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The Sun Rises on Climate Change Reform, New Candidate

RL Intern
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The Sun Rises on Climate Change Reform, New Candidate

By Jordan Darling, Editorial Intern

When you Google “How many oil refineries are there in Wilmington and Carson,” Google Maps opens a drawn screenshot of the area and 11 red tags pop up clustered together between San Pedro and Compton.

“Refineries reported approximately 22,000 tons of hazardous air pollution to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2010,” EarthJustice, an environmental coalition based in San Francisco, states in its website.

That is 22,000 tons of toxins released into the air over communities in the United States with 17 refineries in California and 11 throughout Southern California. The most at risk are people in poor socio-economic areas, mainly minorities. Toxins released from refineries can increase the chance of cancer and other detrimental health concerns.

The fight between climate change activists and refineries continues to be a prevalent topic as communities push to have refineries moved away from neighborhoods and homes.

In a 2019 study, PEW Research recorded that 56 percent of adults felt that climate change should be a top priority for the legislature. With the 2020 election cycle quickly approaching, it is a hot button topic for a lot of voters, especially those feeling the effects of living in a community centered around oil refineries.

Wilmington and Carson fall under District 64, which encompasses parts of Southern Los Angeles and the South Bay. The candidate standoff is between Fatima Iqbal-Zubair who took 32.5 percent of the vote and incumbent Mike Gipson, who took 67.5 percent.

Iqbal-Zubair is a public school science teacher working in Watts, a community advocate and a member of the Watts Rising Leadership Council. Her main concern is providing basic needs for the community and everything that encompasses.

“Basic needs is clean water everywhere, basic needs are good air quality, also clean food everywhere and eliminating food deserts [in] neighborhoods,” Iqbal-Zubair said. “Stopdrilling that is three to 10 feet away from a home. It is reducing emissions, banning fracking and any new fracking. Creating a 2,500 buffer zone between any drilling and places where people live, pray or work.”

Iqbal-Zubair said that she wants to support new green infrastructure and work with the solar industry. She said that part of the reason she is running for political office is that her opponent has received money from refineries and she hopes that she can make the refineries change their unsafe practices by holding them accountable and eventually supporting the transition to renewable energy.

Iqbal-Zubair was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and completed her undergraduate work at the Ramapo College in New Jersey in 2005 before moving to the West Coast and completing her graduate work through Sint Eustatius School of Medicine and California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2016.

She has been a member of the community for the past 10 years after she and her family settled into a house in Carson. Iqbal-Zubair fell in love with the diversity of the area and wanted to do her part as a teacher and advocate in Watts.

Her inspiration and passion to pursue a socio-economic change in the community was inspired by her work as a chemistry teacher at Animo Preparatory Academy in Watts, California. Iqbal-Zubair introduced the school’s robotics club before leaving the world of education to make changes on a government scale.

“Knowing my students’ stories and putting it together with community representation, clean water, clean streets and clean air made me angry and passionate,” Iqbal-Zubair said. “[It] made me want to do it the right way. No special interest money, talk the talk and walk the walk.”

Iqbal-Zubair has a bit of experience in local government as a member of the Watts Rising Leadership Council, a group of people chosen by the community to represent the interests of the residents of Watts and connecting those voices to the Los Angeles City Council. She has already fought for environmental change on a local level.

“It is about bringing the New Green Deal to Watts,” Iqbal-Zubair said. “Twenty-five projects, electric buses, new affordable housing with solar technology. It is making sure there is community engagement and the right questions are being asked to make the community better and make sure it is what the community wants and you’re not displacing them.”

In October of 2019, Iqbal-Zubair became involved with Sunrise Movement Los Angeles through another activist. Iqbal-Zubair said that there was a mutual agreement to work with the Sunrise Movement, she applied for endorsement through their political committee and then the movement sent her a questionnaire to see how they could help her campaign.

The Sunrise Movement is a Washington D.C.-based super political action committee that relies on grassroots youth-led movements to push for climate reform. The PAC has 290 hubs throughout the United States all focused on fighting for reform by uniting people across the board.

“We build our people’s power by talking to people,” the Sunrise Movement website states. “We also grow our people’s power through escalated moral protest.”

The movement has a five-part plan they would like to see implemented.

“STAGE 1, 2017: Launch the movement; STAGE 2, 2018: Make climate change matter in the midterm election; STAGE 3, 2019: Make the entire country feel the urgency of the crisis; STAGE 4, 2020: Win governing power by bringing it home through the 2020 general election; STAGE 5, 2021: Engage in mass noncooperation to interrupt business as usual and win a Green New Deal,” Sunrise Movement’s website said.
Part of implementing their plan is working with candidates like Iqbal-Zubair, who support the Green New Deal and are pushing for reform.

“The main thing for endorsement [is working with] candidates we are familiar with,” Ricci Sergienko, a political activist with the Los Angeles Hub for the Sunrise Movement said. “It’s one thing to have the rhetoric that they believe in climate change, it is another thing to actually get involved and come out and support the movements that are on the ground in their local area.”

Iqbal-Zubair’s work within her community and her pledge to “talking the talk and walking the walk” make her a prime candidate to work with Sunrise Movement.

“She supports the Green New Deal, that will push California to be 100% green by 2030, investing in public schools and housing,” Sergienko said. “The person she is running against, Mike Gipson, has been taking money from oil companies … Communities are heavily impacted by oil and gas companies, especially the Port of Los Angeles. The incumbents will feel the pressure from the candidates we’ve endorsed.”

The Green New Deal is a 10-year plan to make the push to have 100 percent renewable clean energy by 2030. It promises to create 20 million jobs by focusing on 100 percent renewable energy and investing in public transit and sustainable agriculture.

Iqbal-Zubair said she is in full support of the campaign and hopes to work with fellow legislatures to implement it.
“I am running not because I planned to run. [I am] authentically running for the community, [this is] not a stepping stone,” Iqbal-Zubair said.

An Infectious Stupidity or Conspiracy of Idiots

James Preston Allen
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An Infectious Stupidity or Conspiracy of Idiots

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

There’s not a whole lot you can do with a man who doesn’t listen or learn from his mistakes and one who continues talking from a point of ignorance during a time of crisis against overwhelming evidence.  Such is this president.

His now daily briefings have become even more irrational than ever and his changing positions and blame-gaming are enough to make your head spin — if you were to take what he says seriously.  But how can one not?  Oh what I would do for just one opportunity to be a part of the Washington Press Corp and show them just how to ask just the right questions and how not to back down from a bully.

Trump: “Allen,” as he points to me.

Allen: “Mr. Trump, you certainly have now made America great again. In fact, we’re number one in the entire world.”

Trump smiles.

Allen: “And you’ve done it almost single handedly.”

Trump grins and likes how this sounds initially.

Allen: “We now have the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the entire world, with more deaths than Italy and China and yet, you and your advisors knew about the possibility of this epidemic weeks, maybe even months, before the rest of us did and you did nothing to prepare for it.  Congratulations! Is that how you intended to make America great again?”

Trump: “Well, that’s a nasty question, from a nasty reporter of fake news.”

Allen: “Nasty questions are reserved for particularly nasty idiots who believe they can lie with impunity and get away with it in public.”

The president then explodes in unrestrained blather, he loses his cool on national TV, which only further proves my point. He then storms off the podium ending the press conference early.

The Secret Service swoops in and escorts me out of the White House briefing room,  with the advice never to return.

The mainstream media are stunned at how a reporter from a news organization they’ve never heard of had the audacity to stand up to the ridicule of this president. When asked, I respond, “This is something all of you should have done long ago only you all have something to lose by speaking truth to a liar, I don’t!”

For weeks afterwards I become aware that all my movements are being surveilled by agents in dark suits in cars with government plates. I assume they are tapping my phone, email and scrutinizing our reporting. I’m cautiously amused at having some new readers.

It’ll soon be over in November if the election isn’t stolen again and I can only wish that the blind hand of this infection visits the White House in a manner commensurate to the pain that they have inflicted upon the nation.

 What happens when people who don’t believe in government govern

Donald Trump is a symptom of an infection worse than the coronavirus. This infection has been spreading since before President Ronald Reagan said “Government is not the solution to our problem … government is the problem,” in his first inaugural speech. That comment seemed to just roll off his tongue like a line from one of his old B-movies, delivered with smooth confidence as if it were a common man’s truth. Sure, no one likes a government that interferes with our liberties up until there’s an epidemic that kills you or your family.

The hypocrisy of this common belief was first exposed in how Reagan handled the response to the AIDS virus in the early 1980s. Though the Centers for Disease Control discovered all major routes of disease transmission, including that female partners of AIDS-positive men could be infected, in 1983, the public considered AIDS a gay disease. It was even called the “gay plague” for many years after. And because of this designation and because of Reagan’s religiously anti-homosexual politics, his administration did nothing to prevent the spread of the disease until it was too late to stop it. The best read on this era is a 1987 book, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by journalist Randy Shilts. The title is a reference to the musicians on the Titanic, who reputedly kept playing as the ship sank. This is perhaps a bit like the opera singers in Italy singing from their balconies as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across their land. Then, as now, America was woefully unprepared to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Yet, America has ever since the 1940s been researching biochemical warfare agents and defenses to them. And there are a few dozen agencies that have increasingly focused on the science of protecting this country from both biochemical weapons attacks and epidemics. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 required high-level officials across the federal government to create a national biodefense strategy together. As a result, in 2018 the National Biodefense Strategy was released by none other than President Donald J. Trump. And yet, this very same administration that has had every opportunity to prepare a response to something like the COVID-19 outbreak but reacts with all the surety of a Keystone Cops episode, all the while deflecting any responsibility for the house burning down. Former Vice President Joe Biden perhaps said it best last January. “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president. I remember how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. He called President Barack Obama a “dope” and “incompetent” and railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse. He advocated abandoning exposed and infected American citizens rather than bringing them home for treatment.”

That is the difference between those who believe government has a role to protect and serve and those who think government should be strangled in the bathwater. Suddenly a national health care plan isn’t so unimaginable anymore.

Hard Reality for Local Theater in the Time of Pandemic

Greggory Moore
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Hard Reality for Local Theater in the Time of Pandemic

By Greggory Moore, Curtain Call Columnist

It may be different on Broadway and for a handful of behemoths in major media markets. For the vast majority of theater companies, however, plying their trade is mostly or even completely a labor of love, where even sold-out runs come up short of a profit, let alone the kind of money to make ends meet without a day job.

Imagine, then, what life in the time of COVID-19 is for theater folk ‘round here. Not only are they dealing with the same battery of issues plaguing the rest of us, but they are doing it while having to cancel shows into which they’ve invested blood, sweat and production expenses.

As the name implies, Little Fish Theatre is not one of the biggies. Founded in 2002, the Little Fishers lovingly converted San Pedro’s old city tow yard into a quirky theater with an upstairs lounge, an unusually long stage space for a black box and tiered seating on three sides for 65 total.  Despite the single stage, they put on about a dozen plays per year, not including their annual opener, Pick of the Vine, a compilation of nine short plays culled from hundreds of submissions. Throw in a few one-night-only events and these are the busiest bees in area theater.

That crowded schedule is likely to cost them dearly during the pandemic shutdown. According to associate artistic and development director Suzanne Dean, at best Little Fish will be forced to cut one show from its 2020 season. And while management hopes to reschedule the remaining dates of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, (which opened Feb. 27) as of now it’s crossed off their website calendar.  Becky’s New Car (scheduled to open April 9) and a one-off event slated for April 26 have also been cancelled. Even if the following play, Stop Kiss, opens as scheduled on May 21, the damage will be done.

“We spent a little over $10,000 [to mount and promote] Dead Man’s Cell Phone and [on top of that] have taken a hit of just over $1,600 in refunds,” Dean reports, “[and] pre-paid royalties for will be another $625 loss if [the licensor] won’t refund.” An additional $5,200 has already been spent on Becky’s New Car, she says, which began rehearsals March 1.

All this for a company that may not show a profit in the best of years. “We operate on very slim margins,” she says. “Some productions finish in the red and a show like Pick of the Vine or whatever we have over Christmastime helps ease the overall loss. When we have unexpected facility costs — as we did in 2019, with a costly plumbing issue or the years before with new chairs and renovations ¯ we were very in the red.”

The best news Dean reports is that Little Fish’s landlord “is responsive to our situation, [and] I am optimistic we’ll come to an arrangement that will assist our situation for the immediate time period.”

In any case, Dean says that, one way or the other, Little Fish intends to honor the contracts of cast and crew for Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Becky’s New Car,  regardless of what comes. “We’re seeking donations to be able to keep paying the handful of staff and monthly bills as long possible during the shutdown [because] we have miniscule reserves, [enough for] a few weeks only,”

Across the bridge in Long Beach, an even  smaller fish is the Garage Theatre, which for the last 20 years has shown the gumption to stage ¯ in a space that maxes out around 50; everything from Shakespeare, DeLillo and Ionesco to melodrama and farce to newish hot-button works (climate change, queer culture) to a Trey Parker/Matt Stone musical and a world-premiere staging of a Tom Stoppard radio play so good that the man himself dispatched people from England to grant his official stamp of approval. Forced to halt their season opener, Psycho Beach Party, early in its run after spending over $5,000 to get it going and with only four other shows scheduled for the season, this is a company with no margin to cope with the impacts of this pandemic.

“We really rely on our first production to get us back to a place of financial security for the rest of the season, especially for when we throw out some of our more challenging productions later in the year,” says Managing Director Eric Hamme. “We don’t have a reserve fund and everything we did have was put into getting the season up and running. We also thought we were making a smart decision in remodeling our bathroom over the break and that set us back around $600; and our box office software broke down at the end of last year so that had to be replaced for about $400. Then there is the $1,300 a month overhead (rent and utilities), concessions purchased and facility supplies such as tools, paint, toilet paper, etc. Relatively small numbers, but it adds up quick. […] I haven’t spoken to our landlords, but there will need to be a discussion on the 31st, because right now we can maybe squeak into April — but after that, we are tapped. If Panndora Productions’ [i.e., a troupe to whom the Garage occasionally sublets] performance doesn’t happen [May 2–17] and we lose that revenue, we won’t have the resources necessary to get us to our next production [Stephen Aldy Guirgis’s The Motherfucker with the Hat] in mid-July.”

With even less reserves than Little Fish, should Psycho Beach Party ­ be fully cancelled, Hamme holds out hope that the COVID-19 crisis may pass in time “to sneak in a few more performances, [… but] a lot of chess pieces [would] need to be moved around.” The Garage will not even be able to provide crew members with their usual small stipend (“basically gas money,” Hamme says, “but they appreciate it”). Garage actors are paid purely through donations to a Feed the Actors fund that amounts to even less.

The only big hit the Garage won’t take is on refunds. “Our audience is notorious for buying last-minute, and we love them for that,” Hamme says. “[… Plus], it’s only a month between our season announcement and opening night, so it always takes a little time for ticket sales to start to ramp up. This show is also scheduled for a six-week run (as opposed to our typical five weeks), which gives people more time to put it off.”

Hamme is every bit as appreciative of Garage supporters as was the vociferous (as in: I had to wear earplugs — literally), overflow (extra chairs set up against a wall) audience for the opening night of Psycho Beach Party.

“So far ticket-buyers for about half the cancelled shows have been willing to donate the money rather than request a refund,” he says. “[…] I just want to say for the record that I think that we have the best audience and the best support system of any theater in Long Beach. We feel like we have a personal relationship with everyone who walks through our door. We may not have the wealthiest audience, but in the past when we have run into trouble, our subscribers and donors have always stepped up and helped pull us up out of the ditch. I have no doubt that somehow, someway we will make it through this, but it will require help. We are always happy to accept donations— no donation is too small. We are a 501(c)3, so [donations] are 100% tax-deductible, and every dime goes into the theater.”

Maybe the biggest fish around is Musical Theatre West, which each year typically stages five big-budget productions — as in roughly $600K a pop. But although a whale shark like Musical Theatre West has deeper pockets than a minnow, the shutdown will not have to last all that long for this nonprofit to find itself in financial difficulty even though it doesn’t carry the overhead on the lavish Carpenter Center (which it rents per performance). For example, while it has rescheduled Mame (originally slated to open March 27) for August, should the COVID-19 crisis extend through summer, Musical Theatre West will lose not just the ticket sales from both Mame and Treasure Island (July 10–26), but it will be out the $50,000 to $70,000 it has already put into the former, plus refunds for ticket sales, 55 percent of which are season subscribers, with nonsubscribers having already snapped up an additional 11 percent of the seats for Mame.

“Because we could reschedule Mame, the damage was not as bad,” says Executive Director Paul Garman. “But if we have to cancel the show, that will be a major problem.”

Garman highlights how difficult cancellations will be for the people who do the work to bring the shows to life.

“The reality for the [actors and crew] who live paycheck to paycheck is that this is definitely going to hurt them, because they won’t be paid until the show actually happens,” he says, noting that a show like Mame contracts over 50 people, plus 14 Carpenter Center employees (ushers, etc.) paid hourly wages for each performance. “Most theater people live hand-to-mouth, so closing down … is especially detrimental to them because they can’t go out and find other [theater] work, since there are no other theaters open. Many [theater people] work as waiters or waitresses or bartenders, that type of stuff— but they can’t really do that, because those are closed.”

Dean presumably speaks not just for Little Fish but for the Garage and every theater company around when she says, “Even though we are each sheltering in place, we’re not taking this lying down. We’ll fight to the last gasp. […] The future […] hinges on two things: a public outpouring of contributions and the length of time we’re closed.”

Garman voices the obvious conundrum here: “With people losing money in the stock market and being off work, are they going to be willing to donate to nonprofits like [us]?”

There’s only one way to find out. And find out we will.

To donate to any or all of the theater companies kind enough to open up about their current difficulties for this article, visit:

www.littlefishtheatre.org; www.thegaragetheatre.org; www.musical.org

Barragán Hosts Town Hall, Addresses COVID-19 Pandemic

Hunter Chase
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Barragán Hosts Town Hall, Addresses COVID-19 Pandemic

By Hunter Chase, Reporter

Rep. Nanette Barragán hosted a phone town hall meeting April 9, as part of a series of weekly meetings designed to inform the public on the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the meeting, Barragán said that $1,200 stimulus checks will be sent to taxpayers starting on the week of April 12. The Internal Revenue Service will be making direct deposit payments to people who filed 2018 or 2019 taxes using the direct deposit information that people have provided for their returns. People who pay for their taxes with paper checks or who are on social security will be in the second round of stimulus checks, which will start coming out 10 days later.

In addition, Congress is working on a second stimulus package, Barragán said.

“We are talking about things like extending loan forgiveness; we’re talking about extending unemployment time for benefits; we’re talking about trying to get additional stimulus checks because one is not going to be enough,” Barragán said. “$1,200 is not going to cover the rent; it’s not going to pay your bills up for the length of this.”

Worldwide, there are about 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 that have been diagnosed, said Dr. Jan King from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. However, because of a lack of testing, the actual number of cases is probably much higher.

“What we’re going to see over the next couple of weeks is that these numbers are going to continue to rise until hopefully we reach a plateau and then over time it will decrease,” King said.

In Los Angeles County, there have been 10,047 diagnosed cases as of April 14. There have been 360 related deaths.

There are disparities among the people that are infected, King said. African-Americans are seeing a higher rate of death from COVID-19 when compared to other races. African-Americans make up 9% of the population of Los Angeles County, but are 17% of the people who die from the virus. Other cities, like Chicago and Detroit, have seen similar disparities. It is really important that African-Americans that do become ill speak to their physicians and get tested quickly, King said.

King said that African-Americans who have chronic underlying diseases need to follow the safer at home orders to avoid spreading the virus.

“The best way to avoid a really bad outcome and dying is not to get COVID at all,” King said. “Stay in communication, because communication is really important with friends and family, but do that electronically.”

About 340 healthcare workers in the county have been diagnosed with COVID-19, King said. Nurses have been infected the most. Two healthcare workers have died from the virus. The county is trying to prevent this by ensuring that healthcare workers have proper personal protective equipment.

As of April 10, Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered Angelenos to wear masks in places of business. All non-medical essential employees must wear a face covering. This includes retail workers, take-out restaurant employees, gas station employees and hotel and motel workers.

In addition, the order requires that businesses allow employees to wash their hands every 30 minutes, Barragán said. She encouraged people to call her office at 310-831-1799, if their place of work is not complying with these rules.

“You have a right to be protected at work,” Barragán said. “Businesses also have a right to turn you away if you’re a customer who’s not wearing a face mask.”

These masks do not have to be medical grade.

People who are asymptomatic can still be carriers and still infect other people, King said. Garcetti’s order to wear face masks is to prevent people from unknowingly spreading the virus.

“It’s really critical that as we move forward that we are protecting ourselves but at the same time as protecting the rest of the community,” King said.

Michael Romero, superintendent for the Local District South of the Los Angeles Unified School District, was also present at the meeting. He said that his district, which has 150 schools and almost 100,000 students, sent all students home on March 13 with two weeks of instructional material that could be done with pencil and paper. During the following week, the staff and faculty had to quickly plan how they would teach virtually.

On March 30, online instruction began.

“All teachers are currently teaching online to the best of their abilities,” Romero said. “This is all new to everybody and they’re growing daily and getting better.”

All teachers have one virtual office hour three days a week, Romero said. In addition, all the electronic devices at the school that could be used for online work were sent home with the students.

“Our general superintendent Austin Beutner has made a $100 million investment in devices,” Romero said. “They’re coming currently and they’re being shipped to our elementary schools.”

On April 13, the schools began distributing the devices, Romero said. Principals communicated with families and coordinated when they could pick them up. This was done using masks and six-foot distances.

“A lot of our families did not have devices, nor internet access,” Romero said. “So we have Charter Spectrum, Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, there’s a lot of providers that have come through with free internet.”

Barragan, Markey Oppose Fossil Fuel Bailouts

Reporters Desk
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Barragan, Markey Oppose Fossil Fuel Bailouts

Washington D.C — On April 15, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan and Sen. Ed Markey sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as well as Federal Reserve System Chair Jerome Powell demanding the Treasury Department to stop bailing out the fossil fuel industry with funds that are meant to help the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security act.
The letter was written along with 40 colleagues from the House and Senate including Calif. Senator Kamala Harris, Vt. Senator Bernie Sanders, and Md. Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Details:
https://tinyurl.com/yaqecarq
https://tinyurl.com/yasxhroj

Pandemic: Trump’s Timeline of Failure and Deception

Paul Rosenberg
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Pandemic: Trump’s Timeline of Failure and Deception

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

In an effort to place current events of this magnitude in perspective, this timeline of events untangles some of the chaos and confusion surrounding the pandemic now known as the COVID-19.  Many of you may feel that remembering what happened at the beginning of this year is like trying to remember two years ago. The following are dates and events that are taken from readily available sources to better explain just how this disease became a crisis.

— The Publisher

The United States and South Korea both reported their first cases of COVID-19 within 24 hours of each other — Korea on Jan. 20, the United States the next day.

Even though South Korea is much closer to China, and thus much more exposed, as of April 14, 222 people died of the virus in South Korea compared to a death toll of 25,658 in the United States. Adjusting for population, the United States had 24,224 deaths that it might not have had if it had reacted as quickly and effectively as South Korea did. Put another way, 17 of every 18 Americans who have died would not have died if the U.S. had responded as South Korea did. And you can’t say we weren’t warned. Donald Trump’s own Council of Economic Advisors told him that up to half a million Americans could die in a pandemic, as did his trade representative Peter Navarro.

“The U.S. response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort,” Ron Klain, who led the 2014 fight against Ebola, told a Georgetown University panel on March 19. “What’s happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions.”

Not all of that difference is due to Donald Trump’s failed leadership; America’s privatized health care system results in thousands of needless deaths each year. But Trump’s actions, inaction and his cacophony of false, conflicting and confusing statements have contributed enormously.

Because so many of his claims—such as “this is just a normal flu” or “this is being politicized to attack Trump”—have not just served to excuse Trump’s responsibility; they’ve contributed to those deaths by spreading paralyzing confusion and distrust, and counterproductive misinformation when clear direction and unity of purpose could have saved thousands of lives.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have long warned that Trump is a malignant narcissist, incapable of considering or caring about the welfare of others. There’s substantial evidence that leaders like him make pandemics both more likely and more deadly.

Dr. Frederick Burkle, a leading international public health expert, explained this in a paper published in early March.

“Trump has mimicked other autocratic leaders’ positions in managing any serious outbreak,” Burkle noted. “He has praised President Xi’s rulings and failed to comment on the Chinese ruler’s decision to punish physicians for grossly delaying international warnings and calling attention to the public health threat for which Xi was totally responsible.”

Trump’s failed response falls into three broad phases.

Mis-preparation. Even before taking office, Trump and his minions have not just ignored pandemic threats, but significantly undermined our capacity to deal with them.

Denial. When the outbreak began, Trump initially portrayed America as invulnerable (anything to contrary might hurt the economy and thus his re-election chances); he trusted the words of Xi and anyone else who supported him, rather than experts trained to understand what was happening.

Blame-shifting. When he could no longer ignore the disaster (due to its impact on Wall Street) he switched gears, claiming he’d known all along the tough fight we were in for and turned to blaming everyone but him—another common trait of autocratic malignant narcissists.

The following timeline highlights a small fraction of Trump’s failures of leadership during this crisis, a record that has left so many Americans needlessly dead. It includes:

actions taken to weaken our response, actions not taken to protect us, warnings ignored the lies he’s told that have endangered people’s lives, at risk, as well as the lies he’s told to avoid blame and/or shift it onto others.

Numbers at the end of each timeline event corresponds to the actions outlined above.

The timeline begins with the time that was wasted while he deliberately ignored the pandemic threat, which eerily resembles the way the George Bush administration ignored Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. Trump, like Bush, ignored warnings from the Democratic administration before him and the death toll this time is already dramatically much higher.

  • January 2017: Before Trump’s inauguration, officials of the outgoing Barack Obama administration brief Trump’s team on the best practices for confronting a pandemic, using the model of respiratory virus originating in Asia. It literally comes with a handbook. Although Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, Tom Bossert, takes it seriously, the pandemic handbook is ignored by Trump’s team as a whole. (2) In 2018, Bossert was fired by Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton. (1)
  • May 11, 2017: Trump’s director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, delivers the Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress, including the warning that “Stagnating or declining funding for global health initiatives and lack of domestic resources threaten the continued progress against health threats,” and that “A novel or reemerging microbe that is easily transmissible between humans and is highly pathogenic remains a major threat because such an organism has the potential to spread rapidly and kill millions.” It specifically warns that, “Threats such as avian influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have pandemic potential.” Similar warnings are repeated in 2018, 2019 and 2020, though the last one remains classified. All have been ignored. (2)
  • May 23, 2017: Despite the Worldwide Threat Assessment, the first Trump budget calls for huge cuts to science, medical research and disease prevention, including a 17% cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Americans would be less safe,” former CDC director Dr. Tom Freiden warns on Twitter. Congress ultimately rejects the cuts, but Trump keeps making them each budget year, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. (1)
  • May 8, 2018: The National Security Council’s pandemic response team is disbanded in a reorganization overseen by Bolton. The top official responsible for overseeing pandemic response, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, leaves the administration. As a result, when experts within the administration grow alarmed at the COVID-19 outbreak in January and February this year, there was no responsible body for them to turn to. (1)
  • January to August 2019: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conducts a pandemic training simulation involving a disease striking similar to the COVID-19 virus. Problems encountered are strikingly similar to the ones we experience in real life. A draft report summarizing the problems they identified is simply ignored, rather than being acted on. (2)
  • July 2019: The CDC’s Beijing chief is not replaced. This was not an isolated incident. Over the past three years, a CDC team working on global health security in China has been reduced from 50 people to 14. (1)
  • September 2019: Trump’s own Council of Economic Advisers issues a report, “Mitigating the Impact of Pandemic Influenza through Vaccine Innovation,” warning about the dangers of pandemic—as opposed to seasonal—flu and the reasons why the market will not work to generate the capacity to protect against it. It warns that “Fatalities in the most serious scenario would exceed half a million people in the United States.” (2)
  • October 2019: The Trump administration refuses to renew funding for PREDICT, a pandemic early warning system that was funded for two previous 5-year cycles, thus effectively ending the initiative. PREDICT worked with 60 different foreign laboratories, including the lab in Wuhan, China that identified COVID-19. (1)
  • Dec. 1, 2019: This is the earliest date of symptom onset, according to a study in the journal Lancet.
  • Dec. 8, 2019: A patient in the city of Wuhan seeks medical help for pneumonia-like symptoms.
  • Dec. 29, 2019: Local hospitals in Hubei report the first four cases of a “pneumonia of unknown etiology.” U.S. medical intelligence analysts reportedly note these developments in December, but the extent of what they know or do is not yet known.
  • Dec. 30, 2019: Dr. Li Wenliang posts messages about the appearance of seven confirmed SARS-like cases in a clinical medicine WeChat group. He is subsequently interrogated by security police who give him a warning notice and censure him for “making false comments on the internet.”
  • Dec. 31, 2019: China confirms the existence of a new virus.
  • Jan. 1, 2020: The CDC begins developing reports for the Department of Health and Human Services about the situation.
  • Jan. 3: A Chinese official officially informs CDC Director Robert Redfield of the outbreak of a respiratory illness in the city of Wuhan. Redfield later relayed the information to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Azar informs the White House National Security Council.
  • Jan 8: Li Wenliang contracts COVID-19 (not yet named.)
  • Jan. 8: The CDC issues its first public warning about the outbreak in China, saying that it is monitoring the situation and that people should take precautions when traveling to Wuhan.
  • Jan. 17: The CDC begins monitoring major airports for passengers arriving from China.
  • Jan. 18: Azar, who has been trying to speak to Trump about the virus, is finally able to talk with him, but Trump first interjects to ask when flavored vaping products would be back on the market.
  • Jan. 20: The World Health Organization reports cases in China, Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
  • Jan. 21: The first confirmed coronavirus case arrives in the United States, in Seattle. WHO says the virus risk globally is high.
  • Jan. 22: A reporter asks if there are worries about a pandemic. Trump responds with his first comments about the coronavirus, saying he is not concerned about a pandemic. “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. … It’s going to be just fine.” He continues some variation of this narrative until March 11. Two days later, he abruptly declares a “national emergency.” (4)
  • Jan. 23: Chinese officials take the drastic step of shutting down Wuhan.
  • Jan. 24: Trump tweets, “It will all work out well.” (4)
  • Jan. 27: Concerned White House aides meet with then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to get senior officials to pay more attention to the issue. Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, argues it could cost Trump his reelection and says the virus is likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.
  • Jan. 29: A memo from Peter Navarro warns of 500,000 or more American deaths and says it is “unlikely the introduction of the coronavirus into the U.S. population in significant numbers will mimic a ‘seasonal flu’ event with relatively low contagion and mortality rates.”
  • Jan 29: The White House forms a coronavirus response task force, initially led by HHS Secretary Azar.
  • Jan. 30: WHO declares a global health emergency, as China expanded the lockdown beyond Wuhan to the entire province of Hubei. That day, Trump says: “We only have five people. Hopefully, everything’s going to be great.”
  • Jan. 30: Trump blocks travel from China after three major airlines announce they had halted flights. But it was too little, too late; and worse, it convinces him he’d done everything necessary. In the coming months Trump repeatedly cites this as early decisive action.
  • “I do think we were very early, but I also think that we were very smart, because we stopped China,” he says on March 31, adding “That was probably the biggest decision we made so far.”
  • But on April 4, the New York Times reported that 430,000 people had entered the United States from China since the coronavirus surfaced, with 1,300 direct flights to 17 cities before the travel restrictions and 40,000 entering after it. In addition, there are thousands of other flights from Italy and Spain, both especially hard hit, ABC News reports on April 7; and on April 8, the New York Times reports that the coronavirus began circulating in the New York area by mid-February, with the majority of cases coming from European strains of the virus.
  • Jan. 30: Trump says of the threat: “We think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” (4)
  • Feb. 2: Trump tells Fox News host Sean Hannity, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” (4)
  • Feb. 4: Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantines in Yokohama, Japan. It has more than 2,600 guests and over 1,000 crew. Within two days, over 40 people test positive for COVID-19, including eight Americans.
  • Feb. 5: Trump’s impeachment trial ends with his acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate.
  • Feb. 5: CDC begins shipment of test kits to the states.
  • Feb. 7: Donald Trump and Xi Jinping speak about the coronavirus, with Trump praising China’s efforts and pledging support. The same day, Li Wenliang, the whistleblowing doctor admonished for “making false statements on the internet,” dies from the coronavirus.
  • Feb. 7 (approximately): By early February, the “majority of the intelligence reporting” in daily DNI and CIA briefings and digests are about the coronavirus, according to the Washington Post.
  • Feb. 10: Trump submits a 2020 budget calling for CDC cuts of about 16%, similar to sharp cuts in past Trump budgets, along with deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, totaling $2.24 trillion over 10 years, violating his campaign pledge not to cut Medicare or Medicaid. (2)
  • Feb. 10: Trump says, “I think the virus is going to be — it’s going to be fine.” (4)
  • Feb. 11: WHO names the new disease COVID-19.
  • Feb. 12: The CDC admits that its test kits were flawed and will have to be replaced.
  • Feb. 19: Trump says: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.” (4)
  • Feb. 20: WHO reports nearly 77,000 cases worldwide in 27 countries.
  • Feb. 23: Another Navarro memo warns of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”
  • Feb. 23: Italy begins to see evidence of a major outbreak in the Lombardy region.
  • Feb. 24: As Iran becomes a hot spot, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns of a possible pandemic. “There is a lot of speculation about whether this increase means that this epidemic has now become a pandemic,” he says.
  • Feb. 24: The stock market plummets as the Dow Jones industrial average falls more than 1,000 points.
  • Feb. 24: Trump tweets: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” (4)
  • Feb. 26: The first case emerges in California with no clear source, an example of community spread indicating that containment has failed.
  • Feb. 26: Trump says, “When you have 15 people — and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero — that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” (4) There is zero evidence to support his wishful thinking.
  • Feb. 27: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina who has received briefings on the threat, tells a private luncheon that the coronavirus is “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history” and is “is probably more akin to the 1918 [influenza] pandemic,” in which 50 million or more people died worldwide.
  • Feb. 28: Cases rise across Europe, including Italy, Germany, France, England, Switzerland and Belarus.
  • Feb. 28: Trump says: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” (4) He also accuses Democrats of “politicizing the coronavirus,” saying, “this is their new hoax.” (5)
  • Feb. 29: The Food and Drug Administration eases guidelines to speed the broader use of testing.
  • Feb. 29: The United States records its first coronavirus death and announces new travel restrictions for Iran, Italy and South Korea.
  • March 3: The CDC lifts restrictions on coronavirus testing, allowing states and private companies to produce their own.
  • March 4: The House of Representatives passes a $8.3 billion emergency bill, aimed mainly at the immediate health response to the virus.
  • March 4: Trump tries to blame testing failures on Obama: “The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. And we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion.” But experts contacted by Factcheck.org say that no such decision or rule existed. (5)
  • March 6: Grand Princess cruise ship with more than 2,000 passengers waits to dock off the California coast.
  • March 6: Trump assures Americans, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is.” Politifact rates it a “Pants on Fire” lie. (4)
  • March 6: Trump calls Washington Gov. Jay Inslee “a snake” after Inslee tweets that he told Vice President Mike Pence “our work would be more successful if the Trump administration stuck to the science and told the truth.”
  • March 10: Trump says: “Just stay calm. It will go away.” (4)
  • March 11: The White House suspends travel from most European countries, as the WHO declares a global pandemic.
  • March 11: Trump says, “I think we’re going to get through it very well.” (4)
  • March 13: Trump declares a national emergency.
  • March 13: Trump refuses to accept any responsibility for the slow rate of coronavirus testing in the United States, blaming Obama once again: “No, I don’t take responsibility at all. Because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time.” However, the Obama administration tested 1 million people for H1N1 in the first month after the first diagnosed case, compared to less than 10,000 tested when Trump spoke, more than 50 days after the first case. (5)
  • March 15: Trump says, “This is a very contagious—this is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control of.”
  • March 16: Trump for the first time publicly reflects on the gravity of the situation. Asked about his repeated comments saying the situation was “under control,” he says: “If you’re talking about the virus, no, that’s not under control for any place in the world. [False: See New Zealand & Taiwan] … I was talking about what we’re doing is under control, [Also false, obviously] but I’m not talking about the virus.” (5)
  • Mar. 16: Trump tells governors they’re on their own in a conference call: “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment—try getting it yourselves.” Afterwards Trump tweets: “Just had a very good tele-conference with Nations’s Governors. Went very well. Cuomo of New York has to ‘do more’.”
  • March 17: Trump says for the next two weeks, “We’re asking everyone to work at home, if possible, postpone unnecessary travel and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people.”
  • Mar. 17: Trump tweets, “Failing Michigan Governor must work harder and be much more proactive,” after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared on MSNBC and accurately says, “The federal government did not take this seriously early enough and now it is on us to make sure we’re doing everything we can based on the best facts and science available.”
  • March 18: Trump says he considers himself “a wartime president.” He tells reporters, “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” (5)
  • March 19: The Senate unveils a $1 trillion-plus economic stimulus package. California Gov. Gavin Newsom orders lockdown for 40 million residents.
  • March 20: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all non-essential businesses to keep their workers home. Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois and many other states issue similar restrictions.
  • March 24: Having tweeted on the economic shutdown that “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” Trump says in a Fox News town hall he would “love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”
  • March 27: Trump signs a $2.2 trillion emergency spending bill.
  • March 29: Trump reverses course on relaxing strict stay-at-home guidance by Easter and extends the period to the end of April.
  • March 30: Cases top 163,000. The number of tests crossed the 1 million mark, still far behind what’s needed.
  • March 31: Trump asks Americans to be prepared for the “hard days that lie ahead.”
  • April 4: Trump attacks Obama for his own testing failure with a new lie: “The ones that we inherited, they were broken, they were obsolete, they were not good tests. But that’s what we got stuck with. We’ve developed some incredible tests.” But there were no inherited tests, since Covid-19 didn’t exist until almost three years after Obama left office. It was Trump’s own administration that turned down World Health Organization tests, developed its own faulty ones, then dragged its heels in allowing others to develop their own tests. (5)
  • April 7: Covid-19 deaths pass 10,000, with 10,680 recorded, out of 361,331 cases.
  • April 12: Trump retweets a call to fire Anthony Fauci after Fauci says earlier measures “could have saved lives.”

Easter arrives and most of the country is still on lockdown and most churches are either closed for services or go to virtual ones.

LB City Council Unanimously Names Thomas B. Modica as City Manager

Reporters Desk
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LB City Council Unanimously Names Thomas B. Modica as City Manager

LONG BEACH — On April 14, Long Beach City Council appointed Thomas B Modica as Long Beach’s next City Manager.
Modica’s appointment begins immediately and will be responsible for the administration of all departments except the City Attorney, City Auditor, City Prosecutor, City Clerk, Civil Service Commission, Harbor Department and Water Department. Leading a team of city management staff and department directors, Modica will be responsible for providing municipal services for the community and directing and implementing city programs in accordance with city council policies, the city charter and the municipal mode.
Modica was appointed acting city manager on Sept. 21, 2019, following the departure of City Manager Patrick H. West. He has worked for the City of Long Beach for 18 years, starting as a management assistant in 2002. He has served in several roles for the city including assistant to the city manager, government affairs manager, director of Government Affairs and Strategic Initiatives, deputy city manager and acting director of Development Services.
He was appointed assistant city manager in 2014, where he was responsible for assisting the city manager in operating the municipal enterprise, including oversight of city departments and leading special projects required to facilitate citywide priorities, programs and initiatives. Modica lives in Long Beach with his family

LB Economic Relief Package

Reporters Desk
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LB Economic Relief Package

LONG BEACH On April 15, the Long Beach City Council unanimously adopted 25 individual actions related to a historic local Economic Relief Package designed to help working families and small business owners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The programs will help working families and small business owners address the following critical needs, among others:
-To fill gaps in federal supplemental sick leave policy, the City Attorney will draft an ordinance requiring Long Beach employers with more than 500 employees nationwide to provide supplemental sick leave.
-To help impacted hotels and motels, creating a Hospitality Recovery Task Force to develop a plan to develop strategies for the recovery of visitors, business travel, leisure tourism and overnight stay rooms in Long Beach.
-To help mortgage-holders partner with nonprofits to promote state and federal foreclosure protection programs, and work with nonprofit economic development or community development corporations to develop a mortgage assistance program.
-To assist hotel and janitorial workers who have been laid off, the City Attorney will draft an ordinance to provide worker retention and recall policies.
-To provide working capital to local small businesses and non-profit organizations unable to secure federal loans, the City approved the creation of a new Emergency Microloan Program.
-To protect the health of both customers and workers, the City Health Officer established new protocols including a new user-friendly small business checklist to be posted at all essential businesses by April 15.
-To reach more residents with information about support services in a variety of languages, the City will expand its Language Access Program.
-To safely assist people under self-quarantine, with a priority on older people. City management will continue to offer current resources and expanding on opportunities to help those in need, especially people over 60 years old.
-To make these programs more accessible to local workers and small business owners, the City offers many resources, including:

A hotline, 562-570-INFO (4636), for general COVID-19 questions
A hotline, 562-570-4BIZ (4249), for businesses and workers
A new website for businesses and workers
A website for COVID-19 informational resources
A website for business and worker resources

-To collect and distribute donations to organizations helping people affected by COVID-19, the City created the Long Beach Disaster Relief Fund, in partnership with the Long Beach Community Foundation.
-To connect people who want to volunteer their time or resources to help others in quarantine, a new Volunteer website has been established.
The City will continue to update these resources by:
-Continuing to seek grants and donations to benefit local non-profits to promote the diversity of fresh food or other goods to those in quarantine.
-Adding resources to the call center and web page.
-Promoting partnerships with local non-profit organizations to stay connected with people in quarantine.

Governor Newsom Outlines Six Critical Indicators the State will Consider Before Modifying the Stay-at-Home Order and help for California Workers

Reporters Desk
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Governor Newsom Outlines Six Critical Indicators the State will Consider Before Modifying the Stay-at-Home Order and help for California Workers

Donald Trump claims to have control over when the Stay-at-Home order is lifted across the United States but meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced the Western states pact April 13. The three governors will work together towards flattening the curve of COVID-19 infections, to determine when and how to use the safest practices towards lifting this order, reopening their economies and controlling COVID-19 going forward.

In another step in this process, Governor Gavin Newsom April 15, announced six key indicators that will guide California’s determining when and how to modify the State Stay-at-Home Order. Governor Newsom also announced new initiatives to assist workers impacted by COVID-19.
California’s six indicators for modifying the Stay-at-Home Order are:
-The ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating, and supporting those who are positive or exposed
-The ability to prevent infection in people who are at risk for more severe COVID-19
-The ability of the hospital and healthy systems to handle surges
-The ability to develop therapeutics to meet the demand
-The ability for businesses, schools, and child care facilities to support physical distancing
-The ability to determine when to reinstitute certain measures, such as they Stat-at-Home Orders, if necessary.
-Following is a link to a presentation that summarizes California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order

Governor Newsom Announces New Initiatives to Support California Workers Impacted by COVID-19
-The State Employment Development Department (EDD) will launch a new call center on Monday, April 20th that will operate 7 days/week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
-The Governor also directed EDD to expedite access to the Work Share Program to avert layoffs.
-The EDD will also setup a one-stop shop for individuals applying for unemployment insurance and the new federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program starting Tuesday, April 28th.
-The PUA will provide federally funded benefits distinct from the Unemployment Insurance Program for certain individuals out of work or partially unemployed due to COVID-19.
-This includes self-employed and independent contractors.
-PUA benefits will be issued within 28-48 hours (not the traditional 21 days for regular Unemployment Insurance claims).
Details:https://tinyurl.com/initiatives-to-protect-workers

LA County Supervisors Expand Rent Freeze, Eviction Moratorium

RL Intern
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LA County Supervisors Expand Rent Freeze, Eviction Moratorium

Los Angeles — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors issued an executive order on April 12, expanding eviction moratoriums and temporary rent freezes to cover all residential and commercial housing tenants in Los Angeles County as a response to the COVID-19 health crisis.

Those who live in cities that have already enacted their own eviction moratorium, or are conducting business in these cities, will not be covered by the expansion.

As a result of the temporary rent freeze expansion, mobile home park owners in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County will be prohibited from increasing the space for their rent tenants over the remaining period of the moratorium.
Details: 833-238-4450; lacountyhelpcenter.org

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