3 Migrants Dead, 27 Injured as Smuggler’s Boat Flips off California Coast
Officials in San Diego, California, report at least three migrants died and as many as 27 were injured when a human smuggler’s overloaded vessel capsized off the coast.
San Diego Fire Department (SDFD) officials tweeted images from the scene where a 40′ cabin cruiser broke apart on the rocky coastline after overturning in the surf. A multi-agency response led to the rescue of dozens of smuggled migrants and the recovery of at least three bodies.
Photos taken at the scene of the boat incident today. 40’ cabin cruiser broke up along the rocks inside the surf line. The @SDLifeguards cliff rescue veh was used to extricate one patient up to street level. pic.twitter.com/lQ54UdBWBG
— SDFD (@SDFD) May 2, 2021
SDFD Lifeguard Services Lieutenant Rick Romero told reporters rescuers pulled seven people from the waves including the three migrants who died. The cold surf was running five to six feet on Sunday morning when the incident occurred, Fox News reported. The boat quickly broke apart as the waves smashed it into the rocky shore.
Homeland Security Investigations spokesman Jose Ysea confirmed the deaths of three people and that 27 were transported to local hospitals for “varying degrees of injuries.”
Agents responding to the failed human smuggling attempt included the SDFD, local lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and other agencies, NPR reported.
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jeff Stephenson told the reporters, “Every indication from our perspective is that this was a smuggling vessel.” He said the boat was “severely overcrowded.”
The captain of the boat is under arrest under federal charges that appear to be related to human smuggling resulting in death to migrants.
Stephenson said the San Diego Sector experienced a growing number of maritime smuggling apprehensions this year. He said the boat appeared to be attempting to blend in with commercial vessels before capsizing onto the rocky coastline.
Officials have not yet released information on the migrants.
On Saturday, San Diego Sector Border Patrol officials announced a stepped-up operation to attempt to disrupt maritime smuggling incidents. The effort includes assets from CBP’s Air and Marine Operations and Border Patrol.
.@DHSgov partners are ramping up operations to disrupt maritime smuggling off the coast of San Diego this weekend. From Fri, 4/30 – Mon, 5/3, federal law enforcement partners will dedicate extra resources to coastal patrols. https://t.co/rPmTks5uf9 pic.twitter.com/tr5EWe0KN4
— CBP San Diego (@CBPSanDiego) May 1, 2021
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.
California Hosts Latest Unaccompanied Migrant Child Shelter
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials announced the opening of another Emergency Intake Site (EIS) to move the increasing numbers of unaccompanied children out of Customs and Border Protection custody. The move mirrors recent announcements by HHS to address the surge in unaccompanied children migrants flooding the southern border.
The new EIS facility will be located at the Pomona Fairplex in Pomona, California. The Pomona Fairplex EIS is expected to receive 250 unaccompanied migrant children over the weekend. The Emergency Intak Site will provide shelter for up to 2,500 boys and girls between two and 17 years of age.
According to HHS, the EIS shelters being brought into service will provide required standards of care for children, such as providing clean and comfortable sleeping quarters, meals, toiletries, laundry, and access to medical services. A COVID-19 health screening protocol for all children will be implemented to follow CDC guidelines for preventing and controlling communicable diseases, officials claimed. Services will be provided by a combination of contractors and federal staff – including teams from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
The number of unaccompanied minors in United States custody rose steadily over the last several months and shows no signs of waning. At the start of April, HHS held 13,204 unaccompanied alien children. Friday, that number stood at 22,557, a 70% increase. On April 1, HHS released 244 UACs to sponsors in the United States. On Friday, HHS released 580 UACs to sponsors, over twice their daily rate of releases during the month. In total, HHS officials released more than 7,000 UACs to sponsors in the United States in April.
HHS attempts to move the unaccompanied migrant children from temporary holding facilities at Border Patrol Stations as quickly as possible. So far, officials are unable to keep up with the current rate of illegal border crossings by unaccompanied minors. According to a law enforcement source within CBP, Border Patrol agents arrested nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children in March — an all-time monthly record.
Although current laws dictate the children may only be in CBP custody for 72 hours, many have been detained for more than ten days according to law enforcement sources. A number of Border Patrol facilities continue to face issues with overcrowding. HHS, by opening additional shelters can move UACs from Border Patrol custody into HHS Emergency Intake Sites, thus reducing the number held in temporary holding cells at Border Patrol Stations. The number of UACs being detained by the federal government continues to climb despite this effort.
HHS estimates the cost to house each unaccompanied child in an EIS is approximately $775 per day. The cost is lower at other HHS shelters that provide more permanent housing. Based on their cost estimates, daily expenses for the care of the UACs in HHS custody are over $9 million per day.
The Biden administration has not, thus far, communicated a clear plan to reduce the influx of unaccompanied migrant children.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas Sector.
California Democrats sharpen messaging against Newsom recall
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Democrats sharpened their anti-recall messaging Saturday during the state party's annual convention, arguing removing Gov. Gavin Newsom from office early would roll back immigrant rights and criminal justice reforms, stall progress on the housing crisis and waste taxpayer money.
The California Democratic Party gathering, held virtually, served as a venue for party leaders to energize some of the party's most active volunteers ahead of Newsom's expected election later this year.
“I’ve seen firsthand what a leader he is and how he really does put his heart into his work on behalf of the people of California, and President Joe Biden and I support him 100%," Vice President Kamala Harris, who began her political career in San Francisco alongside Newsom, said in pre-taped remarks. She added, “because of your hard work, we're going to keep Gov. Gavin Newsom in Sacramento."
The annual convention comes on the heels of the California secretary of state announcing the recall election had enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Though there are several more steps before the recall is certified, it's all but certain voters will decide later this year whether to remove Newsom from office before his regularly scheduled re-election in 2022.
Republican voters angry at Newsom's liberal policies on immigration, criminal justice reform and more launched the longshot recall effort last year. It gained steam during the pandemic, as people grew frustrated by Newsom's pandemic response. Still, recent polling shows Newsom with support from a majority of voters.
Newsom and his allies paint the recall as a partisan effort in hopes of keeping Democrats and independent voters united behind him; Republicans make up just a quarter of the state's registered voters. Maintaining the support of activists will be key to keeping another Democrat out of the race.
“With the help of the Biden-Harris administration, California is poised to put our fight against inequality into overdrive," Newsom said. “National Republicans and extreme right-wingers, they're not sitting back, they're throwing everything they can at their recall power grab all in hopes — all in hopes — of rolling back all the important progress we have made together. We can't let them win."
Elsewhere, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee said removing Newsom from office would roll back California's progress on the housing crisis, though critics say he hasn't done enough to speed building. State Controller Betty Yee said the recall could cost $90 million, money that would be better spent on other state priorities. (State finance officials have not yet done a formal cost estimate.)
Franky Carrillo, a criminal justice reform advocate who had a wrongful murder conviction overturned in 2011 after 20 years in prison, gave a rousing defense of the governor's criminal justice policies. Carrillo joined Newsom at the Capitol in early 2019 when Newsom issued a moratorium on the death penalty, a key point of anger among some recall supporters.
“We must defend him and not allow a miscarriage of justice to occur," Carrillo said.
Newsom also got support from Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee. With no presidential or congressional elections scheduled this year, the recall will be among the highest profile races in the country this fall.
Recall organizers have denied the characterization of their effort as partisan, saying about 30% of people who signed the recall petition are not Republicans. That’s impossible to verify, and all of the major declared candidates are Republicans. Among those running are former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, businessman John Cox, former congressman Doug Ose and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, who has made no public campaign appearances since declaring her candidacy last week.
Faulconer, speaking to CNN on Saturday, said Newsom has hurt small businesses and failed to do enough to tackle homelessness and get kids back in school.
Beyond the recall, Harris, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress touted President Joe Biden’s progress during his first 100 days and urged activists to help generate support for Biden’s ambitious spending agenda and look ahead to 2022′s midterm elections.
Harris recalled her career in California politics, where she served as San Francisco's district attorney, state attorney general and U.S. senator before winning the vice presidency.
“As a daughter of California who is in the White House, I thank you. It is because of you and your hard work," she said.
All virtual, the event was awkward at times, with some videos clearly recorded weeks in advance and already out of date. Newsom, for example, touted the administration of 24 million vaccine doses, but earlier Saturday morning he had tweeted about the number of doses crossing 30 million.
Going virtual also meant there were fewer ways for activists to display discontent. At past conventions, some delegates have booed or turned their backs on speakers. The only moment of criticism came when outgoing party secretary Jenny Bach, a member of the California Young Democrats who ran and lost for party vice chair, said the party has “too much toxicity and hostility" and needs changes.
Tech Workers Flee San Francisco
Employees of tech companies in San Francisco, California, can’t leave the city fast enough, fleeing for the potential tech hubs of tomorrow such as Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida. One former San Francisco exec said: “what else can God and the world and government come up with to make the place less livable?”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has been fielding inquiries from top executives in the tech world, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to a report by NBC News.
The report added that the mayor has also met with former Google Chairman and Clinton lackey Eric Schmidt, and the chairman of Palantir, Peter Thiel, among others.
“There is absolutely no doubt that a big part of the reason why they are moving is that they feel that there is an inhospitable environment for regulation and taxation,” said Suarez.
Miami is not the only city experiencing this type of migration, as tech employees from San Francisco are fleeing to other states offering them better opportunities as well.
Tech workers living in San Francisco had once believed that the high rent, high taxes, long commute to work, and rude neighbors were worth it if they could live in “the epicenter of a boom that was changing the world,” reported SFGATE.
But now, in the wake of the pandemic, tech workers can’t flee the city fast enough, as spending months working remotely in other towns has shown them that the quality of life can be higher elsewhere.
“Tech workers and their bosses realized they might not need all the perks and after-work schmooze events. But maybe they needed elbow room and a yard for the new puppy. A place to put the Peloton. A top public school,” noted SFGATE.
And so they fled to more affordable places, like Georgia, and states with no income taxes, like Texas and Florida. The report added that the number one choice of relocation for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas.
John Gardner, the founder and CEO of the remote personal training startup Kickoff — who fled San Francisco for Miami Beach — told SFGATE that he can’t help but wonder, “what else can God and the world and government come up with to make the place less livable?”
As for Mike Rothermel, a designer at Cisco who moved from the Bay Area to Boulder, Colorado, the tech worker said that he and his wife moved into a $1.3 million house that he “only saw on video for 20 minutes.”
“It’s a mansion compared to SF for the same money,” added Rothermel.
Justin Kan, who co-founded Twitch, tweeted to his followers in August last year, asking them where he should move.
“We’re selling our house and moving out of SF. Where should we go and why?” asked Kan.
We're selling our house and moving out of SF. Where should we go and why?
— Justin Kan (@justinkan) August 17, 2020
“Come to Austin with us. Growing tech ecosystem and Texas is the best place to make a stand together for a free society,” responded Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of software company Palantir.
Come to Austin with us. Growing tech ecosystem and Texas is the best place to make a stand together for a free society.
— Joe Lonsdale (@JTLonsdale) August 17, 2020
“You start to feel stupid,” said Sahin Boydas, the founder of a remote-work startup, of living in San Francisco. “I can understand the 1% rich people, the very top investors and entrepreneurs, they can be happy there.”
Boydas and his family ended up moving to Austin, where they were able to buy a five-bedroom home on an acre of land for the same price they were paying for their three-bedroom apartment in Cupertino, California.
‘We’re going to get a cat and a dog,” he said. “We could never do that before.”
Boydas also noted that his bills are lower, too, such as the water bill, trash bill, and the cost of dining out at a restaurant with his family — adding that he didn’t even know that there were no income taxes when he moved.
“I run payroll for myself, and when I saw zero, I called the accountant like there’s an error — there’s no tax line here,” said Boydas. “And they were like, ‘Yeah there’s no tax.'”
The report added that there are currently 33,000 members in a Facebook group called “Leaving California,” as well as 51,000 members in its sister group, “Life After California.” In the groups, people share photos of moving trucks, and links to property listings in new cities.
“When people decide to leave San Francisco, they usually don’t know where they want to go, they just want to go,” said Terry Gilliam, the founder of both Facebook groups.
Bear Kittay, the co-founder Good Money, echoed those sentiments, and even acknowledged that some people may find themselves relocating to “a place that is more conservative.”
“The things that make this city ill are not within my control to change,” said Kittay of San Francisco.
“A lot of people are choosing to go to places where there’s opportunity,” he added. “And maybe it’s a place that is more conservative and there can be an integration of dialogue.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
Joe Biden Executive Order Could Have Taxpayers Fully Funding San Francisco Homeless Hotels
Big Tech, Koch Network Cheer Biden’s Amnesty to Flood U.S. Labor Market
19 Feb 20211,008
4:25
Big tech’s lobbying arm and the Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations are cheering on President Joe Biden’s amnesty plan that would pack the United States labor market with more foreign visa workers for business to hire over American graduates and professionals.
This week, Biden’s amnesty plan was introduced in Congress by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) as Democrats look to increase foreign competition in the U.S. workforce while more than 17 million Americans are jobless.
Among other things, the plan would:
· Put nearly all illegal aliens in the U.S. on an eight-year path to citizenship
· Provide $4 billion in foreign aid to Central America
· Expand the U.S. labor market with more foreign visa workers
· Expedite green cards for foreign relatives, otherwise known as “chain migration”
· Potentially add 52 million foreign-born residents to the U.S. population
· Eliminate per-country caps, ensuring India monopolizes employment green cards
· Increase the Diversity Visa Lottery program where visas are given out randomly
· Provide green cards to foreign students who graduate in advanced STEM fields
· Bring already deported illegal aliens back to the U.S. to provide them amnesty
For Amazon, millions of newly legalized illegal aliens, foreign visa workers, and chain migrants who would be added to the U.S. labor market as a result of the plan are a boon to multinational corporations’ profits.
“Today’s immigration reform bill marks an important step in reducing the green card backlog, creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers & making our immigration system more efficient,” Amazon officials wrote in a statement. “We look forward working [with] the administration and Congress to advance these proposed solutions.”
Today's immigration reform bill marks an important step in reducing the green card backlog, creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers & making our immigration system more efficient. We look forward working w/ the administration & Congress to advance these proposed solutions.
— Amazon Public Policy (@amazon_policy) February 18, 2021
Specifically, aside from providing Amazon with more foreign visa workers to hire, the plan includes a green card giveaway that would create a green card system where only H-1B foreign visa workers are able to obtain employment-based visas by creating a backlog of seven to eight years for all foreign nationals.
The process would reward outsourcing firms and tech corporations for the decades of outsourcing American jobs to H-1B foreign visa workers.
Executives with the Libre Initiative, a Koch-funded organization, also praised the Biden amnesty plan as “an important first step” to securing the green card giveaway for corporations that they have also long lobbied for.
“There is broad support for proposals like a permanent solution for Dreamers, workforce visa reform, removing per-country caps, efficient border security measures and much more,” Daniel Garza with the Libre Initiative wrote in a statement:
Lawmakers should seize the opportunity and demonstrate that partisan gridlock will not keep the American public waiting another 30 years for congress to enact sensible, permanent solutions. We look forward to working with lawmakers to ensure that we can get nonpartisan, sensible solutions past both chambers and enacted into law.
Todd Schulte with FWD.us, a group that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg created to lobby on behalf of tech corporations, called the amnesty plan a “critical moment for immigration policy” and a “substantial step forward.”
“Congress has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform a long-failed and too easily weaponized immigration system,” Schulte wrote in a statement. “The time is now and we will seize this moment.”
Despite the business lobby’s insistence that there is a labor shortage, millions of Americans are out of work today and hundreds of thousands of U.S. graduates enter the labor market every year looking for white-collar professional jobs with competitive pay and good benefits.
Already, the U.S. admits about 1.2 million legal immigrants every year. Another 1.4 million foreign visa workers are brought in annually to take American jobs, many in white-collar professions. The latest data reveals that nearly 6-in-10 workers in Silicon Valley, California — the tech industry’s hub — are foreign-born.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
25 Jan 2021451
3:28
President Biden signed an executive order on Thursday which could have American taxpayers covering 100 percent of the cost of “homeless hotels” in cities such as San Francisco through September.
Biden signed an executive order on Thursday aimed to increase reimbursements and other assistance to states in the battle against the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Per the order, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) shall “make available under Category B of the Public Assistance program such assistance as may be required by States (including territories and the District of Columbia), local governments, and Tribal governments to provide for the safe opening and operation of eligible schools, child-care facilities, healthcare facilities, non-congregate shelters, domestic violence shelters, transit systems, and other eligible applicants.”
“FEMA shall make assistance under this section available at a 100 percent Federal cost share until September 30, 2021,” the order adds.
While the specific details have yet to be determined, the move represents a shift from the Trump administration, which agreed to reimburse such activities up to 75 percent. Biden’s order could result in U.S. taxpayers covering the cost of the homeless hotels used in San Francisco throughout the pandemic entirely. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city is sheltering roughly 2,200 homeless in over two dozen hotels.
City Controller Ben Rosenfield said it remains unclear if the order is retroactive. If so, the city could be entitled to millions of dollars.
“I think it’s safe to say it will apply from now until September, for those that are eligible,” Rosenfield stated.
“Rosenfield said about 85% of the hotel guests are likely eligible for reimbursement, though it was unclear Friday whether the Biden administration changed the definition of who qualifies,” the outlet added, reporting that Biden’s executive order is welcomed among city officials, as the previous administration did not specify when federal funding would come to a halt.
“Fantastic!” supervisor Hillary Ronen said of Biden’s order. “Now we can open more spots for people experiencing homelessness to stay safe during the rest of this pandemic”:
Fantastic! Now we can open more spots for people experiencing homelessness to stay safe during the rest of this pandemic. Can’t wait to work with Federal & State leaders on permanent fixes to homelessness. https://t.co/BeLWUPUH17
— Hillary Ronen (@HillaryRonen) January 22, 2021
The California Department of Housing and Community Development reportedly used tens of millions of federal dollars via the Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) to put homeless individuals in hotel rooms in the era of the Chinese coronavirus, as Breitbart News reported in August.
“Administered by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), $600 million in grant funding will be made available to local public entities, including cities, counties, or other local public entities, including housing authorities or federally recognized tribal governments within California to purchase and rehabilitate housing, including hotels, motels, vacant apartment buildings, and other buildings and convert them into interim or permanent, long-term housing,” the Homekey program announced at the time, noting that “$550 million is derived from the State’s direct allocation of the federal Coronavirus Aid Relief Funds (CRF).”
THIS IS THE REALITY OF AMERICA. THIS IS WHAT THE GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS DONE TO AMERICA!
Fleeing California
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Svc7GLUqd4
Why Is Everyone Leaving California?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYSqdUGUg8A
What’s Happening to California’s Middle Class | Urban Policy Expert Joel Kotkin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu69XOeoa0o
What’s Causing an Increase in Crime in California? | Steve Coole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MM39H_rfWA
How to Help the Homeless with Edward Ring | California Insider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLqqypjBwC
How California's Unfunded Pension Liabilities Could Lead to Bankruptcy | Sen. John Moorlach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGRA-wztNc
12 dead and over 750 workers infected at Southern California ports
As COVID-19 continues to break record numbers of infections and mounting death tolls in California, dock workers, shipbuilding and logistics workers at the busy ports in Southern Californian have been particularly hard hit in recent weeks. Currently nearly 700 workers have contracted the virus in Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, with another 60 workers infected at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego.
Since the beginning of the year, over 35,000 confirmed cases have been reported in California every day, with Los Angeles alone seeing over 10,000 daily infections. A dozen longshore workers have died so far this year.
Eugene Seroka, executive director of the Los Angeles port, told the Los Angeles Timesthat nearly 1,800 dock workers are currently not working either due to self-isolation because of limited contact tracing or awaiting test results. Many are staying at home out of fear of contracting the virus. “We’ve got more cargo than we do skilled labor,” Seroka said.
The City of Long Beach, the Port of Long Beach, and the Los Angeles River (upper left) with its mouth at San Pedro Bay, Southern California. (Wikimedia Commons)
The high numbers of cases at the ports have been the direct result of indifference to the health of port workers. Union representatives of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) have cynically claimed that port executives have been failing to report widespread outbreaks to county health officials all while keeping workers on the job.
Only one of the 12 terminals in Los Angeles has officially declared a virus outbreak of just 15 workers, despite the hundreds who are reporting infections. In reality, the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association are colluding to keep workers on the job.
The response by the Democratic mayors of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, and Long Beach, Robert Garcia, has been to write to fellow Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom urging a faster distribution of vaccinations for dock workers. Joined by the ILWU and other elected officials, the call for vaccinations is aimed at creating a false sense of security to keep workers on the job under dangerous conditions.
Given that the vaccine requires two doses and several weeks before immunity, and the fact that the vaccine rollout has been a disaster, the move will not provide protection to workers who have been deemed “essential” and forced to remain on the job.
LA Port Executive Director Seroka recently declared, “My heart goes out to the dock workers. I’ve heard from many of them that there have been a lot of outbreaks. There is a lot of fear.” Such comments, however, could not be more empty since management, with the backing of the union, continues to force workers to move cargo as the death toll skyrockets in the region.
The fears of local authorities, mayors, and union bureaucrats are not, however, for the lives of workers, but of the economic consequences for corporations and the financial elite due to labor shortages. The port of Los Angeles is the busiest port in the Western Hemisphere, handling some $276 billion in cargo, according to 2019 figures.
The Long Beach seaport processes $56.7 billion in cargo and is one of the largest employers in the region, with more than 316,000 employees in Southern California. Much of the personal protection equipment that comes into the United States is from Asia and enters through the Southern California docks. Many economies in the state and the rest of the country depend on imported goods coming through the region.
Shipyard workers at BAE Systems, Inc. and NASSCO (National Steel and Shipbuilding Company) workers in San Diego are currently experiencing a similar outbreak and surge in infections. In the last three weeks alone, 60 positive cases have been reported at just the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego.
NASSCO and union representatives are scrambling to cover up the extent of the severity of the outbreak. Workers have also reported in social media posts that the numbers of infections are grossly underreported, and NASSCO has not done anything to limit, prevent or react to the rising cases.
In large measure, workers have been kept in the dark about positive cases at their job sites, and names of the deceased go unmentioned in the press. These include Ignacio Uribe, who died last year from COVID after he had contracted it from the NASSCO shipyard owned by General Dynamics in San Diego. Many of his co-workers never received official notice of his death or were warned of his infection. By June last year, over 100 official reports of COVID infections had occurred at the NASSCO San Diego shipyard.
Video footage of the San Diego NASSCO site has emerged of filthy bathrooms, dirty sinks with no running water to wash hands, and unkept breakrooms with appliances that have not been cleaned in months. Even the most basic sanitary measures have not been upheld.
Last year shipbuilding workers from Virginia to Maine struck to oppose unsafe working conditions during the pandemic. Wildcat strikes emerged at the Bath Iron Works site in Maine April 2020 in response to the death of an engineer and multiple positive cases. The Bath Iron Works employees demanded that General Dynamics and BAE provide workers with personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer) in addition to a coronavirus safety plan.
There are currently 50 active cases of COVID at the Bath Iron Works site, and there have been 168 total infections since the beginning of the pandemic. COVID cases at the Ingalls Shipbuilding site in Mississippi are also on the rise.
Shipyard workers are being forced to remain on the job not because they are essential workers but because the US Navy does not want any delays in repairs on new warships as the Biden administration prepares new imperialist wars and saber rattling.
In order to prevent the further spread of the virus, to contain it and stop the strain on hospital systems, which have hung at zero percent capacity for the last month in the state, the only solution is an immediate halt to all truly nonessential production and the provision of full income for workers to stay at home and remain in safety until the virus is contained.
The WSWS encourages all dock, shipyard and other port workers to begin forming rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the unions and democratically run by workers themselves, to oversee safety conditions and organize collective action against the sacrifice of human life for corporate profits.
These committees must link up with nurses and health care workers, teachers and other educators to close schools and protect their lives and the lives of their students and families. For help starting a rank-and-file safety committee at your workplace, contact us today
California Worst State at Vaccine Distribution
JAE HONG/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
22 Jan 2021726
2:36
The State of California became the worst of the 50 states in distributing its share of coronavirus vaccines on Thursday, as other states picked up their pace.
Despite improving from 27.5% last week to 37.3% this week, California is “dead last,” as SFGate.com reported Friday:
Thursday’s update to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker shows that the national rate increased from 38.8% last week to 48.6% this week. Last week’s 50th-ranked state was Alabama, which saw its usage rate jump from 21.2% to 41.1% week-over-week. For reference, California was ranked 49th last week.
This week, the 49th, 48th and 47th ranked states in order are Minnesota (39.8%), Virginia (40.2%) and Alabama (41.1%). The top three states are North Dakota (82.8%), West Virginia (73.0%) and New Mexico (68.6%).
Of the nation’s six largest states, California remains the only one with a usage rate below 40%, as was the case last week. Three have since crossed the 50% threshold this week.
California has become the epicenter of this winter’s coronavirus wave. Though there was some improvement over the past week, the COVID-19 crisis — fueled by a new, more easily transmissible strain of the virus first discovered in the United Kingdom — continues.
The state government, however, is flush with cash. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently reported that the state expects to have a $15 billion surplus this year despite the economic crisis — so much cash, in fact, that it may be required to refund some to taxpayers by law.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Pollak: Biden Kills Up to 70,000 Jobs on First Day in Office
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
22 Jan 202127,830
2:53
President Joe Biden’s first day in office may have been historic in more ways than one: he may have set a single-day record for the number of jobs killed by an American president.
Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, as promised. In so doing, he killed some 11,000 direct jobs that the pipeline’s construction was to have created, and an estimated 60,000 indirect jobs in secondary, related industries.
Over 1,000 workers already on the job — mostly union workers — will be laid off as a result of the decision, even if it is litigated, as many expect it will be, in the courts.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) confronted Secretary of Transportation nominee Pete Buttigieg over the Keystone XL decision on Thursday morning, during Buttigieg’s confirmation hearing. If the administration was serious about infrastructure, Cruz asked, why was it killing an infrastructure project with “good, paying union jobs”?
When Buttigieg said the idea was that “net” jobs created in more climate-friendly industries would be positive, Cruz retorted that that was little comfort to the Keystone XL workers who were being laid off: “So for those workers, the answer is somebody else will get a job?”
The Association of Oil Pipe Lines complained, as did the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters — though the union may only have itself to blame: it endorsed Biden in August, after he had promised to kill the pipeline in May.
Biden also halted the construction of the border wall on the U.S.-Mexico boundary on Wednesday. While the projections for jobs there are somewhat unclear, one analysis (by an opponent of the wall) in 2017 estimated that the wall, if fully constructed, would create 10,500 jobs.
Moreover, on Thursday, the Biden Administration announced that it had suspended oil and gas permits on federal land Wednesday. It is unclear how many jobs that will cost — but the outlook is not good.
Most presidents promise to create jobs. Biden killed up to 70,000 jobs in his first 24 hours — and the true total may be even higher.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Democrats Expose Dynamics of the Oligarchy
A legal, democratic recall election is now a “coup” attempt by extremists.
Fri Jan 22, 2021
“This recall effort, which really ought to be called ‘the California coup,’ is being led by right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.”
That was California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks, in a January 12 press conference, joined by Fresno city councilman Nelson Esparza who called the recall “treasonous.” That language prompted Ben Christopher of CalMatters to clarify the matter.
“Unlike a coup, which is an illegal seizure of power,” Christopher wrote, “a recall campaign is a democratic mechanism written into the California constitution that allows voters to remove an elected official by popular vote.” This legal, democratic mechanism is what the California Democrats call “treasonous,” and it models what national Democrats have been deploying since 2016.
The “composite character” David Garrow charted in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, whose Dreams from My Father was a novel, transformed a democratic nation into an authoritarian arrangement where the outgoing president picks his successor and deploys the DOJ and FBI to support her and attack her opponent. The overconfident Hillary Clinton failed to campaign in key states and vilified Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Trump campaigned tirelessly and the people elected him president.
“The central fact to appreciate about Donald Trump,” Roger Kimball explains, “is that he was elected without the permission, and over the incredulous objections, of the woke oligarchy that governs us.” As in California, Democrats regarded a democratic mechanism for choosing the president as illegitimate. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, the coup attempt was already in progress and for the next three years on full display in the Russia and Ukraine hoaxes. The 2020 election is best seen as the continuation of the Democrat coup attempt.
“Every honest person knows the 2020 election was rigged,” writes Kimball, who cites William Briggs on how the “woke oligarchy” works. The party that cheats is also in charge of investigating the accusations of cheating. The media calls cheating a conspiracy theory, and rulers move to expel or cancel those who even question the cheating. According to Briggs, “That party will win by virtue of its power. This is the way power works.” For his part, Kimball shows what our particular form of oligarchy means in practice.
The people do have a voice, “but it is a voice that is everywhere pressured, cajoled, shaped and bullied.” The people have a choice, says Kimball, but “only among a roster of approved candidates.”
In 2016 the Democrat candidate should have been Bernie Sanders, but “the way power works” brought in Hillary Clinton. In 2020, the party was responsible for counting the votes is in charge of investigating the accusations of cheating, so the nation gets addled retread Joe Biden, choice of the oligarchy. In similar style, the DOJ and FBI, which spearheaded the coup attempt against President Trump, are responsible for investigating the coup, so there will be no criminal charges against Comey, Strzok, McCabe, Ohr et al.
For Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, there was no treason and no crime, only “a massive system failure by senior leadership,” in the DOJ and FBI. For the oligarchy and its collaborators, the real problem is the power of the people to remove politicians from office by legal means.
In 2003, Californians of all parties recalled Democrat Gov. Gray Davis, who couldn’t even keep the lights on. Current Gov. Gavin Newsom is basically Davis plus an emergency order that empowered him to govern as a full-on autocrat. Among other actions, Newsom locked down the state, brought back the blackouts, spent $1 billion on masks from a Chinese company, and looked the other way as convicts scammed the unemployment system for $2 billion.
The lawful process to recall the disastrous Newsom is a “California coup,” according to Rusty Hicks, who has an election back story of his own. Hicks became state Democrat Party boss after charges of sexual harassment forced former state party chair Eric Bauman to resign. Democrat staffer William Floyd charged that Bauman forcibly performed oral sex on him several times and sued Bauman over sexual harassment, assault, battery, negligence and civil rights violations.
Hicks won the state party post with support from 57 percent of delegates, which nixed prospects of a runoff with African American Kimberly Ellis. The Emerge California activist ran for Democrat Party chair in 2017, narrowly losing to Eric Bauman and contesting the results, “keeping the party friction alive for months and turning off some members of the party establishment,” as the Associated Press reported.
According to Politico, the Democrat Party “paid millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits against Bauman.” The party conducted an investigation into Bauman’s conduct but last year approved candidate Rusty Hicks declined to release the results. Hicks’ effort to “deny the truth and hide the evidence,” party members charged in a letter, “sends the message that serial harassers and assailants are still welcome in the party.”
In 2008, Rusty Hicks served as California political director for the composite character formerly known as Barry Soetoro. In eight years, he transformed the nation into the oligarchy it has now become.
The FBI and DOJ are political players operating above the law. Voter fraud is standard practice. The truth counts for nothing and the voice of the people is bullied. The people must choose from a roster of approved candidates. And the people’s attempt to recall a politician by constitutional, democratic means becomes an attempted coup.
Leftist Policies and Soaring Crime Rates
All while the Dems continue their attack on the Second Amendment.
Fri Jan 22, 2021
Progressives are consistently clueless. Taxes go up and productivity goes down. What’s that about? Give illegal aliens welfare benefits and more come. Don’t see the connection.
Cities burn and gun sales are at an all-time high. Can’t figure it out?
A January 14 story in The Boston Globe was headlined, “A more general anxiety: Gun Sales have soared in the past year.”
The paper discloses that, “demand for firearms skyrocketed in Massachusetts in 2020,” which it attributes to “the pandemic, coupled with racial equity protests and a divisive presidential election.”
“Racial equity protests,” what a charming way to describe riots in 130 cities, that led to blocks looking like Dresden after the bombing, assaults on the police and civilians, and murder. None of this was lost on Middle America, which saw elected officials unwilling or unable to protect the innocent.
It took President Biden three months to condemn the riots, and then in the most vague and general terms. Baring something unforeseen, Sheriff Joe and his posse will govern the country for the next four years. And they wonder why gun sales have gone through the ceiling.
Nationally, there were 21 million FBI background checks in 2020, breaking the 2016 record of 15.7 million. A gun store owner in Western Massachusetts told the Globe that he couldn’t keep his shelves stocked, and 40% of the purchasers were first-time buyers. Nationally, the number of black people buying guns jumped 60%. The number of women buying a gun almost doubled.
The rioters demanded defunding the police, and municipalities couldn’t wait to capitulate. Police in Minneapolis (where the George Floyd “racial equity protests” began – led by Marxists and anarchists) lost $1.1 million.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who David Boaz of the Cato Institute calls “America’s Marxist Mayor,” slashed $1 billion from the NYPD budget.
Los Angeles cut $150 million, Portland $15 million and Seattle $23 million. Everywhere, it was the same story: violent protests, followed by political equivocation, followed by cutting police budgets, followed by surging crime rates. Only a progressive could fail to connect the dots.
Chicago had 750 murders last year, 50% more than in 2019. New York had 437 homicides (up almost 40%), and Los Angeles saw a 30% increase in homicide.
Democratic mayors groveled nicely. De Blasio’s daughter joined the mob. When the rioting – forgive me, the racial equity protests -- started, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said he was waiting for the rampage to burn itself out. Four months later, he was still waiting.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot got tough – when it came to protecting her home, which at one point was guarded by 140 police officers.
Democrats had stock responses to the mayhem – “mostly peaceful protests,” “what about ‘police violence?’” and “Antifa is an ‘idea’ not a movement.” (Did you ever get beaten unconscious and left bleeding in the street by an idea?) Black Lives Matter, whose co-founder described herself as a “trained Marxist,” was heralded as the successor to Martin Luther King and the Freedom Riders.
Blacks and whites, men and women, witnessed the carnage, heard the rhetoric, saw the response and flocked to the nearest gun store.
While Democrats defended the rioters and cut police funding, Biden is making it easier to import gang members, drug dealers and career criminals. A caravan of 9,000 from Honduras is headed for the border.
“Not another foot” of border wall will he build, Joe of the Jungle told the Washington Post this summer. Trump’s policies have been largely successful at stemming illegal immigration. His successor will fight the crisis at our southern border by offering free health care and amnesties to illegals – the lifeblood of the Democrat Party.
Gun prohibition is on the horizon. Good Democrat crime-buster that he is, Biden will fight soaring crime rates with tighter gun control that includes outright confiscation.
The man who once told us that there were 150 million gun deaths between 2007 and 2018, which would be close to half the total population of the United States (the actual number is 148,000, including acts of self-defense), is putting in charge of his anti-gun initiatives the man who loudly proclaimed, “Hell yes, we’re coming for your AR-15s and AK-47s.” Beto O’Rourke can’t even tell the difference between a semi-automatic and fully-automatic rifle. (Come on, man, they’re all “military-style assault weapons.”) Joe and Beto -- Sergeant York meets Yosemite Sam.
Biden’s candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services says “gun violence” should be treated as a public health issue. Mandatory buy-back programs might be the vaccine.
So, to recapitulate, Democrats watched the cities burn last summer, crime rates are soaring, if you call 9-11 you’ll listen to a pre-recorded message or, perhaps, be switched to a prayer line. With Biden in office, the border will be wide open to alien predators and your Second Amendment rights will be under constant attack.
And progressives can’t figure out why people are buying guns in record numbers.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti Announces ‘Implicit Bias’ Training for All City Employees
Richard Vogel / Associated Press
22 Jan 202120
4:07
LOS ANGELES, California — Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Thursday that the City of Los Angeles would require all employees to undergo “implicit bias” training as part of an effort to achieve “racial justice.”
Garcetti, speaking from Dodger Stadium at a press conference about the city’s coronavirus vaccination effort, said that the city would use “equity” in its distribution of vaccines, to prioritize minority communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
He then added that “in the midst of the clarion calls for racial justice that we saw in the streets of this country,” L.A. would require all city employees to undergo “anti-bias learning” and “mandatory implicit bias training” to help “dismantle racism for good.”
The City of Los Angeles currently employs more than 50,000 people.
Garcetti acknowledged that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) already conducts such training, but noted that it would be extended across all departments, on an annual basis.
In a separate press release, the city announced that it would be using a training program developed by Ohio State University:
An agreement was made with The Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity to adopt its highly-regarded implicit bias training and adapt it for City staff.
…
The Kirwan training centers on three broad concepts: first, understanding implicit bias; second, recognizing our own biases; and third, mitigating the impact of negative bias, with a focus on identifying, understanding, and counteracting implicit bias on the individual level.
The program uses a combination of video, reading content, and interactive quizzes to help participants explore the historical, psychological, and institutional causes of implicit biases, along with how these long-standing structures directly affect the way people think and interact. Built into the training is the opportunity for each trainee to take the Harvard University Implicit Associations tests to learn of their own implicit biases.
“Racism is woven into the systems that define our daily lives and we must be relentless in rooting it out,” said Capri Maddox, Executive Director of the Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department, in the release.
The Kirwan training can be found here. It makes claims such as “research suggests that most Americans – regardless
of race – hold an anti-Black/pro-White implicit bias.”
Last year, President Donald Trump used an executive order to suspend racial bias training in the federal government that used “Critical Race Theory” as a basis, and forbade federal contractors from using such programs.
Critical Race Theory holds that racism is inherent in American institutions. “On a practical level, Critical Race Theory teaches that social interactions are guided by “white supremacy,” and that society is corrupted by “systemic racism,” according to which black Americans must always be victims — even if unconsciously so. Critical Race Theory is the ideology animating the Black Lives Matter movement that has brought unrest to America’s cities,” Breitbart News noted at the time.
President Joe Biden rescinded that order on his first day in office, citing the “unbearable human costs of systemic racism.”
In December, the United Kingdom ended a program of “unconscious bias training” for civil servants after finding that it did not work. The Harvard “implicit association tests” have also come under significant criticism.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Morgues overflow, air quality restrictions on crematoriums suspended as Los Angeles County surpasses 1 million COVID-19 cases
On Saturday, Los Angeles County in southern California became the first in the United States to hit the grim record of 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
The hospital systems in Los Angeles and surrounding cities are strained past their limits, with some operating at over 320 percent capacity, and the region is recording more than 250 deaths each day. Patients line corridors, hallways, gift shops, and cafeterias turned patient care, and fill parking lot tents. Los Angeles County is the starkest expression of the pandemic’s spread throughout the state of California. According to the state’s official dashboard, as of January 17, California has 2,942,475 confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in 33,392 deaths, the second highest toll in the US, behind New York.
Registered nurse Leslie Clark, right, collects a nasal swab sample from a mans as administrative worker Sander Edmondson works on his computer at a COVID-19 testing site in Los Angeles, Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The crisis facing the nation’s most populous county, with more than 10 million residents, is deepening as the presence of the UK variant, which is predicted to be some 70 percent more transmissible, has been confirmed. There is no end in sight to this upward trend as over 20 percent of tests in Los Angeles County are coming back positive, pointing to rampant community spread.
The county’s hospital morgues are so full that more than a dozen members of the California National Guard have been called in to help store corpses as funeral homes and mortuaries work through a backlog. A temporary morgue consisting of five 53-foot refrigerated trailers and a number of other containers were set up last week in a parking lot adjacent to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s building. As of Friday, over 2,700 bodies were being stored at hospitals and the coroner’s office. Just east of Los Angeles, Riverside County has also procured additional storage space to store bodies—10 refrigerated trailers, eight of which can store 50 bodies per trailer.
There are so many deaths that air quality regulations for crematoriums in the county had to be suspended to keep up with the death toll and speed up cremations of bodies. On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an executive order to suspend air quality regulations that currently limit the number of cremations. The official district order states that the current death rate is “more than double that of pre-pandemic years, leading to hospitals, funeral homes and crematoriums exceeding capacity, without the ability to process the backlog.”
The skyrocketing death toll reflects the deep poverty and social inequality that exists in the wealthiest state in the US. In Los Angeles, some 16 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, described the higher rates of chronic illness among impoverished residents, telling CNN that “Diabetes is three times more prevalent here than in the rest of California. Mortality is 72 percent higher. The life expectancy is 10 years shorter here than in the rest of the state.”
California also has one of the lowest numbers of hospital beds per capita—just 1.8 beds for every 1,000 people, compared to four beds in Mississippi. The shortage of hospital beds is a reflection of the profit motive in the health care system, and of the conscious decisions to keep hospitals short-staffed, known as the LEAN model, which is embraced by all hospital systems to maintain the bare minimum of staff, a method focused on “minimizing waste”—i.e., labor costs.
The sorry state of California’s intensive care unit (ICU) capacity has been prepared through decades of cost-cutting to services such as intensive care that are more costly. According to a 2017 financial analysis by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), titled “Rethinking the Use of Intensive Care Beds in California’s Hospitals,” the foundation, speaking for the shareholders and CEOs of the state’s health care systems, argued that hospitals should shift ICU patients to non-ICU beds instead of increasing ICU capacity, noting that an unforgivable $55 billion is spent annually on critical care across the United States.
The report sought to undermine the 1:2 nurse-to-patient ratios in ICUs and advocated instead for 1:5 ratios in non-ICU nursing. The job losses that would result for nurses is a celebrated cost-cutting measure to boost the profits of the owners of the hospital system. It also regretfully noted that the average Medicare discharge of an ICU patient results in hospital losses of $2,431, losing a yearly aggregate of $5.8 billion, whereas $2 billion in profits are made on patients that do not spend time in an intensive care or critical care unit.
Health care workers are facing lack of bed capacity, dwindling resources, and dangerous short-staffing amid the worst wave of the pandemic so far. The response of the ruling elite and Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has not been for an immediate lockdown to halt the spread of cases but has been to grant hospitals the ability to waive the nurse-to-patient ratios. About 115 hospitals in California have been approved for 90-day waivers repeatedly including about 31 facilities in Los Angeles County, according to an analysis of California Department of Public Health data. Most recently, Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster received approval shortly after Thanksgiving.
The result of these conditions has pushed hospitals and strained staff to a breaking point as they face war-like carnage on a daily basis that is only fueling the understaffing issues. A nurse from the Apple Valley hospital told Reuters that “We’ve had physicians retire, we’ve had lab staff quit, we’ve had nurses quit, we’ve had CNAs quit, monitor techs quit, people have left critical care and gone to other units because it’s too much for them.”
Numerous hospitals have reported they are rationing care and limited resources due to lack of beds and staff, and to add insult to injury, many hospitals throughout the state have declared “internal emergencies,” as they are runningoutofoxygen. First responders in Los Angeles County have been ordered not to administer oxygen unless a patient’s levels drop below 90 percent. Nurses at Riverside Community Hospital have been directed via e-mail to “preserve their oxygen supplies.”
Throughout the media, headlines for the necessity of “ethical protocols to prioritize lifesaving care” dominate, but stripped of their euphemistic language, these are arguments for withholding patients from lifesaving care. Gary Herbst, the CEO of Kaweah Delta, the largest acute care hospital in Tulare County in central California, who brings home a yearly package of $1,058,692, remarked coolly last week that it was “our responsibility as a healthcare facility to plan for these types of scenarios.”
As the death toll mounts and care continues to be rationed, the slow pace of vaccinations will do little to nothing to affect the upward trend of cases and provide relief to strained health care systems. Los Angeles County is still not through vaccinating health care workers who had exposure to patients or infectious materials. There are an estimated 450,000 health care workers who have yet to be vaccinated and only 700,000 residents out of 3 million are currently eligible to receive the vaccine. The additional facilities set up for “mass” vaccinations can only provide relief for an additional 8,000 people per day.
In Riverside County, the registration for 11,000 vaccination slots scheduled for a four-day period starting Tuesday was filled two hours after registration opened, while many were unable to access the overwhelmed county website. “As of right now, we have 14,346 doses in our hands as public health and that is just enough to get through the vaccine clinics we have planned Sunday,” Kim Saruwatari, the county public health director, said Friday at a live-streamed meeting with county officials. “And by the end of Sunday we should be pretty close to out of vaccine as a public health department.”
Despite the horrific strain on the system and the 1 million infection mark reached, the Democratic-controlled government is doubling down on its plans to reopen the economy. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors met behind closed doors for a perfunctory 10-minute meeting on Friday and announced that they do not see a need to enforce additional restrictions. Governor Newsom continues to pursue a $2 billion plan to force cash-starved schools to reopen by mid-February, and emphasized this past week that the state’s hospitalization rates are beginning to show “the light at the end of the tunnel” since they’re now growing at a slower rate than the December influx.
A Riverside nurse blasted Newsom’s statement, telling the WSWS: “Yesterday a patient in his 40s asked me with fear in his eyes ‘Am I going to die?’ He was maxed on oxygen support and the time was near for him to be put on a ventilator. The short answer was yes, he would likely die. I tried to explain without lies so he would have hope in the end. ‘We’re going to take care of you and do everything we can. We have the best treatment available. I’m going to be right here with you and holding your hand.’ He didn’t make it. Where is his light at the end of the tunnel? He’s not the first and won’t be the last to suffer from this virus.”
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