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"Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

-- Frederick Douglass

News and Opinion

CDC Official Says She Was Told to Delete Email on Kids' Covid-19 Risk to Match Trump's School Reopening Message

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allegedly ordered agency staff to delete an email sent by a political appointee of President Donald Trump seeking to alter a scientific report on corovanirus health risks in children, a CDC official told Congress this week.

The Hill reports Charlotte Kent, the CDC official responsible for the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs), told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in a transcribed interview on Monday that she was instructed to delete an email regarding Covid-19 risk to young people.

CDC official tells Congress she was told to delete email seeking to alter scientific report https://t.co/0wT2fvLsZa pic.twitter.com/2QZbPYc0Qd

— The Hill (@thehill) December 10, 2020

The August 8, 2020 email (pdf) was sent by Paul Alexander, the former science adviser to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo. According to Kent, it concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report on Covid-19 risks to children and teens during the period when President Donald Trump was pushing school districts across the nation to reopen.

"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent said, adding that she found the directive "very unusual." Kent added she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from CDC Director Robert Redfield, although she said she did not speak directly with him about the matter.

When Kent went to delete the email, she found it was already gone; although she said she did not know who deleted it. ...

Kent also told the subcommittee that the CDC postponed the release of a report on a Covid-19 outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia until after Redfield appeared before Congress on July 31 to promote the administration's desired school reopenings.

Alexander, who no longer works at HHS, joined the agency in late March and took a leading role in controlling its coronavirus messaging to reflect Trump's downplaying of the pandemic threats. In September, he tried to prevent Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from publicly speaking about the risk of the virus to children.

Covid Vaccine Could Be Approved Tomorrow

FDA advisory panel recommends approval of Pfizer Covid vaccine for emergency use

An advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration has recommended the emergency approval of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. The recommendation is expected to signal that the first approval of a Covid-19 vaccine for use in the US is imminent. That would mark a major milestone in a pandemic that has killed more than 285,000 Americans and 1.5 million people globally.

If the FDA grants emergency approval, the US would be the third country in the world to have authorized the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the broader public behind the UK and Canada, and it will be the most populous country to do so.

In more data on the vaccine released in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, Pfizer and BioNTech said the vaccine was 95% effective in a randomized controlled trial of more than 43,000 people. An accompanying editorial in the journal described the vaccine’s development as a “triumph” for science. ...

Scientists are still studying how long the vaccine will protect people, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine in children and pregnant women, and the rate of asymptomatic disease in vaccine recipients. In a statement following the vote, Joe Biden called the move “a bright light in a needlessly dark time”.

Lobbyists Mobilize for Priority Access to Coronavirus Vaccine

Industry lobbyists, representing everyone from pesticide manufacturers to factory farms and aquarium and zoo operators, are pushing regulators to allow their workers to jump the line for the coronavirus vaccine. A coronavirus vaccine, one of which could be cleared for use as early as today, is set to be distributed first to those in health care facilities, essential workers, and individuals most vulnerable to the virus. This has set off an influence blitz as various industry groups petition the government for inclusion on the list of professions most crucial to keeping the country running.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, through a panel known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, has established a framework for individuals to receive the first available doses of approved Covid-19 vaccines. The framework is nonbinding but expected to shape state agencies and other institutions that will govern distribution of the vaccines.

The first to receive the vaccine, through a process the ACIP has called Phase 1a, will likely be health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities, who have been hit especially hard by the virus. The second deployment, Phase 1b, will include essential workers. The following group, Phase 1c, includes adults with high-risk medical conditions and senior citizens over the age of 65.

The category of essential work has been the focus of furious lobbying this year as various businesses and professional groups have pressed to be certified as essential in order to stay open. Each state has its own guidelines for who is considered essential, but the CDC provides broad guidance. Many industry groups have asked the CDC to rely on a memo from the Department of Homeland Security on critical infrastructure workers, a document published in August, to determine whether a worker is deemed essential for vaccination — a list that was itself the focus of intense lobbying.

Earlier this year, dozens of industry associations lobbied the Department of Homeland Security to be on the critical infrastructure list, including gun manufacturers, coal mines, stock exchanges, and the Fragrance Creators Association, the trade group for the makers of perfumes, colognes, and scented candles. The DHS memo, notably, includes the production of “fragrances” as essential work.

US records more than 3,000 Covid deaths a day for the first time

The US recorded its highest level of coronavirus deaths in a single day on Wednesday, just two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday period when health experts warned Americans not to travel or gather. ...

According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, 3,124 Covid-19 deaths were recorded in the United States on Wednesday, with an additional 221,276 cases identified. It is the first time the US has recorded more than 3,000 deaths in a single day.

The US healthcare system is under considerable pressure: hospitalisations from Covid were also at a record on Wednesday, at 106,000.

Some states including California, Texas and Rhode Island have been setting up field hospitals in order to cope with the potential overflow patients as intensive care units (ICU) across the country fill up. The demand is being felt nationwide: in El Paso last week just 13 of the 400 ICU beds were unoccupied. Albuquerque had no free beds, while Fargo in North Dakota had just three. ...

As pressure on the US health system and economy intensified, Congress was expected to vote as early as Thursday on a deal that would give legislators more time to work out a new coronavirus relief package. So far the two parties and the White House have been unable to strike a deal on the size of a new relief package, or to resolve sticking points such as business liability protections and aid for state and local governments.

Oh looky, there appears to be a cure for covid if you're well-connected. Too bad warped greed warp speed hasn't been applied to ramping up a cure for regular people.

Rudy Giuliani leaves hospital after receiving same drug cocktail as Trump

Rudy Giuliani, the public leader of a quixotic effort by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was released from hospital on Wednesday evening after being treated for Covid-19. Giuliani received “exactly the same” treatment that Trump received during his own hospitalization in October, the former New York mayor said, apparently including a drug cocktail of monoclonal antibodies that few patients have access to.

“His doctor sent me here; he talked me into it,” Giuliani said of the president in an interview with a local New York radio station. “The minute I took the cocktail yesterday, I felt 100% better. It works very quickly, wow.”

That account echoed the experiences of other members of Trump’s inner circle who have fallen grievously ill with coronavirus and been treated with monoclonal antibodies, synthetically manufactured proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off viruses.

But almost no one has access to the treatments in question: a cocktail manufactured by Regeneron and a similar treatment made by Eli Lilly. The health secretary, Alex Azar, said on Wednesday that a total of 278,000 doses of the two therapies had been distributed in past months. Some states use a lottery system to allocate the drugs, while others rank patients by eligibility, the New York Times reported. ...

After the housing secretary, Ben Carson, 69, emerged from the hospital last month, he wrote on Facebook that he had been “desperately ill” but “President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life.”

“Risk Your Life Or You Don’t Get Any Money”

With cases surging in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this week that he was canceling all further in-person press conferences. ... While the press pool may be breathing a collective sigh of relief, workers across the state are still being compelled to head into offices, schools, and restaurants.

New York has continued to allow indoor dining. Meanwhile, the state is not providing up-to-date information on the spread — instead, its maps tracking the coronavirus are often not updated or even showing decreases as the pandemic worsens. And as the virus surges, Cuomo suddenly changed the method for evaluating whether areas should be locked down — and the shift would allow more businesses to continue forcing employees back to their workplaces.

New York is experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases similar to the wave it recorded in the spring when Cuomo’s late shutdown saw hospitals and morgues overwhelmed. Unsurprisingly, much of that surge is represented in New York City where less than 20 percent of hospital beds are vacant compared to 23 percent statewide.

Despite the surge, employers across the state have been calling workers back into offices, schools, and restaurants. Some remote-capable employees have also been compelled back. These workers face a difficult choice between their health and their financial security at a time when more than 19 million Americans are receiving unemployment aid.

A family medicine resident who works in an intensive care unit upstate and did not wish to be identified by name sharply criticized the policy of allowing businesses to compel workers back into offices, explaining that it is “a phenomenally bad idea to put people in close proximity to each other unless you absolutely have to.”

“It’s not fair to put people in that situation,” the resident told The Daily Poster. “You’re basically telling them, ‘Risk your life or you don’t get any money.’"

Hawley, Bernie DEMAND Senate Vote On Stimulus Checks In Groundbreaking Moment

Sanders, Hawley Move to Attach $1,200 Payments to Must-Pass Spending Bill

Warning that failure to approve additional direct relief would be a disastrous abdication of responsibility, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders joined forces with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday to introduce an amendment that would provide another round of $1,200 payments to working-class adults and $500 to each of their children.

Signifying the urgency of their demand, the senators are attempting to attach the amendment to spending legislation that must pass by Friday night to avert a government shutdown. While Hawley indicated he would not try to obstruct passage of the short-term spending bill if it doesn't include direct payments, Sanders suggested he would be willing to delay the legislation in an effort to attach his amendment.

"Nobody wants to see the government shut down," Sanders said in an appearance on CNN Thursday night. "But I think it would be outrageous and simply unacceptable for members of Congress to go home to their families when tens of millions of working-class families in this country are facing economic desperation, they don't have the food, literally, to feed their kids, they're worried about being evicted, they can't afford healthcare, they have no income. We have got to address that."

"I intend to do everything I can," the Vermont senator added, "to make sure that we do." ...

Sanders and Hawley unveiled their amendment as negotiations over a coronavirus relief package that lawmakers hoped to combine with must-pass year-end spending legislation appeared to falter once more on Thursday, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) shot down a bipartisan relief framework that members have been hashing out for more than a week.

McConnell's chief complaint, according to the Associated Press, is that the corporate immunity provisions under discussion are not strong enough for Republicans to accept Democrats' demand for state and local aid in return.

As it currently stands, the bipartisan plan also does not include direct cash payments, an omission that has led some progressive lawmakers—including Sanders—to oppose the package.

'Deeply Disturbing' Surge in Layoffs Spotlights Cruelty of Trump-GOP Refusal to Boost Unemployment Benefits

Hours after the U.S. reported a staggering 3,000 coronavirus deaths in just 24 hours, the Department of Labor announced Thursday that an additional 1.3 million Americans filed jobless claims last week, further bolstering the case for a bold relief package and spotlighting the cruelty of the Republican leadership's continued opposition to boosting unemployment benefits.

According to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 20 million Americans are currently receiving jobless benefits just over two weeks before funding is set to expire for a pair of key emergency unemployment insurance (UI) programs—a lapse that would hurl millions of people off a "benefit cliff."

"The 1.3 million who applied for UI last week was an increase of 276,000 from the prior week, bringing initial claims back to their highest point since September," Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Further, last week's increase was not just due to week-to-week volatility in the data. The four-week moving average of total initial claims is now at its highest point since October."

"In other words," Shierholz added, "layoffs appear to be rising, consistent with the resurgent virus."

Faced with worsening economic metrics and widespread suffering—evidenced by miles-long food lines, overwhelmed unemployment systems, and a looming "tsunami" of evictions—the Trump administration and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are hawking relief plans that would not increase weekly unemployment benefits at all.

Additionally, according to the Washington Post, the White House plan "does not appear to extend the number of weeks people are eligible to be on unemployment programs," an omission that would leave the millions of Americans who have already exhausted their benefits with no lifeline.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), incoming chair of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, called the latest layoff figures "deeply disturbing" and slammed Republican lawmakers for attempting to "penny-pinch the American people during a pandemic."

"If Republicans refusing to extend unemployment benefits and other forms of relief are not convinced by the most recent unemployment numbers—19 million drawing unemployment benefits, 3.9 million long-term unemployed, 38 straight weeks of weekly unemployment claims greater than the worst week of the Great Recession—then nothing will convince them," said Beyer.

"The nation's health and economy are going backwards, not forwards," Beyer continued, "because Republicans and the leader of their party have spent months doing the very opposite of what is needed to contain the coronavirus and responsibly rebuild and recover from this recession."

In the place of a weekly UI boost, the White House has offered direct stimulus payments of $600 per adult and $600 per child—well short of the progressive call for $1,200 per adult and $500 per child on top of extra unemployment benefits. McConnell's plan would not provide any direct payments or aid to state and local governments, which economists say is desperately needed.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday as relief talks appeared on the verge of collapsing once again, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin—the administration's lead negotiator—insisted the White House's stimulus checks would be more beneficial than an increase in weekly unemployment payments.

But as the Post's Jeff Stein and Mike DeBonis noted, compared to the White House's call for one-time payments of $600 per person, "jobless Americans would receive at least an additional $4,800 for each unemployed worker" if weekly UI payments are increased by $300, as proposed by a bipartisan relief measure. ...

Unlike the plans offered by McConnell and Trump, the bipartisan coronavirus relief proposal currently being fleshed out on Capitol Hill would extend pandemic unemployment programs, add 16 weeks of benefits, and provide a $300 boost to weekly UI payments.

But that proposal would not provide any direct stimulus payments, a popular form of relief that progressives are demanding as an essential component of any relief package, in addition to a weekly UI supplement.

Shoplifting of Essentials on Rise as Millions Struggle to Feed Families

With one-time $1,200 direct payments provided by Congress earlier this year long gone and the Republican Party refusing to renew enhanced unemployment benefits, which were shown to reduce poverty for several months, evidence is mounting that more people in the U.S. are being forced to steal food and other necessities as economic suffering mounts.

As the Washington Post reported Thursday, nearly 26 million Americans, or one in eight, reported not having sufficient food last month. The coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of people to turn to food banks for the first time in their lives, but now that the federal government has allowed the Farmers to Families food box program to begin running out of money a month ahead of its expiration date, even those who have been able to rely on aid are likely to face even more desperate circumstances.

The Loss Prevention Research Council told the Post that the prevalence of shoplifting food, diapers, baby formula, and other necessities appears to be even greater now than it was just after other national crises, like the 2008 recession when shoplifting rose 34%.

"We believe there is some increase in people who, because of Covid-19, are not able to pay for the items," Read Hayes, director of the council, told the Post.

The increase comes as an estimated 54 million Americans are estimated to have faced food insecurity this year, nearly twice as many as in 2019. About 20 million people are relying on some form of unemployment assistance, and 12 million are counting on the U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump to finalize a new relief package to keep them from losing all federal aid after Christmas—a loss which is expected to precipitate a rise in evictions after the New Year. ...

Security experts noted that the shoplifting that's been observed in stores across the country involves basic needs.

"It's not a whole lot of people going in, grabbing TVs and running out the front door," Jeff Zisner, chief executive of workplace security firm Aegis, told the Post. "It's a very different kind of crime—it's people stealing consumables and items associated with children and babies."

Some shop owners told the outlet that they have stopped calling the police when they find people shoplifting food and other necessary items.

One young mother, identified as Jean, told the Post that she began regularly sneaking food items into her son's stroller when she went grocery shopping last spring, a month after she was forced to quit her receptionist job due to her child's daycare center closing. She was unable to collect any unemployment assistance and her savings dried up within a month.

Jean reasoned that if she was caught, "I'd say, 'I just didn't know what else to do. It wasn't malicious. We were hungry.'"

Another women, who earned a master's degree in May and then struggled to find a job amid the pandemic, said she began shoplifting toiletries from Whole Foods, having spent her $1,200 direct payment on food. She told the Post that she doesn't "feel much guilt" about stealing a small number of items from a company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose enormous wealth has grown by more than $73 billion since the beginning of the pandemic.

"It's been very frustrating to be part of a class of people who is losing so much right now," she told the Post. "And then to have another class who is profiting from the pandemic—well, let's just say I don't feel too bad about taking $15 or $20 of stuff from Whole Foods when Jeff Bezos is the richest man on Earth."

Palestinian Official Hanan Ashrawi: Trump’s Morocco-Israel Deal Legitimizes Land Theft & Occupation

Israel and Morocco agree to ‘full diplomatic relations’, says Trump

Israel and Morocco have made a deal to normalise relations, Donald Trump has announced, marking the fourth agreement between an Arab government and the Jewish state this year. ... In keeping with the US president’s transactional foreign policy, the deal included an agreement for Washington to recognise Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara region. ...

Morocco’s royal court said in a statement that King Mohammed VI had told Trump he intended to facilitate direct flights for Israeli tourists. The country would resume diplomatic relations with Israel “with minimal delay”, the statement said. Morocco, which has a deep Jewish history and a small current community of Jews, has for years kept informal ties with Israel. An estimated 50,000 Israelis travel to Morocco each year on trips to learn about the Jewish community and retrace their family histories.

The Moroccan king said the “measures do not in any manner affect Morocco’s ongoing and sustained commitment to the just Palestinian cause” and he reiterated its commitment to a two-state solution. However, Bassam as-Salhi, a Palestinian official, condemned the deal as breaking a longstanding agreement in the Arab world to isolate Israel until it agrees to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, the White House released a statement formally proclaiming the recognition of Morocco’s territorial claim over the Western Sahara, a former Spanish territory. Having occupied its southern neighbour since 1975, Morocco’s claims are largely unrecognised internationally. Western Sahara remains on the UN’s decolonisation list of “non-self-governing territories”, meaning its roughly half a million people are still not running their own government.

Morocco fought a 15-year war with an independence movement, the Polisario Front. A UN-brokered truce brought the armed insurgency to a halt in 1991 but a ceasefire was broken in mid-November after Morocco said it had sent troops into no-man’s land. The Polisario Front controls about a fifth of the territory and runs the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which has support from neighbouring Algeria. Many Sahrawi people live in refugee camps in Algeria.

Boasting of 'Combat Power' to Threaten Iran, US Flies Two Massive B-52 Bombers Over Persian Gulf

Teaming up with Middle East allies Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar, the United States military flew two B-52H bombers over the Persian Gulf Thursday in an act of saber-rattling that American officials characteristically described as an attempt to "deter" potential acts of so-called "aggression" by Iran.

Corporate media outlets dutifully echoed the Pentagon's depiction of the threatening maneuver as defensive, even though it was the U.S. that pushed the two nations to the brink of war repeatedly over the past several years by violating the Iran nuclear accord, assassinating Iran's top general, and imposing crushing sanctions that have hindered Iran's ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

The bomber flight came just two weeks after the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, an attack U.S. officials have said was carried out by Israel. Iran has also blamed the assassination on Israel, with one official saying that "there is no doubt" the U.S. was involved.

"If a journalist... repeats the claim that the U.S., which has been trying to starve a country and has been assassinating their commanders and scientists, is sending a bomber that carries 70,000 pounds of weapons 12,000 miles away to 'deter' that country, they're doing stenography," tweeted writer Arash Karami.

Following Thursday's flight, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), issued a statement Thursday boasting of the U.S. military's capabilities, warning that "potential adversaries should understand that no nation on earth is more ready and capable of rapidly deploying additional combat power in the face of any aggression."

McKenzie's statement doesn't mention Iran, but anonymous U.S. officials made clear that the bomber flight was directed at the Islamic Republic.

"We're trying to just ensure that if the Iranians do think they have a plan that's executable, that they think twice before executing it, because they do see that we have a robust posture and presence still remaining in the region that could respond to any provocation should it occur," one official told NBC News.

Andrew Bacevich on Why Retired General and Raytheon Official Lloyd Austin Should Not Head Pentagon

Biden taps Susan Rice for top White House domestic policy job

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, according to people familiar with the decision.

Rice, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was vetted to serve as Biden’s vice president and was a contender to be secretary of State, a position that went to Antony Blinken.

Democrats had concerns about Rice’s ability to get confirmed in a Republican-controlled Senate, and the director of the Domestic Policy Council is not a Senate-confirmed position. The Biden team had been looking to find a high-profile role for Rice, but the top domestic policy job comes as a surprise given her expertise and experience in foreign policy.

In her position, Rice, 56, will play a large role in implementing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, a wide-ranging set of policy proposals that would invest trillions of dollars in American infrastructure and manufacturing, clean energy, caregiving, education and racial equity.

A person familiar with Biden’s thinking said he chose Rice for the role because of her deep experience in crisis management and interagency processes. The person said Biden does not see foreign, economic and diplomatic realms as separate and discrete and her deep knowledge of how the federal government works will be an asset to implementing his domestic policy agenda.

Biden's Military Industrial Complex Choice For Defense Secretary

In 'Big Win for Religious Freedom,' US Supreme Court Rules Muslims Put on No-Fly List Can Sue FBI

In a unanimous decision Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Muslim individuals who accused the FBI of placing them on the no-fly list in retaliation for refusing to spy on their communities can sue federal agents for damages, upholding a lower court opinion and rejecting the Trump administration's challenge to the lawsuit.

The case (pdf)—Tanzin v. Tanvir—began in 2013 and involves Muhammad Tanvir, Jameel Algibhah, and Naveed Shinwari, three Muslim U.S. citizens or permanent residents born abroad, who accused the FBI of trying between 2007 and 2012 to use the no-fly list to coerce them into becoming informants in violation of their religious liberty.

The 8-0 opinion, argued before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. The justices ruled that the three men—who said their inclusion on the no-fly list prevented them from visiting family in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen for years and caused them reputational and employment-related harms—are allowed to seek monetary compensation from government officials under a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which, as Reuters reported, "was aimed at ensuring the government had compelling reasons to substantially burden any person's exercise of religion."

"It is a soaring feeling," said Tanvir, the lead plaintiff in the case, in a statement Thursday. "I made my life in this country, so this is important not just for me, but for everybody. I don't want the same thing that the FBI did to me to happen to others."

More and better information from the horse's mouth here.

Portland protesters occupy street in bid to stop eviction of family of color

Dozens of protesters have been occupying a street in Portland, Oregon, surrounded by makeshift barriers, in an effort to keep a Black and Indigenous family from being evicted from the home they have lived in for 65 years. The home, known as the Red House, sits in a historically Black residential neighborhood that has since gentrified. It has been the site of protests for several months, after a judge authorized the Kinney family’s eviction in September.

But the situation came to a head early Tuesday morning, when Michael “Philo” Kinney, who currently lives at the house, said he was woken up to law enforcement agents using a battering ram on the door. Kinney told the Guardian that he was charged with trespassing and held by police for several hours. But by the time he returned, protesters had pushed law enforcement away from the house. In videos shared across social media, protesters can be seen on Tuesday yelling for police to leave the area, with some kicking and banging on a Portland police vehicle.

Kinney explained that he sees his fight as going beyond protecting his family from being turfed out in the middle of a pandemic and a statewide eviction moratorium. “It’s a fight against systemic racism and gentrification that’s been going on for years,” he said. He added: “My family comes from this land and to see it taken without right and by gunpoint… It’s outrageous to me.”

On Tuesday evening, Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, tweeted that he is “authorizing the Portland police to use all lawful means to end the illegal occupation on North Mississippi Avenue and to hold those violating our community’s laws accountable”. He added: “There will be no autonomous zone in Portland.” ...

After purchasing it in 1955, the Kinney family took out a loan against the house in early 2000, which Julie Metcalf Kinney, Michael “Philo” Kinney’s mother, described during a press conference on Wednesday as a “predatory loan”. The loan was transferred several times between companies, and in 2018 Clear Recon Corporation initiated the process to foreclose on the home. ... In November, after a series of failed legal battles, the family filed a formal request to the US Supreme Court to examine this case. A response from the court is due by December 23.

David Sirota: Meet The Hillary Aide Using Big Money To FIGHT Public OPtion

Jimmy Dore: How Progressives Could FORCE A Medicare For All Vote

Alabama sued by DoJ over 'systematic' violence in state prisons

The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Alabama over conditions in the state prisons, saying the state is failing to protect inmates from violence and excessive force at the hands of prison staff.

The lawsuit alleges that conditions in the prison system – which the justice department called one of the most understaffed and violent in the country – are so poor that they violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that state officials are “deliberately indifferent” to the problems. The lawsuit comes after the justice department twice released investigative reports that accused the state of violating prisoners’ rights.

“The Department of Justice conducted a thorough investigation of Alabama’s prisons for men and determined that Alabama violated and is continuing to violate the constitution because its prisons are riddled with prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence. The violations have led to homicides, rapes, and serious injuries,” Eric Dreiband, an assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

Alabama had been in negotiations with the justice department since the first 2019 report in the hopes of staving off a lawsuit, but federal officials said the state had “failed or refused to correct” the unconstitutional conditions. The 24-page lawsuit said that conditions in Alabama prisons have gotten worse since the initial findings – with homicides increasing and prisons becoming even more overcrowded than in 2016 when the investigation was initiated.

Rush Limbaugh And Worst People Left, Right Embrace SECESSION

MSNBC Delusional About JOE BIDEN's Honesty

States targeted in Texas election fraud lawsuit condemn 'cacophony of bogus claims'

Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Thursday urged the US supreme court to reject a lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Donald Trump seeking to undo Joe Biden’s victory, saying the case has no factual or legal grounds and makes “bogus” claims.

“What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts,” Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general, wrote in a filing to the nine justices.

Texas filed the longshot suit against the four election battleground states on Tuesday directly with the supreme court. It asked that the voting results in those states be thrown out because of their changes in voting procedures that allowed expanded mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Thursday afternoon, more than 100 Republican members of the House filed an amicus brief with the court in support of the Texas lawsuit.

Trump’s campaign and his allies already have been spurned in numerous lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the election results. Legal experts have said the Texas lawsuit has little chance of succeeding and have questioned whether Texas has the legal standing to challenge election procedures in other states.

Glenn Greenwald Catalogs Media's FAILURES On Hunter Biden

Justice Department’s interest in Hunter Biden covered more than taxes

The federal investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been more extensive than a statement from Hunter Biden indicates, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden said he had been contacted about a tax investigation out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware. In addition to Delaware, the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York also scrutinized Hunter Biden’s finances, according to the person with direct knowledge of the investigation. The person said that, as of early last year, investigators in Delaware and Washington were also probing potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

In addition to the probe into Hunter Biden, federal authorities in the Western District of Pennsylvania are conducting a criminal investigation of a hospital business in which Joe Biden’s brother James was involved. Federal officials have asked questions about James Biden's role in the business, according to a second person with direct knowledge of that investigation, who said it remains ongoing.

There is no indication that Joe Biden himself is under investigation, but if the cases remain open when Joe Biden takes office, they could complicate his presidency, and shine an unflattering light on his relatives' dealings, which often seek to capitalize on the Biden family’s political connections.

In leaked recording, Biden says GOP used 'defund the police' to 'beat the living hell' out of Democrats

President-elect Joe Biden appeared to blame the "defund the police" movement for contributing to surprising Democratic down-ballot losses last month, telling civil rights leaders this week that they should proceed carefully on criminal justice issues.

"That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police. We're not. We're talking about holding them accountable," Biden said Tuesday in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders, according to audio excerpts posted Thursday in a podcast from The Intercept.

Biden pledged that he would follow through on his promises to address systemic racism, but he warned about getting "too far ahead of ourselves" with critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.

All Signs Point To Yang Running For NYC Mayor

New Report Shows How Banks and Financial Firms 'Gambling Away Our Future' by Bankrolling Oil and Gas Projects

Five years after the world adopted the Paris climate agreement, global financial institutions have provided over $1.6 trillion in loans and underwriting to multinational fossil fuel firms planning and developing destructive oil and gas projects, a joint report from 18 environmental groups revealed Thursday.

Entitled Five Years Lost: How Finance Is Blowing the Paris Carbon Budget (pdf), the report was coordinated by Germany-based environmental and human rights group Urgewald, with the participation of organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth USA, Oil Change International, Re:Common, and Reclaim Finance.

The new paper details a dozen of the most devastating fossil fuel projects around the world, which together would use up fully three-quarters of the total remaining carbon budget, based on the Paris accord's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Furthermore, the report exposes the banks and investors that are financing leading fossil fuel companies, as well as the environmental and social costs associated with their projects. These include violation of Indigenous rights, negative health impacts, human rights violations, and expected CO2 emissions caused by each of the projects.

Projects covered in the report are located in countries including Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Mozambique, Norway, Suriname, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Banks including CitiGroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase in the U.S.; Barclays, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Santander in Europe; Mitsubishi, Mizuho, and SMBC in Japan; Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China; and the Royal Bank of Canada together provided more than half of the total funding to the fossil fuel companies involved in the 12 projects.

Leading financial firms including BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Capital Group in the U.S.; UBS in Switzerland; Legal & General in the U.K.; and the Norwegian Government Pension Fund also provided nearly half of the projects' funding.

Fossil fuel companies receiving loans and other financial support include BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Repsol, Eni, and Equinor.

"These 12 case studies illustrate the lamentable failure of banks to respond to the urgency of the climate crisis," said Lucie Pinson, executive director of Reclaim Finance. "Instead of adopting a rigorous approach that would prevent the expansion of fossil fuels and facilitate their phase-out, global banks are refusing to break with the fatal growth trend of fossil extraction."

"BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase, and Mitsubishi all have very different coal, oil, and gas exclusion policies," Pinson added. "However, this report shows that there is something that clearly unites them: They all keep supporting some of the worst projects worldwide through their loyal financing to the oil and gas majors."

The Wealthy 1% = Climate Change Accelerators!

The North Carolina hog industry's answer to pollution: a $500m pipeline project

Eastern North Carolina has about 4,000 pink hued pools of pig feces, urine and blood as a result of the hog industry, where 9m pigs produce over 10bn gallons of waste annually in the state. When the waste lagoons reach capacity, excess waste is sprayed on to nearby fields. In 2000, Smithfield Foods agreed with state officials in North Carolina to finance research to find and install alternatives to the waste lagoons and spraying systems, but none were deemed economically feasible.

But now – instead of implementing safer waste systems – Smithfield Foods is pushing to use the hog waste lagoons to collect, transport and sell the methane gas they produce. That terrifies many local people and environmental activists who see it as seeking to profit from an ecological problem rather than fix it. ...

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is considering the first permit approval for an industrial-scale biogas project in North Carolina, which would cap waste lagoons from industrial pig farms in the state, capturing the methane and transporting it through pipelines to a processing plant. The product, called biogas, is being proposed by a $500m joint venture between Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy, Align RNG, as a solution to the hog waste pollution problems plaguing North Carolina, but residents and environmental organizers are raising concerns that the project will worsen the problem. ...

The Grady Road Project includes trapping methane gas at 19 industrial hog waste sites in Duplin and Sampson counties in North Carolina, where over 30 miles of pipelines will be constructed to a central processing facility and distributed through existing natural gas pipelines. Duplin and Sampson counties are the top-hog producing counties in the US. The project is one of several biogas proposals being pushed by Smithfield and Dominion Energy.

Naemma Muhammad, a community organizer and resident of Duplin county noted residents still don’t know where the 30 miles of pipeline will be laid or which waste lagoons will be used for the project, and the pipelines will pose greater risks of spills and leaks to the wetlands and groundwater in the region. The methane capturing also produces other pollutants, posing greater risks to nearby communities when waste is sprayed on fields and spills are common, especially during strong storms.

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A Little Night Music

Willie Cobbs - Eating Dry Onions

Willie Cobbs - Don't Say Good-Bye

Willie Cobbs - Five Long Years

Willie Cobbs - Lonely Boy

Willie Cobbs - Slow Down

Willie Cobbs - Jukin'

Willie Cobbs - Butler Boy Blues

Willie Cobbs - I'll Love Only You

Willie Cobbs - My little girl

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers - You Don't Love Me