brooklynite
brooklynite's JournalBronx assembly candidate Chantel Jackson stands by anti-vaccine comments
New York Daily NewsChantel Jackson, Assemblyman Michael Blake’s handpicked replacement for his soon-to-be vacant seat, said in a Facebook post last year that it should be up to parents to decide whether a child is immunized.
“Vaccinations of a child should be a parents choice not the state!” she wrote in a post last November about a proposed bill that would require New York school children be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, which has been linked to several types of cancer.
“We believe in democracy and requiring children to be vaccinated in order to attend school is more like a dictatorship," Jackson added.
Sigh...Michael Blake is someone I know...
Sanders Could Lose A Third Of His Delegates, Making For A Messy Convention
538Sanders stands to lose a significant number of delegates headed into the convention. According to the DNC’s 2020 delegate selection rules, any candidate who is no longer running loses the statewide delegates2 they have won and those delegates are then reallocated to candidates still in the race. (That has not necessarily been how the DNC has interpreted this rule previously, but it is how the DNC has signaled that it will use it in 2020.) Second, if Sanders fails to clear the 25 percent delegate threshold required to secure representatives on convention committees, it’ll be harder to integrate his policies into the official DNC platform.
No 10 invites public to submit questions for daily coronavirus press conference
Source: The Guardianh
Earlier this year Boris Johnson experimented with holding a “people’s PMQs” on Facebook on Wednesday afternoons. Generally they were dreadful and, with coronavirus becoming a more serious issue in February and early March, No 10 seemed happy to abandon them.
But the concept of getting Johnson to respond directly to questions from members of the public has not been abandoned, and No 10 is now inviting non-journalists to submit questions for the afternoon press conference. One question will be selected every day (alongside the questions from journalists), and the questioner will be invited to record a video, or to just submit their question in writing.
You can apply to take part here.
One drawback is that questions have to be submitted by midday. At that point we don’t normally know who will be holding the press conference.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/27/uk-coronavirus-live-news-boris-johnson-back-at-work-amid-talk-of-easing-lockdown?page=with:block-5ea6b0f38f08fa2bdcb1c0eb#block-5ea6b0f38f08fa2bdcb1c0eb
Boris Johnson says too early to ease lockdown as second peak would be disaster
Source: The Guardian
Johnson says the progress being made against the virus is why people might be tempted to ease up now.
But now is not the moment, he says.
He says he understands the worries of shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, and everyone in business.
He knows why they think that, without an economy, there will be no way of funding the NHS.
He says he shares their urgency.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/27/uk-coronavirus-live-news-boris-johnson-back-at-work-amid-talk-of-easing-lockdown
Trump just retweeted.....himself
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1254586604360011776How to Save Summer 2020
New York TimesOne family dressed up with sequined tops and pajama bottoms. Another posed for a take on “American Gothic.” Mr. Martin posted the series online, titling it “Porchraits.” He charged the families a small fee, which he donated to local restaurants to provide meals for health care workers. Within days he heard from other photographers around the country, including from Atlanta and Cincinnati, asking to replicate the idea.
Mr. Martin’s initiative offers a snapshot of the creative thinking needed amid the pandemic. It taught him, he said, that fostering connection in a time of distance demands ingenuity.
As the days grow longer and hotter, Americans will begin craving the rites of summer — afternoons at the pool or boating on lakes and rivers, evenings spent dancing, listening to music and eating outdoors. Those customs can’t look the same in a period of social distancing, but that doesn’t mean they should be abandoned.
The Nude Selfie Is Now High Art (COVID)
New York TimesBefore face-touching became potentially lethal, my friend Dave had a lot of lovers. Now he makes do with nude selfies. He doesn’t even request them, he said. They appear as if by magic: “I wake up and they are just there.”
Matthew, an artist in Providence, R.I., said, “I keep getting explicit photos from people I thought were just my friends.” He added, “It’s nice to know they’re thinking of me.”
Since the pandemic began, sex has changed: It’s imagined, monogamous, Zoomed or Skyped. And nude selfies have become one symbol of resilience, a refusal to let social distancing render us sexless. Nude selfies are no longer foreplay, a whetting of a lover’s appetite, but the whole meal.
Though the debate about art versus pornography has never been settled, a case can be made that quarantine nude selfies are art. Some of us finally have time to make art, and this is the art we are making: carefully posed, cast in shadows, expertly filtered. These aren’t garish below-the-belt shots under fluorescent lighting, a half-used roll of toilet paper in the background. They are solicited or spontaneous. They are gifts to partners in separate quarantines, friends who aren’t exactly friends, unmet Hinge matches and exes. (Exes are popping up like whack-a-moles these days.)
IRS recalls thousands of employees to work and asks them to bring their own safety gear
Source: Politico
The IRS will start recalling “certain employees in mission-critical functions” to agency offices starting Monday, though it is urging them to bring their own face masks and suggesting the employees can make them out of t-shirts or bandanas, according to an internal memo circulated Saturday by two lawmakers.
...snip...
The agency is asking for volunteers and offering incentive pay, Reardon said in a statement, but will order employees back if there are not enough volunteers.
“We are communicating with the IRS about working conditions at those facilities to make sure there are adequate cleaning and disinfecting supplies, accommodations to allow for physical distancing among employees and personal protective equipment, including masks and gloves,” Reardon said.
But the agency memo, released by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who heads the panel’s oversight subcommittee, said that while the IRS “is seeking to procure personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves, each IRS facility may not be able to initially procure the PPE for all employees immediately.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/25/irs-recalls-employees-to-work-207870
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2020 2:16 PM
To: &&Employees All <employees.all@irs.gov>
Subject: Face coverings to be required in IRS facilities and workspaces
Effective April 27, 2020, the IRS will be recalling certain employees in mission-critical functions to handle work that must be conducted onsite. We are thankful for these employees that are coming back to their worksite to conduct the critical work for the IRS as well as the country. Throughout, the health and safety of our employees remains our highest priority. Therefore, we are implementing the following requirements regarding face covering based on recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings.
People have differing levels of concern associated with the current situation. As we return to the worksite, we need to respect and balance the concerns of others with the requirement to continue our mission-critical functions. Further, CDC is advising the use of at least having simple cloth face coverings to potentially slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, public health measure.
Accordingly, effective April 27, 2020, all individuals are to wear cloth face coverings while in IRS facilities and workspaces. Although the IRS is seeking to procure personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves, each IRS facility may not be able to initially procure the PPE for all employees immediately. Employees are therefore required to bring personal face coverings for their nose and mouth area when they come to work. As stated in the CDC recommendations, these face coverings can be fashioned from common household materials (.pdf), such as clean t-shirts or bandanas. Materials used to create the covering must be conducive to a professional work environment and not contain any images or text that may be deemed inappropriate or offensive to others.
If an employee’s workspace is a private office or an individual cubicle with barriers between other cubicles, the employee may remove their face covering while working in their individual workspace. However, employees must appropriately use their face coverings when in common spaces (such as, walkways, elevators, staircases, bathrooms, cafeterias) or entering or leaving their work facility.
We appreciate your understanding and respect for the concerns of both your colleagues and the agency in wearing a face covering until further notice. An employee who fails to adhere to the requirements in the memo may be required to return home until such time the employee adheres to these requirements. Please remember, the intent of this requirement is to ensure the health and safety of all our employees and their families.
Robin D. Bailey, Jr.
IRS Human Capital Officer
Kevin Q. McIver
Deputy IRS Human Capital Officer
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/IRS%20PPE%20email.pdf
White House weighing plan to replace Azar
Source: Politico
White House officials are weighing a plan to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Among the names on the short list to replace Azar are White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx, Medicare chief Seema Verma and deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, said the four people familiar with the talks.
Senior officials’ long-standing frustrations with the health chief have mounted during the pressure-packed response to the Covid-19 outbreak, with White House aides angry this week about Azar’s handling of the ouster of vaccine expert Rick Bright. At a recent task force meeting, Azar assured Vice President Mike Pence that Bright’s move to the National Institutes of Health was a promotion — only for Bright and his lawyers to release a statement that he would soon file a whistleblower complaint against HHS leadership, blindsiding White House officials, according to three officials familiar with the meeting.
White House officials also have blamed Azar for long-running turmoil at the health department and a series of media reports that portrayed him as urging Trump to act on the Covid-19 outbreak in January, only for the president and his aides to disregard Azar’s warnings as alarmist. Azar has denied the reports, saying that Trump “never once rejected, turned down or dismissed a recommendation” of his or the task force’s.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/25/white-house-replace-alex-azar-208151
Announcing the Biden Victory Fund
Dear Friend,
We are thrilled to announce that the DNC has officially reached a joint fundraising agreement with Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. This is just another step in the process we have been preparing for since 2017, consolidating our infrastructure with our presumptive nominee’s campaign and equipping it with the resources and tools to defeat Donald Trump in November.
There is significant work ahead of us, but we are proud to be supplying Vice President Biden and Democrats up and down the ticket with the most advanced campaign infrastructure the DNC has ever built. This new joint fundraising agreement will unite our efforts with his campaign’s, and help accelerate our capacity to close the financial gap between Democrats and Donald Trump.
We look forward to providing you with more details and opportunities to get involved soon. In the meantime, we are here to answer any of your questions. We are grateful to have you on our team as we begin this exciting new phase.
Sincerely,
Team Tri-State
Michaela and Joelle
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Joelle Sherman
Tri-State Finance Associate
Democratic National Committee
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