US judge blocks shutdown of TikTok scheduled for November 12

Kevin Reed

On October 30, a Pennsylvania district judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing restrictions that would have shut down the Chinese video sharing app TikTok in the US as of November 12 unless it is sold to an American company.

A smartphone with TikTok and WeChat apps [Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File]

Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the TikTok users Douglas Marland, Cosette Rinab and Alec Chambers who said the scheduled ban would cause them to “lose the ability to engage with their millions of followers on TikTok, and the related brand sponsorships.”

The three TikTok users each have more than 1 million followers on the short-form video sharing social media platform. They argued that they would lose access to “professional opportunities afforded by TikTok” if the White House ban were to take effect on Thursday and the judge agreed that they would face “significant and unrecoverable economic loss caused by the shutdown of the TikTok platform.”

In August, the White House issued an emergency executive order stating that Beijing-based ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok—as well as the ownership of WeChat by Tencent Holdings—was a threat to national security threat and the company must divest itself of the platform or be shut down.

The White House campaign—which has bipartisan backing in both houses of Congress—to force the TikTok divestiture has been aimed at whipping up anti-Chinese sentiments. It is based on the completely unproven assertions that the firm has been sharing the personal data of 100 million US users of the platform with Chinese state intelligence.

An initial deadline for TikTok to be sold by September 27 was set by the US Commerce Department after which the app would no longer be available for download on Apple and Android devices. This measure was also blocked in court by a Washington D.C. federal judge, who ruled in favor of TikTok itself. Judge Carl Nichols said that President Trump’s executive order was an unconstitutional violation of First (free speech) and Fifth (due process) Amendment rights.

The measures scheduled to be taken against TikTok on November 12 would have completely shut down the platform. They included the halting of the following transactions: (1) any provision of “any internet hosting service” enabling the functioning of the mobile TikTok application; (2) any provision of “any content delivery network service” enabling the functioning of the mobile TikTok application; (3) any provision of “directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services” enabling the functioning of the mobile TikTok application; and (4) any utilization of the TikTok mobile application within “the land and maritime borders of the United States.”

Judge Beetlestone noted in her ruling that TikTok user Rinab has 2.3 million followers and creates videos for fashion brands and other companies and earns between $5,000 and $10,000 per video from sponsoring companies. TikTok user Chambers has 1.8 million followers and has earned $12,000 making videos for Extra gum brands. User Marland makes comedy videos and posts about his life, and partners with record labels to promote music and has 2.7 million followers.

“For so many people, me included, their entire job and livelihood is TikTok and to have that taken away based on random speculation really does not make sense,” Marland told the Washington Post .

Hilary McQuaide, a TikTok spokeswoman, said the company was “deeply moved” by the support from creators. “We support our creative community in continuing to share their voices, both through the platform and the legal options available to them, and we are committed to continuing to provide a home for them to do so,” McQuaide said.

TikTok has 700 to 800 million monthly active users worldwide and it is published in 39 languages. It is one of the most popular and fastest growing social media apps in the history of similar technology. A major feature of the software and a key to its popularity is the proprietary recommendation engine that is able to learn quickly what kind of videos each individual user is attracted to and then serve the up such that the amount of time spent on the platform is extended.

In addition to the ramping up of anti-Chinese propaganda, another aim of the Trump administration has been to pry a lucrative social media property—ByteDance has recently been valued at $180 billion—from the hands of its Chinese owners and give it to his supporters from among the American business elite.

There was an initial frenzy of secret corporate meetings following the Trump administration’s emergency executive order, first involving Microsoft and then Oracle and Walmart. Microsoft’s offer was ultimately rejected and then a deal was announced on September 19 involving a “technology partnership” with Oracle and Walmart which left a majority ownership of TikTok in the hands of the current ByteDance executives.

President Trump was also attempting to force any acquisition deal to funnel a $5 billion “contribution” into what the White House called an “education fund” for American young people, the details of which have never been published or talked about since. When ByteDance executives were asked about Trump’s education plan the day after he made the idea public, they told reporters that it was the first time they had heard anything about it.

Going back to the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the Democrats in Congress have pushed for a ban of the use of TikTok among US military and law enforcement personnel. On July 20, the House of Representatives voted 336 to 71 to bar federal employees from downloading TikTok as part of the $741 billion defense spending bill. On August 6, the TikTok ban was adopted unanimously by the US Senate.

It was this bipartisan support for the anti-Chinese xenophobia that was picked up on by the White House at the end of the summer and into the fall as part of the effort to boost the Trump reelection campaign.

On this question, it is clear that Democratic Party President-elect Joe Biden will continue to pursue the same or more aggressive anti-Chinese stance. In a review of tech policy of the presumptive incoming president on Monday, National Public Radio (NPR) said, “the scrutiny of the popular video-sharing app reflects a growing wariness in Washington about China's involvement in the tech industry—a sentiment shared by members of both political parties.”

NPR quoted Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said, “The era of permissionless innovation is over. There’s going to be more public engagement, more public oversight and public regulation of the technology sector.” West went on to say, “Biden will take a tough stance on China and Biden will actually have a strategy. Trump had neither a process nor a strategy.”

Trump escalates defiance of the 2020 election outcome

Patrick Martin

In a series of actions Monday, President Trump and his closest aides and political accomplices demonstrated that they do not accept the vote of the American people to remove him from office, and that they will do anything in their power to prevent the victorious Democratic Party candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, from taking office on January 20.

On Monday afternoon, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in a tweet because Esper had opposed using troops to suppress demonstrations in American cities—a “failing” Trump hopes to remedy with his next Pentagon chief.

The Trump-appointed chief of the General Services Administration (GSA), which handles logistics and infrastructure for the federal government, said she would not move forward with the legally required assistance to the Biden transition team until the outcome of the election was known.

Attorney General William Barr sent a circular to all US attorneys authorizing them to initiate investigations into vote fraud if it “could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election,” effectively lining up the Justice Department behind Trump’s bogus claims that the election has been stolen from him.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., talks with reporters after he spoke on the Senate floor Monday, Nov. 9, 2020, at the Capitol in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh]

Barr held a closed-door meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the same afternoon that McConnell delivered his first public remarks on the 2020 election. Speaking from the floor of the Senate, he upheld Trump’s “right” to file lawsuits over alleged irregularities in half a dozen states won by Biden.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Trump kept up a stream of denunciations of supposed fraud in the election, with baseless claims that elections overseen by Republican state officials, as in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, and vote tallying conducted mainly by Republican local officials, as in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, were rigged in favor of Biden and the Democrats.

The firing of Esper is the most ominous step, coming only days after an interview given by the Pentagon chief to the Military Times, in which he recalled his well-publicized dispute with Trump last June, when the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy active duty federal troops against the millions demonstrating against police violence after the murder of George Floyd.

In response to pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top officers, concerned that such an openly repressive intervention was inadequately prepared and likely to discredit the military in the eyes of the American population, Trump backed down temporarily. But he is clearly aware that he can overturn the results of the November 3 election, clearly won by Biden, only through the use of military force.

Esper did not discuss this subject directly, but he told the Military Times that he had prepared a letter of resignation and then decided against sending it, concerned about what might come next. “Who’s going to come in behind me?” he asked. “It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

The undeniable implication of Esper’s firing is that Trump wants a Pentagon chief who will say yes to the deployment of troops into American cities to deal with the mass unrest that would undoubtedly follow an attempt by the president to defy the election results.

Trump named Christopher Miller, director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), as Esper’s replacement to head the Pentagon on an “acting” basis. Miller retired in 2014 after a 31-year career as a Special Forces officer. He joined the White House staff in 2018 at the National Security Council (NSC), working on counterterrorism under John Bolton, then the national security advisor.

Soon after Bolton left the White House in September 2019, Miller came to Trump’s attention as the NSC liaison to the Pentagon during the Special Forces operation in which ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was assassinated. Miller subsequently moved to a counterterrorism position at the Pentagon, before being selected by Trump to head the NCTC.

At least one senator, Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, voiced objections to Miller’s appointment because he indicated at a confirmation hearing that he would not oppose the NCTC supplying information on American citizens to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, to assist in the suppression of ongoing protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon.

Trump repeatedly denounced the Portland protesters as terrorists and sent federal paramilitary forces into the city. Miller was confirmed by the Senate on August 6 in a voice vote, indicating that no Democrat felt strongly enough even to demand a roll-call vote.

The decision by GSA Administrator Emily Murphy not to begin formal cooperation with the Biden transition team has both political and practical significance. A spokeswoman for Murphy told Reuters that she was waiting until “a winner is clear,” although the traditional practice at the GSA has been to begin liaison efforts as soon as a winner is called by the major television networks and other news organizations.

Trump and his congressional backers have demagogically attacked Saturday’s announcement of a Biden victory by the Associated Press, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, the New York Times and Washington Post as though it was a usurpation of the popular will by “giant corporations,” although Trump made no such objection when the same organizations called him the winner the morning after the polls closed in the 2016 election.

It would be unprecedented for the transition to a new administration to be delayed until after formal certification of the results of the election by the authorities in 50 states and the District of Columbia, a process that will take two or three weeks, given the slow arrival of mail ballots, particularly from overseas and military voters, and the time required for recanvassing and recounting in those states where the contest is close enough to warrant such action.

The Electoral College does not meet until December 14 to cast the electoral votes for the rival presidential tickets. And this process could well be disrupted if, as some state legislators and right-wing pundits have suggested, Republican-controlled state legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona intervene and attempt to impose pro-Trump electors rather than the pro-Biden slates elected by the voters.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has called for a wide-ranging investigation of the election—Trump lost the state by 20,000 votes—citing “concerns surfacing about mail-in ballot dumps and voter fraud.” In Pennsylvania, there has already been discussion among Republican legislators about how to go about appointing pro-Trump electors.

The letter from Attorney-General Barr to federal prosecutors authorizes them to investigate “if there are clear and apparently credible allegations of irregularities.” In the context of Trump’s open defiance of the election results, the directive amounts to making the resources of the Justice Department freely available to the Trump campaign. It also supersedes a longstanding policy that federal prosecutors not involve themselves in election-related cases until after states certify the results.

In his statement on the election, Senate Majority Leader McConnell made no mention of the Democratic president-elect, a former senator and supposed “friend,” according to the pro-Biden media. McConnell’s brief speech made no reference to allegations of vote fraud or ballot stuffing.

But other Senate Republicans were far less constrained. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, appearing on Fox News, demanded that losing Republican Senate candidate John James in Michigan also refuse to concede. “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,” he declared.

A Trump legal adviser revealed the strategy behind the state lawsuits, telling Fox News last week, “We’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court—of which the president has nominated three justices—to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through.”

Only a handful of top Republicans in Congress or around the country have acknowledged Trump’s defeat and the victory of Democratic candidate Biden. This includes three governors—in the heavily Democratic states of Maryland, Vermont and Massachusetts—four of the 53 Senate Republicans, and only a dozen of the nearly 200 members of the House of Representatives, including four who are leaving office.

In all these reactionary machinations, there are elements of both desperation and delusion. The bulk of the Republican Party has embarked on a political course to deny the results of an election in which 75 million people voted for the Biden-Harris ticket. While the Democratic Party might well capitulate to such a political coup, there is no chance that the American population as a whole will passively accept the usurpation of the presidency. Trump can maintain power only through methods of mass repression and violence.

The atmosphere in the White House itself appears to be that of a besieged fortress. According to an unnamed official who spoke with CNN, “John McEntee, director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, is spreading the word throughout the administration that if he hears of anyone looking for another job they will be fired.” The administration has also been shaken by a third wave of COVID-19 infections that has hit Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, and top Trump campaign adviser David Bossie.

Possible COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough makes measures to stop virus spread now more urgent

Andre Damon

The announcement from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech Monday that there has been progress in the development of an effective vaccine against COVID-19 is a promising and encouraging development. It makes all the more necessary urgent measures to contain the spread of the virus and save lives until a vaccine is widely available.

Pfizer announced that patients in clinical trials who received two injections of the vaccine, spaced three weeks apart, had 90 percent fewer cases of COVID-19 than a control group. By way of comparison, the typical yearly flu vaccine is only 40–60 percent effective.

Pedestrians walk past Pfizer world headquarters in New York on Monday Nov. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

The findings were based on initial data from a clinical trial of over 43,538 participants, which were reviewed by an independent board, but which have not yet been made public. The company intends to file for an emergency use authorization once half of the participants in the study have been observed for safety issues for at least two months, sometime in the third week of November.

If approved, Pfizer’s vaccine (as well as that being developed by rival Moderna) would be the first mRNA vaccine in widespread use. This would open a new age for the rapid treatment of infectious diseases with a whole new class of low-cost vaccines.

The progress toward a vaccine should be greeted with enthusiasm by workers throughout the world. However, significant questions and issues remain.

In its report on the vaccine, medical journal Stat noted that “there is no information yet on whether the vaccine prevents severe cases, the type that can cause hospitalization and death. Nor is there any information yet on whether it prevents people from carrying the virus that causes Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, without symptoms.” The latter would be critical in determining how effective the vaccine is in preventing transmission rates.

It is also still too early to say how long the virus protects against infection. Stat also noted that the results announced by Pfizer and BioNTech have not yet been peer reviewed by scientists or published in a medical journal.

Provided that the initial results hold, even under the best of conditions Pfizer said that only 50 million doses will be available by the end of the year, with 1.3 billion produced in 2021. The vaccine must be stored at super-cold temperatures, which could make it extremely difficult to deliver to many places.

The availability and distribution of the vaccine, moreover, will be hampered by the subordination of production to the profit motives of the giant pharmaceutical companies and the conflicting interests of competing nation-states.

That being said, it does appear that progress is being made. Director of the US National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, noted that the initial results from Pfizer also bode well for the vaccine being developed by biotechnology firm Moderna and the National Institutes of Health based on similar technology. The Russian health ministry issued a statement indicating its Sputnik V vaccine would also be over 90 percent effective.

All of this means that an effective vaccine will likely be available for broad distribution sometime next year.

The progress toward a vaccine makes all the more criminal the policy of “herd immunity” that is being implemented by governments throughout the world. Just as one begins to see a light at the end of the tunnel, the argument that it is necessary to “live with the virus” becomes absolutely unacceptable.

News of the vaccine comes as the pandemic is surging in the United States and Europe. The US has surpassed 10 million cases, and, within a matter of days, a quarter million people will have died in the United States alone. As of Monday, 43 states reported 10 percent more new COVID-19 cases than the week before.

Despite this disaster, there is no plan to contain the pandemic. US President Donald Trump, who remains in office for at least two and a half more months, has publicly advocated for “herd immunity,” declaring that the spread of the disease is a positive good. President-Elect Joe Biden has rejected calls for more widespread lockdowns.

While the UK, France, and Germany have announced minor restrictions on bars and gyms, they have categorically refused to close non-essential workplaces like factories and schools.

The current catastrophic state of the pandemic is the direct consequence of the fact that government policy has been determined not by public health but by the interests of profit. Once the bailout of the banks was secured in March, the ruling class worked to implement its back-to-work policy.

As a result, hundreds of thousands have died. If emergency action is not taken now, hundreds of thousands more will die before a vaccine is widely available.

The senseless loss of life must be stopped! Non-essential businesses must be closed, with full compensation for all lost wages for workers and earnings for small businesspeople due to the pandemic. The terrible trade-off between risking one’s life and one’s livelihood cannot be accepted.

Where production is essential to the functioning of society, safe working conditions must be overseen by workers’ rank-and-file safety committees and health care professionals, with no concern for corporate profit.

There must be a massive investment in public health care infrastructure, including universal testing, contact tracing and free treatment for all. Once a vaccine is available, it must be freely distributed and not subject to the profit interests of private corporations or the competition of nation-states.

The working class must now intervene to ensure that hundreds of thousands do not needlessly die in the coming weeks and months because the capitalists must have their profits.

Biden coronavirus transition task force to continue back-to-work drive

Kate Randall

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the members of his coronavirus task force. The convening of the panel comes as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to soar across the US, with predictions that the coming winter will see a dramatic rise in cases and deaths.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris listen during a meeting with Biden's COVID-19 advisory council, Monday, Nov. 9, 2020, at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del [Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster]

The US has now seen more than 10 million coronavirus cases and is approaching 240,000 deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now estimates that there will be 2,600 to 13,000 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day by the end of November.

As had been expected, the transition task force will be co-chaired by three familiar figures in government and academia: David Kessler, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations; Dr. Vivek Murthy, surgeon general under Barack Obama; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a professor of public health at Yale University.

The 13-member Biden-Harris coronavirus transition team has been hailed by Democratic Party-leaning news outlets as a dramatic departure from the performance of the Trump administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force.

While it is true that the Democrats’ virus transition team is not populated by open advocates of “herd immunity” like Dr. Scott Atlas, an examination of both the team and the president-elect’s policies reveals that the next administration’s approach will be based on the drive to reopen schools and businesses, and will continue to subordinate the government response to the pandemic to the defense of corporate profits at the expense of the health and lives of America’s working population.

Included among the Biden team’s members are advocates of the rationing of health care and proponents of the further privatization of health care delivery. The selection of the panel’s top officials also signals that, in keeping with the Democratic Party’s focus on identity politics, a Biden administration will seek to present the inequities in health care primarily as a racial, rather than a class, question.

Of particular note is the inclusion on the panel of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and brother of Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff under Obama. The World Socialist Web Site has written extensively on Dr. Emanuel’s promotion of class-based, rationed medical care for the majority of Americans, particularly the elderly.

In an especially foul piece published in the November-December 1996 Hastings Center Report, Emanuel wrote that “services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

An article appearing in the January 2009 Lancet spelled out Emanuel’s attitude toward limiting “scarce” medical resources for the elderly: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination: every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age.”

He explained further why adolescents might receive care at the expense of infants, arguing: “Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments. … It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies, and worse still when an adolescent does.”

Emanual penned an article in the Atlantic in September 2014 titled, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” in which he made the sinister argument that the elderly are a drain on society due to the dollars spent to keep them alive that could otherwise be used to line the pockets of the rich.

We wrote at the time:

While admitting that seniors today are less disabled and more mobile compared with their counterparts 50 years ago, he notes that, “over recent decades, increases in longevity seem to have been accompanied by increases in disability—not decreases.” He stresses, therefore, that “health care hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process ” (emphasis added). One can only assume that he advocates an acceleration of this “dying process.”

Under conditions of a pandemic, the sinister implications of these conceptions become all the more apparent. As hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, doctors will be forced to make wrenching decisions about who is to receive a ventilator—an 82-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, who is less likely to survive, or a previously healthy 20-year-old college student?

Disability advocates in the UK have already documented how the disabled have been denied ventilators and other life-saving treatments on the basis of their “frailty” score.

Another noteworthy member of the coronavirus transition team is Atul Gawande, a professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In May, the surgeon and writer left his job as CEO of Haven, the joint venture of JPMorgan Chase billionaire Jamie Dimon, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. The aim of the venture is to set up a self-sufficient private health care system for the employees of the three companies.

Then there is co-chair Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the founder of the Yale School of Medicine’s Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC), which has investigated COVID-19 mortality data across the United States by race and ethnicity. ERIC has investigated the very real issue of higher death rates for Latinos and blacks in the US in the course of the pandemic. Her inclusion on the task force, however, will undoubtedly be used promote a narrative that shifts attention away from the class inequities suffered by all ethnicities in the pandemic.

Rounding out the 13-member team are Dr. Richard Bright, the former head of the government vaccine development agency BARDA who was fired by the Trump administration; Julie Morita, a former Chicago health commissioner; Dr. Eric Goosby, founding director of the federal government’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS program; Dr. Celine Gounder, physician and medical journalist; Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota; Loyce Pace, executive director of Global Health Council; and Dr. Robert Rodriquez, professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

The program to fight COVID-19 set forth on the Biden-Harris transition web site is filled with modest and vague pledges that will likely go unfulfilled. It promises that the administration will set up a Pandemic Testing Board, “Fix personal protective equipment (PPE) problems for good,” and “Ensure everyone—not just the wealthy and well-connected—in America receives the protection and care they deserve, and consumers are not price-gouged as new drugs and therapies come to market.”

While the statement asserts that a Biden administration will “provide guidance for how communities should navigate the pandemic—and the resources for schools, small businesses, and families to make it through,” there is no talk of providing the funds needed now or in the future for the millions of people who are facing poverty, hunger and eviction as a result of the pandemic.

There are no demands for emergency measures to be taken over the coming weeks and months to deal with a sharply expanding health care catastrophe.

For good measure, the program makes the nationalist threat to “Rebuild and expand defenses to predict, prevent, and mitigate pandemic threats, including those coming from China.”

It pledges to work with governors to implement a mask mandate, a call that will likely be ignored by most Republican governors.

The great unmentionable in this program is how these measures will be financed. Biden-Harris say they will “ensure that the millions of Americans who suffer long-term side effects from COVID don’t face higher premiums or denial of health insurance because of this new pre-existing condition.”

They also say they will work to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and “lower health care costs and expand access to quality, affordable health care through a Medicare-like public option.”

It is a fact that the program known as Obamacare has nothing in common with socialized medicine and has resulted in the funneling of premium payments to private insurers. The fig leaves of reform in the ACA have long since evaporated, and the legislation itself is now threatened by Trump’s Supreme Court, stacked with reactionaries.

The Biden-Harris transition team is well aware that health care costs will not be lowered, during the pandemic or otherwise. Having attacked any and all references to socialism, the incoming administration rejects the only policy that can resolve the health care crisis that has been disastrously exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic—genuine socialized medicine.

This requires the expropriation of the giant health care chains, insurance companies and pharmaceuticals to free up the resources to provide for the health needs of the population. Such a program requires the mobilization of the working class in a struggle independent of and in opposition to the two big business parties.

New Hampshire report raises concerns on evolving 5G technology

Rosamma Thomas

On November 1, the Commission to Study the Environment and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology in the US state of New Hampshire submitted its report to the governor of the state. It noted that the permissible radiation exposure rates in the US are among the highest in the world, and recorded that research within the country exists to show that regulatory agencies are “captured” – packed with individuals who have strong industry ties. This report went largely unnoticed, given it was submitted so close to Presidential elections in the US.

In July last year, the state passed a law constituting this commission, comprising 13 members with diverse areas of expertise: physics, engineering electromagnetics, epidemiology, biostatistics, occupational health, toxicology, medicine, public health policy, business and law. (This range of areas of expertise on this commission should come as a good lesson in public policy formulation for the Government of India). The commission received representations from the telecommunications industry and began work in September 2019.

“Fifth generation of 5G wireless technology is intended to greatly increase device capability and connectivity but also may pose significant risks to humans, animals and the environment due to increased radiofrequency radiation exposure. The purpose of this study is to examine the advantages and risks associated with 5G technology, with a focus on its environmental impact and potential health effects, particularly on children, fetuses, the elderly and those with existing health compromises,” that law read.

In its report, the commission notes: “So as the presentations and discussions went on, the Commission concluded that all things emitting radio frequency (RF) radiation needed to be considered together because of the interaction of all these waves.” There were also different meanings accorded to 5G, from how the antennae interact with other generation antennae to whether small cell towers would be needed. Ultimately, 5G was seen as a marketing concept centered around speed of data transmission.

“There is mounting evidence that DNA damage can occur from radiation outside of the ionizing part of the spectrum. The Commission heard arguments on both sides of this issue with many now saying there are findings showing biological effects in this range. This argument gets amplified as millimeter waves within the microwave range are beginning to be utilized,” the report notes.

The Commission noted that the US Telecommunication Act of 1996 says that siting of antennae cannot be denied on grounds of health concerns. Given this reality could not be altered, “As the New Hampshire Commission, we moved through the Commission process, many of the members concluded we could first encourage our federal delegation to enact changes and second, assuming the federal realities cannot be changed, recommend protective measures…”

Here is a list of the eight questions that the Commission set out to answer:

“1. Why does the insurance industry recognize wireless radiation as a leading risk and has placed exclusions in their policies not covering damages by the pathological properties of electromagnetic radiation?

2. Why do cell phone manufacturers have the legal section within the device saying keep the phone at least 5 mm from the body?
3. Why have 1000s of peer-reviewed studies, including the recently published US Toxicology Program 18-year $30 million study, that are showing a wide range of statistically significant DNA damage, brain and heart tumours, infertility and so many other ailments, been ignored by the Federal Communication Commission?
4. Why are the FCC-sanctioned guidelines for public exposure to wireless radiation based only on the thermal effect on the temperature of the skin and do not account for non-thermal, non-ionizing, biological effects of wireless radiation?
5. Why are the FCC radiofrequency exposure limits set for the United States 100 times higher than countries like Russia, China, Italy, Switzerland and most of Eastern Europe?
6. Why did the World Health Organization (WHO) signify that wireless radiation is a Group B Possibly Carcinogenic to Humans category, a group that includes lead, thalidomide and others, and why are some experts who sat on the WHO committee in 2011 now calling for it to be placed in Group 1, which are known carcinogens, and why is such information being ignored by the FCC?
7. Why have more than 220 of the world’s leading scientists signed an appeal to the WHO and the United Nations to protect public health from wireless radiation, and nothing has been done?

8.Why have the cumulative biological damaging effects of ever-growing numbers of pulse signals riding on the electromagnetic sine waves not been explored, especially as the world embraces the Internet of Things, meaning all devices being connected by electromagnetic waves, and the exploration of the number of such pulse signals that will be created by implementation of 5G technology?

“The rollout of wireless services and new products … can be key to enhancing public safety, economic opportunity and healthcare. Regardless of the evidence presented and the risks associated with RF electromagnetic field effects, business and residents alike want 100% coverage and seamless connectivity. The majority of the Commission believes that some balance can be struck to achieve the benefits of technology without jeopardizing the health of our citizens,” the report notes.

The Commission heard from experts from 10 different fields, including toxicology and public policy, and ONLY the presenter representing the telecommunications industry did not acknowledge the deleterious effect on humans and the environment from RF radiation from wireless devices, the committee noted.

The Commission noted that radiation exposure limits established by law may need to be revised: “Most of the federal regulatory agencies’ radiation exposure limits were established in the mid-1990s before the studies were carried out, so they did not take those studies into account when setting exposure limits. In addition, the initial exposure limits were developed at a time before wireless devices, and the radiation associated with them, became ubiquitous…Because of the large number of radiating devices in today’s environments, exposure for people is many times greater than when radiation thresholds were established, and the nature of today’s radiation (highdata-rate signals) has been shown to be more harmful than the lower data-rate signals that were prevalent before.” The report notes that there is only one country in the world with a higher exposure rate permissible under law than in the US – Japan.

Citing a Harvard University publication, “Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates,” the report notes that the priority of such bodies is then the interests of the industry rather than the health of citizens. The Commission calls for a reassessment of these agencies.

The Commission has called for an independent review of standards already set. Public service announcements should warn of health risks in using the devices, the report suggests.

The Commission has also recommended that schools and public libraries, given the evidence of young children being more susceptible, should migrate from RF wireless connections for computers and laptops to hard-wired or optical connections.

“The majority of the Commission believes that fiber optic transmission is the infrastructure of the future. When compared, RF wireless transmission lacks fiber optic characteristics: speed, security, and signal reliability while avoiding biological effects on humans and the environment,” the report notes. Three members of the Commission submitted a minority report stating that there were “no known adverse health risks from levels of RF energy emitted at the frequencies used by wireless devices”.

Meanwhile, there are reports that China has now leapfrogged into 6G – “the 6G frequency band will expand from the 5G millimeter wave frequency to the terahertz frequency,” this report noted. There are concerns that increased integration of space-air-ground-sea communications and the new frequency range might affect astronomical instruments or public health.

Democrats’ bid to win control of state legislatures collapses

Barry Grey

The 2020 US election has seen the biggest voter turnout in 120 years, driven by mass popular hatred for Donald Trump. Former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated the incumbent by more than four million votes and is certain to reach the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to become president.

But the inability and refusal of Biden and the Democratic Party to advance any program to address the catastrophic public health impact of the coronavirus pandemic or the Depression-era social crisis it has triggered have actually strengthened the position of the Republican Party in the US Congress and in statehouses across the United States.

In the US Senate, the Democrats have to date netted only one additional seat, leaving Trump’s GOP in control, while in the House, their anti-Russia impeachment debacle and complicity in denying unemployment benefits to tens of millions impacted by the pandemic have resulted in a loss of seats.

The Senate side of the US Capitol is seen on the morning of Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2020, in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]

Perhaps the sharpest expression in the elections of the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party is its failure to make any inroads into Republican control of state legislatures across the country. These state bodies largely determine the rules for elections, the exercise of reproductive rights, spending for education and the availability of health care.

As of Tuesday’s election, the Republicans controlled some three-fifths of legislative chambers, having won two dozen in the 2010 election cycle. States with Republican-controlled legislatures include Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina and Florida.

In Tuesday’s vote, despite an unprecedented public health, economic, social and political crisis, the lowest number of state chambers changed hands in more than 70 years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), there were changes or potential shifts of control in just four bodies. The Republicans took back the New Hampshire House and Senate from the Democrats, and the Democrats may have captured the House and Senate in Arizona, although the contests for the Arizona chambers are still too close to call.

“This is crazy in that almost nothing changed,” said Tim Storey, an expert with the NCSL. “It really jumps off the page.”

The Democrats’ failure came despite having poured millions of dollars into campaign ads aimed at gaining control of the state legislatures in Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other key states. David Abrams of the Republican State Leadership Committee gloated, “Democrats spent hundreds of millions of dollars to flip state chambers. So far, they don’t have a damn thing to show for it.”

Republican-led state houses have spearheaded the attack on abortion rights and voting rights, imposing ever more onerous restrictions on access to abortion and measures such as voter IDs to make it more difficult for working and poor people to vote. The Democrats have put up no serious resistance to these attacks on democratic rights.

Control of state legislatures is particularly important in this election because the incoming state bodies will carry out redistricting next year on the basis of the just completed decennial census. They will redraw congressional districts for the next 10 years, gerrymandering them to suit partisan aims and further entrench the interests of the corporate elite.

In Texas, the second most populous state in the US, where the GOP controls both legislative chambers and the governorship, the Republicans are considering redrawing state maps based on “citizen voting-age population” instead of counting the total population. This will exclude all non-citizens, disproportionately Hispanic, and lower representation from Democratic strongholds in south Texas and fast-growing parts of Dallas and Houston.

As for gubernatorial races, the Democrats failed to pick up any Republican governorships and lost an open seat in Montana that had been vacated by Democrat Steve Bullock, who ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate. Republican Greg Gianforte won against Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney, ending more than 16 years of Democratic leadership in a state that usually votes Republican in presidential contests.

Armed conflict in Tigray threatens break up of Ethiopia

Jean Shaoul

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has ordered repeated air strikes against military targets in Tigray, one of Ethiopia’s semi-autonomous, ethnically defined provinces, and declared a six-month state of emergency. With phone and internet lines cut, the region has been effectively sealed off.

Abiy launched the strikes in response to what he claimed was an “attack” by Tigray’s ruling party on an army compound that he said had the support of an unnamed “foreign hand.”

While details are unclear, amid claims and counterclaims, the United Nations has reported armed clashes in eight different locations with dozens of casualties and warned that nine million people could be displaced by the fighting.

The parliament, meeting in an emergency session, declared Tigray’s regional government illegal and voted to dissolve it. The Tigray leadership had “violated the constitution and endangered the constitutional system” and a new caretaker administration would hold elections and “implement decisions passed on by the federal government.”

The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that heads the regional government has refused to back down in the escalating conflict with the federal government in Addis Ababa. With more than half of Ethiopia’s army based in Tigray, a legacy of its war with Eritrea, Abiy cannot rely on the military’s support or a brief skirmish. Yesterday, he sacked his army chief, head of intelligence and foreign minister.

Ethiopia regions (credit: map for use on Wikivoyage, English version)

Tigray is only one of the country’s festering ethnic conflicts and there are fears of a civil war that threatens the breakup of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country that is a mosaic of ethnicities and languages. As the regional powerhouse, Ethiopia’s risks the broader destabilisation of the Horn of Africa.

The Tigrayan conflict has been brewing for some time. The TPLF, an armed ethno-nationalist movement that emerged in 1975, played a prominent role in defeating the Moscow-aligned government of Mengistu Haile Mariam, known as the Derg, in 1991. Mengistu’s regime had brutally suppressed the politically amorphous social movement that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, jailing its political opponents, carrying out a series of civil wars against separatist movements of Eritreans and Tigrayans, as well as the Oromos and Somalis, and presiding over droughts and famine in 1984 and 1985 in which hundreds of thousands perished.

The TPLF was the dominant party in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of several militia groups and parties, that governed the country after Megistu’s overthrow in 1991. The EPRDF was to remain in power, courtesy of rigged elections, for nearly three decades, presiding over an increasingly authoritarian state.

Map showing the location of Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa (credit: map for use on Wikivoyage, English version)

In 1995, the government, under the leadership of Meles Zenawi, a Tigrayan, had devolved some powers to the regions, including the right in principle to secede. Resentment grew against Tigrayan political and economic dominance—Tigrayans constitute six percent of the population—as politicians whipped up ethnic tensions as a diversion against a unified struggle by the impoverished masses against the Ethiopian elites.

There were huge protests starting in 2014, precipitated by Addis’ land grab of historic Oromo lands that were handed over to overseas companies—often from the Gulf and China, for infrastructure and export-orientated agribusiness. Ethnic protests in Oromia and Amhara, who constitute about 35 percent and 27 percent of the population respectively, saw thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested.

In February 2018, as the protests and political crisis mounted, Hailemariam Desalegn, who became prime minister after Meles’ death in 2012, resigned as both head of government and the EPRDF. His successor, Abiy Ahmed, a former military intelligence officer and an Oromo, was welcomed at home and abroad as a “reformer,” receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Eritrea one year later. In November 2019, he disbanded the EPRDF, replacing it with the Prosperity Party (PP), which TPLF refused to join.

Abiy released tens of thousands of political prisoners, ended the internet blackout imposed by the previous government, lifted a ban on several political parties, some of which had been designated “terrorist” groups, paving the way for the leaders of the banned groups to return to Ethiopia and ended the 20-year long war with neighbouring Eritrea. He introduced a raft of measures aimed at reducing the TPLF’s dominance, including retiring their military and government officials, instigating corruption charges against some members and announcing plans for the privatisation of swathes of the state-owned economy and liberalisation of the banks, in a bid to secure Washington and the International Monetary Fund’s approval.

This sparked furious opposition within the military and led to last year’s abortive coup. Viewed as collectively responsible for the crimes of the previous regime, some 100,000 Tigrayans have been driven from their homes and are living in internally displaced people’s camps due to racist violence.

Despite Abiy’s promise to end ethnic discrimination, ethnic violence has increased, with some 1.7 million internally displaced people living in camps as the danger grows of still bloodier ethnic violence. The sale of land has also continued, under conditions where 80 percent of Ethiopia’s 104 million people are dependent upon the land for their subsistence and at least 25 percent of the population ekes out an existence on less than $2 a day.

The COVID-19 pandemic has served to intensify the social, economic and political crisis, with Abiy announcing the postponement of this year’s general election, viewed as an important component of Ethiopia’s transition to democracy—initially to August, but now indefinitely. His decision was backed by parliament and a Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI), prompting Abiy’s opponents to accuse him of illegally extending his term in office. The Tigrayan regional government rejected the postponement, holding its own election in September.

After the federal government declared the result illegal, the finance ministry announced plans to bypass the Tigrayan regional government and send funds directly to local authorities, reportedly also blocking welfare payments to poor farmers and preventing people travelling to Mekelle, the regional capital—moves that the TPLF said were tantamount to a “declaration of war.”

The country has also been destabilised by the widespread protests that took place throughout Oromia, in the wake of the assassination of the popular Oromian musician, activist, and former political prisoner, Hachalu Hundessa.

Abiy responded by deploying troops to put down the riots, shutting down the internet and media offices, and arresting thousands of people. These included journalists accused of inciting violence and a leading opposition politician Jawar Mohammed, also an Oromo and former ally turned opponent of Abiy. The state-controlled media blamed Hachalu’s assassination on the Oromo Liberation Army, a rebel group, and the TPLF.

The last few weeks have seen several massacres, mostly of Amharas, with Amnesty International reporting the killing of dozens of women and children in a schoolyard in western Oromia on November 1, adding to this year’s 147 clashes that have left several hundred dead. There are widespread fears that the open conflict in Tigray will inspire secessionist sentiment in other parts of the country.

This crisis takes place amid an escalating international conflict over Ethiopia’s giant Renaissance Dam over the Blue Nile, that supplies 80 percent of the Nile’s downstream waters. Defeated United States President Trump has backed Egypt and Sudan against Ethiopia, amid threats that Egypt could blow up the dam and cuts in Washington’s aid to Addis.

The desperate situation in Ethiopia is part of the ongoing fragmentation and disintegration of the countries in the Horn of Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti. The Horn is an arena of intense great power and regional rivalry for control of oil reserves and mineral resources in neighbouring countries and the sea route through the narrow Bab al-Mandeb straights—through which much of Europe’s oil passes—with the US and Europe engaged in a ferocious struggle with China.

Former Mexican military chief pleads not guilty to US drug trafficking charges

Andrea Lobo

Retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the Mexican defense secretary from 2012 to 2018, appeared in a US federal court in Brooklyn last Thursday, following his Oct. 15 arrest at Los Angeles International Airport.

Cienfuegos, referred to as “The Godfather” in the indictment, pleaded “not guilty” to charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking to the United States and money laundering. Between December 2015 and February 2017, according to the court filing, “in exchange for bribe payments, he permitted the H-2 Cartel—a cartel that routinely engaged in wholesale violence, including torture and murder—to operate with impunity in Mexico.”

The prosecutors claim to have thousands of incriminating BlackBerry Messenger exchanges with the H-2 Cartel, a remnant of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, they obtained through US phone-tapping operations against Cienfuegos and cartel members. One message allegedly indicates that he provided assistance for far longer to another organization, which is widely believed to be the Sinaloa Cartel.

General Cienfuegos in 2018 receiving award at Pentagon's Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (Credit: NDU Audio Visual)

The trial of Cienfuegos is the latest in a string of cases pursued by the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn since it handed down a life sentence against Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán last year.

Currently, the two main overseers of the so-called “war on drugs” during the administration of Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto are being charged for working with the drug cartels. Genaro García Luna, former secretary of public security, arrested last year in Texas, has also pleaded not guilty to charges of receiving millions to protect the Sinaloa Cartel. The case also involves charges against his closest underlings Luis Cárdenas Palomino and Ramón Pequeño García.

The Cienfuegos arrest sent shockwaves through the Mexican ruling elite, with nervous press commentaries calling it “irresponsible” and warning that it “shatters trust in Mexico’s armed forces.”

Cienfuegos was not under any investigation in Mexico, raising suspicions about the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who claims to be leading a campaign against corruption. He has responded to the charges in the US by claiming that “We won’t cover for anybody,” while refusing to remove any of the officials appointed by Cienfuegos, or even those in his circle of confidence like the current chief officer of the secretary of defense, Agustín Radilla.

“I don’t see anyone in the Army happy about this detention,” wrote Mexican reporter Eunice Rendón, who added, “They are the same then and now under [López Obrador’s] ‘Fourth Transformation.’”

The recent cases have gravely tarnished all institutions involved in the “war on drugs,” from the presidencies of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) and Peña Nieto (2012–2018), to the military and police leaderships, as well as the US administrations that backed the war through the $3.1 billion Merida Initiative since 2007.

As in other countries in the region, chiefly Colombia, drug trafficking has long been exploited by US governments to further Washington’s influence over the region’s security forces and, through this, over domestic politics. “Prior to FY2008,” explains a 2020 report by the US Congress Research Service, “Mexico did not receive large amounts of U.S. security assistance, partially due to Mexican sensitivity about U.S. involvement in the country’s internal affairs.”

The corporate media has largely avoided commenting on the questions the cases raise about the role of the US government itself. García Luna, especially, played a key role in setting up and selling the Merida Initiative to the US and Mexican public.

A December 2007 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks indicates that then Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was a personal handler of García Luna, helping him “fill in the blanks in preparation for future questioning regarding the Merida Initiative.”

García Luna was also allowed to personally “vet” officials in the Mexican police, a cover used by US agencies to assuage fears of corruption in the Mexican state. An April 2008 cable explains that “unprecedented cooperation … would not be possible without our ability to work with vetted units [by García Luna] supported by USG agencies including DEA and ICE.”

After the killing of several of García Luna’s officials by rival drug cartels in 2008—officials eulogized by the US embassy for their “outstanding work” and “highest professional standards”— an embassy cable expressed “concerns about García Luna’s ability to manage his subordinates.” Nonetheless, in October 2009, the US ambassador said García Luna, who had just quintupled the size of the federal police with the help of US aid, would be a “key player” in reaching “new levels of practical cooperation in two of the country’s most important institutions.”

After the war claimed more than 300,000 lives, left 73,000 missing—including numerous extrajudicial massacres by the military— and cost Mexican taxpayers $120 billion, the promises to end the war and the Merida Initiative by Andrés Manuel López Obrador were central to his 2018 election as president.

Shortly after the 2018 election, an Internal Security Law approved by Peña Nieto and requested by Cienfuegos—allowing troops to carry out police functions and granting greater autonomy to the military to select targets, wage operations and collect intelligence—was declared unconstitutional.

As soon as he came to power, however, López Obrador and his Morena party changed the Constitution to permit the domestic deployment of the military and created a National Guard as a new cover for the discredited military.

Meanwhile, the US Congress, with bipartisan approval, has granted AMLO nearly $300 million under the Merida Initiative.

Commenting on the Cienfuegos arrest, the renowned journalist and expert on Mexican drug cartels, Anabel Hernández, stressed that, “The same system remains embedded in his own political party Morena.” She explained that Morena’s security chief in Mexico City, Omar García Harfuch, rose through the ranks under the patronage of García Luna and Cárdenas Palomino, and cites federal police documents confirming Harfuch’s talks with organized crime.

A December 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks shows that the US State Department vetted Harfuch when he was working for the federal police under García Luna so that Harfuch could complete programs with the FBI, DEA and Harvard University.

Additionally, a DEA agent told Proceso in December 2012 that they had long known about García Luna’s ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, but kept quiet “out of respect for Mexican institutions and because he was the direct contact with the United States.”

In the case of Cienfuegos, several cables note his constant collaboration with the United States, with the Pentagon awarding him an award for excellence two years ago.

The US legal cases against the Sinaloa Cartel and their partners in the previous governments can only be understood in the context of the new buildup of the Mexican military encouraged by the United States. Its main target, amid a resurgence of the class struggle across North America and internationally, is the working class.

While carrying out widespread austerity measures amid the pandemic crisis, including the elimination of $3 billion for science, culture and victim protection, the Morena administration granted $1.5 billion for military equipment and subsidies for the families of the chiefs of staff and proposed a 20 percent budget increase for defense.

This context explains why the US case against Cienfuegos ignores the widespread human rights abuses carried out by the military under the general’s term, including countless extrajudicial executions.

Last September, soldiers were first arrested in Mexico for their involvement in the killing of the 43 Mexican teaching students from Ayotzinapa in 2014. Cienfuegos lied repeatedly about the involvement of the military, which collaborated in the killings with Guerreros Unidos, another splinter of the Beltrán Leyva cartel.

From 2005 to 2007, Cienfuegos headed the IX military region of Guerrero, the state where Ayotzinapa is located, at a time when the Beltrán Leyva cartel prospered out of their base in Acapulco, the state’s largest city. Cienfuegos would then lead the first military region of Mexico City from 2007 to 2009, which was then a stronghold for the Sinaloa Cartel.

In 2012, Sergio Villarreal, a leader of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel known as “El Grande,” testified after his arrest that in 2007 and subsequently, he and his then partners of the Sinaloa Cartel had “bought” the commanders of the security forces in Guerrero and Mexico City.