 death mark. So, what. It’s time to head for the seashore as the packed San Francisco Ocean Beach photo above illustrates.

For Americans it’s only “What about me?” It’s a holiday weekend. So hop in your car. Drive the fossil fuel burning vehicles, totally blow off social distancing and party like there’s no ramifications for this absurd behavior.

No wonder a buffoon like Trump is President of the United States. People get what they deserve.

San Francisco Chronicle 9.6.2020

Even as much of the state sizzled in triple-digit temperatures Sunday and air conditioners strained the power grid to the max, fears of rolling blackouts again did not come to pass as people saved energy.

With Ocean Beach closed off, motorists attempted to flee the acrid smoke by heading to Marin beaches. But northbound lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge were stopped dead, and the route to the Marin Headlands was backed up to the toll plaza. In Corte Madera, a sign on Highway 101 warned motorists that access routes to Stinson Beach were closed.

Napa and Sonoma counties also face the prospect of a different type of weather-related outage: fire-prevention shut-offs starting late Monday evening and lasting well into Wednesday. A red flag warning will be in effect during that time period, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants to prevent wind-related damage to its equipment from starting another wildfire.

Those outages may affect about 17,000 people in Napa County — in Calistoga, St. Helena and unincorporated areas — and 600 people in Sonoma County —in Cloverdale, Rohnert Park and unincorporated areas.

On Sunday, heat records for Sept. 6 had fallen throughout the Bay Area, including marks of 100 in downtown San Francisco, well past the previous record of 92 degrees, established on Sept. 6, 1904, 102 in downtown Oakland and 110 in Napa. Also showing record heat were Livermore, Richmond, Kentfield, Redwood City, Half Moon Bay, San Jose and Gilroy.

Monday could see Livermore reach 110 degrees and Napa hit 103 degrees.

But late in the day, the heat will start to break as strong offshore winds sweep through. The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning starting at 10 p.m. Monday for the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills and Santa Cruz Mountains.

The Creek Fire burns near Huntington Lake on Saturday. The blaze has contributed to concerns over the state’s power grid by shutting down a Madera County power station.

“In the next few days we will deal with stronger winds pushing through, as the high pressure starts pushing out and low pressure starts pushing in,” said weather service meteorologist Brayden Murdock. “That gradient between the high and the low could cause winds of up to 50 miles per hour in the highest elevations.”

Normally the breakdown of the high-pressure winds brings with it the cooling onshore flow, but the fog will not show itself until midweek at the earliest, Murdock said.

“Unfortunately there is not a lot of humidity recovery in it, so overnight temperatures will remain warm,” Murdock said. “We will be dealing with those dry conditions on top of the winds until Wednesday.”

San Francisco was not quite as hot as the Labor Day weekend blast furnace of 2017, but the air quality was far worse.

Sunday afternoon was so hazy that from Golden Gate Heights in the Outer Sunset, you could not see the coastline 30 blocks west. The normal refuge of Ocean Beach was complicated when Mayor London Breed ordered parking lots closed after a gathering of Burning Man devotees Saturday.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/High-winds-expected-to-increase-fire-dangers-15546593.php

The American government continues to show its total disregard for the rule of law.

The latest outrage propagated by the American administration is to sanction the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Why? In her role as prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, according to her Gambian countryman Modou Joof, considered prosecuting “US soldiers who committed unspeakable atrocities against civilians in Afghanistan.”

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.4.2020

In 2017, ICC Chief Prosecutor FatouBensouda advised the court to consider seeking charges for human rights abuses committed during the war in Afghanistan, particularly rapes and torture alledgedly committed by US troops and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Afghanistan became a party to the ICC in 2003.

Germany has added its voice to criticism of US sanctions against two top officials at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday described the sanctions, which include freezing the US assets of chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her aides, as “a serious mistake.”

His comments follow calls from France and EU on Thursday for Washington to withdraw the sanctions.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement that the US sanctions were “a grave attack against the court and beyond that a questioning of multi-lateralism and the independence of the judiciary. France calls on the United States to withdraw the announced measures.”

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the US sanctions were “unacceptable” and “unprecedented.”

“The International Criminal Court plays an essential role in delivering justice to the victims of some of world’s most horrific crimes. Its independence and impartiality are crucial characteristics of the court’s work, which are fundamental for the legitimacy of its judgment,” Borrell said in a statement urging the US to reverse course.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced these latest sanctions again ICC officials on Wednesday.

Bensouda and other ICC officials already subject to a US travel ban over the court’s probe of alleged torture and other crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

US history of clashing with ICC

The United States has never been a party to the ICC and in the past, Pompeo has referred to the tribunal as a “kangaroo court.”

Read more: Opinion: Donald Trump’s perfidious attacks on the International Criminal Court

Speaking on Wednesday, Pompeo said the US would not tolerate what he called the ICC’s “illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.”

In a 2017 interview with DW, Bensouda, who has headed the ICC since 2012, emphasized that her decisions are driven by the law.

“I am a prosecutor, I gather my evidence and I take it to the judges, independent judges who have also been elected by the Assembly of State Parties of the ICC. If they do not agree with my evidence, they would throw it out,” she told DW.

Bensouda also stressed in the 2017 DW interview that the tribunal had “jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide when it happens on the territory of a state party.”

Who is Fatou Bensouda?

The Banjul-born lawyer served as The Gambia’s justice minister from 1998-2000 under president Yahya Jammeh. Before that, she was state counsel and deputy director of public prosecutions to Jammeh’s predecessor, Dawda Jawara.

Jammeh dismissed her over her work in prosecuting rights abuses. At the time, human rights groups credited Bensouda for the speedy prosecution of crimes committed against women and children.

Bensouda went to the ICC in 2004 when she was elected as deputy prosecutor — a position she held until 2012 when she succeeded the Argentine Luis Moreno Ocampo as the ICC’s chief prosecutor.

What is her track record?

As the ICC chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda has brought Congolese warlords such as Bosco Ntaganda, the “Terminator”and Thomas Lubanga to justice for war crimes and crimes humanity.

She also presided over cases against the former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo and those of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto. The Kenyan leader was charged with crimes against humanity over a wave of post-election violence in 2007 and 2008. The charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence.

https://www.dw.com/en/icc-fatou-bensouda-criminal-court-the-gambia/a-54803950

Continuing to expand my effort to stay away from all things Trump and explore culture outside America in 2020 I have begun watching the 10 part German series “Dogs of Berlin” available on Netflix.

It’s a multi-cultural police drama which delves into the societal conflicts impacting German life. “Dogs of Berlin” is fast paced, well acted and continuously entertaining.

You could say that “Dogs of Berlin” is the 21st century version of “Babylon Berlin,” the multi-season drama, which explores life in the underbelly of the Weimar Republic in pre-Nazi Germany.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 12.6.2018

Only the second German-language TV series produced on Netflix’s global streaming network after the hit supernatural thriller Dark (though historical detective drama Babylon Berlin also played on the service), Dogs of Berlin is a rollicking and often brutal drama series with a gangsta rap soundtrack that dives deep into the German capital’s criminal underbelly — and its social heterogeneity.

Contrasting milieus

Dogs of Berlin‘s labyrinthine plot revolves around two unconventional cops, Erol Birkan and Kurt Grimmer, who investigate the murder of German-Turkish football star Orkan Erdem. There’s a long list of potential suspects: Neo-Nazis from the former East Berlin district of Marzahn; the Turkish family clan related to the victim; some crazy football fans; or the illegal sports betting mafia. A far-reaching conspiracy might even lead to the capital’s highest political office.

In this spirit, Dogs of Berlin takes the viewer on a wild ride through Berlin’s world of football and its dark underside, the sports betting scene; into illegal biker clubs; neo-Nazi terrorist cells in the former east; the bohemian vestiges of Prenzlauer Berg; the gangsta rap scene; the contrasting lives of middle-class German housewives and German-Lebanese mafia clans.

To uncover the truth, the two very different investigators are reluctantly brought together for a mission that will reveal much about their own contradictory pasts.

Dogs of Berlin director and mastermind Christian Alvart describes Kurt Grimmer (Felix Kramer, who appeared in Netflix’s Dark) as the “morally questionable policeman who used to be a neo-Nazi and escaped the scene.”

By contrast, Erol Birkan (played by Fahri Yardım, best-known for his turn in Almanya: Welcome to Germany) is “a super liberal, Turkish, gay policeman, the upright hero so to speak, principled and with good character.”

“These contradictions and gray areas are for me a central point of this series,” said Alvert, who is also the series scriptwriter and originally conceived with the conflicted Kurt Grimmer character for a novel he was writing.

Contemporary German storytelling

“I was simply convinced that we have to do something like this in this country,” he said.

Katharina Schüttler plays Kurt Grimmer’s wife Paula, a home accessories shop owner who also gets caught up in the underworld intrigue

 

So while Dogs of Berlin was the first idea developed by Alvart and his Berlin-based production company, Syrreal Entertainment, he decided not to go down the conventional German TV route.

As a result, his idea for an original German production is only the second to be produced by Netflix after Dark — though more are rumored to be in the works.

“Dogs of Berlin tells a compelling and modern German story that dives into the Berlin underworld,” said Erik Barmack. “We are thrilled that he will realize our second Netflix original that will be completely written, produced and shot in Germany.”

Berlin as a microcosm

Having lived in the German capital since 1996, Alvert has always wanted to make a series that embodied the city’s manifold worlds.

“In Berlin you sooner or later realize that this is not just a city, but actually many very different cities in one,” he said. “It has a massive impact on your life, whether you are born as Mahmud in Neukölln, Siegfried in Zehlendorf or Tom in Marzahn.”

Dog of Berlin seeks to cross through these different Berlins, a city the director believes is a microcosm of the broader world. “The city is basically another main character in this series,” said Alvert.

In doing so, the series also aims to ask some bigger questions. Can one escape from the environment into which one was born? Are we dogs or masters? By exploring the diverse milieus of the German capital where cultures and lifestyles constantly collide, the series, shot exclusively in Berlin and environs, inspires the viewer to find answers.

https://www.dw.com/en/dogs-of-berlin-capital-crime-series-debuts-on-netflix/a-46602494

An environmental disaster is in danger of decimating  the Tule Elk in Marin County.

At risk are the hundreds of Tule Elk who are in danger of death through dehyrdation. Pt. Reyes National Seashore is closed to the public because of fire danger and drought caused by the recent wildfires. 

Dedicated and determined citizens have taken it upon themselves to ensure that the Tule Elk have enough water to survive in these dangerous times.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 9.1.2020

The tule elk, whose magnificent antlered presence is one reason about 2.5 million people visit Point Reyes National Seashore each year, may be at risk of dying from dehydration, say wildlife advocates who fear a repeat of the drought conditions that wiped out nearly half of a herd five years ago.

A vigilante group of 12 elk activists carried 150 gallons of drinking water into the Tomales Point Tule Elk Reserve Sunday night in defiance of National Park Service closure orders. Point Reyes has been shuttered since Aug. 18 as the lightening-sparked Woodward Fire smolders on the park’s southern shore.

The activists used 40-pound jugs carried by hand from a truck to fill two steel troughs, said Jack Gescheidt, who participated in the clandestine nighttime water drop.

“We are doing this because we care,” Gescheidt said Monday, “This is the National Park Service’s job.”

Park administrators condemned the unauthorized entry and water drop.

“Taking action without permits and permissions from the National Park Service and while the park is entirely closed to all public access due to the Woodward Fire is unlawful,” park officials said in a statement Tuesday morning.

The clash over the elks’ access to drinking water is the latest installment in a long-standing battle over the management of the peninsula’s tule elk herds.

The fight has pitted environmentalists, cattle ranchers and the Park Service against one another. Conservationists would have the cattle ranches kicked off the peninsula; the ranchers, who lease their fields from the park, would rather see the elk moved elsewhere — or eliminated.

In sustaining populations of both elk and cows, the park has sought to balance two competing priorities: native wildlife conservation and sustainable farming. The cattle ranches go back generations to the years after the Gold Rush, when hunters cleared the peninsula of elk to make way for grazing pastures. Balancing present-day environmental and cultural considerations is no easy task, said Christine Beekman, the park’s outreach coordinator.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Another-scuffle-over-Point-Reyes-elk-population-15532010.php#photo-19897500

I was in the California State Assembly chambers on May 3, 1967 when a posse of Black Panthers marched into the legislature brandishing their weapons.

The magazines were not loaded.

The Panthers were protesting the brutality inflicted upon them by the Oakland cops. The Panthers wanted the legislature to know they had to be able to defend themselves.

The general public did not view the situation in a similiar manner. Following the Panthers incursion into the legislative chamber law enforcement cracked down viciously on the Black Panthers.

My reason for being there was a journalism assignment for the College of Marin Times. I went to Sacramento with the political reporter for the Independent Journal, Wat Tatkeshita and accompanied him on his beat.

By coincidence I was present at a pivotal moment in the history of the up to the time generally unknown outside the Bay Area Black Panther Party.

Back in Marin I wrote a story which is today somewhere out in news world cyberspace.

Photo above – A young Assemblyman Willie Brown parleying with a Panther.

San Francisco Chronicle  Warren Olney 5.2.2018

In 1966, it was legal to openly carry loaded firearms in California — a legacy of the Gold Rush. In Jackson, a Sierra foothills town that retained that era’s flavor, one state senator was often seen wearing a holstered pistol.

But the Black Panther Party, founded the year before, 1966, in Oakland, was engaged in perfectly legal, if unorthodox, lobbying. Its leaders, including Seale and Huey Newton, openly carried loaded guns to protect black people from racist police. In response, Oakland’s Republican Assemblyman Don Mulford had proposed a measure abolishing open carry in California. He called it the “Panther Bill.”

But a year later, the Legislature abolished open carry. It took a moment of racial dramatics at the state Capitol in Sacramento, where I was a reporter.

One May 3, in 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan was scheduled for lunch with eighth-grade schoolkids on the Capitol grounds. He’d been elected just a few months before, and the presence of a Hollywood-star-turned politician had increased the size of the press corps.

As the new team for KRON-TV in San Francisco, my cameraman and I were jostling for space on the steps of the staircase that descends to 10th Street on the Capitol’s west side. Veteran newspaper reporters were grumbling about the trivial “picture stories” they were now being required to cover.

About two dozen African American men and women, some wearing leather jackets and black berets, started toward the Capitol carrying rifles, shotguns and pistols. They were not holding the weapons in a threatening manner; they were pointing them in the air as they marched into the building. The news horde — with cameras rolling — stumbled backward ahead of them, up the carpeted inner stairs and into the chamber of the Assembly, where a session was under way.

When the armed group entered the chamber, Democrats and Republicans dived under their desks as the president pro tem called for order. Meanwhile, one of the armed men began a harangue about “gun control.” Speaking to the TV cameras, he denounced “the racist California Legislature” for “keeping the black people disarmed and powerless.”

After about five minutes, three State Capitol Police officers showed up at the back of the chamber, and asked the demonstrators to hand over their guns. In a startling gesture, the little army complied.

The officers then led the way to another part of the building. The news crowd followed along, shouting questions: “Who are you? What are you here for?”

But the armed demonstrators had made their point; they weren’t talking any more. The Capitol Police determined that the guns were not loaded. (Some reporters’ accounts said the guns were brought in loaded, and later unloaded inside the Capitol, but I don’t remember it that way). Even if they had been, that was legal under state law, so long as they weren’t pointed at anyone. The demonstrators took their weapons back to the cars on 10th Street, and drove away.

They were gone … but just for the moment.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense’s 1967 Sacramento appearance was reported nationally as an “invasion” by newspapers and TV (KRON included). Bobby Seale, who read the statement indicting the Legislature as “racist,” would later run for mayor of Oakland.

As it turned out, the Panthers’ opposition was a dismal failure. The “Panther Bill” — gun control that it was — had the support of the National Rifle Association of the day. The 120-member Legislature (with six blacks, three women, and all the rest white men) overwhelmingly passed the measure. Reagan signed it into law saying, “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

Today, the NRA advocates guns in all kinds of public places. But open carry is still illegal in California. Now as then, the real issue is not the guns being carried but, rather, who does the carrying.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Open-carry-was-legal-until-armed-Black-Panthers-12875998.php

Big banks are joining the ranks of those being severely impacted by the Pandemic.

The pain is a lot more than just the masses who are being denied help by a selfish band of Republicans in Congress. The hurt is now moving into corporate America.

Excerpted from Wall Street Journal 8.30.2020

Profits are down. Margins are low. Banks are bracing for a wave of soured loans. On the other hand, they’re raking in fees and deposits.

Profits

Net income for the banking industry as a whole plunged 70% from a year before to $18.78 billion, according to the FDIC report. It was up slightly from the first quarter, but both periods represent the lowest quarterly income since early 2010. The profits are skewed by the big four banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., which make up roughly half the drop. The FDIC said the 4,624 community banks in its data actually posted an aggregate increase in net income of $202.5 million.

The coronavirus threw the U.S. banking system into extreme gyrations.

The normally unexciting quarterly industry report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., released last week, showed in stark detail how the pandemic is ensnaring banks big and small.

Profits tumbled as the banks put aside billions for loan losses. Margins hit an all-time low. Fee income hit a record high. Customers flooded banks with more deposits than they had ever seen, so much so that the nation’s safety net for bank failures fell below a legal limit.

Banks, a gauge for the broader economy, have signaled they anticipate a longer, deeper recession than they first expected in the spring. Though much of the economy has held up relatively well, the banks say government stimulus and other temporary reprieves have likely delayed the pain, not overcome it. Many lenders are bracing for a wave of defaults.

The turmoil has made it hard to see how banks will grow profits, one reason shares have failed to rally along with the market.

“The banks have been flooded by cash and it’s hard to know what to do with it,” said Brian Foran, an analyst at Autonomous Research. “That narrative is not an attractive investment story.”

Provisions

Profits were sunk by increased credit loss provisions, money the banks stash aside to deal with potential future loan trouble. The banks parked away $62 billion in the second quarter, on top of $53 billion in the first quarter.

Margins

Banks were whacked with the lowest lending margin in the history of the FDIC’s data, which goes back to 1984. The average net interest margin, the difference between what the banks make on loans and pay out on deposits, shrank to 2.81% compared with 3.39% a year ago. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero in March, and emergency cuts hit income faster than the banks could reduce their deposit costs.

Fee income

With the Fed expected to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, banks will need to increase fees or find other ways to replace some of that income. In the second quarter, revenue from non-lending operations increased 7% for the industry, hitting a new record. It was boosted by investment banking, mortgage fees and by smaller banks selling loans.

Deposits

For the second quarter in a row, deposits increased by more than $1 trillion. There has been $2.4 trillion added in six months, five times any other six-month period, and roughly equal to the deposits of the entire industry in 1984. The big four banks have taken in $900 billion of the year’s gains.

The surge was so quick that the FDIC insurance fund fell to just 1.3% of all deposits, breaching its legal requirement of holding enough to cover 1.35% of all deposits.

The agency expects the deposits to normalize and said the fund would self-correct.

Write to David Benoit at david.benoit@wsj.com

When the Wall Street Journal is trumpeting the damage to the economy the Republicans are on notice.  

Do your job and pass another Stimulus package NOW which includes an adequate weekly payout for displaced and unemployed American workers.

It’s  appalling that Congress, led by Republicans in the Senate, continue to stiff working class Americans who are having trouble paying rent and putting food on the table.

The beacon of capitalism, The Wall Street Journal, puts the issue very graphically on page one in its weekend edition.

Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 8.29.2020

As companies brace for years of pandemic-related disruption, thousands of furloughed workers are told they won’t be coming back

A new wave of layoffs is washing over the U.S. as several big companies reassess staffing plans and settle in for a long period of uncertainty.

The outlook reflects an acceptance by corporate executives that they will have to contend with the pandemic and its economic fallout for a longer period than they had hoped. Some CEOs and other executives suggest more pain is ahead, said David Rubenstein, co-executive chairman of Carlyle Group, CG -2.07% a private-equity firm with around $220 billion in assets under management.

“Privately, some of them may hint that they probably won’t need as many workers as they once thought,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “They’ll have to reinvent their businesses in ways that they hadn’t done before.”

MGM Resorts International MGM 4.60% and Stanley Black & Decker Inc. SWK 3.79% recently told some employees furloughed at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic that they wouldn’t be put back on the payroll. And companies bringing back the majority of furloughed workers, including Yelp Inc. YELP 1.91% and Cheesecake Factory Inc., CAKE 8.34% are making reductions as they adjust to the new reality that many coronavirus-related closures won’t be resolved this fall.

A day after Salesforce.com Inc. CRM -1.89% posted record quarterly sales, the business-software company notified its 54,000-person workforce that 1,000 would lose their jobs later this year. Coca-Cola Co. KO 3.32% said Friday it plans to lay off some employees and offer voluntary buyouts to about 4,000 employees in the U.S. including Puerto Rico as well as Canada. American Airlines Group AAL 2.33% Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. UAL 3.09% have said more than 53,000 workers could be affected in about a month if the airlines don’t receive another infusion of funds from the government.

The latest layoffs come as there have been glimmers of an economic recovery. Many employers have rehired some workers after cutting jobs this spring, pushing the U.S. unemployment rate down to 10.2% in July after it nearly touched 15% in April, according to federal data. Some salaried workers and executives are seeing their pandemic pay cuts restored. That has led some to theorize that the economy is increasingly proceeding on two tracks, as companies modifying operations or shutting down entire divisions determine that they need fewer people, especially lower-income workers.

A survey of human-resources employees released by Randstad RiseSmart found nearly half of U.S. employers that furloughed or laid off staff because of Covid-19 are considering additional workplace cuts in the next 12 months.

New applications for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, have hovered around one million a week for much of the summer. A drop in jobless claims one week tended to be snuffed out within a few weeks when claims rose again. Summer unemployment has improved since March, when a peak of about seven million people applied for jobless benefits in one week, but the numbers remain stubbornly high.

Economists say the new layoffs reflect a shift in corporate thinking toward a more protracted crisis.

“Companies that thought they could either cut wages temporarily or cut costs temporarily or hold on are now finding out that the weakness of the pandemic is now longer than they hoped,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton.

Following casino shutdowns and furloughs in March, MGM Resorts said it would lay off 18,000 furloughed workers in the U.S. as the global travel slowdown impedes the gambling industry’s recovery. The job cuts, which start Monday, represent about one-fourth of the company’s prepandemic workforce of 68,000 U.S. employees.

American Airlines said that unless it receives more federal aid, it will furlough 17,500 union workers and move forward with 1,500 layoffs in its management ranks this fall. Flight attendants, 8,100 of whom are furloughed, would be the most affected. Airlines agreed not to terminate employees or cut pay rates through the end of September as a condition of taking $25 billion in federal funds.

United Airlines said it would furlough 2,850 pilots, which is 600 more than it had anticipated, as it seeks more federal aid. United has warned that as many as 36,000 of its employees could be eliminated Oct. 1 if the airline doesn’t get more government help. The union that represents United’s pilots called it tragic that the carrier hasn’t provided more options to allow pilots to leave voluntarily. Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL 3.80% said it would let go of 1,941 pilots.

After furloughing or reducing hours for more than 10,000 workers earlier this year, tool maker Stanley Black & Decker said that in October it will permanently lay off 1,000 of them but bring back 9,300 to a full-time schedule. Chief Executive Officer James Loree told investors on a recent call the cuts are part of a $1 billion cost reduction.

I am not a Facebook user. I will never be a Facebook user.

The insidious manner in which Mark Zuckerberg controls the media narrative all under the guise of free speech is reprehensible.

Facebook’s real goal is to make money. It’s value is approaching a TRILLION dollars. Its share price is nearly $300.00.

There are no ethics involved where it concerns Mark Zuckerberg. It’s all about money under the touchy feely mantra of “free speech.”

Vanity Fair – The Hive – 8.28.2020.

Facebook users organizing vigilante justice in Kenosha earlier this week apparently didn’t set off alarms for the social media giant.

According to the Verge, the company received at least two complaints from users regarding the self-proclaimed militia group The Kenosha Guard prior to Tuesday’s shooting that saw two protesters killed and another injured in the Wisconsin city, which has been rocked by demonstrations since the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday.

The alleged shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, had apparently responded to a Facebook callout issued by The Kenosha Guard urging people to “take up arms and defend our city tonight from evil thugs,” a post later amplified by far-right site Infowars, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Facebook initially opted not to act on the complaints about Kenosha Guard because they did not violate the platform’s community standards, the Verge reported, though the company took down the page on Wednesday. When asked for comment, Facebook told the Verge that its investigation had not shown a direct link between the shooting and the Kenosha Guard account.

Rittenhouse, who reportedly expressed support for “Blue Lives Matter” and was spotted at at least one rally for Donald Trump, also appeared to consider himself part of a militia, though it’s unclear which one. On Tuesday, he allegedly walked past a group of police while carrying a rifle over his shoulder and was not stopped or questioned. Rittenhouse has been charged with first degree intentional homicide.

Since the beginning of the year, Facebook has come under increased scrutiny for its failure to act on the issue of far-right groups. Mark Zuckerberg has held that freedom of speech ought to be paramount, deflecting any culpability. The tension has reportedly come to a head inside the company itself. In June, several employees held a virtual walkout to protest Facebook’s decision to leave untouched a post by Trump inciting violence in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police. Some staffers reportedly threatened to resign. “Something big is happening,” Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner said at the time. “In the many years I’ve covered [Facebook], I’ve never seen this kind of public criticism before.”

Although the company has recently begun to ban pages related to QAnon and the Boogaloo movement, it remains a home for far-right outlets including Breitbart and The Daily Wire; news sites known for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation. Users and researchers in Europe and Canada have likewise lodged complaints at the ease with which far-right and white supremacist groups have been able to take advantage of the platform. When asked why Facebook had chosen to place Breitbart on its news tab last year, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Part of having this be a trusted source is that it needs to have a diversity of views in there, so I think you want to have content that represents different perspectives.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/08/facebook-did-nothing-about-the-militia-group-in-kenosha

It’s frightening.

Germany was one of the countries which effectively stamped out the initial Pandemic wave last Spring. Now, several months later, as summer ends and the fall/winter Flu season is fast approaching, the insidious Covid-19 is back in Germany with a vengence.

What will happen in America where Trump and his Republican sycophants have blithely ignored and blown off all the warnings about the serious and long term impact of the Pandemic?

Time will tell.  It’s going to be a long winter.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.27.2020

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 regional leaders have agreed to ban major public gatherings and impose a national fine for mask shirkers, as the country grapples with an increase in infections.

Daily infection numbers in Germany have risen to levels not seen since the end of April. 

German leaders have announced they will extend a ban on major public events until next year, as part of a raft of measures aimed at reducing the number of coronavirus cases in the country. 

The ban was agreed on during a video conference attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of the country’s 16 states — the first such meeting since June 17.

Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed after the meeting that “all in all, it is fair to say that we have come through this pandemic well so far. Nevertheless, we can see that the number of infections has risen in recent weeks.”

“We take this increase in these summer months very seriously,” she added.

Other measures include a minimum fine of €50 ($60) for anyone caught not wearing a mask in shops and on public transport.

There was no agreement on limiting the number of participants for private events. Instead, Merkel and the regional leaders asked Germans to “critically weigh” in each individual case whether private celebrations are “necessary” and “justifiable.”

The meeting between Merkel and the state premiers comes as the country grapples with a serious rise in coronavirus cases. 

The surge has been partly blamed on local celebrations, but returning holidaymakers are also held responsible for spreading the virus.

This explains why another measure agreed on Thursday was to end free coronavirus testing for travelers coming back from non-risk areas. Instead, the focus will be on quarantine rules for people returning from high-risk regions.

Moreover, public health officials say negligence has become a problem, referring to people who have stopped following hygiene and social distancing measures. 

This could explain the decision to impose the nationwide fine for mask shirkers. Previously, penalties varied wildly from state to state.

The return to nationwide decisions also marks a political shift in Germany.

When numbers started to fall a few months ago, leaders decided to drop sweeping restrictions and instead focus on local or regional measures to control specific outbreaks.

But the rise in numbers has prompted a change, and the new nationwide measures are already proving controversial.

Whereas some politicians believe consistency is necessary to avoid a confusing patchwork of decisions, others say blanket measures disproportionately affect states with a low coronavirus incidence.

Big states like Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia have registered nearly three times as many daily new coronavirus cases as all eastern states combined.

The leader of one of those eastern states, Reiner Haseloff of Saxony Anhalt, which registered 16 new cases on Wednesday, has already indicated mask fines will not be implemented in his region.

There was no decision on whether to give the green light for Germany’s beloved Christmas markets to operate. 

Under normal conditions, markets are full of people drinking mulled wine and looking at the souvenir and food stalls.

Meanwhile, organizers of the Cologne Christmas market at the city’s iconic cathedral already announced they would not be opening this year.

They argued they weren’t able to find a way to hold the event in a way that doesn’t lead to infections.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coronavirus-measures-masks/a-54714744

Trump is taking America down the road of Fascism as he rolls out his re-election campaign.

A toxic blend of racist taunts, law and order rhetoric, a bow to the Christian religious right and an attack on the entire progressive movement in America.

It’s bad and will only become worse.

Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 8.26.2020

“You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Vice President Mike Pence said from an outdoor stage lined with American flags. “Under President Trump…we’re not going to defund the police—not now, not ever.” He added, to cheers from the audience: “We will have law and order on the streets of this country.”

The focus on Mr. Trump’s support for law enforcement follows three nights of violent clashes, fires and looting in Kenosha, Wis., after police there shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back on Sunday, leaving him paralyzed for now.

Vice President  Pence hailed President Trump’s support for law enforcement during what he called a “time of testing” spurred by recent protests against police shootings and the coronavirus pandemic, as he accepted the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nomination Wednesday.

Since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in May spurred nationwide protests against police brutality, Mr. Trump has made clear he is more aligned with law enforcement than with the protesters. The Republican National Convention—where speakers cast the president as the champion of law enforcement and attacked his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, for being sympathetic to protesters—has thrown that alignment into sharper relief.

Mr. Pence, who spoke from Fort McHenry, the site of a War of 1812 battle that inspired the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” sought to tie Mr. Biden to efforts among some Democrats and liberal groups to defund police departments in response to cases of police brutality and racial inequity. The Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign has said he opposes efforts to defund the police, but would seek “transformative change” to the criminal justice system.