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This evening's music features Chicago blues and soul singer Lee "Shot" Williams. Enjoy!

So to clarify, the liberal position is that Biden owes us nothing but we absolutely must vote for him anyway because Trump is the second coming of Hitler, and he will dissolve democracy if he wins, and we hope he is doing well and lives a long and happy life?

— Existential Comics (@existentialcoms) October 2, 2020

News and Opinion

Why Are Democrats Praying for the Speedy Recovery of a “Fascist Dictator”?

The typical reaction to the death of a tyrant — whether by revolutionary violence or natural causes — is not one of grief and sadness but joyous celebration. It is not hard to understand why: when a nation and its oppressed citizenry are finally liberated from the suffocating, savage grip of fascist dictatorship, they feel joy for themselves, their families and the future of their nation. That is the same reason people have always hoped for, or work toward, the death of despots: they want to rid themselves of those who impose tyranny on them.

When Romanians learned in 1989 of the summary execution of their despised dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, “residents t[ook] to the streets to celebrate the downfall of the dictator.” In 2006, “many Chileans celebrated the death of dictator Augusto Pinochet,” as “a cacophony of horns sounded as hundreds of thousands took to streets and plazas across the country when it was announced the man who ruled ruthlessly for 17 years had died at age 91, a week after suffering a heart attack.” “Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is dead, so celebrate we will,” read a 2016 South Florida Sun-Sentinel op-ed by a Cuban-American who appeared to genuinely believe that Castro was a vicious dictator, and thus expressed the natural, normal reaction of someone who believes a country has been freed from the grip of a despot. So typical is this reaction to the death of a leader perceived as a dictator that history is replete with countless similar examples over many decades and across the world.

Yet in the U.S., a radically different dynamic is playing out. Over the past several years, but particularly in the months heading into the 2020 election, it has become extremely common for prominent Democrats and their media allies to refer to President Trump as a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant hellbent on destroying U.S. democracy, a genocidal racist, and even a Nazi. And yet, the overwhelming reaction in those mainstream precincts to the news that the fascist dictator has contracted a potentially lethal virus is to hope and pray that he makes a speedy recovery whereby he can resume his democracy-destroying, genocidal, tyrannical, fascist rule. ...

How is this messaging — we hope the racist fascist genocidal Nazi-like dictator gets well soon and returns to work? — not creating extreme cognitive dissonance among those who believed that they actually were sincere in their maximalist denunciations and invocations of fascism and Nazism regarding Trump? Shouldn’t liberals not just be confused but overtly disgusted at their leaders who want Trump to survive and return in full health to imposing fascism and genocide on Americans? ...

There are a few potential explanations that may account for this extremely unusual and confounding behavior of praying for, rather than against, the well-being of a fascist dictator. Perhaps Democratic leaders are simply pretending to be hoping for Trump’s well-being for political purposes while secretly hoping that he suffers and dies. Or perhaps national Democratic politicians have ascended to a state of spiritual elevation rarely seen in modern political history, in which they are capable of praying for even those they most dislike, including ones they believe are imposing fascism on their nation? Or perhaps, maybe more likely, Democratic leaders do not really believe the things they have spent four years saying about Trump and, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney before him, are applying such labels of historic evil to him for political advantage but still see him as one of them, whom they intend to rehabilitate and honor once he is out of power.

Close Trump aide Hope Hicks has tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday. Here is a list of who has recently traveled with Hicks.https://t.co/qvklvEoVVn pic.twitter.com/UufUZnqKbn

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 2, 2020

Hope is contagious

— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) October 2, 2020

White House Press Secretary McEnany tests positive for Covid-19

Duh.

House Probe Into Trump's Failed Covid-19 Response Shows "Unprecedented, Coordinated" Political Interference

A new analysis out Friday reveals that throughout President Donald Trump's failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout that has resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans and left millions unemployed without public support, his administration has "engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference—repeatedly overruling and sidelining top scientists and undermining Americans' health to advance the president's partisan agenda."

The report (pdf) released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis documents 47 separate instances in which White House officials have "attacked and undermined health experts" in the past eight months.

The report "does not capture each instance in which Trump or his appointees downplayed the danger of the virus to the public, made false and misleading statements about the science, and misstated key facts about the administration's response," but rather focuses on "instances where the administration actively interfered in the nation's public health response through executive action or public or private pressure."

Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, White House officials, and political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other agencies have interfered dozens of times both publicly and behind closed doors during the pandemic, the report states.

"These incidents have degraded every major facet of the administration's public health response," the report notes, "including efforts to provide Americans access to testing and personal protective equipment, develop treatments and vaccines, and provide scientifically sound advice to the public on masks, social distancing, and other steps to stay safe."

As Covid-Positive GOP Politicians Enjoy Healthcare They 'Would Deny Others,' Coronavirus Pandemic Again Makes Case for Medicare for All

The case for Medicare for All was once again made by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, Sen. Ed Markey tweeted on Sunday, after Republican politicians including President Donald Trump were able to check themselves into hospitals shortly after announcing they had tested positive for Covid-19.

Markey noted that throughout the coronavirus pandemic, in which more than 7.4 million caseshave been detected and more than 209,000 people in the U.S. have died, people have attempted to get care at hospitals after testing positive and showing worsening symptoms,only to be turned away and "told only to come back when they could not breathe."

"Now politicians are checking into hospitals as a 'precaution.' Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege," Markey wrote. "We need Medicare for All."

The senator's statement came a day after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a member of the president's debate prep team this past week, announced he was checking himself into Morristown Medical Center after testing positive on Saturday. 

"While I am feeling good and only have mild symptoms, due to my history of asthma we decided this is an important precautionary measure," Christie tweeted.

Christie's announcement angered social media users whose own family members had been denied admission at hospitals even as their symptoms grew more severe earlier this year, as medical centers faced severe shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE)—and as the Trump administration seized shipments of the supplies and claimed the federal government was not responsible for ensuring healthcare workers were equipped to combat the pandemic.

Truly cannot put into words the rage I feel when I hear Chris Christie has checked himself into hospital “out of an abundance of caution.” How many have died because they are told not to use hospitals’ scarce resources until they are literally at death’s door?

— (@resisterhood) October 3, 2020

My mom was sick for 6 weeks, could barely get up and feed herself, and never even close to being admitted. These privileged fucks.

— Christina Lauren (@ChristinaLauren) October 4, 2020

"Mystifying that people think this kind of class system in healthcare is worth fighting to preserve," tweeted journalist Steve Lubetkin.

He hosted a super-spreader event to honor a justice who would have the government control your body but refuse the duty to care for it, and when the virus he helped go around came around, he availed of the healthcare he would deny others, financed by the taxes he refuses to pay. pic.twitter.com/Oi0rwMG2Xo

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) October 4, 2020

After Recklessness, Coronavirus Outbreak at the White House; Will Admin Cover Up or Contract Trace?

Matt Bruenig: The TRUTH About Wealth, Class, And Race In America

The Chamber Of Commerce Dems From The Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party Just Undercut Pelosi’s Pandemic Negotiations With Mnuchin

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Pelosi anticipates striking a pandemic relief deal with Mnuchin, who the Republicans have tasked with keeping the package as small and mean as possible. Erica Werner and Jeff Stein asserted that Pelosi thinks that now that Trump is dying sick, it will be easier to get a bipartisan deal. The vote in the House on Thursday for the $2.2 trillion package was supposed to strengthen her hand in the negotiations. Instead, as we explained earlier a pack of mangy Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, screwed it up by voting with the Republicans against the package, giving Mnuchin a bit of an edge in cutting down the amount of money that goes to state and local governments and to working families directly. ...

Although Pelosi was cross as the garbage Democraps, her own House Majority PAC and the DCCC have already started spending immense amounts of money to save their worthless hides. Neither the DCCC or Pelosi’s PAC spends much on progressives, making sure to keep the number of progressives down to a bare minimum, but they spend millions and millions of dollars protecting weak Blue Dogs and New Dems who don’t generate much enthusiasm from woke Democrats. Most of them will win in the November anti-Trump tsunami and will go on to be defeated in 2022 after two years of nothing consequential coming out of the Biden White House or the Schumer Senate.

Krystal and Saagar: Trump Calls For Stimulus From Hospital Bed As Talks With Pelosi Falter

Amazon Strike Leader Organizing Protest At Jeff Bezos Home!

Trump-linked consultant tied to Facebook pages warning election will cause civil war

A militia-promoting father and son duo of fake news publishers and a Trump-connected social media consultant are linked to pages which promote the idea of an American civil war with material presented in a way that appears to be an effort to sidestep Facebook’s fact-checking system. Comments on their Facebook pages and other materials obtained by the Guardian show that some rank and file Donald Trump supporters are enthusiastically receiving the message that they should prepare for violence against their perceived political enemies in November.

The network is comprised of websites owned and operated by Dino Porrazzo Sr and Dino Porrazzo Jr, whose company, AFF Media, is headquartered in Pinon Hills in California. The pair have been running rightwing websites since at latest 2013, according to DNS website records. The Porrazzos now run a network of websites that enthusiastically promote Trump, and far right anti-government militias like the Three Percenters, and offer distorted versions of current events. One of their Facebook pages, “Prepare to Take America Back” (PTTAB) at the time of reporting had 794,876 followers. Analysis with social media metrics tool Crowdtangle shows that over the last three months PTTAB posts have been shared over 141,000 times, and on average 9,600 times a week.

At that time, the page’s header featured the logo of the Three Percenters, a decentralized group that the ADL calls a “wing of the militia movement”; a group of armed men in tactical gear; and a modified copy of the US presidential seal. ...

Repeatedly in September, the page linked to a story on the website Right Wing Tribune, headlined “Radical Left Prepares For ‘Mass Public Unrest,’ ‘Political Apocalypse’ And Possible Civil War Should Be Expected If Biden Loses [Opinion]”, with Facebook captions including “the left wants war”.

Five Years Later, Soldiers Convicted of Executing Women and Children in Cameroon

The cold-blooded video shows Cameroonian soldiers marching two women and two children down a road. The soldiers make the women kneel on the ground. One of the soldiers gestures to a young girl and says, “Yes. Little girl, come here,” directing her to stand next to her mother. He then pulls the girl’s shirt over her head, blindfolding her. Gunshots follow in fast succession.

The video, which circulated on social media in 2018 and was published in full by The Intercept, led to an investigation and trial that culminated last week with a military court in Cameroon sentencing four soldiers to 10 years in prison and another soldier to two years. “This is one of the very first times we have seen sentences of this kind in a country where it’s extremely rare for soldiers to go on trial for abuses,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, the senior Central Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The footage, of executions that occurred in 2015, was initially dismissed as “fake news” and “an unfortunate attempt to distort actual facts and intoxicate the public” by Cameroon’s communications minister. At the time, the Pentagon told The Intercept that Cameroon was a “vital partner” and continued to fully support its armed forces. Later, a forensic analysis established that the video was authentic and that the Cameroonian military was responsible for the executions.

While Allegrozzi noted that the closed-door nature of the trial undermined its potential impact in setting standards for accountability, she told The Intercept that the convictions did strike at Cameroon’s long-standing culture of military impunity. The sentences stand in sharp contrast to many atrocities committed by U.S. personnel who have regularly evaded meaningful punishments even in the face of overwhelming evidence of their crimes. From the slaughter of around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek, Colorado, in 1864 to the massacre of more than 500 Vietnamese at the village of My Lai in South Vietnam in 1968 to the mass killing of at least 24 civilians, including women and children, in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, near-total impunity has often been the norm. Just last year, President Donald Trump granted clemency to three members of the armed forces who had been accused or convicted of committing war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Julian Assange's Extradition Trial and the War on Journalism

With Focus on Assange, Belmarsh Tribunal Puts 'US War Crimes on Trial'

A prominent group of international left-wing activists on Friday put the United States "on trial for its war crimes in the 21st century."

The Belmarsh Tribunal—named after the notorious British prison where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is imprisoned as he faces possible extradition to the U.S.—was convened remotely Friday morning by Progressive International (PI). The activists "put the United States government on trial" for crimes ranging "from atrocities in Iraq to torture at Guantánamo Bay to the CIA's illegal surveillance program—and draw attention to the extradition case of Julian Assange for revealing them."

2/ The event takes its inspiration from the Russell-Sartre Tribunal of 1966, when representatives of 18 countries gathered to hold the United States accountable for their war crimes in Vietnam, in the absence of an international authority that dared to do so. pic.twitter.com/2oBfUsiayR

— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) September 29, 2020

The tribunal is composed of "a planetary cast of activists, artists, thinkers, and political representatives" including former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, musicians M.I.A. and Roger Waters, philosopher Slavoj Zizek, actress and activist Pamela Anderson, and many others. ...

The tribunal will have plenty to consider. According to the 2014 U.S. Senate report on CIA torture of detainees in the so-called War on Terror, prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and at "black site" secret prisons around the world were subjected to horrific and even deadly torture and abuse with techiques approved by the George W. Bush administration.

U.S. military and intelligence personnel also subjected detainees—many of them innocent men, women, and children—to additional abuses, including homicide, rape, and the imprisonment and abuse of female relatives as bargaining chips at prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere. 

Under the administrations of the second Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump—who promised to "bomb the shit out of" Islamist militants and "take out their families"—U.S. bombs and bullets have killed at least hundreds of thousands of (and perhaps over a million) people in at least seven countries in an illegal, never-ending war now in its 20th year.

Throughout the 21st century, the U.S. has also supported some of the world's most brutal dictatorships, has conducted illegal global mass surveillance, and has bankrolled Israeli policies and actions in Palestine that prominent international critics have called ethnic cleansing and apartheid. 

"If we do not stand now—with all the evidence in our hands—we stand little chance against a machine of war and surveillance that becomes more sophisticated and more secretive by the day," PI said. "It is time to take action. And it is time to demand justice. Because if they charge against the publisher who revealed their crimes, we must charge against the criminals themselves. Join us."

John Pilger: Julian Assange’s Crimes Are Truth Telling & Making War Criminals Look in The Mirror!

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard & Thomas Massie Introduce Bipartisan Resolution Defending the Free Press & Call For Charges Against Julian Assange To Be Dropped

Today, Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) and Thomas Massie (KY-04) introduced H.Res.1175, a resolution that defends the freedom of the press, noting that newsgathering activities and news organizations ability to acquire and publish information are protected under the First Amendment. The resolution calls for the United States to drop all charges and efforts to extradite Julian Assange.

“Freedom of the press is a vital function of a free democracy in which the government is accountable to the people. Julian Assange published information that exposed lies and abuses of power at the highest levels of our government. His indictment under the Espionage Act sends a chilling message to every member of the media and all Americans,” said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “U.S. government prosecutors now claim that any journalist or news organization that publishes classified material is liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act -- which would have led to the indictment of the Washington Post for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Federal government’s prosecution of Julian Assange sets a dangerous precedent. All extradition efforts and charges under the Espionage Act against Julian Assange must be dropped now.”

“At a time when government officials claim the right to perform warrantless surveillance upon all American citizens, there is an urgent need to zealously guard freedom of the press and to demand government transparency and accountability. The ongoing attempts to prosecute Julian Assange threaten our First Amendment rights, and should be opposed by all who wish to safeguard our constitutional rights now and in the years to come. I join my colleague, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, in calling for an immediate end to all charges against Mr. Assange,” said Rep. Thomas Massie.

US silence on Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict reflects international disengagement

Headlines last week that the presidents of Russia and France were jointly calling for a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh were “heartbreaking” to Carey Cavanaugh, a former US ambassador charged with helping to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Partly it was because they meant the century-old dispute had flared up again, killing more than 400 people so far, including more than a dozen civilians. But it was also because the US – which, along with France and Russia, forms the OSCE Minsk Group, a troika that has worked to end the conflict since 1993 – was missing from the statement.

“The US wasn’t coordinated into that discussion,” said Cavanaugh, the former US representative to the Minsk Group.

He is among observers of the Caucasus who see in this week’s events the latest example of US diplomatic disengagement from theatres around the world, amid wider fears of a hollowing out of the US state department under Donald Trump.

“The Americans have withdrawn from this issue,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow specialising in the Caucasus with Carnegie Europe. “If Trump has heard of Azerbaijan, it’s because it’s a place he wanted to build a Trump tower in.”

Bad apples turn up in Chile.

Chilean police throw boy, 16, off bridge during protests

Less than a month before Chile votes on whether to replace its Pinochet-era constitution, police have brutally repressed demonstrators in the capital, Santiago. On Friday evening officers of the Carabineros police force used plumes of teargas and high-pressure water jets to disperse protesters congregating in Plaza Italia, where pockets of violence flared amid a heavy police presence.

Videos show a 16-year-old boy being bundled over the railings of a bridge by a police officer. The boy fell into the dirty concrete channel of the Mapocho river, where he lay motionless, face down in the shallow water. “As the protesters fled, we saw the moment that the officer intercepted [the boy] and threw him from the bridge,” said Pavel Pavelic Jofre, who led a company of volunteers at the protests. “We managed to get two of our group down to assist him, and after stabilising his condition the fire brigade were able to lift him away from the river to be taken to hospital.”

Addressing the incident in a televised address, General Enrique Monras, a spokesperson for the Carabineros, did not rule out the force’s responsibility for what had happened, but said that in his opinion, the boy “lost his balance and fell” during an arrest. ...

Since October last year Chile has been rocked by a wave of mass protests against rampant inequality and a host of systemic injustices. The ensuing police crackdown has been condemned internationally. Chile’s public prosecutor has said that since last October 8,575 alleged human rights violations have been perpetrated by the Carabineros in the repression of protests, and only 16 police agents have been stood down as a result.

“Black Women’s Lives Matter”: Breonna Taylor’s Family Demands a Special Prosecutor to Reopen Case

Breonna Taylor: grand jury testimony reveals police did not search her home

In grand jury testimony made public on Friday, a law enforcement officer said police in Kentucky did not end up searching Breonna Taylor’s apartment on the day she was shot and killed by police who had arrived with a search warrant. Police were carrying a narcotics warrant for Taylor’s Louisville apartment on 13 March. In a botched raid, they shot her after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them on the assumption that they were intruders.

In a confusing mountain of evidence released on Friday after a court order, one officer said no drugs, money or paraphernalia were found at the home – but also that it was not searched. And the officers were carrying out a so-called “no-knock” warrant, but an officer also told the grand jury that they knocked on Taylor’s door several times and announced their presence. ...

After he opened fire at police and officers fatally shot Taylor, Walker told investigators: “One officer told me I was going to jail for the rest of my life,” according to the interview that was played for the grand jury, as part of the proceedings that were publicly released Friday. He said he wasn’t sure which officer said that to him. Walker went on to say that an officer “asked me: ‘Were you hit by any bullets?’ I said no. He said, ‘That’s unfortunate.’ Exact words.” In the audio recording of the grand jury session, someone in the room is heard saying: “That’s not appropriate.”

[Kentucky’s attorney general, Daniel] Cameron said [to the grand jurors] two officers who fired their guns, hitting Taylor, were justified because Walker had shot at them first. Walker has said he thought someone was breaking in. ...

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it will conduct its own review of the grand jury audio recordings.

Amy Coney Barrett: quick confirmation under threat as three senators infected

Senate Republicans are facing a shrinking window of time before the November 3 election to confirm Donald Trump’s supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, following the news that at least three Republican senators have tested positive for the coronavirus and more are quarantining after likely exposure.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Republican from Kentucky, on Saturday morning said he would seek consent from Democrats to cancel any action on the main floor of the Senate for the next two weeks, until 19 October.

But the Senate judiciary committee, which must vote on the nomination first, will still convene as planned on 12 October to begin the confirmation hearing process for Barrett, he said. While senators have attended recent hearings remotely, Democrats have said there is bipartisan opposition for allowing them to do so for something as high profile as a supreme court nomination that could determine the ideological tilt of the court.

In a letter on Saturday, top Democrats on the committee said that to “proceed at this juncture with a hearing to consider Judge Barrett’s nomination to the supreme court threatens the health and safety of all those who are called upon to do the work of this body”. Many of the senators on the committee are older and have other risk factors for Covid-19.

Utah senator Mike Lee and North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, both of whom sit on the judiciary panel, tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday and will quarantine for 10 days, until the committee meeting.

Joe Biden tested negative for Covid today, his campaign says. “Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected.”

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 4, 2020

Trump 14 points behind Biden a month before election, new poll shows

Donald Trump’s beleaguered campaign team woke up to another setback on Sunday as the president began his second full day in hospital: a new national poll showing their candidate 14 points behind his challenger Joe Biden with less than a month until the election day.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey indicating a 53-39% advantage for the Democratic party’s nominee injected urgency for Trump’s advisers already scrambling to find a strategy for the final weeks of the campaign until 3 November.

It was becoming clear that Vice-President Mike Pence, who has tested negative for coronavirus, and members of Trump’s family, once they emerge from quarantine, will assume leading roles at virtual, then in-person rallies until or unless Trump himself recovers in time to resume campaigning.

Krystal Ball: Get Over 2016, Trump Looks Headed For Major Defeat

'Hard to See That Debate Happening': With President Infected, Officials Say Biden vs. Trump Unlikely on Oct. 15

Regarding the next presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 15, an official on Democratic nominee Joe Biden's campaign told the press Friday that it is "hard to see that debate happening" following President Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis.

NEW, THIS. Biden senior source on next presidential debate (Oct. 15):

- No one had talked about it, but it’s —> “hard to see that debate happening” as it is planned now.

- Pointed out the president is not just COVID positive but is actually sick.

2/

— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) October 2, 2020

CNN reporter Daniel Dale reported shortly after that all events involving the president and his family are being postponed or changed to virtual events, but did not include details about whether the second debate is included in those plans.

Go easy it's his health care plan https://t.co/2Pp8nHCNqp

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 4, 2020

This wins the internet. pic.twitter.com/5W2AmAAriR

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) October 4, 2020

Michael K. Williams on the Trump, the Debate, Policing, Lovecraft Country and More| Useful Idiots

Tens of Millions in PPP Loans Went to Corporate Polluters After Companies Were Fined $52 Million, Analysis Shows

As the American public awaits a new coronavirus aid package and at least one in five small businesses expect to close by the end of 2020 due to economic hardship, government watchdog Accountable.US and the HuffPost revealed Sunday that at least five companies which were previously fined for pollution violations received millions of dollars in loans via the Paycheck Protection Program which was introduced in March.

Fossil fuel companies, a diesel engine parts manufacturer, and a nuclear waste management company were among the corporations which received up to $32 million in loans, after they were forced to collectively pay more than $52 million in penalties, according to the analysis.

"These companies have a clear history of violating public trust and the law by contaminating the environment in pursuit of profits. Our federal government should not be essentially giving back portions of the penalties they've paid, but that's exactly what the Trump administration is doing through the PPP," Chris Saeger, director of strategic initiatives at Accountable.US, told the HuffPost. 

The companies include CountryMark Refining and Logistics, a subsidiary of an oil company based in Indiana, which took a PPP loan of $5 million to $10 million in April, seven years after it paid more than $18 million to correct its violations of the Clean Air Act, including emissions standards regarding the carcinogen benzene.

Utah-based diesel engine parts company Performance Diesel took a loan between $350,000 and $1 million, just a year after it agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle Clean Air Act violations.

"Polluters should receive penalties and regulatory scrutiny, not taxpayer subsidies," tweeted Joe Murphy, an environmental attorney in New York.

The report comes days after Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, and BailoutWatch revealed "how the U.S. government provided a safety net for the flagging fossil fuel industry" through coronavirus relief packages by allowing oil and gas companies to issue nearly $100 billion in bonds through the Federal Reserve's bond purchasing program.

More than 7,000 fossil fuel companies have received a total of $3 billion to $7 billion in PPP loans, while an estimated 167,735 small businesses, including restaurants and independent retailers, have been forced to close since March. Small business owners reported long delays in actually accessing funds after they were approved for PPP loans in the spring while they struggled to keep their businesses open and employees paid.

Biden Could Reduce the Nation’s Production of Oil and Gas, but Probably Not as Much as Many Hope

This year's election might seem to present an existential moment for the nation's oil and gas industry. One candidate says he would phase out fossil fuels to address a climate crisis while the other promises to continue expanding drilling and production. Yet the outcome of the presidential election may have only a limited effect on the nation's oil and gas output, at least in the short term. Analysts and advocates say it is economics, far more than any policies Joe Biden or Donald Trump may enact, that will determine the fate of the fossil fuel industry. And those economics are not looking good.

Global oil prices have yet to fully recover from their crash earlier this year, when governments locked down much of the world in response to the coronavirus, and fears of a second wave have lowered expectations for a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, many critics and even industry insiders say the pandemic is accelerating a global transition away from oil. For the American oil and gas industry, the conditions have spelled disaster, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James. A wave of bankruptcies is claiming dozens of smaller companies, while today's drilling activity is "literally the lowest since the days of Rockefeller and Standard Oil a hundred years ago," he said.

If Biden were to follow through on his promise to spend $2 trillion on a clean energy transition backed by a Democratic Congress pushing bold policies to wean the nation off fossil fuels, advocates say it could begin an orderly shift away from oil and gas production. But those changes could take time, and experts say the transition away from oil is already underway, whether or not the U.S. government supports it. "The fact of the matter is, yes, the energy transition in the United States would benefit from a Democrat in the White House, all else being equal," Molchanov said. "But it is not the end all and be all. And the impact of what a Biden administration could do by itself is really quite small."

Perhaps the most immediate threat that a Biden administration would pose to the industry would come in the form of a promised ban on new permits for drilling on federal land. While that would mark a dramatic break from the Trump administration's efforts to approve as much drilling as possible, Molchanov said that with activity so low, "the practical impact of that would be negligible for all of 2021, and probably 2022." ...

A Biden administration could make drilling more costly by imposing restrictions on drillers to reduce pollution and better protect public health. But experts say the effects of those policies are not likely to be nearly as significant as the bigger, global economic pressures the industry is facing: the coronavirus pandemic and a transition to cleaner sources of energy.

CENSORSHIP From Billionaire-Backed Professional Activists!

Activists try to stop autobahn being built through German forest

Thousands of climate activists gathered in a stretch of woodland north of Frankfurt on Sunday as a planned motorway extension through the Dannenroder forest pits the autobahn against 250-year-old oak trees. About 27 hectares (67 acres) of forest are to supposed to cleared by next February to make way for a new 3km stretch of the A49 dual carriageway. Police in the state of Hesse are preparing for months of stand-offs with protesters, who say the erosion of a healthy mixed forest makes a mockery of the German government’s ambitious climate targets.

“It is a catastrophe that such an old forest still has to make way for the autobahn in 2020,” said Carola Rackete, an activist who rose to prominence in June 2019 as the captain of migrant rescue ship Sea Watch 3, who has joined the protests. The demonstrators are calling on the government to instead invest in expanding rail transport infrastructure.

As forestry workers began to fell the first trees on Thursday to make way for the motorway, police destroyed barricades, treehouses and makeshift platforms built by activists, who have been occupying parts of the forest for the last year.

On Friday, police said they had made 16 arrests in the adjacent Herrenwald where the clearing began, including 10 activists who had to be pulled down from treetops via hoisting platforms. In a video posted on social media, masked activists conceded that “we have sadly failed to stop the clearing, because there were too few of us”.

But protests have since proliferated, with activists temporarily occupying the Hessian state representation’s offices in Berlin on Friday, and about 300 cyclists closing down a section of the south-bound lane of the A49 on Saturday.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Response To Trump Covid Diagnosis Shows His ‘Opposition’ Always Saw Him As Part Of The Club

Trump’s Turn From Immigration to the Enemy Within

The Real Cancel Culture: Pro-Israel Blacklists

All Russiagate Did Was Advance Pre-Existing Agendas Of The Same Spy Agencies Who Started It

Key Assange Prosecution Witness Part of Academic Cluster That Has Received Millions from UK & US Militaries

John Pilger: Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange

Assange Trial Highlights How US Government Is Likely Deceiving British Court To Win Extradition

Pauline Binam Says She Never Gave ICE Doctor Consent to Remove Her Fallopian Tube

In Key Election for Climate, Sen. Steve Daines Deceives Montana on His Public Lands Record

New find reveals grim truth of colonial Belgium’s ‘human zoos’

Krystal and Saagar: Top Aides Accuse Texas Attorney General Of BRIBERY And Corruption

A Little Night Music

Lee Shot Williams - You Gotta Have Soul

Lee "Shot" Willams - I'm Trying

Lee Shot Williams - I Found A Love

Lee Shot Williams - Hello Baby

Lee Shot Williams - When You Move You Lose

Lee Shot Williams - Mark My Words

Lee Shot Williams - Love Now Pay Later

Lee Shot Williams - You're Welcome to the Club

Lee Shot Williams - I Like Your Style

Lee Shot Williams - I'm In Love

Arlean (Arlene) Brown and Lee "Shot" Williams" - Impeach Me Baby