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"Congressional lawmakers are being paid $3,300 of government money every week to come up with ways to block $2,000 checks to millions of Americans who are struggling to avoid eviction, starvation and bankruptcy."

-- David Sirota, Walker Bragman and Andrew Perez

News and Opinion

Mitch’s Failure Theater Will BLOCK Checks For Working Class

McConnell blocks initial Democratic effort for $2,000 Covid stimulus checks

A growing number of Republicans on Tuesday backed Donald Trump’s demand to increase coronavirus relief payments to US citizens from $600 to $2,000, though the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, blocked Democrats’ effort to quickly pass the measure. ...

Final passage of the aid increase in the Senate would require 60 votes and the backing of a dozen Republicans to hand Trump an unlikely victory. The Georgia runoffs could weigh heavily in McConnell’s thinking on whether to allow such a vote to go ahead. ...

While blocking immediate consideration of a measure to increase Covid-19 relief payments, he suggested instead that the Senate would begin to examine the issue along with two others Trump has raised – the integrity of elections and limits on big technology companies. ...

“This week the Senate will begin a process to bring these three priorities into focus,” he said. McConnell did not elaborate on what action, if any, the Senate would take on stimulus checks.

How Direct Checks Are Changing EVERYTHING In American Politics

AOC Slams Blue Dog Democrat for Opposing $2,000 Relief Checks

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York pilloried Rep. Kurt Schrader after the Oregon Democrat voted against an amendment to increase one-time direct payments to most Americans from $600 to $2,000, which passed the House on Monday when 44 Republicans joined 231 Democrats in supporting the bill now awaiting action in the Senate.

Schrader opposed the Caring for Americans With Supplemental Help (CASH) Act because, according to the lawmaker—whose net worth hovered close to $8 million in 2018—"people who are making six figure incomes and who have not been impact[ed] by Covid-19 do not need checks."

Just over an hour after voicing his disapproval of bigger relief checks for the majority of U.S. households, Schrader voted in favor of overriding President Donald Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), greenlighting more than $740 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2021—and perfectly encapsulating what the ostensibly centrist, national security-minded Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of Democratic lawmakers to which Schrader belongs, means by "fiscal responsibility."

"First of all, aid starts phasing out at $75,000," Ocasio-Cortez began in her rebuttal to Schrader's statement, which was riddled with erroneous assertions. "It's already tied to outdated income information, don't make it worse," she continued, alluding to the fact that eligibility is based on 2019 tax returns.

Although individuals with incomes in the six-figure range are in fact not eligible for a full relief check, contrary to what Schrader suggested, Ocasio-Cortez reminded the Blue Dog Democrat that people who made $100,000 or more "also had income disrupted." Besides, she asked, "Is this really a good reason to block aid for millions?"

According to Schrader, the CASH Act "is an ineffective and poorly targeted approach to aiding Americans in distress." He described the measure as "clearly a last-minute political maneuver by the president and extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, who have been largely absent during months of very hard negotiations."

Schrader was one of two House Democrats to vote against the amendment to increase relief checks from $600 to $2,000. He was joined by outgoing Rep. Daniel Lipinski of Illinois and both voted to override Trump's NDAA veto, along with 210 other Democratic representatives. ...

Schrader took a misleading jab at left-leaning lawmakers, accusing them of choosing "to tweet their opinions instead of coming to the table to get aid in the hands of Americans and small businesses that need it most," a bizzare claim given that direct payments to struggling people were "not even on the table" prior to the efforts of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus to which Ocasio-Cortez belongs.

In addition to correcting the false information underlying Schrader's stated reasons for opposing the CASH Act, Ocasio-Cortez told the conservative lawmaker: "If you're going to err, err on the side of helping people."

Jimmy Dore: Krystal Ball is CORRECT About The Left's Response To #ForceTheVote

Briahna Joy Gray RESPONDS To ForceTheVote Critics

That’s okay with me.

Alternatively, if conservatives are suddenly so concerned w/ the cost of the bill, maybe they should focus on stripping their cushy tax giveaways for 3 martini lunches and thoroughbred racehorses instead of blocking critical support for working people. https://t.co/UK3a8lanGm

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 28, 2020

Krystal Ball: Trump’s $2k Gambit Shows Tragedy Of What Could Have Been

Ro Khanna Applauds 19 House Democrats Who Joined Him in Voting No on 'Bloated' $740 Billion Military Budget

Just 20 House Democrats opted to break with their party and their Republican counterparts late Monday to vote against overriding President Donald Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, a sprawling bill that greenlights over $740 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2021.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one the few House Democrats who voted against overriding the president's NDAA veto, applauded his colleagues for having "the courage tonight to vote no on the bloated defense budget."

"They are changing the culture of endless war and calling for more investment instead in the American people," said Khanna.

The veto override ultimately succeeded in the House by a 322-87 margin and now heads to the Senate, where Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other members of the Democratic caucus are threatening to hold up the NDAA in an effort to force a vote on $2,000 direct payments.

Here are the 20 Democrats who voted against overriding Trump's NDAA veto: Reps. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.), Yvette Clarke (N.Y.), Mark DeSaulnier (Calif.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Jesús García (Ill.), Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Joe Kennedy (Mass.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Grace Meng (N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.).

Victims Of Blackwater Massacre Interviewed After Trump Pardon's Killers

Do Americans really care about war crimes?

Unfortunately, the average American appears to have a relatively high tolerance for war crimes abroad. According to a 2016 Red Cross report, Americans “are substantially more comfortable with war crimes than are populations of other western countries like the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and even Russia,” as The Week put it at the time. “When asked whether ‘a captured enemy combatant [can] be tortured to obtain important military information,’ just 30 percent of Americans said ‘no,’ the lowest of any country surveyed except Israel and Nigeria.” Indeed, one 2018 poll suggested that a significant portion of Americans believed U.S. service members shouldn’t be prosecuted for overseas war crimes simply because “war is a stressful situation and allowances should be made.”

That isn’t to say American’s aren’t entirely immune to the perils of war crimes; indeed, they care more about U.S. war crimes abroad than they did during the Vietnam War, according to research. In a December 2019 poll of more than 1,000 Americans, researchers asked Americans if they approved or disapproved of Trump’s decision to pardon Lorance despite his 2012 conviction for killing civilians in Afghanistan. Forty-one percent approved of the pardon and 59 percent did not, the researchers found. “In 1971, Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was court-martialed and convicted of murdering 22 civilians in the 1968 My Lai Massacre,” the researchers noted. “He was sentenced to life in prison. A 1971 Gallup/Newsweek poll found that 11 percent of Americans approved of the verdict.”

Their research, published in the Washington Post, reveals that war crimes, like most other issues surrounding the military, break down along partisan lines when it comes to their impact on civilian populations: just 12 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Independents approved of Trump’s Lorance pardon, while 79 percent of Republicans fully approved. But what’s more telling is the written commentary from respondents, which indicates that “many Americans appear to believe that if troops are fighting a just war, they should be excused from responsibility for violent acts, even war crimes,” as the researchers wrote in the Washington Post. ...

So do war crimes matter to the average American? In the short term, it appears that war crimes and their related pardons are simply new battlegrounds in the ever-expansive culture war between left and right, liberals and conservatives, that seems to have enveloped modern politics rather than becoming matters of human dignity in their own right. And that’s a damn shame.

“This Is How Black People Get Killed”: Dr. Susan Moore Dies of COVID After Decrying Racist Care

US reports its first known case of new UK Covid variant

A man in Colorado has become the first known US case of the newly identified strain of Covid-19 circulating in the UK. The new variant is thought to be more contagious than other, established strains and has prompted some countries to restrict travel from the UK.

The Colorado man who contracted the new strain, called B.1.1.7, is in his 20s, and had no travel history, according to the state’s health department. In a statement, Governor Jared Polis said that health officials are conducting an investigation into how the man might have contracted the virus, while he recovers in isolation.

Although the new variant had not been found in the US until now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that it was likely already circulating through the country. The agency said while the new strain has not been identified through sequencing efforts “labs have only 51,000 of the 17m US cases” – and the new strain might not have been picked up. ...

That the Colorado man who tested positive for the new variant has no travel history is significant in that it suggests the new strain is already spreading through US communities, said Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University, in a tweet. “There is a lot we don’t know about this new Covid-19 variant, but scientists in the United Kingdom are warning the world that it is significantly more contagious,” Polis said in a statement. “We are working to prevent spread and contain the virus at all levels.”

At Current Pace of Vaccinations Herd Immunity Reached in U.S. in 10 Years

California extends strict stay-at-home order as hospital capacity dwindles

California has extended its strict stay-at-home orders in areas where hospital ICU capacity is rapidly dwindling, as the state’s governor warned residents to brace for a “surge on top of a surge” following the holiday season. The state’s top health official, Dr Mark Ghaly, said that southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin valley still have effectively zero ICU capacity and that the state’s restrictions would continue longer there.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said Monday that even with hospital admissions plateauing in some places, the state was destined to move into a “new phase” that it’s been preparing for as it sets up hospital beds in arenas, schools and tents, though it is struggling to staff them. ...

California reported more than 31,000 new cases Tuesday and 242 deaths, but the numbers are likely to climb this week as labs and counties catch up their reporting from the holiday week. State officials also notified hospitals that the situation is so dire they should prepare for the possibility that they will have to resort to “crisis care” guidelines established earlier in the pandemic, which allow for rationing treatment.

Calling Covid-19 Crisis a 'Wake-Up Call,' WHO Experts Warn Next Pandemic Could Be Even Worse

The Covid-19 pandemic has officially infected more than 80 million people and killed at least 1.7 million across the globe, and the daily death toll remains high in the U.S. and other major nations.

But even in the face of such staggering figures, experts with the World Health Organization are warning that the "next pandemic may be more severe" if the international community does not learn from the ongoing coronavirus crisis and prepare accordingly.

"This pandemic has been very severe... it has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one," Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO Emergencies Program, told the press during a year-end briefing Monday. "This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training, and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile."

"We live in an increasingly complex global society" Ryan added. "These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together. We need to honor those we've lost by getting better at what we do every day." ...

Even as effective vaccines begin to be put to use, Professor David Heymann—chair of the WHO's strategic and technical advisory group for infectious hazards—cautioned Monday that Covid-19 could "become endemic" and "continue to mutate as it reproduces in human cells, especially in areas of more intense admission." ...

Heymann predicted that the "likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program."

"Fortunately," Heymann added, "we have tools to save lives, and these in combination with good public health will permit us to learn to live with Covid-19."

Stephen F. Cohen on Russia's democratization and how US meddling undermines it

Macron under scrutiny after adviser's lunch with niece of Le Pen

A row has broken out after one of Emmanuel Macron’s closest advisers had lunch with a leading figure of France’s far right, as the president faces accusations of appealing to extreme-right supporters.

Bruno Roger-Petit, a senior adviser at the Élysée Palace, entertained Marion Maréchal, niece of the far-right politician Marine Le Pen, in a private room at a well-known Paris brasserie in October.

Maréchal, 31, who dropped Le Pen from her family name in 2018, was a member of parliament for the far-right Front National (FN) – which has since become the Rassemblement National (RN) – for five years until 2017.

She is the granddaughter of FN’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was the French republic’s youngest ever MP.

News of the meeting comes as Macron is accused of attempting to appeal to the country’s rightwing voters with two new laws – one covering “global security”, giving the police new powers, and a second aimed at combating religious “separatism” – that have sparked protests.

Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education

Public education champions are denouncing President Donald Trump's new executive order that enables states to use funds from a federal block grant program to provide vouchers to qualifying households to offset some of the costs of private school tuition, homeschooling, or other educational expenses during the coronavirus pandemic, even as critics say the move is more of a symbolic endorsement of school privatization than a serious attempt to subsidize in-person learning.

Trump's executive order, which he signed on Monday, empowers the secretary of health and human services to "allow funds available through the Community Services Block Grant program to be used by grantees and eligible entities to provide emergency learning scholarships to disadvantaged families for use by any child without access to in-person learning."

As Politico reported Monday night, Trump's move comes after school choice provisions sought by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican lawmakers were excluded from the coronavirus relief bill the president signed on Sunday.

The White House spun the executive order as an attempt to provide more flexibility to parents amid what Trump called "the public education system's failure to provide in-person learning options." Trump neglected to mention, however, that his administration has failed to create the conditions for a safe reopening of public schools.

Rather than attacking public schools while pushing for privatized alternatives—as critics say the Trump administration has done—President-elect Joe Biden "has vowed to reopen most schools in the first 100 days of his administration by providing more funding for school districts to implement coronavirus safety measures, such as better ventilation and more socially distanced classrooms," Politico reported. "His team is also weighing a multibillion dollar plan to test students, teachers, and staff at least once a week."

In a blog post Tuesday, education scholar and public schools advocate Diane Ravitch cautioned that Trump's executive order reeks of elites using a crisis to advance an unpopular right-wing agenda, a phenomenon that journalist Naomi Klein has dubbed "disaster capitalism."

Trump's executive order declares that "the emergency conditions created by Covid-19 make it vital to use federal funds for vouchers," Ravitch wrote, adding that DeVos "will use her last days in office to throw money out the door to fund vouchers for private and religious schools."

“The Truth in Black and White”: The Kansas City Star Apologizes for History of Racist Coverage

Oakland police investigate smashed statue of Breonna Taylor

Police are investigating what appears to be an act of vandalism after a statue of Breonna Taylor, erected to honour her memory, was smashed in Oakland, California.

The Oakland police department said late on Monday it was looking into the incident, although it had not identified any suspects or motives. The statue was found smashed on Saturday, about two weeks after it was installed.

Leo Carson, the artist who created the bust, said he considered the smashing of Taylor’s statue “an act of racist aggression aimed at suppressing the fight for black freedom”.

Outrage After Trump DOJ Clears Cleveland Cop Who Killed 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it has closed its investigation of the fatal 2014 police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, saying no criminal charges would be filed against the officers involved because video of the killing was not good enough to conclusively determine what happened.

"The video footage is grainy, shot from a distance, does not show detail or perspective, and portions of the incident are not visible because of the location of the patrol car," the DOJ explained in a statement. "Further, the time lapse footage captures approximately two frames per second at a variable rate, which is incapable of capturing continuous action."

Tamir Rice would have turned 18 this year.

His life was cut short by the police violence that is woven into the fabric of Black life in America. Lives depend on change.

— ACLU (@ACLU) December 30, 2020

On November 22, 2014 two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, responded to a police dispatch call regarding "a guy with a pistol" seen near the Cudell Recreation Center playground on the city's West Side. A 911 caller said that the person, "probably a juvenile," was "scaring the shit out of everyone," but added that "the gun was probably fake."

Rice was playing with a replica pellet gun with the orange safety barrel cap removed when Loehmann, a rookie officer, fatally shot him.

A Cuyahoga County grand jury then elected to not prosecute the officers, sparking widespread national outrage and spurring the nascent Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2016, Rice's family and the city of Cleveland reached a $6 million settlement, although attorneys for the family said that "there is no such thing as closure or justice" in such situations.

The Justice Department said that "after extensive examination of the facts in this tragic event, career... prosecutors have concluded that the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Loehmann willfully violated Tamir Rice's constitutional rights, or that Officers Loehmann or Garmback obstructed justice."

Subodh Chandra, an attorney for Rice's family, issued a statement in the wake of Tuesday's DOJ announcement claiming the government's "process was tainted."

"It's beyond comprehension that the [Justice] Department couldn't recognize that an officer who claims he shouted commands when the patrol car's window was closed and it was a winter day is lying," Chandra said. "The Rice family has been cheated of a fair process yet again."

Judge orders Georgia counties to halt voter purge ahead of Senate runoff

Two Georgia counties must reverse their decision to purge thousands from voter rolls in advance of the state’s 5 January runoff elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the US Senate.

Georgia federal judge Leslie Abrams Gardner said in an order filed late on Monday that these two counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address information to invalidate voter registrations, Reuters reported.

“Defendants are enjoined from removing any challenged voters in Ben Hill and Muscogee Counties from the registration lists on the basis of National Change of Address data,” she said in the court order. This judge is the sister of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic activist who lost a race for Georgia governor in 2018.

Of the more than 4,000 registrations that officials tried to rescind, the vast majority were in Muscogee County. President-elect Joe Biden won this county during the November election. Another 150 were in Ben Hill county, which Donald Trump won with a sizable margin.

Almost 2.1 million people – more than 25% of Georgia’s registered voters – have voted in the Senate runoff election that started on 14 December.

Fatal freshwater skin disease in dolphins linked to climate crisis

Dolphins are increasingly dying slow, painful deaths from skin lesions likened to severe burns as a result of exposure to fresh water, exacerbated by the climate crisis. Researchers in the US and Australia have defined for the first time an emerging “freshwater skin disease” reported in coastal dolphin populations in the US, South America and Australia.

While cetaceans can survive in fresh water for short periods, sudden and prolonged exposure – such as when an animal becomes trapped, or the salinity of their habitat is affected by heavy rainfall – has been found to cause a form of dermatitis. This progresses into ulcers and lesions that can affect up to 70% of the animal’s surface area, with the severity of a third-degree burn.

“Their skin is just as sensitive as ours, and possibly even more so – it would be incredibly painful,” says Dr Nahiid Stephens, a veterinary pathologist at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, and co-author of the paper published in Scientific Reports journal.

These ulcers were first documented in a group of bottlenose dolphins that had become trapped in a brackish lake in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since then, Stephens says, reports have been mounting in line with the increased frequency of extreme weather events. “We couldn’t believe that such a severe, rapidly developing disease could be anything other than infectious … but ultimately, it is an environmentally caused disease.” ...

While freshwater skin disease is not likely to threaten entire species, it has the potential to disrupt dolphin populations resident in coastal or estuarine habitats, and with them the health of those ecosystems.

Also of Interest

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

Why Senators Must Reject Avril Haines for Intelligence

John Kiriakou: The Dark Past of Biden’s Nominee for National Intelligence Director

Iran Warns US and Israel Against Crossing ‘Red Lines’ in Persian Gulf

Coronavirus sharpens America's already stark economic inequalities

10 Stats About The $2,000 Checks

Every Time Larry Summers Challenges Bernie Sanders, It Ends Badly for All Americans

Why Larry Summers MUST Believe $2,000 Checks Are A Bad Idea

Wall Street Mega-Landlord Blackstone Prepares to Reap the Spoils of Another Crisis

Argentina's Senate on verge of historic vote to legalise abortion

On Wounded Knee: We Fight To Mend the Hoop

Deb Haaland’s Tough Road Ahead at the Interior Department

New rules to tackle ‘wild west’ of plastic waste dumped on poorer countries

Report Urges Biden to Reverse Trump Environmental Rollbacks

Social Security: 2020 Review, 2021 Preview

Washington's FREAKOUT Over Repeal Of Big Tech Subsidy

Krystal and Rachel: Marsha Blackburn Lays Out Insane Socialist Delusion To Fox News

Rising: Resistance Journos ADMIT They Profited Off Trashing Trump

Rising: Did Trump Doom GOP In Georgia?

A Little Night Music

Louis Armstrong - Dinah

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary

Louis Armstrong - West End Blues

Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven - Potato Head Blues

Dizzy Gillespie & Louis Armstrong - Umbrella Man

Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash - Blue Yodel No. 9

Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

Louis Armstrong - Basin Street Blues

Louis Armstrong - After you`ve gone

Jimmie Rodgers - Blue Yodel 9 (with Louis Armstrong and Lil Hardin Armstrong)