Students are being suspended for taking pictures of schools that aren’t following coronavirus safety protocols. Hopefully they don’t stop until every student is suspended and safe at home.

— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) August 6, 2020

from https://www.therams.com/news/countdown-to-camp-cornerbacks

cornerbacks coach Aubrey Pleasant told theRams.com in a phone interview last week. “I think have the best corner in the game. I also think that I have some other players that have solidified themselves as starters in the NFL that want to take their game to the next level. And then I have some younger guys that are ready to show the world their potential.”

Among the younger returning players, injuries afforded both Darious Williams and David Long playing time late last season that aided their growth.

“Both are two totally different situations as far as what they bring to the table, but they’re both young guys that have been able to progress,” Pleasant said of Williams and Long. “Darious Williams, the way he played those last four weeks, was of starting caliber in the NFL. Not only was he able to make plays, but he was able to get his hands on the ball. And when you can create turnovers in the National Football League, that’s something that separates you from the others.”

As for Long, Pleasant tasked him with playing an “inside-out” role as a rookie last year because of his versatility.

“You saw as the weeks progressed later on in the season versus Chicago, later on in the season two times versus Arizona, we asked that young man to come and play in several different roles, but just kind of shows you his skill set is so unique, he can do anything that’s asked,” Pleasant said. “And then the final game of the season, he had to play at corner and he stood up and made some plays.”

Ted Cruz’s Hearing on Anarchist Protest Violence Was a Total Farce
Cruz kept mentioning Democrats’ failure to condemn a murder that was actually carried out by the far right — and refused to be corrected.

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/05/ted-cruz-hearing-antifa/?utm_campaign=theintercept&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1eXNXPv-qv6a2zF40a3WgyeTSWsBnBeCP7T_ouIhExHZe_gw00H2udffU

ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, with Congress still failing to agree on an urgent pandemic relief package, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, brought together a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to propagandize. Instead of helping the pandemic-stricken, Cruz chaired an hourslong spectacle of a hearing designed to peddle misleading narratives about anarchists and anti-fascists.

If the propagandistic title of the hearing — “The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble: Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence” — wasn’t enough to show his aims, Cruz’s own comments made clear the proceedings’ purpose as political theater. In a telling moment, Cruz twice chastised his Democratic colleagues for praising peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters while failing to condemn “antifa” and the “terrorists” who killed a federal security officer, Dave Patrick Underwood, during a May protest in Oakland. Cruz’s implication was clear: The left killed Underwood.

Yet Underwood was killed by a member of the far right — one of 329 murders carried out by right-wing extremists since 1994.

In the same period, a grand total of zero murders have been attributed to antifa participants.

The political affiliations of the man charged in Underwood’s murder have been public knowledge for nearly two months. The alleged killer, Air Force Sgt. Steve Carillo, who also killed another federal officer during the premeditated ambush, is an open adherent of the boogaloo movement, which is aimed at hastening a second civil war.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pointed out Cruz’s error after the Texas Republican’s first mention of Underwood, noting that the killer was on the far right. This did not stop Cruz raising the killing again later in the hearing, once again within the context of a blustering speech about antifa.

The hearing was just the latest stage for baseless overtures on the threat of the far left. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, made numerous attempts to change the afternoon’s focus onto a more worthy target — deadly white supremacist violence — to little avail.

FOR THE GOVERNMENT to ignore white supremacist violence and focus instead on the far left is nothing new. The Intercept reported last month, based on leaked law enforcement documents, that while the Trump administration has sought to demonize and target antifa, reports amassed of deadly white supremacist violence and substantive threats — including to the police themselves.

Not that the police should be let off the hook for the right’s pernicious priorities. U.S. law enforcement has an unbroken history of deprioritizing, if not outright aiding, white supremacist movements. During Tuesday’s unnecessary hearing, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox said that she was overseeing a task force to investigate current anti-government threats, which was not focused on white supremacists.

One of the few voices of reason throughout the afternoon, Michael German, a former FBI agent specializing in domestic terrorism who is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted the “sensationalized” focus on the far left has “distracted from focus on the deadly threats” posed by the far right. “As a matter of policy, far-right violence is deprioritized,” German said.

In line with German’s criticism, the hearing proceeded with paranoiac speeches about the tactics of anti-racist, anti-fascist protesters. Acting Deputy Secretary of of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli discussed protesters using laser pointers and small projectiles, like frozen water bottles, against brutal federal agents in Portland, Oregon. He spoke as if he was describing weapons of mass destruction when he said that demonstrators were taking up “the oldest weapon in history” — rocks.

Meanwhile, as German previously told The Intercept, on the far right “you have these heavily armed groups right there, who have a much more direct and lengthy history of violence than anything antifa or anarchist-involved does.”

The only member of the media called to testify was right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo. Ngo spoke of the long history of antifa organizing in Portland, but unsurprisingly omitted the most obvious reason for it: In recent years, Portland has become an epicenter of far-right violence, to which anti-fascist action is a rightful response.

Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy also testified as an alleged expert on the nature of antifa as an organization of international terrorism, drawing comparisons to Al Qaeda. As Hirono pointed out at the hearing, the Center for Security Policy is designated by the Southern Policy Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group. Only one witness identified as an anti-fascist and a participant in the ongoing anti-racist protests for Black lives, Nkenge Harmon Johnson of the Portland Urban League; she was asked no questions by the committee after her brief statement in support of the movement. Cruz, meanwhile, gave Shideler extra speaking time to defend his hate group against criticism.

Cruz closed the proceedings with a frenzied tirade about the dangers of Black Lives Matter — purported criticisms that bear no repeating. Suffice it to say that Cruz, a racist police apologist, is no fan of Black liberation icons like Angela Davis and Assata Shakur.

Seven different angles of the massive explosion in Beirut, Lebanon from this morning.

My goodness…pic.twitter.com/4no1brIYoD

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) August 4, 2020

America needs a health care system that puts public health ahead of profits. I know we can do better. I see it everyday in Canada amid the coronavirus.

Dr. Khati Hendry
Opinion

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/05/canadian-medicare-covid-response-model-for-america-doctor-column/5547006002/?fbclid=IwAR0rjRUno-E8doQenGBzbsr0jGcJKQ6Fcu_IK8l9meckmy1XeLXAegsZNBM

I’m a family physician who moved to Canada from California 14 years ago, largely because of Canadian Medicare, the country’s national health insurance program. I’ve been much happier practicing medicine where my patients have universal coverage. It frees up doctors like me to focus on patient care and frees patients to focus on their health, instead of worrying about how to pay for it.

But I have never felt more grateful to work in a universal health care system than during the COVID-19 pandemic. My heart aches for the millions of Americans who have fallen ill and then have had to worry about how they will pay for tests and treatment, who have gone to work while sick for fear of losing their health coverage or who have lost not only their jobs but their insurance, leaving them at risk for financial ruin.

While no country is immune from COVID-19, Canada has been able to mount a much more effective response. Canada’s infection rate is a tiny fraction of that of the United States, and trending downwards. Its health system has two big advantages when fighting the pandemic: universal health coverage and an administratively simpler system.

Canadian Medicare is good for patients

Canada’s publicly financed single-payer system covers everybody, regardless of age, health or job status. No one loses coverage due to COVID-19. Canadian Medicare covers services like hospital and emergency care, doctor appointments and lab tests—without copays, deductibles or medical bills. Everyone is in a single “network,” so there are no artificial limits on which hospital or health provider a patient can see. As a result, Canadians are much less likely to delay testing or treatment for COVID-19, or for the chronic medical conditions that increase the risk of severe illness and death from the virus.

Canada’s universal system also has made it easier for medical and public health professionals to respond quickly — and together — without the administrative headache of multiple insurance companies.

In my province of British Columbia, our ongoing history of collaboration between physicians and the provincial health system made it easier to coordinate responses from hospitals, primary care clinics and long-term care facilities. From the start, emergency response committees held daily meetings to address challenges of hospital capacity, distribution of supplies and protective equipment, testing procedures, staffing policies, telemedicine, COVID-19 protocols and the safety of health care workers. The British Columbia public health officer gives regular updates and guidance as we move through pandemic phases.

Instead of primary care practices shutting down and forcing patients to go without care, as reported in many parts of the United States, we have been able to work together through our province’s longstanding “Divisions of Family Practice.” Most of us work in private practice, but we get help to coordinate with other family doctors to make sure that on-call shifts are covered, our practices are safe and our patients get the care they need during the pandemic. I have not had to care for a patient with COVID directly yet, but I have been part of the extensive planning process.

As health care shifted from in-person to virtual practically overnight, Canadian health authorities put systems in place for more provincial phone triage, patient self-assessment protocols, virtual care software and better internet access to remote areas. The province made investments to support the needs of vulnerable populations, such as aboriginal communities, and those who are homeless, live in rural areas, travel for agricultural work or struggle with mental illness or addiction — groups that have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19 in the United States.

Many of my American colleagues tell me that they’re burned out from administrative demands and anguished from seeing patients not get the care they need because of cost. Now it is worse, as the number of uninsured has soared with the pandemic. My message for them is this: I know we can do better, because I see it every day. It is worth fighting for a system that puts public health ahead of profits: Medicare for All.

Our Health Insurance System Was Not Built for a Plague

https://slate.com/business/2020/04/coronavirus-crisis-health-crisis.html?fbclid=IwAR3ZgNUjYupRsGZ-V0ALdeaMTq9bTmGXFTH9hB5LXsKjg9DS1FkBj_dTnoE

In ways large and small, it has become painfully clear that our health insurance system was not built to deal with a crisis like the coronavirus.

The system’s biggest failings are almost too obvious to state. Almost. There’s our ghastly uninsured rate, for instance. When you’re trying to fend off a global pandemic, it’s ideal that everybody in the country has some sort of health coverage so that they can get tested and seek treatment rather than become a vector for transmission. Before this whole debacle began, there were 28 million Americans without any coverage. And even those who were insured risked racking up thousands of dollars in medical bills if they stumbled into the wrong emergency room for a test.

Last month, the president finally signed a bill designed to make all coronavirus testing free, even for those without insurance. Crucially, it covered not just the diagnostic test itself but also the cost of a visit to the doctor’s office or the ER, which is often billed as a separate item. However, there are still ways patients can get trapped into paying, such as if they accidentally go out of network or get additional tests to check for other illnesses like the flu. And if someone actually ends up hospitalized with COVID-19? That too could become expensive. While a number of major insurers, such Cigna, Humana, Aetna, and UnitedHealth, have promised to waive out-of-pocket costs for their customers, those decisions don’t apply to self-insured health plans, where companies directly pay their employees’ health care costs. These kinds of policies cover the majority of Americans with job-based coverage, and it will be up to each individual company to decide whether to eliminate cost sharing for their workforce.

To put it another way: Despite Congress’ best attempt at an intervention, Americans could still end up in mountains of debt because they were victims of a plague.

Making matters worse, millions of Americans are likely losing the job-based insurance they relied on now that the economy is going into a deep freeze and layoffs are mounting. We don’t know the exact number of people who have been kicked off their coverage, but the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 3.5 million faced a high risk of forfeiting it over the last two weeks. That number is only going to grow.

Getting new coverage, unfortunately, could require jumping through a number of hoops, especially if your income is too high to qualify for Medicaid (in some states, unemployment benefits alone could put you over the limit) and you aren’t rich enough to afford the premiums on COBRA (really, who is?). Part of this is due to pure pettiness on the part of the Trump administration, which has refused to reopen healthcare.gov—the federal insurance exchange that 32 states rely on—for a special enrollment period. As a result, people who lost their jobs and insurance will have to submit extra paperwork to prove that they’re allowed to apply for Obamacare outside of the normal open enrollment period. As this is the first economic disaster that has led to mass layoffs since the exchanges started running in 2014, no one is really sure how long it will take to process those forms. Thankfully, most of the states that run their own marketplaces, including California and New York, have opened theirs back up, which should spare their residents a headache and reduce the bottleneck.

But that isn’t the only bureaucratic absurdity people will have to deal with. When Americans apply for Obamacare coverage, they are required to estimate their income for the coming year so that the government can calculate the insurance subsidies they are eligible for. If the number is vastly different from what they reported on their previous year’s tax return, they have to provide documentation explaining why. But most people who’ve just lost their jobs have no idea how much money they’ll earn for the coming year, because the economy has been shut down in order to fight a pathogen, and we have little to no idea when it will open back up. A lot of people are going to be blindly guessing; if they pick a wrong enough number, they’ll have to pay back some of their subsidies when they file taxes in 2021.

In the end, these hurdles are probably going to prevent some people from getting insurance, even though they need it. Paperwork has a way of tripping people up. During Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing, Vice President Mike Pence said that the White House is working on a plan to pay hospitals directly when they care for uninsured COVID-19 patients, apparently by purloining some money from the $100 billion medical supply fund Congress created. That does’t change the fact that newly uninsured Americans will still risk financial strain if they fall ill from anything other than coronavirus. It also means there will be less money left over to, you know, buy hospital supplies.

Our health insurance system is a rickety kludge, full of financial traps and bureaucratic headaches. Even in good times, it doesn’t function acceptably compared with what other rich countries enjoy. But with the coronavirus, its problems have become magnified, forcing Congress to play a game of catch-up that has failed to address the many holes. Many on the left have pointed out that a system like single payer would eliminate all of these troubles; people would have insurance, all the time, no matter what. But you don’t need “Medicare for All” to fix the issues we’re now grappling with. If Americans had truly affordable health insurance options that weren’t tied to their employers and always kept out-of-pocket costs low, it would be enough. But what do we have right now? Just like the coronavirus, it’s a public health nightmare.
US doctor in Canada: Medicare for All would have made America’s COVID response much better

Aaron Donald says ‘we won’t be having any football’ if players don’t do their part

https://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/story/2020-08-05/aaron-donald-says-we-wont-be-having-any-football-if-players-dont-do-their-part

Protocols to stave off the spread of the novel coronavirus are in place at the Rams’ facility. Players get tested daily. They wear masks and practice social distancing.

Star defensive lineman Aaron Donald is getting accustomed to the new reality. But the six-time Pro Bowl player earns his living in tight quarters along the line of scrimmage.

Once full-speed practices and games begin, keeping a distance won’t be an option.

“Football is a contact sport, up close,” Donald told reporters Wednesday during a videoconference. “We’re slobbering, spitting and bleeding on each other.

“So, we need guys to do what they need to do so we can be able to do our part and play the game. If guys do it the right way — we’ll be fine. If not, it probably won’t happen.”

Donald, a two-time NFL defensive player of the year, is one of the main pieces of a defense in transition under new coordinator Brandon Staley.

Donald and cornerback Jalen Ramsey are high-profile cornerstones in what is expected to be a hybrid 3-4 scheme.

During the spring, Staley joked that Donald was so accomplished “he’s going to play well if my wife’s coaching him.”

The Rams are in the midst of a two-week acclimation phase of training camp. Players are participating in meetings, conditioning drills and walkthroughs. So Donald, who has 72 sacks in six NFL seasons, is getting a feel for how Staley plans to deploy him.

“Before we even got here, he called me multiple times and talked to me about certain things he wants to do to try to put me in good positions,” Donald said. “I got excited about it.”

The walkthroughs, have enabled him to get a feel for how he can “put my own swag and own style to it.”

Donald, 29, is in the second year of a six-year, $135-million extension he received before the 2018 season. After signing the then-record deal, he amassed 20½ sacks — the most by an interior lineman in NFL history — as the Rams advanced to the Super Bowl.

Last season, Donald had 12½ sacks for a team that finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

Despite the pandemic, and the virtual offseason program it forced NFL teams to adopt, Donald said that in hometown Pittsburgh he adhered to the same kind of workout regimen that has annually prepared him to operate as one of the league’s most disruptive forces.

Some Pittsburgh facilities were closed, but he and his trainer made do, bouncing from field to field to perform drills. He also worked out in “The Dungeon,” the basement gym in his childhood home.

“I feel like I’m getting older, but I feel like I’m just getting in better shape as I get older,” he said. “I feel amazing.”

Donald said it was important for players to follow protocols while at the facility and to avoid large groups away from it.

“People are going to do what they want to do outside the facility and make their own decisions,” he said. “You’ve got young guys, some guys aren’t family men, sometimes they might be lonely at home, but as long as they keep themselves distanced from all of that close contact with a bunch of people, we’ll be fine.

“I think they know what the risks are. If they don’t do their part, we won’t be having any football.”

On the field, Donald said he probably would not wear a face shield.

“I need air when I’m out there running around and breathing with them long drives and stuff,” he said. “I feel like, we’re out there, we’re playing up close, there is nothing you can really do — if a guy got [the coronavirus] and I tackle the guy, then I probably got it…. So, hopefully these guys are just doing what they need to do.”

The Rams open the season on Sept. 13 against the Dallas Cowboys at brand new SoFi Stadium. But there will no fans — or a limited number — in a venue that seats more than 70,000 for football.

Donald has watched televised baseball games with no fans in the stands.

“It’s weird,” he said. “It doesn’t seem as fun. The excitement is kind of off… I definitely think we need some type of fans in the stadium, even if it’s not a full house.

“I feel like they can do a thing or two, to the point where they can get people in the stadium but get nice space and spread it out good enough to make it work.”

Exactly like every other Vice President in history 🤭 https://t.co/ssGAiDBFzV

— David Steele (@David_C_Steele) August 5, 2020

Colorado State looking into issues with COVID-19 protocols, including alleged intimidation aimed at players with symptoms not getting tested https://t.co/t1G2C6f3sh

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) August 5, 2020

Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
As if we weren’t already pretty certain the Rams are going to extend Jalen Ramsey long-term, check the marketing – Ramsey is hosting the team’s “virtual tailgate” alongside two other team pillars in Aaron Donald and Jared Goff.

Aaron Donald says players have been having a lot of conversations internally about not exposing themselves to high-risk or group situations when they leave the facility every day. Says they know there will always be risk in a contact sport but job outside has to be staying safe.

Johnny Hekker@JHekker
Buckled up and ready for year 9. There are few greater feelings than suiting up with the fellas in horns. I am blessed beyond belief to be sneaking up on a decade of having the best job in the world.