Free vaccines! Get vaccinated: the COVID vaccines save lives.

"Making matters worse are the Republican commentators, activists and lawmakers who have taken an antagonistic position on vaccines rather than celebrating them as the triumph".

Get tough on vaccines!

Get tough on all vaccines!

Arizona- echo published in the Arizona Daily Sun.

This echo opinion was published by the Los Angeles Times editorial board:

When another new, deadly wave of COVID-19 infections gripped the nation, the only solace during that dark time was that a vaccine seemed possible, if not probable, within the year. 

It was the light in the proverbial tunnel, as distant and weak as it may have appeared at the moment.

We should have reached the end of the tunnel by now, thanks to amazing feats of science and government that developed and mass produced several COVID-19 vaccines in record time. 

Yet, it’s still agonizingly far away, because of falling demand for the abundant and free shots, despite pleas and cash giveaways to nudge vaccine holdouts.

Efforts to educate skeptics about the undeniable benefits of the vaccines must continue, and the social media platforms need to do a better job at cracking down on deliberate misinformation that serves solely to stir up confusion and doubt about the vaccines — or worse.

But meanwhile, the highly contagious Delta variant is driving a scary resurgence of COVID-19 infections across the nation.

In fact, cases have risen so quickly in Los Angeles Count, that the public health department reinstated the indoor mask mandate for everyone, regardless of vaccination status.

Making matters worse are the Republican commentators, activists and lawmakers who have taken an antagonistic position on vaccines rather than celebrating them as the triumph of the one pandemic initiative for which the former president deserves legitimate bragging rights.

At this point, it’s clear that carrots aren’t enough to compel the  Americans who have yet to get a single shot. It’s time to break out the sticks.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. We don’t support corporal punishment, even for those who foolishly put the lives of others at risk by going mask-less and unvaccinated into public places. Nor are universal government vaccine mandates the way to go. People should have a right to decide what goes into their bodies, including lifesaving medication and vaccines.

But, what people should not have the right to do is endanger the health of other people as they exercise their personal freedom. And that’s the line that should guide government officials and private employers to seek tougher restrictions on vaccine foot-draggers. If someone rejects inoculation for reasons other than medical, they should not be allowed to fully participate in society until this current public emergency is over.

If that sounds harsh, consider the stakes. More than 600,000 Americans have already died of COVID-19, and the latest variant is so contagious that it can be transmitted in outdoor settings and is even sickening vaccinated people (though most of them not seriously).

Happily, momentum toward a crackdown is growing. In fact, the University of California announced that all of its campuses would require students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated to fully participate in classes and activities, joining about 580 other higher educational institutions with similar rules. This is similar to the long-standing policy of public grade schools to require a regular course of childhood vaccines for attendance, except for those with a valid medical reason or, in some states, religious opposition.

And despite having an enviable high vaccination rate, San Francisco officials are also getting tough, ordering the city’s workforce to get inoculated as soon as the Food and Drug Administration gives formal approval to the vaccines, which is expected within the next two months, and requiring that workers in all high-risk settings, such as hospital and nursing residential facilities, be vaccinated by Sept. 15.

We hope officials in Los Angeles and other urban areas, as well as private businesses and employers, are considering similar requirements, or at least making sure that those who aren’t vaccinated are tested daily and restricted to less-dangerous activities.

Tougher restrictions will inevitably lead to cries that constitutionally guaranteed rights are being violated, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that private businesses and employers are within their rights to mandate vaccines. 

Moreover, there is also solid legal precedent for sweeping government vaccine mandates. In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that smallpox mandates issued by Boston and Cambridge during a 1901, outbreak were a reasonable infringement on personal freedom.

But, if prudent action is taken now, then there would be no need to even contemplate such draconian action. It’s time to get tough on COVID-19 vaccine evaders.

At this point, it’s clear that carrots aren’t enough to compel the Americans who have yet to get a single shot. It’s time to break out the sticks.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. We don’t support corporal punishment, even for those who foolishly put the lives of others at risk by going mask-less and unvaccinated into public places. Nor are universal government vaccine mandates the way to go. People should have a right to decide what goes into their bodies, including lifesaving medication and vaccines.

But, what people should not have the right to do is endanger the health of other people as they exercise their personal freedom. And that’s the line that should guide government officials and private employers to seek tougher restrictions on vaccine foot-draggers. If someone rejects inoculation for reasons other than medical, they should not be allowed to fully participate in society until this current public emergency is over.

If that sounds harsh, consider the stakes. More than one million Americans have already died of COVID-19, and the latest variant is so contagious that it can be transmitted in outdoor settings and is even sickening vaccinated people (though most of them not seriously).

Happily, momentum toward a crackdown has been growing. Last week, the University of California announced that all of its campuses would require students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated to fully participate in fall term classes and activities, joining about 580 other higher educational institutions with similar rules. This is similar to the long-standing policy of public grade schools to require a regular course of childhood vaccines for attendance, except for those with a valid medical reason or, in some states, religious opposition.

And despite having an enviable high vaccination rate, San Francisco officials are also getting tough, ordering the city’s workforce to get inoculated as soon as the Food and Drug Administration gives formal approval to the vaccines, which is expected within the next two months, and requiring that workers in all high-risk settings, such as hospital and nursing residential facilities, be vaccinated by Sept. 15.

We hope officials in Los Angeles and other urban areas, as well as private businesses and employers, are considering similar requirements or at least making sure that those who aren’t vaccinated are tested daily and restricted to less-dangerous activities.

Tougher restrictions will inevitably lead to cries that constitutionally guaranteed rights are being violated, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that private businesses and employers are within their rights to mandate vaccines. And there is also solid legal precedent for sweeping government vaccine mandates. 

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that smallpox mandates issued by Boston and Cambridge during a 1901, outbreak were a reasonable infringement on personal freedom.

But if prudent action is taken now, then there would be no need to even contemplate such draconian action. It’s time to get tough on COVID-19 vaccine evaders.

Donald Trump taxes - more lies and incriminating information

Echo opinion column published in the Arizona Daily Sun by Eric Zorn is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Trump Taxes are Over-due

"during the 2016 campaign Trump promised he would conform to 'shortly', is now seen as harassment."- Eric Zorn

You just know Donald Trump’s tax returns are bad. 

• Really bad. 
• Humiliating. 
• Mortifying. 
• Compromising. 
• Incriminating. 
• Fatal to his political fortunes.

Why else would the White House be fighting so hard against a formal demand issued April 3 by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., that the Internal Revenue Service turn over six years of Trump’s personal, business and charity-related returns for a confidential examination by members of the committee?

After all, conventionally humiliating, mortifying, compromising and seemingly incriminating behavior hasn’t eroded his support. Trump shatters norms and degrades his office with such regularity that even those who are horrified by his frightening unconventional presidency are numb to it.

He famously boasted during the 2016 campaign that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters,” so the information in his various tax returns must be worse than that.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has declared that Democrats “want (Trump’s) tax returns to destroy him,” an accusation that contains a hidden admission.

So you also just know that not even House Democrats are going to see them — at least not until after the November 2020 presidential election renders them politically moot.

Should they (we!) see them?

Yes! We all should. Citizens ought to have comprehensive financial information about our president and major-party presidential nominees. This is why showing tax returns has been a norm for some 50 years and why several recent polls have shown that roughly 2 in 3 Americans want Trump to disclose his.

And the law explicitly allows Congress to see them. 

Specifically, Section 6103 of the IRS code says that the agency “shall furnish” certain congressional committee chairs “with any return of return information” they request, so long as they review the information in “closed executive session.”

That obscure, seldom-used 1924 law doesn’t say Congress needs a subpoena or any reason whatsoever to look at usually confidential tax return information.

But here’s where it gets complicated — so complicated that the legal fight seems destined to drag on for years.

In a letter challenging the Democrats’ demand, William Consovoy, an attorney representing Trump, pointed to Watkins v. United States, a 1957 U.S. Supreme Court decision, that defined limits on congressional investigations.

“There is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure,” wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren for a 6-1 majority that upheld the right of a witness before a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee to refuse to answer questions about whether certain people he knew had been or ever were members of the Communist Party.

“The power of the Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process,” wrote Warren, noting the general need to root out corruption, inefficiency and waste. “But, broad as is this power of inquiry, it is not unlimited. There is no general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification.”

Rep. Neal’s request for Trump’s taxes said the Ways and Means Committee needs them because it “is considering legislative proposals and conducting oversight related to our federal tax laws, including, but not limited to, the extent to which the IRS audits and enforces the federal tax laws against a president.”

Consovoy called shenanigans on this stated reason: “If Chairman Neal genuinely wants to review how the IRS audits presidents, why is he seeking tax returns and return information covering the four years before President Trump took office?” said Consovoy’s letter. “Why is he not requesting information about the audits of previous presidents?

“His request is a transparent effort by one political party to harass an official from the other party because (members of that party) dislike his politics and speech.”

It’s odd that attempting to require a president to conform to an expected contemporary practice, one that during the 2016 campaign he promised he would conform to “shortly,” is now seen as harassment.

But given the evident stakes here and Trump’s obsession with keeping his financial secrets, I suppose it is.

How will the lower courts and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court rule on this dispute?

All I know is that the law tends to move glacially. Briefs, arguments, opinions and appeals take time. Lots of time. Almost certainly more time than we have before voters go to the polls again to render their verdict on Donald Trump.

Affordable Care Act is essential for millions of Americans

Access to health care will be a huge issue in 2020. 

Opinion echo published in a letter to the editor in the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper:

Dear Editor:  Over 8.5 million people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance program as of 12/19/18 with the number likely to climb to over 9 million after final numbers from California and New York are included. 

(Briefly: ACA, A6, 12/20/18) "The people" continue to support access to health care. They have had their voices heard on November 6, 2018 when Democrats took the House of Representatives. More needs to be done to allow everyone in this great country of ours to have some form of health care coverage.

Despite a recent federal judge's ruling in Texas, the ACA continues to help Americans get access to health care. It looks as if the Supreme Court will once again need to weigh in as to whether or not the ACA is constitutional. It has already ruled once that it is.

The attempts by this Donald Trump White House and the Republican Party to decimate the law have so far been unsuccessful. However, without some form of legislative action, the ACA will continue to fall short of covering every American. It is possible but unlikely that the new Democratically lead House, the divided Senate and this President will do anything to increase access to health care.

Access to health care will be a huge issue in 2020. 

Listen to what candidates for President, for the House and for the Senate say about health care in the next two years as our ability to get medical care will hinge on what happens to the ACA. In the interim, make your voices heard if the law is threatened again. In the summer of 2017, calls to Congress and specifically to Senators did prevent legislation that would have gutted the ACA. 

Stay tuned and stay alert as the future of our health care system is at stake.

From Gregory Jarrin, Winslow Arizona

Echo opinion letter from Flagstaff Arizona ~ Stop illegal immigrant family separations

Community must speak out about illegal family immigration separations, an echo opinion, letter to the editor, published in the Arizona Daily Sun

Family separation doesn't only happen at the border. It happens within our city of Flagstaff through the Sheriff's cooperation with ICE (US Immigration) & enforcement of racist policies.

We need to join those speaking out against the separation of families locally, regionally, and nationally, and hold Sheriff Driscoll and city officials accountable to the families who live here. 

As determined by a recent court ruling, Sheriff Driscoll is not actually required to work with ICE, but is free to choose, and is actively choosing to separate families.

The laws and agencies that enable family separation are not just. Those who enforce them are not protecting our diverse communities, they are breeding fear and distrust.

The idea that government enforced family separation, detention and deportation doesn’t happen to “good” immigrants, but is needed in order to keep “criminals” out of our country, is white nationalist propaganda. We live in the wake of the Movement for Black Lives. The label “criminal” has a violent history, and it is used to distance white people from and dehumanize and justify violence against people of color in this country. 

Specifically, this criminalization has been used by our state (Arizona) in strategic attempts to destabilize and destroy migrant and indigenous communities.

We can work to challenge this criminalization and separation of families at the city and county level, by holding city and county officials accountable to our communities, pushing without compromise for the repeal of racist laws and policies, and building community networks of care and defense that work to disrupt state violence in our communities.

Mara Pfeffer, Flagstaff, Arizona

Arizona echo ~ tribute to journalism and the Annapolis Capital Gazette

Telling the truth is life risking:

The lives lost in Annapolis expose the absurdity of Trump’s anti-media tirades ~ echo opinion from the Arizona Daily Sun

The lives lost at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis on Thursday are a powerful reminder of just how false the press-as-the-enemy narrative is.

Donald J. Trump proclaims media outlets “the enemy of the American People.” A popular conservative writer says he “can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists.” Walmart for a time sold T-shirts reading “Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.” Donald Trump has a problem with the truth. It gets in the way of the narrative he is selling to an all-too-eager public.

In fairness, we don’t know what role — if any at all — the hate out there played in the actions of Jarrod W. Ramos, the suspected shooter who had a long-running dispute with the Capital Gazette over stories written about a harassment case involving a woman Ramos had known in high school.

But anyone being suckered into the “fake news” narrative being peddled by Trump and his cronies should take a moment to learn more about the five who died in the attack. Some of the victims were lifelong writers deeply invested in their communities. They were dedicated to informing the people of Anne Arundel County about what they needed to know to live their lives. They held power to account. They woke us to shared joys, sorrows and new ways of seeing the world.

Such as Rob Hiaasen, 59, a writer and editor. He wrote about waking up later in life to the terrible discrimination of his hometown in Florida, which he’d been oblivious to as a child.

“I was taken to Fort Lauderdale beach before I could even swim. If there was unrest elsewhere in the country, it surely didn’t happen on unspoiled Fort Lauderdale beach. Little did I know or learn in school.

“In 1961, there was a series of ‘wade-ins’ by black residents on the all-white beach at Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. A year before, my beach had been immortalized and romanticized in the popular beach movie, ‘Where the Boys Are.’ There weren’t any black beachgoers in the movie, either.

“Organized by the local NAACP, the wade-in participants — tired of trudging to the ‘blacks-only’ sand scrap south of the ‘good’ beach — were greeted by threats of police arrest and crowds of whites brandishing bottles and bats. The number of black participants increased, and eventually, a Broward Circuit judge allowed the protests to continue. Broward County’s beaches were, from then on, desegregated.

“I had no idea when and how this happened until I was at the beach a few years ago and noticed a historic marker chronicling the wade-ins.”

Gerald Fischman, 61, the newspaper’s editorial page editor, would work all hours of the day and night to craft the paper’s view. He wrote last year about the “lake-sized cesspools of hatred on the internet” from which those who commit hate crimes “can draw moral support.”

He went on:

“That leaves the decent 99 percent of society with only a few tools. One is relentless prosecution of people who commit hate crimes. Another is refusal to be silent when someone parades their bigotry. Free speech is a sacred American right. But no one has the the right to expect that speech that spouts hatred won’t be answered and denounced — or that criminal acts can be justified by the perpetrators’ deep ignorance and bigotry.”

Wendi Winters, 65, was a community correspondent who loved story-telling. John McNamara, 56, covered sports for decades. Rebecca Smith, 34, was a sales assistant who had been on the job less than a year.

The Capital Gazette victims lived for informing the people of their community, and they died for that.

Do we take this personally here at the Courant? You bet we do. The Capital Gazette is a sister paper of ours, but it goes way beyond that. Here, in The Courant’s newsroom every day, journalists dedicate their time, energy and passion to telling the truth about the world around us. Want to see what the world looks like without those men and women on the front lines? Watch an episode or two of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Those who would paint the media as the enemy are being led down a perilous path.

The five who died in Annapolis died doing what they believed in, and we will cherish their memories always.

They are not the enemy. The media is not the enemy.

What is dangerous beyond words is a nation being robbed of its ability to learn the truth.