Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers : Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis

A furious denunciation of America’s coronavirus criminals Hundreds of thousands of deaths were caused not by the vicissitudes of nature but by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful people, as revealed here by John Nichols. On March 10, 2020, president Donald Trump told a nation worried about a novel coronavirus, “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” It has since been estimated that had Trump simply taken the same steps as other G7 countries, 40 percent fewer Americans would have died. And it was not just the president. His inner circle, including Mike Pence and Jared Kushner, downplayed the crisis and mishandled the response. Cabinet members such as Betsy DeVos and Mike Pompeo undermined public safety at home and abroad to advance their agendas. Senators Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell, governors Kristi Noem and Andrew Cuomo, judges such as Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Rebecca Bradley all promulgated public policies that led to suffering and death. Meanwhile, profiteer Pfizer (and anti-government propagandists such as Grover Norquist) fed at the public trough, while the billionaire Jeff Bezos added pandemic profits to a grotesquely bloated fortune. John Nichols closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, which took aim at what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the “speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering” that stoked the Depression. There must be accountability. "As someone who lost my own father to this deadly pandemic, I can't tell you how refreshing and necessary John's book is. I hope this book spurs us to at long last hold accountable those who failed--and continue to fail--to protect lives." --US Representative Ilhan Omar "John Nichols has done it again. Many history books will be written about Covid-19, but those interested in learning about the key players responsible for exacerbating the pandemic must start here. This is a brilliant roadmap for ensuring those responsible are held accountable." --US Representative Ro Khanna "Nichols names and shames the politicians and business leaders who let countless Americans perish from Covid-19. With vivid accounts, Nichols shows us exactly why 'we have a duty, to the dead, to the ailing, to the damaged and the endangered' to hold these villains accountable." -- Jennifer Taub, author of __Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay__ "This is such a necessary exercise in truth-telling. In the name of all those who did not have to die, may we resist the lies that lead to unnecessary death." -- William J. Barber, II, President of Repairers of the Breach and Cochair of the Poor People's Campaign "This riveting book tells us what we need to know about the crooks who took advantage of a moment of incredible weakness in our country, and it tells us how we can--and must--hold them accountable." --Zephyr Teachout, author of __Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, And Big Money__ "Sure to alarm as much as it angers and informs ... [Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers] will leave readers with a renewed hunger for justice regarding the pandemic." --__Kirkus__ ("Starred Review") **John Nichols** is the Washington correspondent for __The Nation__ magazine, a contributing writer for the __Progressive__ and __In These Times__, and the associate editor of Madison, Wisconsins __Capital Times__. He is the author of several books, including __The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party__ and __The S Word__. A furious denunciation of America’s coronavirus criminals Hundreds of thousands of deaths were caused not by the vicissitudes of nature but by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful people, as revealed here by John Nichols. On March 10, 2020, president Donald Trump told a nation worried about a novel coronavirus, “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” It has since been estimated that had Trump simply taken the same steps as other G7 countries, 40 percent fewer Americans would have died. And it was not just the president. His inner circle, including Mike Pence and Jared Kushner, downplayed the crisis and mishandled the response. Cabinet members such as Betsy DeVos and Mike Pompeo undermined public safety at home and abroad to advance their agendas. Senators Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell, governors Kristi Noem and Andrew Cuomo, judges such as Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Rebecca Bradley all promulgated public policies that led to suffering and death. Meanwhile, profiteer Pfizer (and anti-government propagandists such as Grover Norquist) fed at the public trough, while the billionaire Jeff Bezos added pandemic profits to a grotesquely bloated fortune. John Nichols closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, which took aim at what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the “speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering” that stoked the Depression. There must be accountability. "As someone who lost my own father to this deadly pandemic, I can't tell you how refreshing and necessary John's book is. I hope this book spurs us to at long last hold accountable those who failed--and continue to fail--to protect lives." --US Representative Ilhan Omar "John Nichols has done it again. Many history books will be written about Covid-19, but those interested in learning about the key players responsible for exacerbating the pandemic must start here. This is a brilliant roadmap for ensuring those responsible are held accountable." --US Representative Ro Khanna "Nichols names and shames the politicians and business leaders who let countless Americans perish from Covid-19. With vivid accounts, Nichols shows us exactly why 'we have a duty, to the dead, to the ailing, to the damaged and the endangered' to hold these villains accountable." -- Jennifer Taub, author of Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay "This is such a necessary exercise in truth-telling. In the name of all those who did not have to die, may we resist the lies that lead to unnecessary death." -- William J. Barber, II, President of Repairers of the Breach and Cochair of the Poor People's Campaign "This riveting book tells us what we need to know about the crooks who took advantage of a moment of incredible weakness in our country, and it tells us how we can--and must--hold them accountable." --Zephyr Teachout, author of Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, And Big Money "Sure to alarm as much as it angers and informs ... [Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers] will leave readers with a renewed hunger for justice regarding the pandemic." -- Kirkus ("Starred Review") John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, a contributing writer for the Progressive and In These Times , and the associate editor of Madison, Wisconsins Capital Times . He is the author of several books, including The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party and The S Word . This short book calls to account the government misrulers and corporate criminals who made suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic more acute. Modeled on a famous 1940 bestseller--a pamphlet exposing appeasers of Nazi Germany--Guilty Men shows how the crisis has been stoked by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful men. The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well . Political charlatans like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined public safety in order to advance their agenda, Trump-controlled agencies, led by the ever-crooked Federal Reserve, bailed out Wall Street while failing to provide basic relief for workers. Libertarian "think tanks" like the Ayn Rand Institute decried public expenditures but were first in line to get bailout checks. Pharmaceutical companies gamed the vaccine race, and the most rapacious global corporations like Facebook, Visa, and Pfizer have found the pandemic to be very profitable indeed, vastly enriching the already grotesquely bloated fortunes of trillionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch. Guilty Men closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, initiated by newly elected Franklin Roosevelt, that took aim at what FDR called "speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering" that stoked the Depression. The commission led to some of the most far-reaching reforms in US history, as well as sensational hearings that led to the fall of the leading bankers and financiers of that era Table of Contents Cover Page Halftitle Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface: Accountability Is a Dish Best Served Fresh, and Hot Acknowledgments Introduction: In the name of Mike Jackson 1. The Killing Presidency of Donald Trump 2. Mike Pence: Yes-Man of the Apocalypse 3. The Grounding of Jared Kushner 4. The Unmasking of Mark Meadows 5. Mike Pompeo’s Cold War against Science and Solidarity 6. How Betsy DeVos Tried to Leverage a Pandemic to Privatize Public Education 7. Elaine Chao Let Them Die 8. Mitch McConnell’s Fatal Bargain 9. How Rand Paul Got Covid-19 Wrong, Wrong and Wrong Again 10. Have Another Shot of Hydroxychloroquine, Ron Johnson 11. The Kristi Noem Nightmare 12. Ron DeSantis’s Imperial Overreach 13. Andrew Cuomo’s Broken Halo 14. The Deadly Delusions of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley 15. That Time Rahm Emanuel Offshored America’s Ability to Fight a Pandemic 16. Pfizer’s Vaccine Profiteering 17. Drowning Grover Norquist’s Anti-Government Delusion in the Bathtub of His Own Hypocrisy 18. The Pandemic Profiteering of Jeffrey Preston Bezos Conclusion: The United States of Impunity A Note on Sources Index During the COVID-19 epidemic, hundreds of thousands of deaths were caused not by the vicissitudes of nature but by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful people. Nichols shows how President Donald Trump, his inner circle and others downplayed the crisis and mishandled the response. Profiteers fed at the public trough and added pandemic profits to grotesquely bloated fortunes. There must be accountability-- and Nichols is not afraid to name names. -- adapted from jacket "In 2020, hundreds of thousands of coronavirus deaths were caused not by the vicissitudes of nature but by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful people, as revealed here by John Nichols"-- Provided by publisher