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Gov. J.B. Pritzker held off filling top vacancies at Illinois unemployment office because he was planning to merge it with another state department.

Then COVID-19 upended the nation.

Starting in March, as authorities shut down businesses and schools and 2 million Illinois workers flooded the state for jobless benefits, the state Department of Employment Security was already at one of its weakest moments in recent history, records and interviews show.

At that moment, agency staffing was at an all-time low, according to its then-acting director. Veteran employees were retiring in droves to be replaced by rookies. And when key jobs were filled it was sometimes with political aides who had little or no agency experience.

Before the national health crisis, Illinois had been ranked among national leaders for speedy delivery of unemployment benefits. Suddenly, IDES plunged to being among the worst in the nation on several key performance measures.

In the months since, as problems have persisted, the administration has offered a range of explanations for its inability to handle the surge of claims.

Pritzker has blamed his Republican predecessor for hollowing out IDES and leaving the agency with inadequate staff and outdated technology. He has also criticized President Trump for unfair and chaotic rollouts of federal unemployment benefits.

But government records and interviews offer a more complex portrait, and reveal the frenzy inside an agency diminished by staff vacancies at every level in the 18 months Pritzker was in charge even before the crisis.

State-by-state data from the U.S. Labor Department, hundreds of agency emails and internal agency documents obtained by the Better Government Association show:

In recent months, IDES has issued around 1 percent of its unemployment checks within seven days of the initial applications, making it the slowest state in the nation by that measure. Before the pandemic, it was among the fastest. On some key federal measurements for processing unemployment claims, IDES performed better during the pandemic than other big states or than the nation as a whole. Still, Illinois failed to meet standards in five of 10 performance measures collected by federal authorities, ranging from timely benefits distribution to the soundness of internal audits that detect fraud and underpayments. The Pritzker administration denied a request for these scorecards, but the BGA obtained them anyway. In June, the overwhelmed and understaffed agency told a senate oversight panel, in writing, that it moved jobless claims that came through elected officials to the front of the line over applications that came directly from taxpayers, the BGA found. In emails and internal presentations, the acting head of the agency sounded the alarm repeatedly and urgently. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed, he wrote in a March 14 email to his boss, Deputy Governor Dan Hynes. But I need some help.

Pritzker administration officials acknowledged to the BGA the agency had problems, but Hynes said unfilled leadership positions at IDES had little impact.

There was not instability at the top, he said. I think what was lacking was everything underneath there.

There was great attrition in the rank-and-file employees who were at the front lines of services. There was outdated technology, a lack of investment in technology that had occurred over the last 10 years. Thats really what was lacking.

Hynes said IDES worked hard under incredible stress to pay out a staggering $14.2 billion in benefits to an unprecedented 2.1 million Illinois claimants from March through August.

The volume and surge of claims that overtook the agency was really unprecedented and unsolvable until we figured out how to allocate the resources in the right way, Hynes said. It was heart-wrenching among all of us to urge patience among people who were desperate to get help, but knowing that we were unable to deal with everybody all at once.

Pritzker this summer named Kristin Richards, a former chief of staff to state Senate Presidents John Cullerton and Don Harmon, the new acting director at IDES.

More so than anything, I feel a responsibility to try and bring some stability for claimants, find some stability for people that are attempting to reach us, Richards said. Its a really big problem-solving exercise but its the right time to throw every bit of muscle we can to try to do it, and thats what were going to do.

Experts say reforms are welcome and sorely needed.

These problems at IDES came at a cost to people. Some applicants had desperate financial problems, said Jeremy Rosen, director of economic justice at Chicagos Shriver Center on Poverty Law. The governor was right that no state was properly prepared. But given the crisis every state faced, why did Illinois not respond as effectively as other states?

From best to worst

Before the pandemic, Illinois had been paying about 80 percent of initial unemployment claims within seven days.

That quick payout rate plummeted to around 1 percent and held there through September, putting Illinois last among states on this timeliness measure, according to newly released data from the federal labor department.

IDES told the BGA these quick payments slowed because Illinois like many states waited one week before starting the clock prior to the pandemic. After the crisis, Illinois and 36 other states cut out the waiting week in an effort to get more money out quickly.

Agency officials offered no explanation why it performed so much worse than all other states, including those that waived the waiting week. Only nine other states fell to less than 10 percent on this seven-day measure, the federal records show.

Federal rules do not require a seven-day turn around. Instead, the guidelines require states to pay out nearly 90 percent of all initial unemployment checks within 21 days.

On that 21-day measure, Illinois also fell short by distributing only 61 percent. However, Illinois still performed better than most states. By comparison, the national average for meeting the three-week window is nearly 55 percent.

Still, every day matters to laid-off Illinois workers borrowing from relatives to pay their rent or mortgage bills, selling personal belongings and using food banks to get groceries to their families, according to emails pleading for help that reached the governors cabinet.

There is no standard for seven days, said Richards, the IDES acting director. I agree with you it is important to claimants. Every day is important to claimants.

A Christmas tree on fire

The difficulties Illinois was facing amid the pandemic were reflected in federal labor department score cards required by the federal government, which rank states for the promptness of payments, the effectiveness of audits and eight other agency functions.

States submit reports every three months to indicate adequate performance or something less by labeling each of the 10 categories with either a green or red mark. IDES veterans call this chart the Christmas tree.

While IDES had been slowly improving since 2015 on the core labor department metrics, by March of this year Illinois was the only state failing all three categories labeled integrity measures, which includes detection of overpayments, improper payments, and the recovery of those mistaken payouts.

Asked for the states scorecard data through June, Pritzker administration officials declined to provide the records.

The Christmas tree is a document put together for internal purposes only and is not available for public consumption, IDES spokeswoman Rebecca Cisco told the BGA in an email.

The BGA, however, obtained a copy of that report, which shows erosion as Illinois failed five of 10 performance measures.

Front of the line

Amid the chaos, IDES was so far behind in processing claims that it triaged cases by prioritizing people referred by local politicians, the BGA found.

In a June 5 report to the bipartisan Senate oversight panel, IDES responded to questions about the lack of uniformity in how unemployment claims are submitted.

Claimants continue to call IDES in addition to their elected officials, the report said. Therefore, often, even though we move an elected officials constituent to the front of the line, the constituent has often already been able to get through to the call center.

We will continue to pull our staff out of the call center to call claimants sent to us by an elected official, that report added, but with hundreds of elected officials submitting issues to IDES, we cannot ensure the claimant will receive a response prior to their being able to get through to the call center.

Later that month, more than 50 House Democrats wrote to the agency that each of them was fielding 60 to 90 complaints from constituents on any given day. The lawmakers asked for additional IDES staff to handle their claims. In a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Rich Miller reported on the lawmakers letter.

In a recent email to the BGA, Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh called the IDES practice of responding to claims referred by elected officials an attempt for the Department and its employees to help as many people as possible at a time when there was no structure in place.

The BGA has filed a pending public records request for details on the number of claims referred by each elected official since March.

This is not good

Illinois began the pandemic era in a proud position, first among states to begin paying out the initial $600-per-week Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments on April 6, records show.

That early success quickly became a footnote as IDES was overwhelmed with 519,269 new claims for regular unemployment benefits that month more than 10 previous Aprils combined and federal authorities poured $500 billion in crisis relief into an alphabet soup of new and existing programs for laid-off workers.

Records show how Illinois struggled to implement those federal programs.

It was the 44th state to apply for the $300-per-week Lost Wage Assistance benefit: While most states deployed that program in August, Illinois did not start making payments until September 4, records show.

It was among 23 states that did not offer workers partial benefits when their employers reduced hours instead of laying them off. IDES told the Senate oversight panel in August it decided against offering the benefit because its staff was stretched thin.

Illinois also trailed all but seven states in processing the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA benefit, to independent contractors and gig workers. Illinois did not begin processing PUA payments until May 11, and didnt starting paying until a week later.

Emails between Hynes and then-IDES Acting Director Thomas Chan obtained by the BGA through a public records request detail the pressure inside IDES as Illinois PUA program was rolled out.

Folks I am counting on you to launch the independent contractor unemployment system ASAP and no later than May 11, Pritzker wrote to Chan and Hynes at 7:43 a.m. on May 4. Can you confirm that will happen? JB.

IDES hustled to update its policies and computer code, and minutes before midnight on May 10 Chan emailed Hynes that he and aides did a test run by filing a small sample of claims.

Minor hiccups but no show stoppers, Chan wrote.

Within 10 minutes of Illinois PUA system going live the next morning, on May 11, more than 1,500 people applied for benefits through the state portal, records show. Hynes conducted his own test minutes later.

I called the 800 number. Hit the correct prompts for PUA, Hynes wrote in an email to Chan at 8:01 a.m.

An automated voice told Hynes there was a high volume of calls. Then it hung up on him, Hynes emailed.

Its not even 830, Hynes wrote. This is not good.

Staffing levels hit all-time low'

Illinois struggle to roll out the new federal benefits came amid staffing shortfalls at every level of IDES.

Acting Director Chan was a placeholder pending the governors merger plans. Pritzker had named a replacement for Chan in 2019 then withdrew that appointment days later without explanation. And there were months-long vacancies in the deputy director and audit positions.

On March 14, 2020 as Pritzker was closing Illinois schools and dine-in restaurants and limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people Chan sent Hynes an urgent email that revealed the staffing shortfalls within IDES.

I need permission to fill IDES Chief Operating Officer position as soon as possible, Chan wrote. Please know that Im doing everything in my power to get you what is needed. But I need some help.

The Pritzker administration granted that request, and Chan rode out the harrowing next months at the helm of IDES. Chan declined to comment for this report.

Beyond leadership vacancies, rank-and-file numbers also were dropping.

In 2010, the year after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn took office, the agency headcount stood at almost 2,000. That number declined to around 1,300 when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took over in 2015. When Pritzker assumed office in 2019, there were 1,100, records show.

By April, the IDES staff level had slipped to 1,041, according to state records.

Illinois had been struggling to onboard new employees faster than the rate of attrition, Chan told the states Employment Security Advisory Board.

In other words, heading into this downturn, our baseline staffing numbers, the employees hired to operate our programs and meet minimum federal performance standards, were, despite our best efforts, at an all-time low.

Whats more, experience had been drained from the agency.

In 2014, Chan told the panel, about 86 percent of IDES workforce had more than five years experience with the agency. By June it had dropped to 67 percent. Managers are serving in multiple roles and performing the work of multiple employees, Chan said, according to the boards meeting minutes.

Amid the pandemic, on April 29, IDES contracted with a private accounting firm to bolster the force of 100-plus IDES staffers answering phones. But those new agents often did not have adequate training to answer even the simplest questions, instead transferring claimants to the better-trained IDES employees, records show.

Best practices to borrow

Pritzker wants to add 226 IDES employees next year. Illinois also is planning to issue bonds to borrow more than $5 billion to bail out the IDES Trust Fund, which uses taxes levied from employers to pay out worker benefits claims, records and interviews show.

What were going to do ourselves over the coming months and years is to figure out what weve learned from this experience, Hynes said. And that applies to what technology systems we have and need, what sort of human resources we need to devote to this agency, what type of best practices we should be borrowing from other states.

On hold for now: the governors plan to merge IDES with the state labor department.

It would not be a prudent thing to try to move pieces around and make changes in an agency that is really struggling just to meet its basic operations, Hynes said.

This story was produced by the Better Government Association, a nonprofit news organization based in Chicago.

Continued here:
Better Government Association: Illinois poorly prepared for flood of unemployment claims - Northwest Herald

In September, members of Mid Sussex District Councils Conservative cabinet agreed to shutter to the community venue, weeks after it was removed from the contract with Places Leisure.

The decision has been called in by the Liberal Democrats and will be debated by the councils scrutiny committee for community, customer services and service delivery tomorrow (Tuesday).

When the decision was taken, officers noted how the use of Clair Hall had fallen in recent years, with the cost of maintaining and repairing the building over the next 20 years estimated to be in the range of 1million.

The community venue has not reopened since closing earlier this year due to the lockdown.

Alison Bennett, Liberal Democrat group leader, said: Theres lots of public anger about the way this decision has been rushed through. Clair Hall is a much-loved part of Haywards Heath and theres a feeling that it is just been snatched away under the cover of Covid. Voters have got a right to have their voice heard on this and thats what well make sure happens on Tuesday.

We dont expect the council to get everything right but we think this is a bad decision, reached through a flawed process. This meeting could give the cabinet a chance to reset and come back with a plan that ensures the town doesnt have to wait years for a replacement facility.

Ahead of the meeting, the Lib Dems say that these questions need answers:

What is driving the decision to push the closure of Clair Hall through at breakneck speed without proper regard to the councils own decision-making rules?

2. What does the council want to do with this prime town centre site?

What are the alternative uses envisaged for the site? What alternative locations are being considered for Clair Halls replacement?

3. Why were the public not consulted before the cabinet decided to close Clair Hall?

One of the councils principles of decision making is that proper regard should be paid to internal and external consultation according to the decision in question. Why has this not happened?

4. Is this council still committed to facilitating culture and the arts across Mid Sussex?

When MSDC closed Martlets Hall in Burgess Hill in 2018, one justification was that hall users could be relocated to Clair Hall in Haywards Heath. What does the closure of Clair Hall mean for this councils future community and culture strategies?

5. Is Covid-19 being used to push through the closure of Clair Hall something MSDC have been attempting to achieve since the 2007 Haywards Heath masterplan?

With venues as varied as the Royal Albert Hall and Hurstpierpoint Village Centre both reopening despite social distancing restrictions, why does MSDC say that it is not possible for Clair Hall to do the same?

Redevelopment of the Clair Hall site has been on the cards for over decade. Isnt Covid being used as a convenient excuse?

See more here:
'Rushed through' decision to close Clair Hall to be challenged - Mid Sussex Times

Solve Internet access

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted a number of issues that disproportionately affect low-income families, resulting in various government actions to alleviate the problems. As promising as it is to see action being taken, it's important to recognize that many of these problems existed long before this crisis and most will remain long after the pandemic has ended. One such issue is lack of access to reliable Internet for low-income and rural students.

This is not a problem created by the covid-19 pandemic. Low-income and rural students have been disadvantaged by lack of Internet access for as long as Internet access has been integral to the public-school curriculum. This summer, Governor Hutchinson announced that a portion of the money allocated by the CARES Act would be used for Wi-Fi hotspots to ensure Internet access for students, but what happens after the pandemic ends and the CARES Act funding runs out?

If public schools are going to continue to require Internet access to complete assignments, then the state should find a way to continue providing Internet to low-income and rural students. This pandemic has only made Internet access more embedded into our daily lives, no matter where in the state we live or how much money our families make. Overall, it's important that we recognize that many of the problems highlighted by this year will not end with the pandemic unless we do something to fix them.

MARISSA FENNELL

Bentonville

Please ring the buzzer

Those who claim any pretense to objectivity watched the Trump-Biden debate as though staring into an abyss. The only way that this abyss can get deeper, darker and more depressing is if either one of the two contestants wins the election.

Let's face it; one is a narcissistic idiot and the other seems more than slightly confused. In the abyss we not only find Tweedledee and Tweedledum, we find the American voter who has accepted the stupid game-show format of the debate. "Mr. President, you have two minutes to answer the following question, and Mr. Vice President, you will have one minute to respond. Ring the bell if you need a hint, and each of you can make one phone call. The clock is ticking."

By contrast, when Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas in multiple debates (1858) the format was as follows: Opening speaker had 60 minutes of uninterrupted time, followed by his opponent who had 90 minutes, followed by a 30-minute rebuttal. Does this need more commentary?

Please pass the Prozac.

SCOTT McGEHEE

Little Rock

Thanks for memories

Thanks for the beautiful pictures of the C-47 flyover in last Friday's paper. I was on my way to work Thursday afternoon, and looked up and saw it all. What a thrill. I worked on the C-47s in the early '60s as an airman at the airbase.

Thanks for the memories, and happy 65th anniversary to the airbase.

WAYNE T. JONES

Little Rock

At cross-purposes?

President Trump has said that he would like everyone that gets covid-19 to have the same fetal embryonic cocktails that he has taken to spread up their recovery. With millions of people already sick, how does he plan to provide these if he appoints a Supreme Court justice in hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade?

CHARLES MAYS

Rogers

Democrats' strategy

Jennifer Rubin points out Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy for denying Merrick Garland a hearing in 2016 yet promising to deliver a vote to replace Justice Ginsburg. But after accusing Trump of being "a president bent on burning down the house of democracy to keep power," she opines that Democrats will retaliate once a new president and Senate take office.

Lest I be accused of fear-mongering, let me quote her directly: "Democrats will expand the Supreme Court and change the lifetime tenure of justices," "Democrats will eliminate the legislative filibuster" and "Democrats will admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states." In other words, Democrats will take actions to ensure they "burn down the house of democracy" by ensuring Democrats keep power for the foreseeable future.

While Ms. Rubin states these threats are reactions to confirming Justice Ginsburg's replacement, they are Democrat Party staples: President Roosevelt advocated court-packing during his administration and Democratic presidential candidates advocated court packing in the last year. The Democrat Party has been discussing D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood for months. These actions are intended to permanently skew both the Senate and electoral college in their favor.

Democrats have long indicated that once in power they will fundamentally change America and American institutions to ensure they have a permanent majority. Ms. Rubin advocates voting a straight ticket for Democrats in 2020. Doing so will subjugate the nation to one-party rule: unhindered, unbalanced and unhinged.

JAMES T. BROCKWAY

Maumelle

Republicans by rote

It's election time again and, right on cue, the Democrat-Gazette heads to the rusted-out and moldy filing cabinet over in the corner, opens it up, blows the dust off, and pulls out endorsements for pretty much every Republican in sight. All it seems is changed year after year is the name. This paper can endorse all the continued incompetence and corruption it pleases; that doesn't mean readers have to follow it.

For example, on Saturday there was an endorsement for Tom Cotton. Within seconds, I swiped to the left, meaning I spent about as much time on the endorsement as it was worth of my time. Once on page 7B, I read a good guest column by Lynn Foster, who points out the incompetent federal response to the pandemic, one that Tom Cotton stands behind. We will not get back to normal until there is a nationwide strategy on the virus, and right now we don't have one and governors are just winging it.

Anyone voting Republican this year is approving of the continued decline of our country.

RICHARD MOORE

Little Rock

Damned either way

Kamala Harris demonstrated a lack of political savvy with the proud statement during the debate that Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic. She lost both ways pointing that out; those who despise or are prejudiced against Catholics, and Catholics who would prefer he quit practicing and do it for real.

TOM ZALOUDEK

Little Rock

See more here:
OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Solve Internet access | Please ring the buzzer | Thanks for memories - Arkansas Online

Prime Day is an avalanche of deals, but frankly most of these so-called hot buys arent such great deals at all, or else are discounts on products you shouldnt buy at any price. Weve filtered through thousands of deals to find the sales that really matter, but ultimately, its our readers who determine whats most compelling. These are the things our readers are buying the most this Prime Day.

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Read more:
The 20 Most Popular Prime Day Discounts According to Wirecutter Readers - The New York Times

On Friday, October 2, President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he and First Lady Melania Trump had both tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, he has spent three nights in a hospital and the majority of his time quarantined at the White House. President Trump insists that he is well, that he will win the election, and that the recovery of the nations health and economy is imminent. However, many Americans have doubts about their relative safety with COVID-19 and the prospects for the nations future.

For many, the Presidents diagnosis felt like just another piece of unsettling news in a momentand in the year 2020that has felt like one shock after another. Johns Hopkins Medical Center reports that to date, there have been 214,300 deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States (U.S.) and over 7.7 million confirmed cases. Only 13 states have a rate of transmission below 1.0, meaning that in the remaining 37 states the number of new positive COVID-19 cases is actively climbing. In addition, like advertisements, social media sites, and friends will remind you, the presidential election is less than a month away.

The aftershocks of President Trumps announcement have rippled across the world. Social media and major news outlets are rife with speculation about how sick the President really is. Many are concerned by the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases within The White House and the political elite of the U.S. The diagnosis has also raised questions about how the line of succession works. In other words, who will fulfill the Presidents duties if President Trump is unable to if the worse is to come. Interestingly, voters may be swayed one way or the other by the news that President Trump is sick.

And President Trumps Health?

The most immediate concern centers on the Presidents health. Former presidentsnotably President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he had polio, and President Ronald Reagan, when he was shot in an assassination attempthave hidden their infirmities while in office. Based on this presidential precedent, some people are concerned that the public will be given the most reassuring spin on the situation possible rather than be given the hard facts of President Trumps health.

Presently, what the public does know at this point is that on October 1, President Trump had a slight cough and felt fatigued. The next day he reported a high fever and flew to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment. His doctors told the press that over the weekend his oxygen levels dropped several times, but that he got stabilized once oxygen was administered. Thus, he was able to work from inside the hospital. While at Walter Reed, President Trump was treated with commonly used steroid Dexamethasone, an emergency-approved antiviral called Remdesivir, and the experimental immunity booster Regeneron.

On October 5, President Trump tweeted that he felt better than I did 20 years ago! and returned to the White House. He made a public appearance from his balcony on October 10, and later that night, his doctor reported that he had no risk of transmission but declined to elaborate whether he had actually tested positive for COVID-19 or not.

The most recent news coming out of the White House, as of the evening of October 12, is that President Trump has tested negative for COVID-19 on consecutive days. Whether this means he is well or not contagious has yet to be seen. Notably, there is little public information and discourse about the First Ladys health and condition

COVID-19 infections are known to last weeks, and in some cases, they grow significantly worse after the patient has seemed to be improving. It is highly unlikely that President Trump poses no risk of transmission so soon after having been tested positive for COVID-19 and some significant symptoms. While many are discussing the potential for the President to die of COVID-19, it is much more likely that he will survive the initial illness but have lingering symptoms, and quite possibly, organ damage for the rest of his life.

The White House COVID-19 Hot Spot

In an effort to maintain an image of so-called courage and freedom despite the threat of COVID-19, President Trump and those around him have frequently gone without masks and abandoned social distancing all together. The White Houses strategy has been to rely on expensive and relatively rapid testing to keep them safe from the effects of the virus.

This week, that strategy failed. On September 29, President Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee in a public event at the Rose Garden where a few masks were seen among a group of people. Approximately 30 people who were present at the event have tested positive for COVID-19 leading Dr. Anthony Fauci to call that day a super-spreader event in a recent interview with Steven Portney.

Like dominoes falling, positive tests have been announced almost daily. President Trumps senior counselor Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19 on October 1, and ever since, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior advisor for policy Stephen Miller, and his advisor Chris Christie have all tested positive.

The outbreak is now much larger than President Trumps inner circle. Republican National Convention Chair Ronna McDaniel, Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of South Carolina, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin all developed COVID-19 in the last two weeks. So have Admiral Charles Ray of the Coast Guard and Reverend John I. Jenkins (the President of Notre Dame University). Despite the rapid spread of COVID-19 within and around the Rose Garden, the White House will not coordinate contact tracing or halt in-person tours for potential visitors.

The Presidential Line of Succession

Although it is unlikely that President Trump will die before the election, it is important to understand what would happen in this hypothetical situation. LA Times reporter Sewall Chan took to Twitter in the hours after Trump announced his positive test result to explain the protocol for the death of a candidate to the concerned American people. According to his tweets, If either nominee dies or withdraws before the Nov. 3 election, his party@DNC or @GOPhas to designate the replacement. But whether theres enough time for that nominee to get on the ballot is up to the states. Given that 29 states have already begun mailing ballots to voters, this could be a big legal mess, tied up in state and federal courts. Nevertheless, the vacantSupreme Court seat adds to the nations uncertainty.

There is also the issue of who would retain the powers of the presidency if President Trump were to die before the election, or after the election if he is still in office? The 25th Amendment states that the Vice President becomes the acting president if the President of the U.S. is temporarily incapacitated. The Vice President becomes the President proper if the sitting President dies in office. If the Vice Presidency is vacated for whatever reason, the responsibility falls to members of the Cabinet beginning with the House of Representatives. Presently, Vice President Mike Pence is second in line followed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The Possible Implications for the 2020 Presidential Election

With voters deeply divided into two main camps that follow wildly different news narratives, it is difficult to see how President Trumps positive test could impact the Presidential Election. By now, many have voted or had already firmly decided who they want in office.

One line of thinking suggests that President Trump will use his illness to empathize with those personally affected by COVID-19. If he can beat the virus, he can continue to downplay the threat to public health and use his own experience to anecdotally claim that COVID-19 is not a frightening or a dangerous illnesspropaganda 101. He may gain sympathetic votes from the sudden spike in nationalism that often accompanies a sick leader. In the U.S., even those who opposed President Ronald Reagan rallied around him after the attempt on his life and allowed many of his failings as a politician to get swept under the rug. More recently, the United Kingdoms Prime Minister Boris Johnson saw an increase in nationalism and nonpartisan support when he was hospitalized with COVID-19.

On the other hand, a SurveyUSA poll shows a swing in Joe Bidens favor. Voters may be persuaded to vote for a candidate who they see as more healthy and capable of leading the country. After seeing the rapid spread of the virus through the highest ranks of the Republican Party, some people may finally be convinced that the mitigation of the virus rather than an emphasis on opening the economy is the best route to keeping the U.S. government and society functioning.

Reactions from the Clark Community

In an Instagram poll I created, I asked Clark University students if they were happier or stressed to learn that the President has COVID-19. Six of the seven students who answered said they were more stressed than happy. In a follow-up poll, seven out of nine students said that they believed that this news would help Biden in the presidential election while the remaining two students said that they thought it would help President Trump. Eliza Humphrey (24), expressed that she was stressed and believed that President Trumps illness would help him gain re-election.

, Im worried about him infecting more people and also using it as a way to get sympathy, Humphrey said. People naturally feel kinda bad when others are hurt.She cited the fact that the Biden campaign strategically pulled its advertisements off the air while President Trump was in the hospital as evidence.

Humphrey concluded, Im not one to wish harm upon others, but being sick doesnt mean that Trump shouldnt be held accountableOf course, as should be stated in all such discussions, f*** Trump.

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COVID-19 Strikes the White House The Scarlet - The Scarlet

Time and again we hear that liberalism is the last bulwark against fascism. It represents a defense of the rule of law and democracy in the face of aberrant, malevolent demagogues who are intent on destroying a perfectly good system for their own gain. This apparent opposition has been deeply engrained in contemporary so-called Western liberal democracies through their shared origin myth. As every school child in the U.S. learns, for instance, liberalism defeated fascism in World War II, beating back the Nazi beast in order to establish a new international order that -- for all of its potential faults and misdeedswas built upon key democratic principles that are antithetical to fascism.

This framing of the relationship between liberalism and fascism not only presents them as complete opposites, but it also defines the very essence of the fight against fascism as the struggle for liberalism. In so doing, it forges an ideological false antagonism. For what fascism and liberalism share is their undying devotion to the capitalist world order. Although one prefers the velvet glove of hegemonic and consensual rule, and the other relies more readily on the iron fist of repressive violence, they are both intent on maintaining and developing capitalist social relations, and they have worked together throughout modern history in order to do so.

What this apparent conflict masks -- and this is its true ideological power -- is that the real, fundamental dividing line is not between two different modes of capitalist governance, but between capitalists and anti-capitalists. The long psychological warfare campaign waged under the deceptive banner of totalitarianism has done much to further dissimulate this line of demarcation by disingenuously presenting communism as a form of fascism. AsDomenico Losurdoand others have explained with great historical precision and detail, this is pure ideological pap.

Given the ways in which the current public debate on fascism tends to be framed in relationship to purported liberal resistance, there could scarcely be a timelier task than that of scrupulously re-examining the historical record of actually existing liberalism and fascism. As we shall see even in this brief overview, far from being enemies, they have been -- sometimes subtle, sometimes forthright -- partners in capitalist crime. For the sake of argument and concision, I will here focus primarily on a conjunctural account of the non-controversial cases of Italy and Germany. However, it is worth stating at the outset that the Nazi racial police state and colonial rampage -- which far surpassed Italys capabilities -- weremodeled on the United States.

Liberal Collaboration in the Rise of European Fascism

It is of the utmost importance that Western European fascism emergedwithinparliamentary democracies rather than conquering them from the outside. The fascists rose to power in Italy at a moment of severe political and economic crisis on the heels of WWI, and then later the Great Depression. This was also a time when the world had just witnessed the first successful anti-capitalist revolution in the U.S.S.R. Mussolini, who had cut his teethworking for MI5to break up the Italian peace movement during WWI, was later backed by big industrial capitalists and bankers for his anti-worker, pro-capitalist political orientation. His tactic was to work within the parliamentary system, by mobilizing powerful financial supporters to bankroll his expansive propaganda campaign while his black shirts rode roughshod over picket lines and working-class organizations. In October of 1922, magnates in the Confederation of Industry and major bank leaders provided him with the millions necessary for the March on Rome as a spectacular show of force. However, he did not seize power.

Instead, as Daniel Gurin explained in his masterful studyFascism and Big Business, Mussolini was summoned by the king on October 29and was, according to parliamentary norms, entrusted with forming a cabinet. The capitalist state turned itself over without a fight, but Mussolini was intent on forming an absolute majority in parliament with the help of the liberals. They supported his new electoral law in July 1923 and then made a joint slate with the fascists for the election on April 6, 1924. The fascists, who had only had 35 seats in parliament, gained 286 seats with the help of the liberals.

The Nazis rose to power in much the same way, by working within the parliamentary system and courting the favor of big industrial magnates and bankers. The latter provided the financial support necessary to grow the Nazi party and eventually secure the electoral victory of September 1930. Hitler would later reminisce, in a speech on October 19, 1935, on what it meant to have the material resources necessary to support 1,000 Nazi orators with their own cars, who could hold some 100,000 public meetings in the course of a year.

In the December 1932 election, the Social Democrat leaders, who were far to the left of contemporary liberals but shared their reformist agenda, refused to form an eleventh-hour coalition with the communists against Nazism. As in many other countries past and present, so in Germany,wrote Michael Parenti, the Social Democrats would sooner ally themselves with the reactionary Right than make common cause with the Reds. Prior to the election, the Communist Party candidate Ernst Thaelmann had argued that a vote for the conservative Field Marshal von Hindenburg amounted to a vote for Hitler and for war. Only weeks after Hindenburgs election, he invited Hitler to become chancellor.

Fascism in both cases came to power through bourgeois parliamentary democracy, in which big capital bankrolled the candidates who would do its bidding while also creating a populist spectacle -- a false revolution -- that marshaled or suggested mass appeal. Its conquest of power took place within this legal and constitutional framework, which secured its apparent legitimacy on the home front, as well as within the international community of bourgeois democracies.

Leon Trotsky understood this perfectly anddiagnosed what was going on at the timewith remarkable insight:

The results are at hand: bourgeois democracy transforms itself legally, pacifically, into a fascist dictatorship. The secret is simple enough: bourgeois democracy and fascist dictatorship are the instruments of one and the same class, the exploiters. It is absolutely impossible to prevent the replacement of one instrument by the other by appealing to the Constitution, the Supreme Court at Leipzig, new elections, etc. What is necessary is to mobilize the revolutionary forces of the proletariat. Constitutional fetishism brings the best aid to fascism.

Once its power was secure, however, fascism revealed its authoritarian face, transforming itself into what Trotsky referred to as a military-bureaucratic dictatorship of the Bonapartist type. It unflinchingly set aboutat a rather different pace in Italy than in Germanycompleting the task it had been hired to accomplish by crushing organized labor, eradicating opposition parties, destroying independent publications, putting a halt to elections, scapegoating and eliminating racialized underclasses, privatizing public assets, launching projects of colonial expansion and investing heavily in a war economy beneficial to its industrial supporters. In establishing the direct dictatorship of big capital, it even destroyed some of the more plebeian and populist elements in its own ranks, while crushing many confused liberals under the juggernaut of repressive class warfare.

It was not only within Italy and Germany that bourgeois democracy allowed for the rise of fascism. This was also true internationally. Capitalist states refused to form an antifascist coalition with the U.S.S.R., a country that fourteen of them had invaded and occupied from 1918 to 1920 in a failed attempt to destroy the worlds first workers republic. During the Spanish Civil War, which historians like Eric Hobsbawm have characterized as a miniature version of the great mid-century war between fascism and communism, Western liberal democracies did not officially support the left-leaning government that had been elected. Instead, they stood idly by while the Axis powers provided massive support to General Francisco Franco as he oversaw a military coup dtat.

It is highly revealing that Franco, aself-declared fascistwho is often sidelined in discussions of European fascism,understood with remarkable claritywhy the epiphenomenal characteristics of fascism would differ considerably based on the precise conjuncture: Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary. It was the U.S.S.R. that came to the aid of the Republicans battling fascism in Spain, sending both soldiers and materials. Franco would later return the favor, so to speak, by deploying a volunteer military force to fight godless communism alongside the Nazis. Franco would also, of course, become one of the great postwar allies of the United States in its fight against the Red Menace.

In 1934, the United Kingdom, France and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, in which they agreed to allow Hitler to invade and colonize the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. The sheer reluctance of Western governments to enter into effective negotiations with the Red state,wrote Eric Hobsbawm, even in 1938-39 when the urgency of an anti-Hitler alliance was no longer denied by anyone, is only too patent. Indeed, it was the fear of being left to confront Hitler alone which eventually drove Stalin, since 1934 the unswerving champion of an alliance with the West against him, into the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, by which he hoped to keep the U.S.S.R. out of the war. This non-aggression pact was then disingenuously presented in the Western media as an undeniable indication that the Nazis and communists were somehow allies.

International Capitalism and Fascism

It was not only large industrialists and bankers, as well as landowners, within Italy and Germany that supported and profited from the fascist rise to power. This was equally true of many of the major corporations and banks whose headquarters were in Western bourgeois democracies. Henry Ford was perhaps the most notorious example since in 1938 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, which was the highest honor that could be bestowed upon any non-German (Mussolini had received one earlier the same year). Ford had not only funneled ample funding into the Nazi Party, he had provided it with much of its anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik ideology. Fords conviction that Communism was a completely Jewish creation, toquote James and Suzanne Pool, was shared by Hitler, and some have suggested that the latter was so close ideologically to Ford that certain passages fromMein Kampfwere directly copied from Fords anti-Semitic publication,The International Jew.

Ford was only one of the American companies invested in Germany, and many other U.S. banks, firms and investors profited handsomely from Aryanizations (the expulsion of Jews from business life and the forced transfer of their property into Aryan hands), as well as from the German rearmament program. According to Christopher Simpsonsmasterful study, a half-dozen key U.S. companies -- International Harvester, Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and du Pont -- had become deeply involved in German weapons production.

In fact, American investment in Germany sharply increased after Hitler came to power. Commerce Department reports show,writes Simpson, that U.S. investment in Germany increased some 48.5 percent between 1929 and 1940, while declining sharply everywhere else in continental Europe. The German subsidiaries of U.S. companies like Ford and General Motors, as well as several oil companies, made wide use of forced labor in concentration camps. Buchenwald, for instance, provided concentration camp labor for GMs enormous Russelsheim plant, as well as for the Ford truck plant located in Cologne, and Fords German managers made extensive use of Russian POWs for war production work (a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions).

John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who would later respectively become the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, ran Sullivan & Cromwell, which some consider to have been the largest Wall Street law firm at the time. They played a very important role in overseeing, advising and managing global investment in Germany, which had become one of the most important international marketsparticularly for American investorsduring the second half of the 1920s. Sullivan & Cromwell worked with nearly all of the major U.S. banks, and they oversaw investments in Germany in excess of a billion dollars. They also worked with dozens of companies and governments all over the world, but John Foster Dulles,according to Simpson, clearly emphasized projects for Germany, for the military junta in Poland, and for Mussolinis fascist state in Italy. In the postwar era, Allen Dulles worked tirelessly to protect his business partners, and he was remarkably successful in securing their assets and helping them avoid prosecution.

Whereas most liberal accounts of fascism focus on its political theater and epiphenomenal eccentricities, thereby avoiding a systemic and radical analysis, it is essential to recognize that if liberalism allowed for the growth of European fascism, it is capitalism that drove this growth.

Who Defeated Fascism?

It is not surprising that the bourgeois democracies of the West were extremely slow to open the Western front, allowing their erstwhile enemy, the U.S.S.R., to be bled by the pro-capitalist Nazi war machine (whichreceived ample funding from White Russians). In fact, the day after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union,Harry Truman flatly declared: If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I dont want to see Hitler victorious in any circumstances. After the U.S. entered the war, powerful officials like Allen Dulles worked behind the scenes to try and broker a peace deal with Germany that would allow the Nazis to focus all of their attention on eradicating the U.S.S.R.

The widespread idea, at least within the U.S., that fascism was ultimately defeated by liberalism in WWII, due primarily to the U.S. intervention in the war, is a baseless canard. AsPeter Kuznick, Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton reminded listeners in a recent discussion, 80% of the Nazis who died in the war were killed on the Eastern Front with the U.S.S.R., where Germany had deployed 200 divisions (versus only 10 in the West). 27 million Soviets gave their lives fighting fascism, whereas 400,000 American soldiers died in the war (which amounts to approximately 1.5% of the Soviet death toll). It was, above all, the Red Army that defeated fascism in WWII, and it is communismnot liberalismthat constitutes the last bulwark against fascism. The historical lesson should be clear: one cannot be truly antifascist without being anti-capitalist.

The Ideology of False Antagonisms

The ideological construction of false antagonisms, in the case of liberalism and fascism, serves multiple purposes:

+ It establishes the primary front of struggle as one between rival positionswithinthe capitalist camp.

+ It channels peoples energy into fighting over the best methods for managing capitalist rule rather than abolishing it.

+ It eradicates the true lines of demarcation of global class struggle.

+ It attempts to simply take the communist option off the table (by removing it entirely from the field of struggle, or disingenuously presenting it as a form of totalitarianism).

Not unlike sporting events, which are very important ideological rituals in the contemporary world, the logic of false antagonisms amps up and overinflates all of the idiosyncratic differences and personal rivalries between two opposing teams to such an extent that the frenzied fans come to forget that they are ultimately playing the same game.

In the reactionary political culture of the U.S., which has attempted to redefine the Left as liberal, it is of the utmost importance to recognize that the primary opposition that has structured, and continues to organize, the modern world is the one between capitalism -- which is imposed and maintained through liberal ideology and institutions, as well as fascist repression, depending on the time, place and population in question -- and socialism. By replacing this opposition by the one between liberalism and fascism, the ideology of false antagonisms aims at making the fight of the century into a capitalist spectacle rather than a communist revolution.

(Gabriel Rockhillis a Franco-American philosopher, cultural critic and activist. He the founding Director of theCritical Theory Workshopand Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. In addition to scholarly work, he has been actively engaged in extra-academic activities in the art and activist worlds, as well as a regular contributor to public intellectual debate.Follow on twitter:@GabrielRockhill). This piece was posted on CounterPumch.org.)

[[[ https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/ ]]] Art by Nick Roney. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime - City Watch

Joe Biden started spouting nonsense about his background again this week. Trying to sound all man of the people, he told a rally in Ohio that he would be the first president in 80 or 90 years who did not attend one of those fancy Ivy League schools. Well no, Joe Reagan didnt go to an Ivy, nor did Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Eisenhower, Truman or Hoover. Joe also likes to claim that he is the first in his family to go to college. Its a line he famously pilfered in 1987 from a Neil Kinnock speech. It also happens to be untrue.

Three decades ago, people cared when Biden lied. Now nobody cares. Its hard to oppose, let alone revile, a man who no longer seems to have any idea of what he is saying. Biden lost contact with reality years ago; maybe we did too. On Monday, he forgot the name of Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 the senator who was a Mormon, the governor, OK? Later he declared, for the second time this year, that he was a proud Democrat running for the Senate. Pssst, Joe, its the presidency youre after the Senate was in 1973. Biden makes similar or worse gaffes almost every day on the campaign trail. Never mind hes still going to be the 46th President of the United States, unless those polls are wildly wrong again.

Americans will vote for Biden, were told, because they crave a return to normalcy after four mad years under President Donald J. Trump. But whats normal or sane about giving a somewhat demented 77-year-old the most powerful job on the planet? Leading the free world shouldnt be a retirement activity, yet nobody who has been paying attention can expect Biden to serve even one full term. Its more likely that he will end up delegating his more arduous tasks to his vice president Kamala Harris. Republican talking heads like to make out that the Kamala and the radical left will depose their frail leader as soon as possible. In July, former New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg wrote that within a few months of assuming the presidency, Biden will find himself being the next statue toppled as the socialist/progressive movement moves closer to power. The woke devils, Gregg suggested, would oust Biden by triggering the 25th Amendment, through which an incapacitated president can be removed. It will be a coup, he said.

That may be hysterical. Yet its easy to imagine Harris gradually taking over a Biden White House, as the ailing Commander-in-Chief plods about the East Wing in his slippers telling anyone wholl listen that he used to be Barack Obamas vice president back in the day. Almost nobody expects Biden, who will be 82 by inauguration day in 2025, to attempt a second term. Whats striking is quite how many Americans seem to be happy to elect such a figure so long as it means four fewer years of Donald Trump.

But Biden isnt just winning this election because people despise Trump. Hes winning because he isnt all that left-wing and hes more likable than Hillary Clinton. Lots of Americans were willing to believe that Mrs Clinton had a secret plan to turn their great country into a socialist hellhole. They just dont think Biden will do that at least not on purpose. Again, his age helps here: when he intones radical pieties about transforming America or dismantling white privilege, he sounds like a priest talking about grime music. People think he cant really mean it.

Bidens moderate instincts finely honed over four decades in Washington usually prevent him from sounding too dangerously progressive. He took too long to condemn the violent riots that began as Black Lives Matter protests, but he didnt go along with the electorally suicidal Defund the Police slogan that many in his party took as gospel over the summer. He sounds very open-minded about transgendered people, but hes skeptical about cannabis legalization. Hes a centrist granddad. Biden plans to spend an additional seven trillion dollars to address the COVID crisis. At the same time, he promises he wont raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. Nobody quite believes his sums add up, and polls suggest Americans believe Trump would handle the economy better. Still, more than 50 percent of Americans now seem to want Biden in charge.

The idea that, under Biden, America might revert to normalcy such an odd word is not based on any faith in his leadership. Its more an assumption that, in terms of governance, Bidens America would default to its pre-Trump settings and everything might calm down. It will be back to business as usual for better and worse, is how one experienced Democratic operative put it to me this week.

Biden 2020 is in many ways the Obama restoration project. Obama-era figures are likely to dominate his future cabinet: Susan Rice, the former ambassador to the United Nations, is tipped to be his secretary of state. That aristocratic dinosaur John Kerry, who served as Obamas secretary of state, is expected to be given some big advisory role. Michle Flournoy, formerly the under secretary of defense, could be promoted to secretary of defense.

As soon as Trump became Commander-in-Chief, he gleefully set about undoing Barack Obamas proudest international achievements. Team Obama must now be salivating at the prospect of their imminent revenge. Expect the Iran Deal, which Trump tore up, to be stitched back together. A Biden-Harris administration would also, amid much fanfare, reenter the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and shove America back into the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trumps more disruptive America First policies will be taken out back and strangled.

It wont just be cocktail hour at Davos, though. Unlike most machine Democrats, Team Biden has been shrewd enough to accept some of Trumps political victories and to understand that a winning presidential candidate must speak to families in rust-belt states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Thats why Bidens Build Back Better manifesto a slogan pinched from Boris Johnson includes a buy American pledge to expand federal commitments to procure goods made only in the USA. Its also why Biden has conceded that Trumps United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement is better than Bill Clintons North American Free Trade Agreement, which he supported in 1993. Trumps replacement deal includes more provisions to protect American workers and unions. Maybe old Joe isnt as dotty as he looks.

Beijing Biden as Trumpists call him will probably take a softer approach towards China than Trump, who incurred the wrath of Wall Street by demanding a more reciprocal trading relationship between America and the worlds number two superpower. After the pandemic, however, mistrust of China has spread far and wide. Future US administrations will have to stand up to Beijing far more than vice president Biden did in the first half of the 2010s. There will be no going back to the global order before Trump.

***Get a print and digital subscription toThe Spectator.Try a month free, then just $7.99 a month***

On the domestic front, if the Democrats keep the House (likely) and win the Senate (possible) on November 3, Biden could indeed be pulled hard left by the activist wing of his party. But that seems unlikely. The Democratic establishment still has enough clout and financial backing to keep the insurgents at bay.

Without the binding force of shared Trump hatred, however, a Biden-Harris administration might very quickly start to resemble the tail end of the Obama-Biden years. This week @realDonaldTrump summed up the election nicely on Twitter, as he often does. Remember, he tweeted, I wouldnt be president now had Obama and Biden properly done their job. The fact is, they were TERRIBLE!!! The trouble for the President, it seems, is that most Americans do remember. Still, they want Trump gone.

Presidential elections arent meant to be referendums on the man in the White House. The successful challenger ought to have his or her own vision for America. The last three one-term presidents were replaced by politicians with bold agendas; Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt; Carter to Reagan; and George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton. Biden offers little beyond a geriatric rerun of the Obama administration with memory lapses instead of pretty speeches. You dont need an Ivy League degree to see thats a recipe for failure.

This article was originally published inThe Spectators UK magazine.Subscribe to the US edition here.

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If Biden wins, who will govern? - The Spectator USA

Plumbers have warned people not to use washing up liquid to clean a toilet after a cleaning hack went viral.

We've put togetherwhat you need to know about the cleaning hack - and why you shouldn't do it.

What was the hack?

Originally posted to Facebook group, Mums Who Clean, one woman explained how shed been using washing up liquid to keep her toilet clean.

She wrote, [Put] Dishwashing liquid in the toilet tank compartment and every flush is fresh, clean smelling bubbles and the toilet always looks clean.

The writer explained:I do a big squeeze about three days a week and the toilet is used all the time.

She also said how she had been doing it for years with no problems.

Why you shouldnt put dish soap in your toilet

It appears, however, that not everyone is on board with this DIY toilet hack - with other users warning against the trick.

It ruins your system, so dont do it, wrote one person, and another added, Please dont do this - the rubber/seals in your toilet cistern can break down when anything else but water is used in there.

Peter Daly, CEO of Master Plumbers, said that you should be wary of using products that arent designed to go into a toilet system.

Talking to News.com.au, Daly said:Master Plumbers advises that its safest to use cleaning products specifically designed for flush toilets. People living in outside built-up areas who are using septic tanks (rather than sewers) should ensure the product used is compatible with septic systems.

Daly also added that people should think about the environment when selecting cleaning products.

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Plumbers reveal why people shouldn't use this popular cleaning 'hack' - Gazette

Tribune News ServicePatiala, October 12

A sanitation worker died from inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning sewer lines in Rajpura town, officials said on Monday.

Officials identified the victim as Sanjeev Kumar, and said another worker, Vicky Kumar, has been admitted to a hospital.

They were cleaning sewers at Talhi Wala Chowk.

Rajupra Executive Officer Ravneet Singh said that the man was employed at the municipal council but that the civic body did not carry out sewer works (sic), which he said came under the sewerage board.

He could have been working privately but it is yet unclear. Our inspectors have been directed to find out how the man went into the sewer line, he said.

Manual scavenging continues to pose a massive challenge to the country despite a 2013 legislation called the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act (Manual Scavengers Act) banning it. The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said in its reply to a question in Parliament earlier this year that 282 people had died of asphyxiation in septic tanks and sewers across the country between 2016 and November 2019.

Critics have pointed out that the deaths are grossly underreported and could be much higher.

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Sanitation worker dies of inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning sewer lines in Patiala - The Tribune

Phosphorus pollution from farming runoff and septic and sewer systems is steadily declining in the St. Croix River, but the nutrients continue to threaten what has long been one of the cleanest waterways in the Upper Midwest.

Overall, the river is in relatively good condition, according to a study released this week by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Bug and fish populations are thriving. Endangered freshwater mussels one of the strongest indicators of a healthy ecosystem that have been wiped out of more polluted rivers across the state are still surviving in the St. Croix. And, most importantly, nearly all of the historical wetlands and much of the forest protecting and enhancing the northern headwaters of the river are still intact.

But long reaches of the river, which runs along the Minnesota and Wisconsin border, still have too much nutrient pollution from runoff and urban development to meet health and environmental standards. Mercury levels, most likely carried in from air pollution, remain high in fish. Over the past few years the MPCA has also found evidence that PFAS, harmful forever chemicals that dont naturally degrade, have made it into every part of the river.

Phosphorus pollution, which causes toxic algae blooms that can kill off fish and make certain pools and lakes of the river unsafe to swim, gets worse as the river gets closer to the Twin Cities, according to the study.

While nutrient concentrations are still too high, they are lower than they were before the Clean Water Act was passed in the 1970s, said Pam Anderson, who manages the MPCAs surface water monitoring program.

Were seeing an improving trend, Anderson said. Wastewater treatment practices have improved, and theres been work to get better soil retention in agricultural areas to reduce runoff.

The St. Croix was added to the list of the states impaired waters more than a decade ago, largely because of excess nutrients. Still, it remains one of the cleanest and most resilient major water bodies in the region. It is being used as a refuge and incubator for young river mussels to grow and mature before they are reintroduced in other parts of the state.

Remarkably, more than 90% of the wetlands that were near the rivers headwaters before European settlement are still there, according to the MPCA.

Those wetlands act like a sponge, soaking up all the excess water from the heavy rains that have caused the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers to swell and flood in recent years, Anderson said.

The St. Croix is just not seeing those same big blowouts, she said.

The river was also one of the first in the U.S. to be designated as a National Wild and Scenic River, which allows the National Park Service to keep a quarter-mile-wide natural buffer along much of the rivers edge.

The rivers condition remains precarious, especially as more homes, businesses and farms are built within its watershed, said Deb Ryun, executive director of the St. Croix River Association. The association released a State of the River study at the same time the MPCA released its findings.

Were cautiously optimistic that well be able to keep this resource the way it has been for the last 150 years, Ryun said. We have to be diligent. It can tip really quickly.

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St. Croix River water quality improving, phosphorus pollution remains a threat - Minneapolis Star Tribune