Reality Room: Uncovering the News Corporate Media Covers Up
Media misreporting UPS layoffs, more Stop Cop City protests, LA depriving homeless of life-saving Narcan, and Biden trying to hide which weapons he's sending to Israel from Congress?
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1) As Fentanyl Overdoses Soar, LA City Crews Toss State-Funded Narcan from Encampments—In These Times reports that non-profit volunteers have taken to nailing life-saving Narcan boxes to trees in downtown Los Angeles so that the opioid overdose reversal medication is easily available—and clearly in sight—for the growing number of homeless individuals in LA suffering from drug overdoses.
From In These Times:
“My friend was laying there on the asphalt with plastic over his face,” Reilly says when asked why she started nailing Narcan to trees. “We didn’t know where to get any Narcan. So we made a little memorial altar for him. And I made a little pink bag of Narcan and nailed it to [a nearby tree].” “I thought that’s what I ought to do…make little bags and nail ‘em someplace people can get to it.”
Reilly and other staff and volunteers with a harm-reduction nonprofit called The Sidewalk Project have since nailed naloxone to trees every week in Skid Row. They call the program the Tree of Life…but there’s another crucial reason they say they nail naloxone to trees: It increases the chances that the medicine will not be destroyed or taken when crews clear (or sweep) encampments. Something that, according to interviews with unhoused residents and harm-reduction groups in Los Angeles, is apparently happening with alarming frequency.
MY TAKE: Amidst the corporate media cheerleading about the “great economy” and “sizzling jobs report” is the fact that homelessness increased by 12 percent in 2023—and that’s probably an undercount. Meanwhile, there are blocks across wealthy cities—not so far from highly gentrified neighborhoods—where struggling houseless individuals are dying due to lack of funding for drug addiction treatment, mental health treatment, safe and spacious shelters, and affordable housing. Instead of really investing in the systemic issue, local politicians and cops are continually sweeping these human beings away like they are literal trash. Ain’t capitalism the greatest?
2) UPS announces 12,000 job cuts, says package volume slipped last quarter—CNBC reports UPS laid off 12,000 workers due to drops in shipping volume domestically and internationally (resulting in a $9 billion revenue decline in 2023). The company estimated layoffs will save it $1 billion in costs. Correspondingly, UPS will increase use of artificial intelligence technology and machine learning.
Many mainstream media stories tried to connect UPS’ drop in revenue on the 5-year contract Teamsters union UPS workers won in 2023 with immediate pay raises of $2.75 per hour for full and part-time workers. Zakk Luttrell, a UPS driver and union steward in Oklahoma, called BS. Zakk told Status Coup:
It’s a mistake. Layoffs are affecting UPS management, not Teamsters. UPS Teamsters are, on the whole, making more money and working fewer hours. Corporations are rethinking how they invest in marketing and business development in light of high interest rates. They’re shaving layers of middle management and administrative people. When Carol Tome became CEO, they outsourced Human Resources to an app. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out these jobs — 14% of all managerial positions — are replaced by lower paid contractors. And because they have no union, they’re at the whim of Wall Street and the bosses’ sentiment.”
MY TAKE: Listen, I’m not going to celebrate white collar, middle-managers losing their jobs. These folks have families and kids to feed just like the drivers who actually perform the arduous labor of delivering our mail through rain, sleet, snow, and worse. With that said, corporate America—which includes UPS—is littered with duplicative and unnecessary corporate executives making six-figure salaries that should be going to the blue-collar workers actually producing the labor that enriches the company (ehh…hem clearing my throat…Amazon). I’m not for pitting white-collar workers against blue-collar workers, but the layoffs of white collar UPS workers should trigger a collective light-bulb moment for middle-manager America: join the union movement yourselves!
3) Climate change has killed 4 million people since 2000—and that’s an underestimate—Grist reports on research by Colin Carlson, a Georgetown University professor and global change biologist, who found around 4 million have died globally since 2000 due to climate change (likely an undercount). Carlson’s estimate is based on modeling done by Australian epidemiologist Anthony McMichael, who in 2000 found 166,000 people died due to climate change. Among other things, McMichael looked at deaths from diarrheal disease, malnutrition, malaria, cardiovascular disease, and flooding.
From Grist:
The McMichael standard doesn’t include deaths linked to climate-driven surges of the many non-malarial diseases spread by mosquitoes, like dengue and West Nile virus. It doesn’t incorporate deaths caused by deadly bacteria, fungal spores, ticks, and other diseases or carriers of disease that are shifting in range and breadth as the planet warms. It doesn’t examine the impacts of wildfires and wildfire smoke on longevity. It doesn’t look at the mental health consequences of extreme heat and extreme weather and the related increase in suicides that have been documented in recent years. “At the time we were doing it, we already knew it was conservative,” said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a coauthor of McMichael’s 2003 study who is now the head of the climate change and health unit at the World Health Organization.
MY TAKE: "Nobody gives a shit thus it doesn’t rate,” a producer told me about climate change when I worked at MSNBC. The truth is mainstream media—newspapers, cable news, digital news sites—are primarily run by well-paid, cosmopolitan elitists concentrated in New York & D.C. Most of these folks are disconnected from issues most affecting the working class, poor, and vulnerable. Sure, theoretically they care about the planet’s survival; but they care more about the now: who’s up and who’s down in the D.C. horse race, when’s the next cocktail party, and growing their Twitter following. “I recycle and drive a hybrid!” they rationalize. They won’t care until the wildfires and storms come for their castles.
4) Three Stop Cop City protesters detained during sit-in at Atlanta City Council—In Atlanta’s City Council chambers, 50 anti-Cop City protesters conducted a sit-in to protest new rules the City Council passed requiring signature matches for the over 100,000 signatures that Stop Cop City activists gathered in the summer of 2023 to put the 300-acre, $110 project being built up as a ballot measure for voters to vote on. Half a year later, the majority Democratic council has not counted or certified the signatures.
The Council and Mayor Dickens “continue to ignore the voices of the people of this city,” Michael, one of the three detained activists, said. “We are losing faith that we can ever be heard through the political process. I am exhausted of being ignored. We are exhausted of being ignored. Enough is enough.”
WATCH Status Coup’s ON-THE-GROUND coverage from Cop City protests
MY TAKE: No wonder the largest voting bloc in America are the nearly 100 million non-voters! We’re told we live in the greatest Democracy on earth and that average people can force change at the ballot box or non-violently in the streets. But Stop Cop City is a case study in that notion being a fantasy. Atlanta voted for a Democratic Mayor, Democratic City Council, and two Democratic U.S. Senators—and none of those folks ran on building an unnecessary militarized police commando center next to a majority Black neighborhood. But voting didn’t work. The people then engaged in non-violent protest for several years. But protesting didn’t work. Then the people amassed over 100,000 signatures—more than was required—to put Cop City on the ballot as a yes or no vote. In response, the politicians are creating legal hurdles like signature match to delay counting signatures! Yes, Trump and the extremist movement he built is a threat…but spare me the BS about saving our vibrant democracy. If even direct democracy of gathering signatures for a ballot measure is being blocked…what are we left with?
5) Proposed Wage Theft Legislation Would Strip Violators of Their Ability to Do Business in the State—Documented reports on three new bills proposed in New York State to punish corporations who commit wage theft (which costs low-wage U.S. workers $50 billion per year). The bill would allow state agencies to punish companies who steal over $1,000 dollars from workers by revoking their license to operate, liquor licenses, and issuing stop work orders to shut them down. In 2023, a Documented and ProPublica found that New York employers stole $52 million from restaurant workers from 2017-2021.
As civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis noted, “measured in dollars, total estimated wage theft is more devastating than all other property crime combined. And unlike theft from big retail outlets, wage theft is *by companies* with money from workers, many of whom struggle to meet basic necessities of life. It makes people homeless and kids go without food and winter coats.”
MY TAKE: Now, how about a bill on breaking up the big banks! Alright, alright I’ll take the win here too. This is a good bill; if it passes, the proof will be in the pudding as far as enforcement mechanisms. What New York State agencies will be monitoring companies to see if the bosses are stealing workers’ wages (and by how much)? And do those agencies have enough funding to crunch the numbers—and then crack the whip against scummy bosses? We shall see. But this is a step in the right direction.
6) CDC hides replies referencing the Senate HELP Committee's Long COVID Hearing—Julia Doubleday writes at her The Gauntlet Substack about the CDC burying tweets that experts made critical of the agency’s handling of Long Covid. Here’s what happened: on February 1st, the CDC tweeted urging Americans to get up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations/boosters. In response, several COVID-conscious doctors, researchers, and long-COVID sufferers, urged the CDC to do more than urge vaccination and to urge masking/improving indoor air filtration to prevent getting COVID—which is the only real risk mitigation tool in stopping oneself from developing Long Covid.
In response, the CDC hid critical replies to their tweet that urged the agency to take Long Covid more seriously. In one of many tweets CDC hid, Dr. Pantéa Javidan, JD tweeted: “Notice how the Long Covid expert protects against Long Covid. ‘How do we prevent long covid? The best way is to prevent covid in the first place.” Attached was a photo of Pantea testifying in front of the Senate wearing a mask. Status Coup reached out to Doubleday about her report and why CDC is burying Long Covid. She told us:
“Genuinely, I don't think the CDC has a long-term strategy; it is making political decisions based on the political needs of those in power who made the grave mistake of pursuing a herd immunity strategy that has failed. This mistake is evident all around us in the worsening health outcomes of adults and schoolchildren, the massive spike in absences and long-term sick leave, and recurrent, constant infections. There is no way to preserve a health society or even a functional economy long-term as we continue to sicken and disable people at high rates; the CDC is doing nothing more than attempting to bury the evidence of its failed strategy. It has no plan.”
MY TAKE: COVID, and Long Covid, have become an unnecessary political football in our never-ending tribal politics. The bottom line: there is a rising epidemic of people infected—and repeatedly infected—with COVID developing Long Covid and the corresponding disabling cognitive and physical symptoms (not to mention reputable studies have shown COVID threatens risk of heart attack and stroke). There has essentially been a political and media psychops to bury COVID as an issue and say “fuck it you’re on your own!” It still is a major issue with thousands of Americans dying per month (likely more since hospitals and many states have simply stopped collecting data). I understand the notion of COVID fatigue after four years of this; ultimately it’s up to individuals to decide how seriously they want to take COVID, and long-COVID, and what level of risk you’re willing to take. However, it is not up to the CDC to select what facts and truths to tell the American people and which ones to hide! Every person deserves to know the real and full facts, and risks, of COVID, Long-Covid, or other diseases.
7) Stop Mountain Valley Pipeline protesters demonstrate at Washington Gas Headquarters in D.C.—On January 29th, about two dozen protesters demonstrated in the lobby of Washington Gas—an eight percent owner in the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline (WATCH VIDEO compilation courtesy of Protect Our Water Heritage Rights).
“I have a picture of my grandchildren in my pocket and that’s why I’m going to this [protest],” one protester said. Another yelled for Washington Gas to “pull out of this deadly project and stop using money from hardworking D.C. ratepayers to fund the destruction of Appalachia.”
Their action came on the same week that Stop MVP protests occurred in Sacramento (at MVP funder Wells Fargo); Connecticut (at MVP funder Bank of America); and Pittsburgh (at MVP funder PNC bank).
WATCH Status Coup’s ON-THE-GROUND reporting of the fight to stop MVP
MY TAKE: The first story I ever covered for SC ON-THE-GROUND was the movement as the to stop the “natural” gas Mountain Valley Pipeline—which is one of the most dangerous pipelines being built up the steepest slopes in America through the Appalachian Trial in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Despite not being fully built or in service yet, there has already been MAJOR contamination of waterways from digging, blasting trenches, and excavation. Thousands of Virginians and West Virginians have protested over several years—including getting arrested after protesting atop trees—and facts show there is no need or demand for the gas this pipeline will produce. But, there is money to be made for energy companies and the politicians they fund! (corrupt Joe Manchin has been D.C.’s biggest champion for MVP). This pipeline has been legally killed—and then resuscitated—by corrupt politicians many times. I’m actually itching to go back down and cover protests ON-THE-GROUND; hint…hint…
8) Charles Koch’s Sinister Attack on Regulation—Truthdig reports on the remaining Koch Brother using a small fishermen company as smoke screen to get the Supreme Court to gut the already-futile regulation of corporate America. The Supreme Court just heard oral arguments in two cases that involve commercial fisherman arguing they shouldn’t have to pay to support compliance with regulations connected with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. And Charles Koch is the driving force behind the fishermen. From Truthdig:
The cases are being used to challenge one of the bedrocks of federal regulation—the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine under which courts have given deference to agencies in interpreting laws relating to the environment, consumer protection, and the like. It is standard procedure for Corporate America to use small businesses as a wedge for achieving changes that provide a lot more benefit to large companies. There was little doubt this was the dynamic at play in the fishing case. The New York Times made this even more evident in an article revealing that the supposed public interest law firm bringing the fishing case is closely linked to billionaire Charles Koch, who has long sought to weaken government oversight of business as part of a broad rightwing agenda. Charles Koch and his late brother David bankrolled libertarian think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute as well as activist groups such as Americans for Prosperity.
MY TAKE: Sorry to keep going back to the “what fucking Democracy!” well, but anyone else find it odd that nine unelected folks in robes can overrule majority will—based on their own political whims and corruption—to be kind of…undemocratic? Sure, once in a blue moon they deliver a positive ruling for mankind, but that has increasingly become the rare exception to the rule. What is the point of organizing like hell to elect a president to deliver specific policies if partisan bums in robes can overrule all of it (remember, the Supreme Court significantly weakened the Clean Water Act in 2023). The remaining Koch brother, and all his dirty fossil fucker money, shouldn’t be able to gut regulations by weaponizing smaller entities to bring Ayn Rand-ian cases to the Supreme Court. A las, sadly that’s the current country we’re living in. MAJOR changes to the Supreme Court need to be made—starting with decade, rather than lifetime—terms.
9) AIPAC-Funded Dems Propose Keeping Congress in the Dark on Israel Aid—Sludge reports on a anti-transparency provision of the $118 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian relief in Gaza, and hiring more asylum and border patrol officials at the Southern border. Within the package is a proposal from Biden’s White House to waive the requirement to inform Congress before delivering $3.5 billion in aid to Israel—including advanced weapons.
As Sludge reports, “Under the legislation, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken could waive the congressional notification requirement if he “determines that to do so is in the national security interest of the United States.” The overall pro-Israel aid package was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Washington State Senator Patty Murray—who’ve both received hundreds of thousands of dollars from pro-Israel AIPAC. Schumer has also spoken at AIPAC’s annual conference.
MY TAKE: As President Dwight Eisenhower presciently warned in 1961, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Not only do we have Biden, with the support of both parties, pouring endless billions into geopolitical quagmires with no military solution (Ukraine, Israel/Palestine), but he now wants to hide the kind of advanced Death-Star weapons he’s handing Israel to slaughter innocent Palestinians! My cynical question is…why? The majority of Congress LOVE the grotesque weapons we sell, and gift, around the world—and the corresponding job-creation they produce in their local economies (mostly from slaughtering brown people around the world). What’s really going on here seems to be the Biden administration, knowing the growing disdain and disillusionment of his support for Israel’s slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinians, trying to hide the scope of weaponry they’re sending to Israel from us, the American people.
10) The child tax credit expansion heads to the Senate—Prism reports about the House of Representatives passing a bill on January 31st to expand the child tax credit—in exchange for reinstating three corporate tax breaks. A date for a vote in the Senate has not been set (Sen. Manchin killed the expanded child tax credit at the end of 2021).
From Prism:
A January survey from ParentsTogether Action found that 91% of parents support the expansion of the child tax credit. This finding comes as families report significant challenges staying afloat, with 65% of respondents reporting that their family is having trouble making ends meet and an additional 24% of parents reporting that their families sometimes faced financial struggles. Of the 65% of parents who reported they were currently struggling to make ends meet, 68% reported their biggest challenge was affording food. Others said that affording heat and utilities this winter (56%), paying for essential items like gas, diapers, or formula (56%), and affording housing (42%) were some of their biggest challenges. Under the bill, approximately 16 million out of the 19 million children currently left out of the full or any child tax credit will benefit, and an estimated 400,000 children will be lifted above the poverty line.
MY TAKE: The child tax credit is not my preferred policy when we can be doing so much more (universal basic income, jobs guarantee, Medicare For All, $25 minimum wage, capping the amount a corporate CEO can make compared to his/her workers, etc). But, in the neoliberal hellscape we live in—littered with small-ball policies like tax credits—the child tax credit is one of the better policies that specifically helps some of the most vulnerable among us (particularly single parents). Honestly, in a presidential election year—where corrupt Senate Republicans would rather let kids starve than pass anything that might help Biden—I wouldn’t hold your breath in this important legislation becoming law.
If you appreciate this newsletter, and the time-intensive work that creates it, please support Status Coup.
Jordan
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