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“Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

News and Opinion

'Our Atmosphere Is Broken': US Tops Record for Hurricane-Force Winds in a Day

The United States on Wednesday had the most hurricane-force gusts ever recorded in a single day after an after an "off the charts" storm system tore through the central part of the country, bringing tornadoes and triggering widespread power outages, dust storms, and warnings of the climate emergency.

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said there were 55 such wind events throughout the day, more than ever seen at least since current record-keeping began in 2004.

"I've been doing this 30 years," said CNN meteorologist Tom Sater, "and we're seeing things today in the CNN Weather Center we have never seen before."

Hundreds of thousands of people are still without power on Thursday, according to PowerOutage.US, with the highest number—over 230,000—in Michigan. The second-highest number is in Wisconsin, where over 147,000 customers are without power.

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) on Wednesday also issued for the first time in its history an "extremely critical fire weather outlook" for the Southern and Central Plains during the month of December, and the Weather Prediction Center noted that dozens of cities were experiencing record-warm daily temperatures.

Tornadoes were reported in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

The Weather Channel further noted:

More than 425 reports of severe weather were tallied up Wednesday, mostly in parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, northern Missouri, southern Minnesota, and western Wisconsin. That's the most severe weather reports for a December day in the U.S. since at least 2000, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) database.

The severe weather came just days after an outbreak of 41 tornadoes across eight states caused widespread damage in large swathes of the South and Midwest.

"Incredible. And in December. Our atmosphere is broken," said Minnesota Public Radio chief meteorologist Paul Huttner in a tweet responding to the announcement of the most 75-mile-per-hour or higher thunderstorm wind gusts in a day.

Sharing video of severe wind conditions on the ground Wednesday in Elkhart, Kansas, author and climate activist Bill McKibben said: "The last Dust Bowl stemmed from degradation of the soil. This time it's the climate we've upended."

Writing Wednesday at his Substack "The Crucial Years," McKibben framed Wednesday's storm system as an unsurprising outcome of the climate emergency:

It's hard to overstate how hellish the storm now raging across the central plains really is: half the lower 48 is under a weather warning of some kind, as the National Weather Service describes a "historic weather day," with tornado warnings extending farther north than we've ever seen in December. In Colorado winds as high as 107 mph swept down the Front Range of the Rockies. "Amid the high winds, blinding dust storms have swelled over parts of southeast Colorado and western Kansas, with wildfires erupting in Kansas and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles."

None of this comes as a great surprise—it's been a record hot December across much of the continent, with temperatures in the 70s across the northern midwest. This is just the kind of thing that happens when you're in the process of breaking the planet's climate system.

The developments come after scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information said earlier this month that Earth had its fourth-warmest November and that the U.S. had its third-warmest meteorological autumn on record.

The Real Disinformation Agents: Watch as NBC News Tells Four Blatant Lies in a Two-Minute Clip

The war on "disinformation” is now one of the highest priorities of the political and media establishment. It has become the foundational justification for imposing a regime of online censorship. Around the world, new laws are being enacted in its name to empower the state to regulate discourse. Exploiting this cause, a small handful of billionaires are working in unison with Western security state agencies — under the guise of neutral-sounding names like The Atlantic Council — to set the limits of permissible thought and decree what is true and false. Corporate media outlets are attempting to rehabilitate their shattered image by depicting themselves as the bulwark against the rising tide of disinformation.

It is an understatement to say that this righteous cause is a scam. That its motive is power and control over speech and thought — to eliminate dissent and discredit competition — rather than a noble quest for truth is almost too self-evident to require explanation. No human institutions should be trusted with the inherently tyrannical power they seek to arrogate unto themselves: to decree truth and falsity with such authoritative power that views they have decreed "false” become prohibited, off-limits, even worthy of punishment. ...

[T]his week we produced a Rumble video dissecting one specific two-minute segment that NBC aired in order to demonstrate how casually, aggressively and constantly NBC's highest-paid personalities lie to the public. As I note in this new video, I use the term “lie” here not the way it has been used by the liberal CNN/NBC/Atlantic/NYT corporate media axis over the last five years: 1. anything Donald Trump or his supporters say; 2. anything that contravenes liberal orthodoxies. In this video report, I use the term "lie” in its most literal, restrictive and classic sense: namely, the assertion of demonstrably false factual claims with either the knowledge that it is false or complete indifference to its truth or falsity.

On December 10, MSNBC aired a segment on Morning Joe — a purported news report featuring its host Joe Scarborough, the former GOP Congressman from Florida, and its regular paid contributor Claire McCaskill, the former two-term Democratic Senator from Missouri — that packed one lie after the next into two short minutes. The duo was purporting to explain to its audience the implications of last week's ruling by a British court approving the Biden DOJ's request to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks, in partnership with numerous mainstream media outlets, of a cache of secret documents revealing various war crimes, lies and corruptions on the part of the U.S. and UK governments and their allies.

Within the span of two minutes, these NBC personalities told four blatant lies about the Assange case. I do not mean that they asserted dubious opinions or questionable narratives or even misleading claims. I mean that they outright lied about four separate matters that are crucial to understanding the Biden administration's attempted extradition and prosecution of Assange. These lies were not just misleading but pernicious, as they were designed not merely to mislead the public but to provoke them to believe that one of the gravest attacks on press freedom in years — the imprisonment of a journalist for the crime of reporting true and accurate information about the crimes of power centers — is something viewers should applaud rather than denounce.

Katie Halper: Biden Admin’s Disregard For Assange & Law Is TRUMPIAN, Miscarriage Of Justice

Russia Sends Security Proposals to U.S. as Ukraine Tensions Soar

President Vladimir Putin said Russia has sent the United States its proposals on mutual security guarantees amid high tensions between the countries over Ukraine, Interfax reported Wednesday.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry passed the offer to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried, who is in Moscow after visiting Kiev amid fears of Russia invading Ukraine.

Putin reiterated his request to “immediately launch negotiations” with the U.S. and NATO on international legal guarantees for Russia’s security. Putin previously informed his Finnish counterpart of the offer. ...

Putin’s demands include stopping NATO from expanding east, including closing Ukraine's door to membership, and halting its deployment of weapons in neighboring states.

Ushakov said Putin informed Chinese President Xi Jinping of the U.S. and NATO security guarantee proposal during virtual talks Wednesday.

UK public don’t want ‘perennial fights of a permanent Brexit’ with EU

The British public do not share the government’s appetite for perpetual conflict with the EU and more people see the bloc as a key future partner than the US, according to a report on post-Brexit foreign policy. ... Polling for the report found people were evenly split on who was most to blame for the current dire state of relations between the UK and EU, with 39% blaming Britain and 38% saying they considered the bloc responsible.

The divide was predictably partisan, with 70% of Conservative voters blaming the EU and 66% of Labour voters the UK. It was strongest among those with a keen interest in politics, however: most people were less bothered. Regardless of who they saw as responsible, 39% of the public - a majority of those with an opinion - considered the EU a key partner for the UK in future, compared to 22% for the US.

The survey also found the lack of enthusiasm for the US extended to following it into any conflict with China, with 54% believing there was already a cold war between the two and 45% preferring the UK to stay neutral in the event of a war.

More broadly, the UK government’s vision for “Global Britain” aimed “to restore British greatness as a maritime trading nation”, the report said – but the evidence showed it amounted to little more than “a delusion rooted in a misremembered imperial past”. ... The ECFR survey found only 6% of respondents favoured a UK foreign policy that prioritised Britain’s military strength, while 40% said they would like foreign policy to focus primarily on strengthening the domestic economy.

“The government’s pride in seeing British naval forces steam into the Pacific Ocean does not seem to inspire the public,” the authors said.

Erdogan intervenes after Turkish lira sinks to lowest level against dollar

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has vowed to take on the currency markets after a fresh cut in his country’s interest rates sent the lira plunging to its lowest ever level against the US dollar. Erdogan said Turkey’s destiny would not be determined by the level of borrowing costs or by foreign exchange speculators despite signs his unorthodox approach to running the economy was leading to rapidly rising inflation.

The Turkish president announced the minimum wage would be increased by 50% to maintain its US dollar value and promised unspecified measures to ensure stability in the coming days. His move followed a fall of more than 5% in the lira’s value against the dollar triggered by an announcement by Turkey’s central bank that interest rates were being cut by a percentage point, a bigger fall than the markets had been anticipating in light of the lira’s recent weakness.

At Erdogan’s insistence, interest rates have been cut by one percentage point five times since September, a period during which the currency has halved in value against the dollar and inflation rose to 21% – more than four times the official 5% target.

‘Very worrying’: is a far-right radical about to take over in Chile?

Fifteen million Chileans will head to the polls on Sunday for the second, decisive round of Chile’s presidential election to choose between the far-right politician and his leftist rival, Gabriel Boric, who appears to hold a slender lead. ...

But the prospect of a four-year Kast presidency has horrified many in Chile and across the region and fueled fears that one of South America’s most prosperous and stable democracies could be on the verge of being captured by Steve Bannon-style extremists. ...

On Tuesday, Chile’s moderate former president Michelle Bachelet threw her weight behind Boric, telling Chileans they faced a “fundamental” choice and urging them to back a leader who could lead the country “down the path of progress for all”.

Chile’s 2021 race has uncanny and disturbing echoes of the profoundly polarized 2018 vote that saw Jair Bolsonaro – like Kast long viewed as a political aberration – gain control of Latin America’s largest democracy. While a more graceful orator than his notoriously blunt Brazilian counterpart, Kast has hoisted almost identical banners including law and order, opposition to “gender ideology” and a flag-waving antipathy toward the left and its alleged bid to deny citizens their “freedom”.

Boric, meanwhile, has promised “hope will prevail over fear” – a carbon copy of the pledge the leftist Brazilian Fernando Haddad made before losing to Bolsonaro in October 2018.

Over 100 Congressional Democrats Call on Biden to Restore Engagement With Cuba

Over 100 members of Congress on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to step away from "failed policy" by taking a number of steps to reengage with Cuba and help curb a humanitarian crisis in country.

"We believe that a policy of engagement with Cuba serves U.S. interests and those of the Cuban people," the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Biden.

Led by Reps. James P. McGovern (D-Mass), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), the letter has been signed by 114 members of Congress, including progressive Democrats from New York Mondaire Jones, Jamaal Bowman, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

On the presidential campaign trail, Biden vowed to "reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families." Biden was also vice president when President Barack Obama announced a move to normalize relations with Cuba in 2014.

However, as NBC News recently reported, "critics of Biden's Cuba policy say the administration has largely left former President Donald Trump's policy, that included a barrage of sanctions, intact and has been slow to implement changes." That policy prompted a letter earlier this year from 80 House Democrats similarly urging Biden to reverse a policy of hostility toward the island, including by ending the economic blockade.

In their new letter, the lawmakers called on the president to take "immediate humanitarian actions," including lifting restrictions on sending medical supplies and those on "banking and financial transactions related to humanitarian aid and suspend end-use verification."

"While the embargo allows for the shipment of humanitarian aid, in practice, licensing requirements, end-use verification, restrictions on the banking sector, and fear of unknowingly running afoul of U.S. law severely complicate sending humanitarian aid to Cuba, from other countries as well as from the United States," they wrote.

Undoing the Trump administration's relisting of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism is another needed change, as is lifting restrictions on remittances—a lifeline for essential needs—the lawmakers said.

Progressives’ Cave to Manchin Now Complete

If you won't use your power when you have it as leverage for your agenda, all you have left is whine, whine, whine:

Jayapal Laments That Progressives 'Don't Have Enough Control' in Congress

Amid a series of setbacks this week, Rep. Pramila Jayapal acknowledged that progressive lawmakers are currently limited in their ability to advance a pro-working class agenda—an implicit endorsement of Sen. Joe Manchin's advice to elect more left-leaning candidates if the goal is to win transformative policies that are popular and would benefit the vast majority.

In an interview with Politico published Thursday, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Jayapal (D-Wash.) said that her caucus has been unable to prevent right-wing Democrats from gutting the party's Build Back Better Act (BBB) because "we don't have enough control."

Biden's signature social infrastructure and climate package, approved last month by the House, is currently at risk of being killed by Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Manchin wields an enormous amount of influence because passing BBB through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process requires the support of all 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus. The coal profiteer also has less incentive to back the bill since the fossil fuel-friendly physical infrastructure measure he favors has already been signed into law by President Joe Biden.

As it became apparent on Wednesday that Senate Democrats would likely postpone consideration of Biden's proposal to invest $1.75 trillion over 10 years to address the climate crisis and expand the social safety net, Manchin and 41 other Democrats joined 46 Senate Republicans to pass a one-year, $778 billion military budget.

With BBB stalled, Senate Democrats have turned their attention to a last-ditch effort to pass voting rights legislation before the end of the year. However, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—another one of the party's corporate-backed obstacles—dug her heels in to defend the chamber's 60-vote filibuster rule, which gives the minority party veto power over most bills, including ones aimed at neutralizing the GOP's nationwide assault on the franchise.

Because of Manchin's latest attempt to eliminate the enhanced child tax credit—a move that would push millions of kids across the U.S. back into poverty—it is possible that families with children may have just received their final monthly payment of up to $300 per child this week.

With student loan payments set to resume in February due to Biden's own intransigence, which persists despite rising inflation caused in large part by corporate price-gouging, progressive critics have warned Democrats that they are facing a potential bloodbath in next year's midterm elections. 

At the same time, Manchin himself suggested in September that the only solution to the current impasse is to get more progressives into office.

"All we need to do I guess for them to get theirs," he said, "is elect more liberals."

Group Urges Primary Challenges for Progressive Caucus Members Who Are 'Progressive in Name Only'

Late last year the Congressional Progressive Caucus instituted a series of structural changes that its leaders and outside advocates hoped would turn the legislative bloc into a genuine force for change—in part by shedding members who were not fully committed to progressive policy objectives.

But a new report out Thursday claims that despite the CPC's overhaul, a number of House Democrats who are "progressive in name only" (PINOs) remain part of the nearly 100-member strong caucus, raising questions over its potential to achieve the stated aim of "standing up for progressive ideals in Washington and throughout the country."

Authored by award-winning journalist Christopher D. Cook and edited by Jeff Cohen, co-founder of the advocacy group RootsAction, the report primarily trains its attention on six CPC members who—in Cook's view—are deserving of progressive primary challengers.

"Our research shows that many caucus members don't actually legislate like progressives," Cook said in a statement. "How can we achieve these critical reforms when some so-called 'progressives' refuse to challenge the status quo?"

Topping the list is Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), who "scored a full 100% wrong on core progressive issues," according to the new analysis, which judges lawmakers based on their support for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines, and other measures.

Dean, a recipient of sizable campaign donations from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, has declined to endorse Medicare for All even as the CPC's website unequivocally expresses support for the proposal.

The Pennsylvania Democrat has also "failed to support either of the Green New Deal measures from Reps. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush," Cook writes, noting that Dean told a crowd of Philadelphia activists in 2019 that "while she supports the idea of a Green New Deal, she wouldn't co-sponsor it."

"In foreign policy," Cook adds, "Dean signed the March 2021 congressional letter (backed by 70 Republicans and 70 Democrats) aimed at slowing the Biden administration's efforts to reestablish an Iran nuclear deal—a letter organized by the Israel-can-do-no-wrong lobby, AIPAC. In 2020 and 2021, she voted against amendments to reduce military spending."

The report also spotlights Reps. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), who "has not co-sponsored either Green New Deal measure" and "voted for legislation in 2018 to boost natural gas exports"; Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), "one of 16 CPC members who is part of the corporate-allied New Democrat Coalition"; and Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), who has "failed to cosponsor AOC's Green New Deal resolution or Cori Bush's Green New Deal for Cities."

Other lawmakers dubbed PINOs in the report include Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

"By exposing their actual records, we hope to spur primary challengers, especially in thoroughly Blue districts where the primary is the only competitive election," Cohen told Common Dreams. "A more cohesive Congressional Progressive Caucus, bereft of PINOs, would be taken more seriously by the powers-that-be when it pledged to take a firm stand. That's not the case now. And progressive activists are desperate for a stronger force on Capitol Hill."

Over the past several months, the CPC emerged as a key player in negotiations over a bipartisan infrastructure package and Democrats' Build Back Better Act, which is currently on the verge of dying in the U.S. Senate due to the continued opposition of right-wing Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)

For weeks, enough members of the CPC—led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—withheld their votes from the bipartisan package, demanding that the far more ambitious reconciliation bill pass simultaneously. Progressives openly voiced concern that they would lose their leverage to ensure passage of the reconciliation bill if they allowed the bipartisan measure—crafted by Manchin, Sinema, and several Republicans—to clear the House.

But last month, an overwhelming majority of CPC members relented, voting to send the bipartisan infrastructure package to President Joe Biden's desk without winning assurances that the Build Back Better Act would pass the Senate—a decision that appears to be coming back to haunt them.

Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were the only CPC members to vote no on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

"After spending months building support for the president's entire agenda, I voted 'no' on the bipartisan infrastructure package because the Build Back Better Act had not yet passed the Senate, and the senators who had been blocking lifesaving funding had not yet made any public commitments to support the bill," Bush said in a statement Wednesday.

"I put my reputation on the line to make it clear that if we want to deliver the entire, much-needed, and long-overdue Biden agenda," Bush added, "we must not undermine our power as a government nor the power of the people by placing the fate of Build Back Better at the feet of one Senator: Joe Manchin."

Referring to the ongoing fight over the Build Back Better Act—which has been dramatically watered down from the original $3.5 trillion proposal—Cook asked in the new report: "How can one of Congress' biggest caucuses—comprised of 94 representatives, one non-voting delegate, and one senator—lack the power to force passage of a modest social safety-net package already sliced nearly in half by two corporate Democratic senators?"

"For starters, the caucus could ensure that its members are committed to the CPC's agenda," Cook wrote, noting that the new caucus rules allow members to vote out of line with CPC positions a third of the time.

"The caucus says it 'strongly supports a Green New Deal to take immediate, necessary steps to protect current and future generations from the deadly impact of climate change'—so shouldn't its members support this fundamental change?" Cook continued. "The caucus adds, 'we're fighting to pass the Medicare for All Act to guarantee healthcare to all people living in the United States'—so, shouldn't caucus members join this urgent fight?"

In a statement, Cohen argued the report's findings suggest that "a more unified and cohesive CPC, a caucus with more genuine progressives and fewer PINOs, would be a much more formidable force on Capitol Hill, and a better ally with progressive movement activists across the country."

It was only a matter of time. pic.twitter.com/zruvGGalSO

— Gritty is the Way (@Gritty20202) December 16, 2021

The US postmaster appointed under Trump is still raising alarm – but can he be stopped?

Joe Biden this month took another step toward the removal of the controversial postmaster general Louis DeJoy, even as the Trump-era appointee continues to make his mark on the embattled postal service, rolling out new plans to slow down delivery and close postal stations around the country.

DeJoy, a Republican logistics executive, caused a national furor last year over his attempts to slow down mail delivery before the 2020 presidential election, in which millions of Americans voted by mail.

Biden has not said outright whether he wishes to oust DeJoy, although his press secretary, Jen Psaki, has said she is “deeply troubled” by his leadership. Even so, the president lacks the authority to dismiss the postmaster general. That power rests with the USPS Board of Governors, a nine-member panel that can remove DeJoy with a majority vote. There were three vacancies on the board when Biden took office, and he filled those vacancies with Democratic allies earlier this year.

Now the president has taken a further step toward reshaping the board by nominating two new governors to replace those whose terms are expiring. His decision not to renominate the Democratic board chairman, Ron Bloom, is significant, since Bloom was one of DeJoy’s biggest allies on the board and earlier this year said he considered DeJoy “the proper man for the job”.

Indeed, the postmaster general bought as much as $305,000 in bonds from Bloom’s asset management firm earlier this year, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure paperwork. Bloom has said he doesn’t benefit from the purchase. The asset purchases and Bloom’s continued support for DeJoy led some Democratic senators to say they wouldn’t support Bloom’s renomination.

You can read our full analysis here:https://t.co/5Yh8tNNwM6

— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) December 10, 2021

Daily Poster: How Amazon BLOCKED Worker Protection Bill | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

They were forced to stay at work as a tornado bore down. Would a union have saved them?

Why did eight workers at a Kentucky candle factory and six workers at an Illinois Amazon warehouse die this week? They were killed when a powerful tornado destroyed their workplaces, but it wasn’t really the storm that killed them, any more than a sailor forced to walk the plank is killed only by the waves. They were not random victims. They were sacrificed. We here in the most advanced nation on earth offered them up to the gods that we actually worship.

Why did they die? They died because they were inside their workplaces in the path of the storm. They died because they did not leave work before disaster struck. And they did not leave work because they were allegedly ordered not to, by their bosses. The factory workers in Kentucky say that managers threatened to fire them if they left. Amazon workers say that they were told not to leave in advance of the storm. They also say that lack of adequate safety procedures is par for the course at Amazon, where the employee handbook notifies workers that they can be fired for leaving without “permission”.

Why couldn’t they leave work? Because none of them had a union to protect them. None of them had a union to empower them to stand up to a boss who demanded that they do something that put them in danger. None of them had a union to give them the collective ability to require their employers to value their lives. Unions are the only – the only – reason industries from construction to coal mining are far safer today than they were a century ago. Unions have fought for generations to force – to force – companies to take safety seriously. Under capitalism, a dead worker is nothing more than a small debit on a company’s ledger. Companies do not allow worker safety to impinge on their all-important profits unless they are absolutely required to. Unions are the things that require them to. The workers who died this week had no unions. They had inadequate protections at work. And now they are gone.

Why didn’t they have unions? They didn’t have unions because employers believe that unions will cost them money, and therefore all of corporate America and much of our political structure has conspired for many decades to make it extremely hard for regular working people to form and maintain unions. ...

So many of our most respected citizens can claim responsibility for this achievement: every corporate executive who hires an anti-union law firm; every politician who passes “right to work” laws and opposes public health care; everybody who votes Republican because of some weird race panic; every member of the Chamber of Commerce who conspires with local leaders to give tax breaks to companies like Amazon to build a vast warehouse in their dreary county; every institutional investor who demands constant growth and utmost efficiency and never, ever peeks behind the curtain to see how it is accomplished; and every one of us who has fallen in love with the seductive ability to click and receive an infinite assortment of consumer goods, whenever and wherever we want.

Civil Rights Attorney Benjamin Crump on George Floyd, Daunte Wright & Javier Ambler Cases

Derek Chauvin admits to killing George Floyd in plea deal on federal civil rights charges

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, 2020, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a St. Paul, Minnesota, courtroom to federal charges as part of an agreement worked out with US government prosecutors.

After answering a series of questions from US District Judge Paul Magnuson and Minnesota federal prosecutor Allen Slaughter about the plea agreement, the former-cop, who is white, admitted for the first time in open court that he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck “even after Mr. Floyd became unresponsive” and that his actions caused the 46-year-old black man’s death.

In exchange for his guilty plea, Chauvin, 45, is expected to be sentenced by Judge Magnuson to a prison term of 25 years. The arrangements with prosecutors stipulate that the federal sentence would run concurrently with his state sentence of 22.5 years. This means Chauvin would serve an additional 2.5 years in prison beyond the sentence that was imposed following his conviction in a jury trial last June.

The plea agreement also provides for Floyd’s murderer to serve out his jail term in a federal prison. According to the New York Times, federal prison is preferred by Chauvin because it is “generally considered to be safer” and could separate him “from prisoners he may have arrested.” Another provision of the deal would prevent Chauvin from ever working as a police officer again.

With credit for good behavior, the earliest he could be released from prison would be between 17 years and 21.25 years. If Chauvin had pleaded not guilty and gone to trial, legal experts said the federal government’s case was strong and a conviction would have resulted in a life sentence.

Bipartisanship at Whose Expense? Raphael Warnock Calls to End Filibuster, Pass Voting Rights Bills

With 'Asinine' Filibuster Defense, Sinema Imperils Last-Ditch Voting Rights Push

Right-wing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday cast further doubt on Democrats' nascent effort to pass voting rights legislation before the end of the year by reiterating her defense of the Senate's legislative filibuster, an archaic rule that the GOP minority has used to stonewall bills aimed at protecting the franchise.

Democratic leaders signaled Wednesday afternoon that they intend to shift their focus to a last-ditch voting rights push ahead of the new year after talks over the party's Build Back Better package faltered, as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) indicating he wants to gut the expanded child tax credit—a non-starter for progressives.

But just hours after the party's rapidly changing strategy began to emerge, Sinema (D-Ariz.) all but dashed any lingering hopes of concrete action on voting rights, with her spokesperson telling Politico that the senator opposes even minor tweaks to the filibuster rule.

"Senator Sinema has asked those who want to weaken or eliminate the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation which she supports if it would be good for our country to do so," said Sinema spokesperson John LaBombard, who warned that newly passed bills could be "rescinded in a few years and replaced by a nationwide voter-ID law, nationwide restrictions on vote-by-mail, or other voting restrictions currently passing in some states extended nationwide."

Voting rights advocates were quick to slam Sinema's latest filibuster apologetics as ridiculous, arguing it shouldn't take a supermajority in the U.S. Senate to thwart voter suppression legislation passed along party lines by state-level Republicans. ...

Emily Kirkland, executive director of the local advocacy group Progress Arizona, said in a statement late Wednesday that "in continuing to support the filibuster, Senator Sinema is single-handedly destroying any hope of progress on voting rights or democracy reform at the federal level for the foreseeable future."

"History will not be kind to her if she continues on this path," Kirkland added. "It is time for her to come to terms with her responsibility to the American people and end the filibuster—now."

Biden administration announces plan to replace 100% of lead pipes in US homes

The Biden administration on Thursday announced a “whole of government strategy” to remove dangerous lead from Americans’ drinking water, including billions of dollars to begin replacing 100% of the lead pipes servicing the nation’s homes.

Environmental groups praised the plan, which includes a promise to begin the process of strengthening the nation’s drinking water standards to reflect the science showing that lead is toxic for children at any level.

But lawyers at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has been leading efforts to fight lead, said they worry that the plan lacks a solid timeline and fails to deliver enforceable requirements.

The set of actions announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) included the release of the first $2.9bn of $15bn approved in Biden’s infrastructure plan for local water agencies to begin replacing lead pipes and called for the efforts to focus on the low-income communities who face the most risk of lead poisoning. It also listed 15 new actions across 10 federal agencies to address lead dangers from both water and paint. ...

But the plan allows a Trump-era rule to go into effect immediately, which would keep the federal action limit for lead at 15 parts per billion of lead in drinking water – something activists say is too high. The Trump administration proposed the new rule in December 2020, but the Biden administration delayed implementation in order to conduct a review.

Texas oil company charged in massive spill off southern California coast

A Houston-based oil company and two subsidiaries have been charged over a massive oil spill off the coast of southern California in October that fouled waters and beaches and endangered wildlife. Prosecutors say the spill was caused in part by failing to properly act when alarms repeatedly alerted workers to a pipeline rupture.

Amplify Energy and its companies that operate several oil rigs and a pipeline off Long Beach were charged by a federal grand jury with a single misdemeanor count of illegally discharging oil.

Investigators believe the pipeline was weakened when a cargo ship’s anchor snagged it in high winds in January, months before it ultimately ruptured on 1 October, spilling up to 25,000 gallons (94,600 liters) of crude oil in the ocean.

US prosecutors said the companies were negligent six ways, including failing to respond to eight leak detection system alarms over a 13-hour period that should have alerted them to the spill and would have minimized the damage. Instead, the pipeline was shut down after each alarm and then restarted, spewing more oil into the ocean.

Amplify blamed the unnamed shipping company for displacing the pipeline and said workers on and offshore responded to what they believed were false alarms because the system wasn’t functioning properly. It was signaling a potential leak at the platform where no leak was occurring, the company said. The leak, in fact, was from a section of undersea pipe 4 miles (6.4km) away, Amplify said.

‘Really abnormal’ storms and tornadoes tear through Great Plains and midwest

At least five people died as a powerful and extremely unusual storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, spawning hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. ...

The storm shifted north of the Great Lakes into Canada on Thursday, with high winds, snow and hazardous conditions continuing in the upper Great Lakes region, the National Weather Service said. More than 400,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

High winds, snow and other harsh weather conditions were reported north of the Great Lakes area, according to the National Weather Service. At least 13 tornadoes were reported on Wednesday, with high winds clocking in at over 70mph throughout parts of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

“To have this number of damaging wind storms at one time would be unusual any time of year,” said Brian Barjenbruch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska. “But to have this happen in December is really abnormal.”

The storm system came after a slew of tornadoes last weekend that cut through Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky, killing more than 85 people. ... Scientists have said that extreme weather events are probably due to human-caused climate change, but trying to find a cause for a specific weather event, such as storms throughout many regions in the US, requires additional analysis that requires time and can be inconclusive.

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A Little Night Music

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