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This evening's music features blues singer and guitarist Peppermint Harris. Enjoy!

"I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and--regardless of their political or cultural differences--accuse each other of cheating."

-- Dave Barry

News and Opinion

Violence flares in Washington as far-right Trump supporters clash with counter-protesters

Violence has broken out in the streets of Washington DC after far-right groups clashed with counter-protesters in the aftermath of a march by conservatives protesting against US president-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. The trouble flared as darkness fell and crowds began to disperse in the wake of a largely peaceful demonstration on Saturday by Trump supporters who allege without evidence that the 3 November election was tainted by fraud.

Groups of pro-Trump Proud Boys protesters and Antifa counterprotesters brawled in the city’s downtown streets and although police used pepper spray on members of both sides, the rivals regrouped and violence continued sporadically. Four people were taken to hospital with stab wounds with potentially life-threatening injuries, according to the Washington Post, which quoted DC fire spokesman, Doug Buchanan. Police said 23 people were arrested.

An estimated 200 members of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, had joined the marches earlier on Saturday near the Trump hotel in the capital. Mixing with church groups who urged the faithful to participate in “Jericho Marches” and prayer rallies for the defeated president, the Proud Boys contingent wore combat fatigues and ballistic vests, carried helmets and flashed hand signals used by white nationalists. ...

Protests also took place in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, where Trump’s campaign has sought to overturn vote counts. Local media in the Washington state capital of Olympia reported that one person was shot and three arrested after clashes between pro- and anti-Trump protest groups.

Trump told the Proud Boys, "Stand back & stand by, but I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something."

Tonight, hundreds of them are roaming DC, clashing with anti-Trump protesters - punching, kicking, wrestling. When one fight ends, another begins.https://t.co/VB9cPW10qh

— Jessica Contrera (@mjcontrera) December 13, 2020

Just before noon at the Freedom Plaza in DC for the “March for Trump.” Crowd is chanting “USA!” and “Stop The Steal” ahead of things officially kicking off. Members of the far-right group Proud Boys can be seen throughout the crowd. Covering today on @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/9tStG3D4jK

— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) December 12, 2020

Caitlin Johnstone:

Yet Another Major Escalation In Establishment Internet Censorship

YouTube, whose corporate owner Google is arguably the most powerful company on earth, is now deleting user videos which claim the US election was fraudulent.

YouTube’s official statement on its decision to do this is very revealing, not so much for what it says as for what it does not say.

At no point does the video publishing platform attempt to argue that it is removing these videos because they jeopardize anyone’s health or safety, as it did when it began deleting videos deemed to be spreading misinformation about Covid-19.

At no point does it attempt to argue that these videos are inciting violence, as it did when it began deleting QAnon videos.

At no point does it claim that these videos are misleading voters, as it initially began collaborating with the US government to prevent, since all the voting is over and done with.

It’s simply deleting the videos because they are believed to be wrong. This is an important distinction, because it’s a marked deviation from the previous policy of content deletion used by YouTube and other new media platforms.

“Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect,” YouTube writes. “Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come.”

I neither know nor care whether the sort of election fraud alleged to have taken place in the contest between Joe Biden or Donald Trump actually happened; I know the processes by which candidates are elevated to run in a US general election are corrupt and rigged from top to bottom, so the question of whether additional manipulation took place between two establishment-approved imperialist oligarch lackeys in a pretend election is not particularly interesting to me. But this new move by YouTube is a major escalation in the continually escalating rollout of internet censorship protocols by US government-tied Silicon Valley megacorporations.

Even if America did not have the single most flawed election system in the entire western world (and it does), and even if it had been conclusively proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that no election fraud of any sort took place (and it hasn’t), it would still be a massive escalation beyond previous online censorship protocols to begin censoring people simply because they are wrong. People are allowed to be wrong. A free society allows people the right to voice wrong beliefs because the only alternative is creating a monolithic Ministry of Truth which has authority over what the right and wrong beliefs are.

Those of us who’ve been warning of the dangers of government-aligned plutocratic corporations lowering their standards for silencing speech further and further were not committing a slippery slope fallacy; it’s not fallacious to warn of a slippery slope when the slope is demonstrably real. The fact that we’ve been methodically paced from accepting the cross-platform deletion of Alex Jones a couple of years ago to random internet users being silenced for no other reason than expressing wrongthink today shows us the slope is very real and very consequential, and our slide into information totalitarianism will continue if something major does not change.

Matt Taibbi has written a solid article condemning YouTube’s latest ramp-up and highlighting the double standard in the way Democrats have been pushing narratives about Trump colluding with Russia to fraudulently steal the 2016 election for four years with no consequences whatsoever while Trump supporters are banned from doing essentially the exact same thing. I would add that the primary source of this double standard is not ideological bias (though that’s surely a factor as well) but the coziness these Silicon Valley tech giants have formed with US government agencies who signed off on Russiagate but not on Trump’s claims. It’s not so much a liberal bias as it is a US intelligence cartel bias.

In reality, there was never any more evidence for liberal claims of Russia interfering with the US election in any meaningful way than there is for election fraud in 2020. Actual journalists and impartial social media platforms would have recognized the indisputable fact that the Russian hacking narrative was extremely porous and remains completely unproven, and the narrative about Russian memes swaying the election is a complete joke. The only thing giving the Democrats’ claims more narrative weight than those of the Republicans today is that one was endorsed by the US intelligence cartel (the same US intelligence cartel which just so happened to wind up advancing multiple preexisting agendas using Russiagate) and the other was not. That’s it.

Those who understood that whoever controls the narrative controls the world and that plutocrat-controlled mass media is the linchpin of the oligarchic status quo were very excited about the arrival of the internet, because they understood its information-democratizing potential. Now we’re all watching those hopes slowly eroded into nothing as the same power structures which control and influence the mainstream media now work to take full control over online information.

But Not Videos Claiming Donald Trump is a Russian Agent, Because That's the Acceptable Election Conspiracy Theory https://t.co/gtfz4WZTlX

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) December 9, 2020

Macron government authorizes police documentation of political views of French population

At the beginning of the month, the Macron government quietly released far-reaching changes to its police intelligence guidelines, to facilitate the mass documentation of the political views of the French population. ... The decrees significantly enlarge the conditions in which police can create detailed personal files on individuals and the information that these files can contain. As of November, according to the interior ministry, these police files—which are separate from those maintained by the intelligence agencies—held the detailed personal information of more than 60,000 people across the country.

This is now to be further expanded. Previously, the guidelines referred to the collection and analysis of information about individual “persons.” This has been replaced to include both “physical” and “moral persons”—the latter being a definition in French law for a legal association—as well as “groupings.” The term “grouping” is so vague that it would undoubtedly encompass large social media groups and protest movements, including the “yellow vest” protests against social inequality, which were organized on Facebook groups of up to 300,000 people. The decree states that data can be collected on “physical persons holding or having held direct and non-fortuitous relations with the [association] or grouping...”

The criteria for who is considered a “risk” has also been expanded. The previous version of the law referred to individuals who threatened “public security.” The new version refers to threats to “public security or the security of the state,” to “the integrity of the territory or to institutions of the Republic,” and to “the fundamental interests of the nation.” The latter is defined separately as including “the major industrial, economic and scientific interests of France” and its “foreign policy.”

The information that police are instructed to document has also been changed. Previously, the law referred to the documentation of the “political, philosophical, religious and trade union activities” of the individual in question. This has been changed to “political opinions, philosophical and religious convictions, or trade union membership.” Police are also to collect the social media activities of those who are targeted. Significantly, as noted by the liberties defense association Quadrature Du Net, the decree also removed a clause which explicitly precluded the use of the police files for large-scale facial recognition.

The Macron government is building up a police state to suppress the mass opposition in the working class to social inequality, austerity, and the right-wing militarist policies of the political establishment. Last year, the Macron government approved similar changes to the strategic guidelines of the national intelligence and counterterrorism agency, stating that the role of the intelligence agencies is to counter “subversive movements” and “insurrectional violence” in the population.

Vaccine Equity: Why Communities of Color & Incarcerated People Should Get Early Access to Shots

Covid vaccines roll out of Pfizer plant as US nears 300,000 deaths

Trucks hauling trailers loaded with suitcase–sized containers of Covid-19 vaccine rolled out of Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sunday – launching the largest and most complex vaccine distribution project in the US. The long-wished for development comes against a backdrop of a raging pandemic that has killed almost 300,000 Americans amid a botched government response by the Trump administration that has made the US the worst-hit country in the world.

While progress on the vaccine is being celebrated across America, it also comes amid safety concerns and fears of anti-vaccination sentiments that might hinder the rollout. There are also worries over a potentially chaotic roll-out with local plans for vaccine distribution that vary widely, lack federal funding, and will not reach everyone even in early, limited populations. ...

Federal officials say the first shipments of Pfizer’s vaccine will be staggered, arriving in 145 distribution centers Monday, with an additional 425 sites getting shipments Tuesday, and the remaining 66 on Wednesday. The vaccine, co-developed by German partner BioNTech, is being doled out based on each state’s adult population.

Kicking People Out Of Their Homes During a Pandemic Economic Crisis

California could allow mass evictions to begin during the worst Covid surge yet

Millions of California renters are at risk of eviction as tenant protections soon expire, raising fears of a mass surge in homelessness during the deadliest phase of the pandemic so far. The state’s emergency rules to pause evictions amid the Covid-19 crisis are scheduled to terminate at the end of January, which could result in landlords across California going to court to remove residents behind on rent. But amid a new stay-at-home order and shutdowns due to rapidly rising Covid infections, tenant groups and some lawmakers are pushing for an extension of protections and broader measures to preserve housing.

California’s housing crisis was already dire before Covid. Despite being the world’s fifth largest economy and the home of some of America’s richest zip codes, the state’s affordable housing shortage has long forced hundreds of thousands of households to spend the vast majority of their income on rent. Last year, the state’s homeless population increased to 151,000.

That means the mass unemployment of 2020 has turned the state’s housing problem into a large-scale emergency. A US census survey in November found that more than 2m households in California have “little to no confidence” they can pay next month’s rent – a figure expected to increase with new shelter-in-place orders. ...

The assemblymember David Chiu has proposed a bill to extend the current state protections through December 2021, but the legislature won’t convene to discuss until next year. Failure to pass the bill would have widespread fatal consequences, he said, citing a recent study by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers, who reviewed data in 27 states that lifted eviction moratoriums. The removal of protections, the authors found, was linked to 433,700 additional Covid cases and 10,700 additional fatalities. It’s a disturbing illustration of a common rallying cry of activists this year – that “eviction is death”.

Wall Street CEO BRAGS About Hiking Rents During Pandemic

Chicago could lose an essential hospital in the middle of the pandemic

Activists, medical professionals and community members in Chicago are rallying against the looming closure of Mercy hospital – the oldest healthcare facility in the city, and one of its most storied – warning that its closure would drastically worsen racial health disparities in the city.

Trinity Health, which has owned the facility for eight years, plans to shutter it later this winter or early spring, citing financial struggles. But organizers here say that its closure, particularly against the backdrop of the Covid-19 crisis, will exacerbate existing healthcare inequalities in the city, and have called on officials to intervene on behalf of the hospital, an oasis in the medical desert of the predominantly Black and brown South Side.

“We’re asking that the governor, as well as the mayor, do what needs to be done to make absolutely sure that this hospital stays open to service the Black community,” Robert Jones, the pastor of nearby Mt Carmel Baptist church, said at a downtown demonstration earlier this week. “If this hospital closes, people will die.”

Located in Bronzeville, a neighborhood once known as the city’s Black Metropolis, Mercy was founded in 1852, and is regarded as a safety net hospital, serving mostly Black, poor and elderly populations. But the Michigan-based Trinity, which operates nearly 100 healthcare centers nationwide, announced over the summer that it plans to close Mercy after a merger plan with other South Side hospitals earlier this year fell through and it couldn’t find a buyer for the 292-bed facility.

If the closure is approved by the Illinois health facilities and services review board when it meets on Monday 15 December, Mercy could shutter as soon as February.

New York Times smears COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones

On Friday the New York Times published an article aimed at smearing COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones. Jones was fired from her position in the Florida Department of Health in May for refusing to manipulate data to support Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ back-to-work and back-to-school campaign. She went on to help create and oversee Florida COVID Action and The COVID Monitor, the most comprehensive databases for tracking COVID-19 infections and deaths in Florida and in K-12 schools across the US, respectively.

In retaliation, Florida state police barged into Jones’ home last week with guns aimed at her and her family. The officers seized her phone, computer and several hard drives, preventing her from continuing to publish data on COVID-19 outbreaks. The Times, which provides the line of the Democratic Party, has not published a single denunciation of this vicious attack on democratic rights. Instead, the so-called “newspaper of record” is digging up completely irrelevant episodes from Jones’ past in an effort to discredit her work in exposing the state cover-up of COVID-19 cases, and particularly the spread of the virus in schools.

In their main article on the raid, “A State Scientist Questioned Florida’s Virus Data. Now Her Home’s Been Raided,” Patricia Mazzei attempts to discredit Jones’ work and background. Downplaying the significance of the attack on her, the Times refers to Jones’ “tiff with the governor,” as if what is involved is just a petty quarrel. The Times then provides an account of the raid that is devoted largely to repeating the claims of the police. ...

In an attempt to further discredit her, Mazzei writes that “the search warrant served this week did not represent Ms. Jones’s first brush with the law.” It goes on to highlight criminal charges Jones faced in Florida involving a relationship with one of her students when she was a graduate assistant at Florida State University—none of which resulted in a conviction. How any of these allegations have to do with, let alone justify, the fascistic police raid on her home and family is not explained. However, the implication is that Jones has a criminal past and perhaps is responsible for her present “brush with the law.”

Mazzei then proclaims that “Ms. Jones has not been universally embraced as a whistle-blower,” that “some critics [who?] have dismissed her lack of public health training,” and that “others [who?] have been made uncomfortable by the attention she has sought.” The “attention she has sought”? In other words, the Times is angry that Jones has tirelessly worked to get the truth out. Such ad hominem attacks are a specialty of the New York Times. In particular, the Times played a leading role in attempting to slander WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange because of his role in exposing the crimes of US imperialism. Similar motives are present in the campaign against Jones. Jones’ work cuts across the campaign by the Democratic Party and the entire ruling class to send children back to school and workers back to work even as deaths from the virus spiral out of control.

Public Opinion Against PELOSI's Handling of Stimulus During National Crisis

CBO Shows Medicare for All Could Cover Everyone for $650 Billion Less Per Year

The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday released a report examining the costs associated with universal healthcare proposals that are based on Medicare's fee-for-service program and found that implementing a single-payer health insurance program in the United States would not only guarantee coverage for every person in the country but would also reduce overall healthcare spending nationwide.

In the words of researcher Matt Bruenig—founder and president of the progressive think tank People's Policy Project who called the CBO's working paper (pdf) on the topic "more exhaustive than any other recent study on the subject"—the new analysis shows that administrative costs under a single-payer healthcare system "will be lower than what even the most rabid Medicare for All supporters have traditionally claimed."

According to Bruenig, "Modeling the cost of a single-payer program is relatively straightforward. You begin with the status quo healthcare system and then make educated guesses about the following questions:

1. How many more units of healthcare services will be demanded and supplied when price barriers are removed?
2. How much more efficient will health insurance administration be after the enrollment and payment systems are radically simplified?
3. How much money will be saved by reducing the payment rates for healthcare providers and drug companies?"

In its analysis, the CBO looked at several distinct single-payer designs and determined that four such systems—fully implemented by 2030—would save anywhere from $42 billion to $743 billion that year alone.

"Never let a politician ask: 'How will we pay for it?'" tweeted Democratic Socialists of America for Medicare for All.

Bruenig explained that the CBO option that most closely resembles current Medicare for All proposals is the one based on low payment rates and low cost sharing, which would generate $650 billion in savings in 2030.

If one were to add long-term support and services to that option, as many current Medicare for All proposals do, savings would fall to about $300 billion, he noted.

Stand Up For Irving // Jonathan Pie

220,000+ Sign Petition Demanding Biden 'Clean House' of Trump Social Security Appointees on Day One

A petition calling on President-elect Joe Biden to fire President Donald Trump's top political appointees at the Social Security Administration on day one has garnered more than 220,000 signatures as the outgoing administration moves forward with a last-minute assault on the New Deal program that could deny benefits to hundreds of thousands people with disabilities.

"On the first day of your administration, rescind the Trump administration's rule changes that undermine Social Security, and fire all of Donald Trump's political appointees to the Social Security Administration," reads the petition launched by advocacy group Social Security Works, which is urging Biden to "clean house" at the agency.

Earlier this week, the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220 and the Association of Administrative Law Judges—unions that collectively represent tens of thousands of SSA employees—both released surveys showing that their members overwhelmingly do not have confidence in the leadership of Commissioner Andrew Saul, Deputy Commissioner David Black, and other top agency officials.

In a statement Friday, Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson said his group's petition and the union members' no-confidence votes make clear that "Social Security beneficiaries and SSA employees agree: Donald Trump's political appointees are undermining our Social Security system, and Biden must remove them immediately."

Krystal Ball: In Leaked Audio, Biden SHOCKINGLY Similar To Trump

Woman charged after allegedly driving car into crowd of New York protesters

One woman was arrested after allegedly driving her car into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Manhattan Friday afternoon, injuring six, the New York police department (NYPD) said.

A group of marchers had taken to the streets to protest against the federal immigration authorities detaining people, and in particular to highlight a group of detainees that have resorted to a hunger strike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) federal detention in New Jersey.

The car charged forward in a terrifying, lightning-quick sequence of events where eyewitnesses said protesters were sent “flying” and people were screaming and running in panic.

The woman in the car, Kathleen Casillo, has been charged with reckless endangerment. Casillo, 52, was released early Saturday and is due in court on 22 February, authorities said.

Matt Christman and MSNBC’s Petty War on Sanders | Useful Idiots

Electoral College to formalise Biden win, ending a protracted presidential contest

Glenn Greenwald: Iowa Audit Blames DNC MEDDLING For Caucus Catastrophe

Worth a full read.

Tom Vilsack for Agriculture Secretary Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party

On Tuesday, after some public tokenizing and horse trading, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team crowned dairy industry lobbyist and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture. Vilsack won out over House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s pick, Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was also backed by progressives. Whereas Fudge represented an opportunity to unite the USDA’s rural and urban constituents and address the agency’s long history of racial discrimination, Vilsack is a rerun of pro-corporate policies that continue to drive rural communities away from the Democratic Party. ...

The Covid-19 pandemic put America’s fragile and destructive food system on display. Massive plant closures threatened the food supply, front-line food workers fell sick and died in large (and growing) numbers, and nearly 1 in 4 households experienced food insecurity. The next agriculture secretary has an unprecedented moment to enact much needed systemic changes in how we grow and distribute food. If Vilsack repeats his Obama-era strategy, we won’t see that progress. This is because Vilsack doesn’t actually speak to the totality and needs of rural people. In his work at the Department of Agriculture and as a dairy lobbyist, Vilsack represents the powerful few of Big Ag.

As agriculture secretary, Vilsack let down independent family farmers when he failed to take on agribusiness domination. Food production is concentrated in the hands of a shrinking number of giant multinational corporations who hold immense power over farmers, workers, consumers, and policymakers. As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to take on Big Ag during the 2008 Iowa caucuses and reiterated the goal at the start of his presidency. Starting in 2010, Vilsack’s USDA along with the Department of Justice held a series of hearings across the country where farmers shared stories of abuse and anti-competitive conduct by dominant meatpackers, such as Tyson or Smithfield, and seed and chemical goliaths, such as Monsanto.

This listening tour culminated in promising new rules to reinvigorate and update the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, a Progressive Era anti-monopoly law that established fair codes of conduct in the livestock industry. Vilsack had complete authority to finalize these rules, but in the face of industry and congressional pressure, he decided to expand their comment period from the usual 60 days to 150 days, which pushed any finalization past the 2010 midterms. At that point, Republicans took the House in a tea party insurgency and proceeded to pass funding riders that blocked the Department of Agriculture from passing the rule.

Vilsack eventually introduced watered-down regulations of meatpacker mistreatment in his very last days in office, but at this point many farmers who spoke out at risk of retaliation had lost faith. The Trump administration promptly blocked and withdrew these modest reforms, and even dissolved the independent office that enforced the Packers and Stockyards Act. ... Vilsack is a solidly establishment choice, which tells you everything you need to know about the Democratic establishment.

Greta Thunberg: 5 Years After Paris Agreement, World Is “Speeding in the Wrong Direction” on Climate

World is in danger of missing Paris climate target, summit is warned

The world is still not on track to fulfil the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the UK’s business secretary Alok Sharma warned, after a summit of more than 70 world leaders on the climate crisis ended with few new commitments on greenhouse gas emissions.

Sharma said: “[People] will ask ‘Have we done enough to put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5C and protect people and nature from the effects of climate change?’ We must be honest with ourselves – the answer to that is currently no.”

He said progress had been made at the Climate Ambition Summit, co-hosted by the UK, the UN and France, marking five years since the Paris accord was adopted. More than 80 world leaders including China’s Xi Jinping, the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and Pope Francis urged swifter action on the climate crisis.

But while Xi reaffirmed China’s target of net-zero emissions by 2060, he gave few new details of reductions in the next decade. India also disappointed observers when the prime minister, Narendra Modi, vowed to “exceed expectations” in curbing carbon dioxide by the centenary of Indian independence in 2047, but made no pledge on coal production. ...

António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, called on all world leaders to declare a state of climate emergency, as 38 countries have already done. Many countries are also pouring money into high-carbon activities as they strive to recover from the coronavirus crisis, with G20 countries spending 50% more in stimulus packages on fossil fuels than low-carbon energy. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “The trillions of dollars needed for Covid recovery is money that we are borrowing from future generations. We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden future generations with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.”

Honest Government Ad | Kyoto Carryover Credits

Indigenous groups skip the middleman (government) and go straight to the owners:

Indigenous Groups Push Insurers to Abandon Fossil Fuel Projects

As oil and gas projects expand across the United States and Canada, often imperiling Indigenous land without ever obtaining consent, land defenders are increasingly pressuring the financiers of fossil fuel infrastructure — banks, insurance companies, and asset managers — to respect their sovereign land right. Amplifying the calls of this grassroots movement, the largest organization representing American Indians and Alaskan Natives passed a historic resolution last month calling on “private insurance companies to end their underwriting of the expansion of tar sands oil, Arctic oil and gas, and LNG export terminals.”

The resolution, put forward by the National Congress of American Indians, or NCAI, also asks insurance companies to adopt policies on “free, prior, and informed consent.” This principle, enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is “really just a fancy way of saying that any corporation, any bank, any agency that wants to engage in a project that impacts Indigenous lands and treaty lands must get consent from that particular tribal nation or Indigenous community,” said Matt Remle, who is Lakota and the primary author of the resolution. “And if the community says no, that project doesn’t happen.”
Remle is also the co-founder of Mazaska Talks, an Indigenous-led organization focused on campaigns to divest from projects that violate human rights and treaty rights abuses, which came out of an effort that began about five years ago to defund the Dakota Access pipeline. This movement pushed the city of Seattle to divest $3 billion from Wells Fargo in 2017, one of the main backers of the pipeline, and sparked similar campaigns throughout the country. More recently, every major bank has agreed to not fund drilling in the Arctic after facing pressure from Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of over 130 organizations which includes Mazaska Talks.

Most Wall Street banks at least publicly acknowledge free, prior, and informed consent while still financing projects, like the tar sands pipelines, that face Indigenous-led opposition. Yet no major U.S. insurance companies, the biggest insurers of oil and gas projects across the globe, have released publicly facing statements about Indigenous rights, let alone the principle of free, prior, and informed consent, according to Elana Sulakshana, energy finance campaigner at Rainforest Action Network. This is, in part, why there has recently been more intense scrutiny of insurance companies’ enablement of fossil fuel projects on Indigenous land.

Also of Interest

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

France’s Macron Is Ramping Up a Clash of Civilizations — but Will It Stop Terrorism?

The YouTube Ban Is Un-American, Wrong, and Will Backfire

Guantánamo’s last inmates detect a glimmer of hope after 19 years inside

Classifying Houthis as terrorists will worsen famine in Yemen, Trump is warned

Biden’s choice for US trade representative signals anti-China stance

Here's What Medicare For All Supporters In Congress Can Actually Do

The Failure of the Public Health Establishment

'It's terrible and no one cares': millions at risk of eviction with no stimulus agreed

Hollywood Deployed Lobbyists to Win Exemptions to Strict California Lockdown

Anti-LGBTQ Groups and Businesses Got Millions in Federal Coronavirus Relief, Analysis Reveals

‘US Leadership’—and Other Euphemisms for War

Deadliest plastics: bags and packaging biggest marine life killers, study finds

Jimmy Dore: What You Need To Know About MONEY

immy Dore: Biden's Conflict Of Interest Cabinet!

Rising: Cuomo Faces #MeToo Allegations As He's Floated For Biden AG

Saagar Enjeti: SCOTUS Ruling, AG Barr Makes FOOLS Of Liberal Conspiracy Theorists Like Michael Moore

A Little Night Music

Peppermint Harris - I Got Loaded

Peppermint Harris - Raining In My Heart

Peppermint Harris - Got A Big Fine Baby

Peppermint Harris - How Long Must I Suffer (For One Mistake I Made)

Peppermint Harris - Ain't No Business

Peppermint Harris - I Don't Care

Peppermint Harris - Bad Bad Whiskey

Peppermint Harris - Black Cat Bone

Peppermint Harris - Need Your Lovin'

Peppermint Harris - Wait Until It Happens To You