The New York Times รายงานว่าในขณะที่นักลงทุนสมัครเล่นรวมตัวกันเมื่อสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมาเพื่อบีบกองทุนป้องกันความเสี่ยง หรือเฮดจ์ฟันด์ ในวอลล์สตรีทด้วยการช่วยกันดันราคาหุ้นของ GameStop ไปสู่ระดับที่สูงจนน่าตกใจ ในกลุ่มของ “แมงเม่าล้มยักษ์” เหล่านี้คือนักเทรดมือใหม่สุดๆ เช่น เจดิน คาร์จากเมืองซานอันโตนิโอวัย 10 ปีที่จู่ๆ เงินของลงทุนของเขาก็เพิ่มขึ้นมาแบบไม่ทันตั้งตัว
ในเดือนธันวาคม 2019 เจดินอายุ 8 ขวบซื้อเกมลดราคาที่ GameStop และเขาอยากจะซื้อ Xbox One แม่ของเขาจึงพยายามใช้ความสนใจเรื่องเกมส์ของลูกชายให้เป็นประโยชน์จึงหาทางสอนลูกชายเกี่ยวกับการลงทุน และตัดสินใจลงทุนใน GameStop จำนวน 10 หุ้นในราคา 6.19 เหรียญสหรัฐต่อหุ้นเพื่อเป็นของขวัญงานเทศกาล Kwanzaa ของชาวแอรฟริกัน-อเมริกัน ในขณะนั้นด้วย
By The Washington Post · Erica Werner, Jeff Stein, Seung Min Kim
WASHINGTON – Ten Republican senators announced plans Sunday to release an approximately $600 billion coronavirus relief package as a counter-proposal to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan, posing a test for the new president who campaigned as a bipartisan deal-maker.
The senators, led by Susan Collins, R-Maine, said they would formally unveil the package on Monday. In a letter to Biden, they requested to meet with him and said they were offering their proposal in recognition of his “calls for unity.”
Biden spoke to Collins and has invited the 10 Republican lawmakers to the White House “for a full exchange of views” early this week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a Sunday night statement.
The potential bipartisan discussion comes as Democrats prepare to move forward on Monday to set up a partisan path forward for Biden’s relief bill, which Republicans have dismissed as overly costly given some $4 trillion Congress has already committed to fighting the pandemic, including $900 billion in December.
The GOP proposal jettisons certain elements that have drawn Republican opposition, such as increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
It would also reduce the size of a new round of checks Biden wants to send to Americans, from $1,400 per individual to $1,000 – while significantly reducing the income limits that determine eligibility for the stimulus payments.
A $600 billion plan that is a fraction of the size of Biden’s proposal is unlikely to draw much if any Democratic support. However, the GOP offer presents a challenge for Biden, who campaigned on promises to unify Congress and the country and must decide whether to ignore the GOP overture or make a genuine effort to find common ground across the aisle.
“We want to work in good faith with you and your administration to meet the health, economic and societal challenges of the covid crisis,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
Top Biden economic adviser Brian Deese said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the White House had received the Republicans’ letter and would review it. But he emphasized that speed was of the essence, and refused to say whether Biden was open to entertaining a smaller overall price tag.
“The president is uncompromising when it comes to the speed that we need to act at to address this crisis,” Deese said.
“The provisions of the president’s plan, the American Rescue Plan, are calibrated to the economic crisis that we face,” Deese said.
The White House is pushing its plan amid signs of a broader economic slowdown and a continued wave of enormously high unemployment claims of close to 1 million a week. The emergence in the U.S. of highly transmissible coronavirus variants has also intensified fears that another wave of lockdowns will be necessary.
Because the Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, it is significant that Republicans assembled 10 lawmakers to get behind the proposal. That means that, if Democrats were to join them, they could reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass legislation under regular Senate procedures.
Democrats are planning to skirt the 60-vote requirement using special budget rules that would allow the Biden package to pass with a simple majority vote. Democrats control the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tie-breaking votes.
Democratic aides said the GOP proposal would not change their plans to move forward with the budget bill this week that would set the stage for party-line passage of Biden’s plan.
Psaki’s statement said Biden also spoke to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Sunday as they prepare to push his relief package.
“The key to getting robust job opportunities is to cease any delay, any inaction, any wait-and-see around this rescue plan,” Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The American people could not care less about budget process. . . . They need relief and they need it now,” Bernstein said.
Biden’s plan would send $1,400 payments to individuals with incomes up to $75,000 per year, and couples making up to $150,000.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the signers of the letter, said the GOP plan would lower those thresholds to $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for couples. Instead of $1,400 checks, the GOP plan would propose $1,000 checks, according to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., another member of the group.
The GOP plan would also reduce Biden’s proposal for extending emergency federal unemployment benefits, which are set at $300 a week and will expire in mid-March. The Biden plan would increase those benefits to $400 weekly and extend them through September. The GOP plan would keep the payments at $300 per week and extend them through June, according to three people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.
Portman criticized Democrats for their plans to go it alone, saying this approach would “jam Republicans and really jam the country.”
The signers of the letter include eight Republican senators who are part of a bipartisan group that has conferred with Biden administration officials about the relief bill. In addition to Collins, Portman and Cassidy, these are Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Jerry Moran of Kansas. Also signing are Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Cassidy strongly criticized Biden for not soliciting broader input from senators in both parties. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Cassidy said the Republican package amounted to $600 billion and was “targeted to the needs of the American people.”
Cassidy also said Biden’s push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour would cost millions of jobs.
“You don’t want bipartisanship. You want the patina of bipartisanship. … The president’s team did not reach out to anybody in our group, either Democrat or Republican, when they fashioned their proposal,” Cassidy said. “They’ve never reached out to us – that’s the beginning of the bad faith.”
Democrats bristled at Republican accusations that Biden’s relief proposal would give too much in federal aid to affluent Americans, pointing to GOP support for the 2017 tax law that nonpartisan analysts cut taxes substantially for the wealthiest Americans.
“Reasonable people can have honorable differences on the precise income limits of emergency tax relief. But there’s a degree of hutzpah in the GOP suddenly on their high horse on this point when they were just fine with permanently giving people who make over $5 million more tax relief than the bottom 60% of American taxpayers combined,” said Gene Sperling, an economist who advised the Biden presidential campaign and served as former director of the White House National Economic Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The $900 billion relief bill Congress passed in December included $600 stimulus payments to individuals. Biden’s plan to issue a new round of $1,400 checks would bring that figure to $2,000 – making good on promises he and other Democrats made that helped the party win two Senate seats in Georgia in early January. Those victories gave Democrats the majority in the Senate, and Democrats including the two new senators from Georgia have insisted they must make good on those promises.
“The entire Democratic Party came together behind the candidates in Georgia – we made promises to the American people,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on ABC. “If politics means anything – if you’re going to have any degree of credibility – you can’t campaign on a series of issues … and then change your mind. That’s not how it works. We made promises to the American people; we’re going to keep those promises.”
In addition to a new round of checks, a higher minimum wage and increased unemployment benefits, Biden’s plan includes rental assistance and eviction forbearance, an increased child tax credit, some $130 billion to help schools reopen, hundreds of billions of dollars for cities and states, and $160 billion for a national vaccination plan, more testing and public health jobs.
Money for vaccinations – which Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said recently was key to helping the economy – has emerged as the one real area of bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill. The GOP plan would match Biden’s call to devote $160 billion to vaccines, testing and related health care spending.
“With your support, we believe Congress can once again craft a relief package that will provide meaningful, effective assistance to the American people and set us on a path to recovery,” the GOP senators wrote.
By The Washington Post Shibani Mahtani, Kyaw Ye Lynn
HONG KONG – Myanmar’s military said Monday that it took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year, hours after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her ruling National League for Democracy in a predawn operation, staging a coup against the democratically elected government.
The raids came hours before a new session of parliament was scheduled to open and members who won the November elections were set to take their seats. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won those elections in a landslide, capturing 396 of 476 seats. It was Myanmar’s second democratic election since the country’s fragile transition from military rule to democracy.
NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told The Washington Post that Suu Kyi, Myanmar President Win Myint and all chief ministers from their party, representing more than a dozen states and regions in the country, were taken at gunpoint. A spokesman for his party was also detained, he said.
“I expect that soldiers will arrive for me soon,” Myo Nyunt said. “This is very likely a coup, but we hope that there will also be negotiation between our leaders and the military.”
Several hours after the raids, the military in a television broadcast said that a state of emergency had been declared in Myanmar, and that power would be transferred to the commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing. Myint Swe, a former general and the military-backed vice president, will become the president, the broadcast added.
The sweep included other prominent democracy activists who have been fighting against military rule for decades, leaders of other political parties and NLD lawmakers, according to social media posts and news reports.
Communications appeared to be down or patchy in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, as well as Yangon, the country’s largest city and commercial hub. The state-run broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television said in a Facebook post that it was not able to broadcast “due to communication problems.” Websites were also down; the Internet monitoring service Netblocks said national connectivity had fallen to 75% of normal levels.
The military has alleged voter fraud in the November vote, but Myanmar’s election commission has said there is no evidence to support its claims. The military’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, alleged voter fraud after winning 33 seats.
Political tensions and fears of a military takeover have prompted alarm in the international community.
In a statement sent late Sunday in Washington, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States was alarmed by the reports and urged Myanmar’s military to adhere to the rule of law and release those detained, or face consequences. “The United States opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed,” she said.
On Friday, diplomatic missions in Myanmar affirmed their support for the country’s democratic transition and urged the military to respect the results of the elections.
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, said diplomats were making “unwarranted assumptions” and denied that it was impeding the democratic transition.
Myanmar’s military ruled the country for half a century before beginning a transition to democracy in 2010 and allowing elections that ushered Suu Kyi and her party to power in 2015. But the current military-drafted constitution enshrines power for military generals, who have a quarter of seats in parliament and maintain control over key ministries.
Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before her release in November 2010, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her resistance to military rule. The military-drafted constitution prevents her from leading Myanmar as president, but she is unequivocally the nation’s leader, revered as a deity, and rules through proxies. The military-drafted constitution also allows the army to step into a situation that may “disintegrate” the county and national solidarity.
Since taking power, Suu Kyi has disappointed old allies in the West, particularly for defending Myanmar – and its military in particular – against charges of genocide over the persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Suu Kyi has in recent years moved closer to powers such as China and India, and grown increasingly estranged from countries such as the United States and Britain, which once led advocacy efforts to get her out of house arrest.
The historian and writer Thant Myint-U said Monday that “the doors just opened to a very different future.”
“I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next,” he tweeted. “And remember Myanmar’s a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves.”
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The Washington Post’s Kyaw Ye Lynn in Yangon, Myanmar and Timothy McLaughlin in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
Myanmar leader is detained; party says army staged ‘coup’
InternationalFeb 01. 2021Aung San Suu Kyi on Jan. 27.Photographer: Thet Aung/AFP/Getty Images
By Bloomberg Philip J. Heijmans, Max Zimmerman
Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi and other top leaders have been detained in an early-morning raid in an apparent “coup,” her party’s spokesperson Myo Nyunt said, a move that came after the country’s military disputed its landslide win in a November election.
Ever since Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in a Nov. 8 poll, the second general election after decades of army rule, the military and its political factions have demanded that authorities investigate its allegations of mass voting fraud. Myanmar’s election commission last week had labeled the vote transparent and fair, and the United States, the United Nations and the European Union urged the military to respect the results.
Top military leaders had hinted at seizing power while saying they pledged to work in accordance with the law. In a statement on Sunday, Myanmar’s military – known as the Tatmadaw – denied objecting to the outcome of the election and said it “finds the process of the 2020 election unacceptable.”
Myanmar’s military had retained wide powers under the constitution even after a shift to democracy a decade ago, which prompted the United States and the European Union to lift sanctions on the Southeast Asian country. But initial optimism that sparked a wave of interest from foreign investors quickly dissipated due to a violent crackdown against Muslim Rohingyas that prompted accusations of genocide against Suu Kyi’s government.
The treatment of the Rohingya has tainted the international image of Suu Kyi, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest during a military regime that effectively cut off Myanmar from the world.
In November’s election, Suu Kyi’s NLD won 396 seats in the national assembly, more than the 322 needed to form a government. Turnout was an estimated 70% of the nation’s 37.3 million people eligible to vote. The ruling party has won 524 seats in elections held for state and regional parliaments, official data showed.
Biden’s secret weapon to cleaning up energy is spelled FERC
InternationalFeb 01. 2021The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seal in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 20, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Ari Natter, Naureen S. Malik
President Joe Biden outlined ambitious new plans for taking on climate change on Wednesday, but the most potent weapon may already be in his arsenal.
The five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is poised to play a pivotal role fulfilling Biden’s clean-energy ambitions, including his vow to strip greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector over the next 14 years. FERC could help Biden deliver on those promises by fostering carbon prices on electricity, propelling a massive build-out of high-voltage power lines and making it harder to build natural gas pipelines.
“Transforming the American electric sector to produce power without carbon pollution will be a tremendous spurt of job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century,” the president said Wednesday, as he signed a series of climate directives.
Biden can’t count on help from Congress. With Democrats having only a narrow hold on the House and Senate, it’s unlikely both chambers will pass broad clean energy legislation, including a nationwide renewable power mandate.
Enter FERC, which can accomplish many of the same goals, said Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School’s Electricity Law Initiative.
“FERC will be an indispensable player in the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda,” Peskoe said. “It’s the federal regulator of two major energy industries — the power sector and the natural gas industry — so it matters a lot in how this energy transition plays out.”
The commission has a big say in the nation’s energy mix because of its role overseeing gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas export facilities and wholesale power markets. The agency dictates how electricity is bought and sold in those wholesale markets, which are where most utilities get their power. And the commission’s decisions governing natural gas pipelines can give developers a green light to invoke eminent domain and install the projects on private land.
Biden has designated Richard Glick as chairman, giving one of the panel’s two Democratic members a chance to immediately steer the agenda. The remaining three seats are set to be occupied by Republicans through mid-year.
There are signs already of FERC’s new approach. Glick complained in a meeting earlier this month that the commission has not paid enough attention to how local, often disadvantaged communities are affected by the natural gas projects FERC scrutinizes. “I have been at the commission for three years, and I’ve seen little in the way of orders to do more than give lip service to environmental justice,” Glick said. “That needs to change .”
And in her opening remarks as a Democratic commissioner, Allison Clements stressed she planned to consider “the grave threat of climate change” in her decisions for the panel.
Environmentalists are counting on FERC to make major changes pushing the nation away from fossil fuels. Activists have already briefed Biden officials on how FERC can impose a climate litmus test to effectively block future natural gas projects. They also are urging policies to encourage state programs rewarding emission-free renewable and nuclear power.
And they have outlined ways FERC can help deliver on Biden’s promise “to build the next generation of electric grid transmission,” with high-voltage power lines that can deliver low-cost renewable power from the Midwest to customers in big coastal cities.
That is critical to meeting Biden’s 2035 goal of carbon-free electricity, said Rob Gramlich, a former FERC policy adviser and founder of Grid Strategies. “You just can’t achieve significant decarbonization without major changes to the grid,” Gramlich said.
FERC’s past transmission efforts have mostly spurred small, local projects, said Jeff Dennis, managing director of Advanced Energy Economy, an association of clean energy businesses. Now, the commission can reform planning processes to encourage big transmission projects that cross multiple jurisdictions and “are really critical to unlocking more capacity for renewables,” Dennis said.
Even a small shift in FERC’s approach to renewable energy could buttress state efforts to subsidize emission-free nuclear, wind and solar power.
States are “a real driver of decarbonization policy,” and FERC policy can ensure they have the power to “to go further and faster,” Dennis said.
Already nearly three dozen states in FERC-regulated markets have adopted clean-power goals.
“A lot of the actions are going to be taking place at the state level in the absence of federal leadership,” said FERC commissioner Neil Chatterjee, a Republican whose term expires at the end of June. “That is going to put FERC squarely in the epicenter of that debate.”
FERC had a mixed record enabling a clean energy transition under former president Donald Trump. On the one hand, it imposed regulations making it easier to integrate battery storage into the grid and explored ways to spur transmission lines critical to support offshore wind farms. However, it also created hurdles for renewable electricity while helping to sustain natural gas power plants, including by imposing a minimum price floor for sales of state-subsidized renewable power in capacity auctions run by the largest U.S. grid.
FERC also is expected to shift its approach to natural gas projects. Glick has argued the panel needs to better consider the climate change consequences of approving natural gas pipelines and export facilities.
“FERC has not kept up with the challenge and the real imminent threat of climate change,” said Joan Walker, an activist with Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign. “The fossil fuel industry is going to find every opportunity to keep perpetuating their business model so it’s absolutely essential and urgent that these changes be made.”
(The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg LP.)
Under federal law, FERC is supposed to weigh the potential benefits of proposed natural gas pipelines against their potential negative impacts on landowners and the environment, said Sierra Club staff attorney Elly Benson.
“If a pipeline will be pumping a lot of gas and therefore is going to have a lot of downstream emissions, FERC should really be taking a close look,” Benson said. “That should weigh against approving a new gas pipeline.”
Big shifts in FERC’s approach would probably come only after Democrats hold a three-member majority on the commission, and there’s a lull in proposals now pending before the panel. But changes could have lasting impact, said John Moore, who directs a Natural Resources Defense Council project focused on FERC.
The agency is using “a 21-year-old policy on assessing gas projects that we have long argued is way outdated and needs to be replaced,” Moore said. “That is going to definitely be up to the next chair to tackle.”
Olive oil is becoming one of the hottest ingredients in Asia
InternationalFeb 01. 2021Bottles of olive oil move along the production line ahead of labeling at the Borges Agricultural & Industrial Edible Oils plant in Tarrega, Spain, on Dec. 5, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Angel Garcia.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Joanna Ossinger
Twenty years ago, when chef Shinobu Namae cooked at the acclaimed Italian restaurant Acqua Pazza in Tokyo, he had trouble selling dishes made with olive oil, one of the cuisine’s featured ingredients. Customers frequently asked him to omit it from their order.
Today, says Namae, “people in Tokyo love olive oil.” At his Michelin three-star L’Effervescence, the chef can now source locally made oil from Souju, a farm in the Kagawa prefecture that once grew Bonsai plants. Because the owners were expert at pruning, Namae says they can control the growth of the olive trees to sustainably “harvest good fruits constantly.”
Japan’s increasing taste for olive oil has spurred local producers. The country won eight awards, including four gold ones, at the 2020 NYIOCC World Olive Oil Competition. A big winner, Green Basket Japan, has olive groves in Odawara, about an hour outside Tokyo.
In 2019, Japan exported 276.23 metric tons of olive oil, a 209 % increase from 2018 and a 545% increase from 2014.
China is also committing to the olive oil business. In 2020, the extra-virgin, organic oil Xiangyu Coratina won double gold at the Athena International Olive Oil Competition out of 430 entrants. The company that produced it, Xiangyu Oil Olive Development Co., hired an Argentine agronomic engineer, Pablo Canamasas, to produce the winning oil.
“Extra-virgin olive oil consumption in China is increasing at a significant pace,” said Canamasas via email. “Particularly in big cities and in a segment of the population aged 25-35 that has traveled abroad and is more exposed to the Mediterranean diet or has heard of it.”
Xiangyu’s olives are grown in the Wudu District in China’s western Gansu province. The climate has enough similarities to the Mediterranean coast to produce quality olives, including slightly alkaline soil and plenty of sun, according to Xiaoyong Bai, chairman of Garden City Olive Technology Development Co. His Garden Taste oil won a gold medal for quality at the 2018 International Olive Council’s Awards, where it was recognized for its “ripe fruitiness.”
Bai has been growing olives for 23 years; his plantation now encompasses more than 3.7 million acres. A retired civil servant and committed environmentalist, Bai said that he’s helped plant trees “on many barren mountains” via a translator over email. He added: “At present, China consumes 6,000 tons of olive oil every year, with an annual growth rate of 18%.” In 2020, his company exported a batch of olive oil to South Korea, the first time he sold product outside China.
The Asia-Pacific olive market is expected to record a annual growth rate of 4.2% from 2020 through 2025, according to market research firm Mordor Intelligence. Mordor sees the region’s market for olive oil growing rapidly to meet surging demand from consumers because of its health benefits.
In Singapore, Sebastien Lepinoy is likewise pushing world-class oil, but he’s not using local olives. The chef at Michelin three-star restaurant Les Amis spent five months developing a blend to complement his modern French cooking for such dishes as Langoustine de Loctudy-giant shrimp with zucchini and an extra-virgin emulsion.
“I needed an olive oil to match with my cuisine and also, for cheese,” Lepinoy says. He used five kinds of olives from Château d’Estoublon, in Provence, France, to create a blend that he imports, uses, and markets to customers.
Lepinoy has enough confidence in the market for olive oil in Singapore that he’s selling bottles of his smooth, subtly peppery oil for $36 ($48 Singapore). He says there has been good demand for a more healthful fat as an alternative to his restaurant’s famed butter.
Although travel restrictions have kept away tourists who might buy souvenir bottles of oil, restrictions have also kept the city-state’s well-off residents home, and they’ve shown a lot of interest in the olive oil, Lepinoy says.
Still, there is some resistance to olive oil in Asia. “Crazy as it may sound,” says Canamasas, who helped produce Longnan Xiangyu’s award-winning oil, “the Chinese public have the same view we outsiders have on Chinese products: that they are of poor quality.”
Dozens of restaurants in Michigan defy virus restrictions
InternationalFeb 01. 2021Diners eat indoors at the Sunrise Family Diner in Howell, Mich., on Jan. 18, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Ed Ou for The Washington Post
By The Washington Post · Kayla Ruble, Robert Klemko
HOWELL, Mich. – It’s a Monday morning and the Sunrise Family Diner is full. Retirees in jeans and plaid sit by the window, chatting over coffee and the local newspaper. A sign posted at the entrance urges customers to wear masks, but some don’t. They get seated anyway, within arm’s length of strangers in other booths.
Michigan is under shutdown, but inside Sunrise Family Diner, you might assume there is no pandemic.
This is the other rebellion. While armed extremists gathered outside the statehouse in Lansing a week after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in support of President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, dozens of restaurateurs across Michigan held their own protests against reality.
The restaurants are operating in open defiance of the state’s polarizing governor and the restrictions she ordered in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The businesses say the science on which the rules are based – pushed by the state health department, World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – is politicized and untrustworthy.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as they’re saying it is,” diner owner David Koloski said. “The whole thing with the coronavirus is political. I think Democrats are dug in and unwilling to move on this.”
Their protests have thrived for weeks thanks to law enforcement officers who support their cause and state residents willing to travel hours in some cases to patronize businesses where they can flaunt their distaste for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and her rules. So far, cease-and-desist orders and fines have done little to dissuade the businesses, and state officials have declined to discuss what recourse they have for dealing with the revolt.
But the consequences are clear, some health professionals say: Even as Michigan’s coronavirus rates have declined, many of the state’s hospitals remain at capacity because of covid-19 patients.
Less than 40 miles away from Sunrise Family Diner, Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital has exceeded 90% capacity since April, even with multiple ICU expansions. Since last winter, more than 100 hospital caregivers have tested positive for the coronavirus and two have died. The hospital has lost more than 160 patients to covid since the pandemic began.
Sparrow president Alan Vierling describes driving past open restaurants and bars – and even more often the obvious house party or big family gathering – and how angry it makes him.
“You see that and you know that there’s a percentage of these folks, once they get covid, some of them will die. And it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Vierling, a registered nurse. “This isn’t like getting leukemia, where you can do everything right and get leukemia and die. With this, you have a choice.”
The scenario here in Michigan is one that is expected to play out increasingly around the country as the pandemic drags on, presenting a challenge for the Biden administration and its plans to use a science-based approach to combating the virus after the previous administration spent much of the past year downplaying its severity and refusing to mandate restrictions – or even model medically recommended protocols.
Koloski, 39, said he can’t afford to abide by the state’s guidelines that limit restaurants to takeout service only.
“If we didn’t open, we would have shuttered. Doors closed. Out of a house, out of a job, out of a car. Me and the rest of my staff,” said Koloski, who has seven employees.
Besides, he said, “I’m not holding a gun to anybody’s head and making them come here.”
So the diner reopened earlier this month, advertising with a group known as Stand Up Michigan. The group, organized by several western Michigan business owners, has held rallies and demonstrations against pandemic-related restrictions across the state, including at the state Capitol.
Restaurants “can’t live on takeout,” said group co-founder Ron Armstrong, whose business manufactures displays and exhibits for trade shows. “Some people said: ‘Either I’m going to have them come and take my keys or I’m going to have to give my keys to the bank. Those are my two choices, but I will not not be open anymore.’ “
Meanwhile, hospitals such as Sparrow are reeling from the consequences of such decisions.
On any given day, the hospital typically has five to 10 ICU beds available – and 30 to 40 patients who need them.
Vierling has been forced to supplement his staff with 90 traveling nurses who work 12-hour shifts, five days a week and live in nearby long-term-stay hotels.
The hospital turned its break rooms into respite rooms after seeing caregivers, one after another, retreat to the rooms to weep. It added massage chairs to soothe and distract.
“If you’d have told me before the pandemic that massage chairs would be one of the biggest, smartest decisions I’d make in this job, I’d say you were crazy,” Vierling said. “We have to try to provide some comfort. We’re trying to save as many lives as possible, and every time we lose somebody, that’s devastating. It’s like watching somebody drown slowly for 10 days.”
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Whitmer announced on Jan. 22 that the state would allow restaurants to resume limited dine-in service beginning Monday. Seating will be limited to 25% of capacity and tables must be six feet apart with no more than six people per table. They also must close at 10 p.m.
“I know that it has not been easy,” Whitmer said, referring to the roughly 2½ month ban.
But, she said, data shows that the state’s actions have worked, and that if people continue to follow the recommendations of the scientific community, further restrictions might not be necessary.
“The science around this virus is settled, and if we can all wear masks and be very smart about congregating, and not do it unless it’s necessary, washing our hands, doing that social distancing, we will be in a strong position in a few weeks,” Whitmer said. “And we’ll be able to do more. That’s the hope.”
But even the loosening of some of the rules isn’t enough for the members of Stand Up Michigan, many of whom said they would continue operating at full capacity.
At All Star Coney Island, it was a full house on a recent Sunday night, with all but one booth filled. That tabletop was reserved for a large sheet of paper on which customers had written thank-you messages to the owners.
“Freedom is given by God. God bless this business!” one customer wrote.
“Thank you for being Patriots! Freedom!” wrote another.
“People need to use common sense. It’s been too long,” said a maskless Kathy Holcomb, 67, as she left the restaurant. “We stay safe. We wash our hands. We wear our masks – well, not just now,” she added, laughing.
Stand Up Michigan keeps a running list of restaurants that are open in defiance of the ban, posting weekly updates for its members, who also swap intel among themselves on the group’s social media site about restaurants they’ve discovered and businesses that allow customers to walk freely through their establishments unmasked.
The number fluctuates, but has more than 60 restaurants in 33 counties spread across the state from the Ohio border to the northernmost reaches of the Upper Peninsula.
The group’s online messaging goes beyond promoting open restaurants to disseminating false information and deceptive data to downplay the risks of the virus. For example, when discussing the risks of indoor dining, Armstrong claims that it is safer to be in a restaurant than it is to be in your home, saying more cases of coronavirus are contracted in small indoor gatherings in people’s homes than in restaurants. He does not provide any data to back up his claim.
Hospital admissions have dropped significantly in recent weeks, but 18 of the restaurants in Stand Up Michigan are in places where hospitals remain above 90% capacity.
As of Friday, Michigan had more than 557,883 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14,497 deaths, according to data from the state health department. Positivity rates were dropping as well, with more than half the state’s counties reporting seven-day positivity averages of less than 6%. But 17 of the state’s hospitals remain at 90 to 100% capacity, including the two in Lansing that serve several surrounding counties.
On Nov. 15, when new restrictions were announced, including the ban on indoor dining, Michigan was at 733 cases per million, according to health department spokeswoman Lynn Sutfin. “Two months in, the current number on our dashboard is 207 per million, a decline of more than 70 percent,” Sutfin said.
“You’d like to think if people could see the results and know they’re possibly putting people in harm’s way, they wouldn’t do it,” said Vierling, the hospital president. “But with this virus, it’s very likely large numbers of people are responsible for deaths of other people and never know it.”
Since mid-November, the state liquor control commission has suspended the licenses of 34 establishments for violating the emergency orders. Two restaurants have received fines of several thousand dollars, including a former Big Boy restaurant that was forced to give up its franchise agreement – and the iconic Big Boy statue – over its continued refusal to shut down.
State health officials declined to discuss what recourse they have for dealing with restaurants that continue to defy orders, or their plans for future enforcement.
Restaurants such as Jimmy’s Roadhouse, on the west side of the state in the town of Newaygo, have continued to operate through cease-and-desist orders and without a liquor license. It’s become a symbol of the restaurant defiance movement.
Jimmy’s also has become a destination for indoor-dining tourists, people who travel from all over the state seeking a place to publicly display their disdain for masks and social distancing.
“On the weekends, that’s one of the tourist attractions. And people drive three, four hours, with their families, elderly people,” owner Jimmy Cory said, noting that one of his “regulars” is an elderly couple that drives two hours from the northern Michigan town of Traverse City.
Cory says the restrictions are merely rules, not laws, and he doesn’t plan to follow them.
“Anything outside of the food code and the liquor code that I’ve been following my entire restaurant career is bull—t and unconstitutional,” he said, adding that “curfews are for comrades.”
Restaurants in many communities appear to have the support of local police, which is complicating enforcement efforts. OSKAR Scots restaurant in the village of Caledonia, was hit with a cease-and-desist order from Kent County’s health department on Jan. 11. A sheriff’s deputy visited to let the owner know that the department’s phone had been blowing up with reports about the business being open in defiance of the restrictions.
“I said, ‘Well what happens next with you?’ And he goes, ‘Nothing.’ He goes, ‘I’ll be seeing you tomorrow for coffee and breakfast,’ ” owner Randall Scot recalled.
The sheriff’s department did not respond to requests for comment. The county health department said it could not comment on specific cases.
Scot, 52, said a trip to Florida convinced him to ignore the state restrictions. His family visited the Sunshine State, where restaurants are allowed to remain open at 100% capacity, over Christmas.
“I decided at that point of time I’ll never shut my dining room down again,” he said.
Scot, who received a second cease-and-desist order from the county health department on Jan. 19, said operating at 25% of capacity simply isn’t enough.
“I have the right to not be deprived of my life, liberty or property without due process of law,” Scot said via a text message. “I have fantastic representation and will fight if I have to. I am STANDING UP.”
อัตราการติดหวัดในบางประเทศลดลงถึง 95% เรียกได้ว่าเกือบจะหายไปเลยทีเดียว
หลังจากที่กลุ่มต่อต้านวัคซีนรวมตัวกันก่อกวนศูนยืฉีดวัคซีนโควิด-19 ที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในสหรัฐ
กรณี GameStop สร้างหายนะให้กับเฮดจ์ฟันด์ แต่มันทำให้ “แมงเม่า” หลายตัวรวยเละ
ยอดผู้ติดเชื้อโควิด-19 ในสหรัฐเพิ่ม 6 ล้านใน 1 เดือน ทำยอดสะสมทะลุ 26 ล้านราย ผู้เสียชีวิตเพิ่มเป็น 4.38 แสนราย ด้านศูนย์ควบคุมและป้องกันโรคแห่งสหรัฐเตือนไวรัสกลายพันธุ์ทำให้มีอาการรุนแรงและติดต่อระหว่างคนง่ายขึ้น
Aung San Suu Kyi on Jan. 27.Photographer: Thet Aung/AFP/Getty Images
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seal in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 20, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer.
Bottles of olive oil move along the production line ahead of labeling at the Borges Agricultural & Industrial Edible Oils plant in Tarrega, Spain, on Dec. 5, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Angel Garcia.
Diners eat indoors at the Sunrise Family Diner in Howell, Mich., on Jan. 18, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Ed Ou for The Washington Post
