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"It will take time to restore chaos."

-- George W. Bush

News and Opinion

Fears of foreign policy chaos in Trump's final days fueled by Iran bombing report

Fears that Donald Trump might try to wreak havoc on the world stage in his final, desperate, weeks in office appear to have been well-founded, after he reportedly asked for options on bombing Iran. A report in the New York Times said Trump was advised against strikes on Iranian nuclear sites by senior officials warning of the risk of triggering a major conflict. But it added that the president may not have entirely given up on the idea of staging attacks on Iran or its allies and proxies in the region. ...

The new acting under secretary of defence for intelligence and security, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, installed in the Pentagon at the same time as Miller, has reportedly pushed for regime change in Iran, and for aggressive action against Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq.

The turmoil in foreign and defence policy comes at a time when Trump is refusing to accept election defeat and is preventing Joe Biden’s incoming team from receiving intelligence or policy briefings. Former officials have suggested that Trump is aware he will eventually have to leave office and is considering another run at the presidency in 2024. To that end, he is looking at last-minute options for fulfilling campaign promises he can point to, to build a narrative that he ran a successful administration that was removed by a rigged election. ...

The former official added there were also factions in the Trump administration who view the weeks until Biden’s inauguration as a last chance to achieve their objectives. One of those factions is focused on Iran regime change, and has made common cause with Trump in the effort to destroy the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by which Iran received sanctions relief in return for accepting limits on its nuclear programme.

Justice Department attorney tells appeals court the government can kill US citizens without judicial review

On Monday, an attorney with the Justice Department asserted in federal appeals court in Washington D.C. that the government can kill US citizens without judicial review on the basis of the “state secrets” privilege.

Attorney Bradley Hinshelwood was arguing before the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a case brought by Bilal Abdul Kareem, a US citizen, and Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, a Pakistani-Syrian. The two journalists are challenging their placement on the US “kill list,” compiled by the government at least since the early years of the Obama administration, to carry out extrajudicial political assassinations.

Kareem claims he was targeted for death by the US government while he was in Syria reporting on the civil war there. He says that his interviews with Al Qaeda-linked militants resulted in his being placed on the “kill list.” In June and August of 2016, he maintains, the US targeted him five times, including a drone strike involving a US-made Hellfire missile. The government has refused to release any information regarding the two journalists on grounds of national security and the “state secrets” privilege in relation to alleged national security questions. ...

During the hearing, Attorney Bradley Hinshelwood declared that the government had the power to target and kill alleged national security threats, including US citizens, and that planning or committing such acts was not reviewable by the courts.

The bald assertion of the government’s unlimited “right” to murder its own citizens evidently stunned Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, part of a three-judge panel hearing the case. She asked Hinshelwood, “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” She went on to paraphrase his claim as giving the government the power to “unilaterally decide to kill US citizens.” ...

The Trump administration’s despotic assertion of the right to kill people, including US citizens, without any judicial review is a continuation and extension of powers asserted and acted upon by the Obama administration.

'This Is How a Torturer Ended Up Running the CIA': Biden Reportedly Hopes to Avoid Probes Into Trump Crimes

Taking cues from former Presidents Gerald Ford and Barack Obama—who pardoned or ignored their predecessors' crimes in the name of national unity and healing—President-elect Joe Biden has privately signaled to advisers that he is unlikely to pursue federal investigations of the Trump administration's policies and actions, NBC News reported Tuesday.

According to the report, the president-elect has expressed concerns that investigating President Donald Trump or holding members of his administration accountable for wrongdoing would further divide a nation already deeply riven by political tensions, and that focusing on Trump would distract Biden from his forward-looking agenda.

Biden is said to be especially wary of probing Trump's taxes or trying to undo any immunity the president may grant to his associates during his final weeks in office.

Put simply, one adviser said Biden "just wants to move on."

"He's going to be more oriented toward fixing the problems and moving forward than prosecuting them," another Biden confidant told NBC News.

Progressive critics, however, took the news report as a warning signal, not a sign of political wisdom on Biden's part.

"His overarching view is that we need to move the country forward," an aide said. "But the most important thing on this is that he will not interfere with his Justice Department and not politicize his Justice Department."

One adviser stressed that while Biden and his Justice Department will likely not go after Trump, their decision does not affect state-level investigations such as Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.'s probe of Trump's tax returns.

Biden's position, which was widely anticipated, drew comparisons with his former boss Obama, who while campaigning for president in 2007 and 2008 pledged to investigate the Bush administration officials responsible for CIA and U.S. military torture and to hold accountable the Wall Street bankers and other capitalists whose criminal actions helped cause and exacerbate the 2008 global economic crisis.

However, once in office Obama not only declined to prosecute any of the Bush war criminals, his administration actively protected and promoted them—one of whom, Gina Haspel, now directs the CIA. And while not one Wall Street criminal was sent to jail by the Obama administration for the kind of fraud that led to the economic collapse, many top financial executives ended up in the Obama White House to shape and guide economic policy.

"We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards," Obama said in regard to investigating and prosecuting CIA torturers shortly before taking office in January 2009. "At the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering."

Biden's apparent rejection of federal accountability for Trump's actions also evoked memories of Ford's 1974 pardon of his former boss and close friend Richard Nixon in the name of ensuring "domestic tranquility" and avoiding "ugly passions [that] would again be aroused" in the wake of the "long national nightmare" of Watergate.

According to the Biden advisers interviewed by NBC News, the president-elect believes that investigating Trump would arouse plenty of ugly passions in a nation whose people are arguably more divided than they've been in half a century—or, according to some observers, since the Civil War.

Americans wanting to see Trump—only the third U.S. president to have ever been impeached—face justice must now pin their hopes on state prosecutors as Biden prioritizes being "a president who seeks not to divide, but unify" over holding his predecessor accountable.

House Progressives Call on Pompeo to Condemn Israeli Demolition of West Bank Village That Left Dozens Homeless

With U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set to make an unprecedented and controversial trip to an Israeli settlement in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine this week, more than 40 House Democrats on Tuesday collectively called on him to condemn the Israel Defense Forces' recent razing of an entire Bedouin community in the region, which left dozens of people homeless during a rainstorm and was blasted as a blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In early November, as global attention was fixed on the U.S. presidential election, IDF troops bulldozed 76 structures in the Jordan Valley hamlet of Khirbet Humsa. Critics of the destruction included Yvonne Helle of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) along with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who said that "this a grave crime—in direct violation of international law," and accused the Israeli government of ethnic cleansing. ...

In a statement, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), the outgoing co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called Pompeo's planned visit to the Israeli settlement of Psagot "unprecedented and disgraceful," according to The Hill. The congressman also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau of using the U.S. election—which President Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden—to cover up "gross human rights atrocities."

"Destroying homes and displacing 41 Palestinian children demonstrates a clear act of aggression by the state of Israel and is intentionally oppositional to securing peace or a two-state solution in the region," he said. "There is no excuse for the de facto annexation of Palestinian land, and America cannot remain silent in the face of these human rights abuses any longer."

US bombers enter Chinese air defence zone as Beijing’s navy mounts massive exercises

The United States sent two long-range bombers into China’s air defence identification zone
(ADIZ) on Tuesday in an apparent show of force, as the Chinese navy conducted a series of simultaneous massive drills.

According to aviation tracker Aircraft Spots, two US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers left Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday morning and entered China’s ADIZ over the East China Sea. ...

Such heavy aircraft are not known for being deployed on spying missions, suggesting that the US was sending a blunt warning.

The US bomber mission comes amid uncertainty in the US, where US President Donald Trump has refused to concede defeat to challenger Joe Biden two weeks after the presidential election. The uncertainty has raised concerns in Beijing about the possibility of an accidental conflict.

Krystal and Saagar: Watch Dem Senator's DUMBEST Defense Yet Of Forever War In Afghanistan

Pentagon Announces Troop Drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq

Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller formally announced troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq on Tuesday. Miller said that by January 15th 2021, there will be 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and 2,500 troops in Iraq. There are currently about 4,500 US troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq.

DHS Plans to Start Collecting Eye Scans and DNA — With the Help of Defense Contractors

Through a little-discussed potential bureaucratic rule change, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to collect unprecedented levels of biometric information from immigration applicants and their sponsors — including U.S. citizens. While some types of applicants have long been required to submit photographs and fingerprints, a rule currently under consideration would require practically everyone applying for any kind of status, or detained by immigration enforcement agents, to provide iris scans, voiceprints and palmprints, and, in some cases, DNA samples. A tangled web of defense and surveillance contractors, which operate with little public oversight, have already begun to build the infrastructure that would be needed to store these records.

After proposing the rule in September, DHS is currently reviewing, and must respond to, thousands of comments it received during the 30-day period in which the public could weigh in. The agency had signaled that the proposal would be coming when it announced last year that it would be retiring its legacy Automated Biometric Identification System, or IDENT, and replacing it with the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology framework — stating explicitly that one of its objectives was to collect more types of biometric data and make searching and matching easier. Where HART was the vessel, the new proposed rule is the means of collecting all the new data types to populate it. ...

In October, several Democratic senators called on the Trump administration to reverse course on its expansion of biometric data collection. “This proposed rule by the Department of Homeland Security should send chills down the spines of every American who doesn’t want to live under big brother-style government surveillance,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, one of the letter’s signatories, said in a statement to The Intercept. “It’s disturbing that the Trump administration is trying to inch us closer to that slippery slope and further intimidate our immigrant communities. We have to keep fighting tooth and nail to bolster biometric data privacy rights and oppose dangerous and misguided data collection policies like this one.”

The Trump administration has not issued a timeline for when it will finish reviewing public comments. If that should happen before Joe Biden’s inauguration in January, the new administration would have to go through a regulatory process to roll it back. If not, Biden’s DHS could decide not to move forward with implementing the rule. But it’s far from certain that it would. While the president-elect has promised to roll back some unpopular Trump-era immigration policies, like the travel ban, the expansion of the surveillance state has long been a point of bipartisan consensus. The Biden transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Covid: chemicals found in everyday products could hinder vaccine

The successful uptake of any vaccine for Covid-19, a crucial step in returning a sense of normalcy after a year ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, could be hindered by widespread contamination from a range of chemicals used in everyday products.

Small amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (or PFAS) chemicals are commonly found in the bodies of people in the US, as well as several other countries. These man-made chemicals, used in everything from non-stick pans to waterproof clothes to pizza boxes, have been linked to an elevated risk of liver damage, decreased fertility and even cancer.

But scientists warn some of these chemicals can also cause another little-known but potentially significant defect by reducing the effectiveness of certain administered vaccines. This impediment could cast a shadow over efforts to roll out a Covid-19 vaccine to enough people that restrictions on day-to-day life are eased.

“At this stage we don’t know if it will impact a corona vaccination, but it’s a risk,” said Philippe Grandjean, an adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health. “We would have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.”

Research led by Grandjean has found that children exposed to PFAS had significantly reduced antibody concentrations after given tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations. A follow-up study of adult healthcare workers found similar results. Meanwhile, a certain type of PFAS, called perfluorobutyrate (or PFBA), accumulates in the lungs and can heighten the severity of illness suffered by people who are infected with Covid-19, separate research by Grandjean, yet to be peer-reviewed, has suggested.

As North Dakota Faces World’s Deadliest Outbreak, Native Communities Condemn States’ COVID Response

Anger in North Dakota after governor asks Covid-positive health workers to keep working

North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, said last week that healthcare workers who test positive for coronavirus but do not display symptoms could still report to work. The order, which is in line with CDC guidance for mitigating staff shortages, would only allow asymptomatic health workers who test positive to work in Covid units, and treat patients who already have the virus.

But many feel the idea endangers the workers themselves and their colleagues. It comes as North Dakota faces one of the worst outbreaks of Covid-19 and grapples with healthcare staff shortages. ...

According to data from the Covid Tracking Project, more than 9,400 North Dakotans tested positive for Covid-19 last week alone. About one in 12 North Dakota residents have been infected with the virus; nearly one in 1,000 have died. In early November , the North Dakota department of health reported that there were only 12 open ICU beds in the entire state.

Prof. Richard Wolff: Pandemic Winter Will Cause 'MASS SOCIAL DISLOCATION'

Trump administration has 'checked out' as Covid-19 surges, experts say

New Covid-19 diagnoses and hospitalizations are continuing to rise sharply across the US, with deaths following behind, in the worst outbreak of the entire pandemic. Experts say the federal government, led by the lame duck president Donald Trump, has “checked out”, weeks away from what would be early vaccine approvals.

On Tuesday, a coronavirus taskforce update from the office of Mike Pence made no mention of transition efforts involving the president-elect, Joe Biden, as Trump has refused to concede defeat. Last weekend, leading public health expert Dr Anthony Fauci said Trump had not attended a taskforce meeting in five months.

“We should not find ourselves in this position,” Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s school of public health, told NBC on Tuesday. “We’re 10 months into this pandemic, everybody knew this was coming, and again our federal government just didn’t prepare in the last couple months.

“It has decided to completely check out.”

According to Johns Hopkins University, 166,045 cases were recorded in the US on Monday, with 995 deaths. It was the 14th day in a row with more than 100,000 cases.

As COVID Deaths Soar, El Paso at Breaking Point with Hospitals & Mobile Morgues Filling Up

Trump Adviser Welcomes Killing Loved Ones With Covid-19 as This May Be 'Their Final Thanksgiving' Anyway

In his latest anti-science appeal to Americans, White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas on Monday night called on families to ignore the guidance of public health experts who say the holiday season should not include indoor gatherings—suggesting to Fox News that families should take the risk even for elderly or sick relatives this Thanksgiving because they will no longer be alive next year.

"This kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly who are now being told, 'Don't see your family at Thanksgiving,'" Atlas, who has no public health expertise, told Fox host Martha MacCallum. "For many people this is their final Thanksgiving, believe it or not. What are we doing here?"

COVID Task Force advisor Dr. Scott Atlas argues visiting your frail grandparents for Thanksgiving is fine because it might be their last one anyway. pic.twitter.com/zfScDMIrd5

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) November 17, 2020

Stanford University, where Atlas was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution before joining President Donald Trump's coronavirus team, promptly distanced itself from the doctor's comments, while political observers expressed shock on social media.

Protecting the elderly from Covid-19 is one of the main reasons infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials have called on Americans to skip indoor family gatherings and traveling this year. Last week he advised Americans to wear face coverings at any gatherings they do have if they don't know the Covid-19 status of all attendees.

'It wasn't always like this': US food banks hand out Thanksgiving meals as pandemic bites

Will Biden Dismantle Trump’s Immigration Police State?

Last week, sources close to President-elect Joe Biden told CBS News that upon entering office, the incoming administration will swiftly and fully restore the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA, rescind Trump’s Muslim ban, and “look to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations while his administration issues guidance narrowing who can be arrested by immigration agents.” Among other key initiatives on the agenda, sources said a Biden White House will also end the punishing Migrant Protections Protocol program, otherwise known as “Remain in Mexico,” create a task force for locating children separated by DHS, and raise the nation’s cap on refugees — which fell to a record low of 15,000 under Trump — to 125,000.

The ambitious vows, which tracked with promises made on the campaign trail, came one day after the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, published a policy brief examining the incoming administration’s immigration plans. Pointing to more than 400 executive orders as evidence, MPI reported that the outgoing administration had “methodically dismantled and reconstructed” the immigration system “based on a worldview of immigration as a security and economic threat to Americans.” Unfortunately for immigrant rights advocates, MPI noted: “The grafting of a dizzying array of Trump executive actions, policy guidance, and regulatory changes — some interlocking and thus difficult to unwind — atop a long-antiquated immigration system presents complex hurdles for an incoming administration that has vowed to roll back key Trump changes and advance bold reforms.”

Some of the challenges would be logistical. Biden’s refugee resettlement plan, for example, has to contend with the fact that after nearly four years of the Trump administration strangling refugee admissions, the capacity of the existing nonprofit infrastructure to take in refugees has been severely diminished. Similarly, while the incoming administration could swiftly end the “Remain in Mexico” program, which forced more than 67,000 people to wait out their asylum cases on the southern side of the border — in some instances in dangerous and squalid camps — Biden has not said whether he would allow individuals in the program into the U.S. As of September, roughly 24,500 people remained in the program, while fewer than 1 percent have been granted asylum. The challenge is not that the remaining cases necessarily reflect an unmanageable burden on the system; it’s that the 24,500 figure represents human beings whose needs and rights will require careful planning, attention, and resources if the Biden administration sincerely intends to distinguish itself from its predecessor.

In a phone call with reporters last week, MPI’s analysts and experts stressed that much of what a Biden White House could accomplish hinges on political will and timing, neither of which look particularly promising. Hanging over the procedural and logistical challenges is the overarching question of whether the incoming Biden administration can realistically accomplish the goals it has set for its first 100 days, said Sarah Pierce, an MPI policy analyst. “Will immigration actually be their key priority?” Pierce asked, before answering her own question: “We know it’s not going to be.” Pierce pointed to speeches Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris gave after their electoral victory. “They mentioned a lot of issues, but they didn’t mention immigration and during the Trump administration, immigration was the top policy priority,” she said. “They poured everything they had into enacting their agenda. I think under a Biden administration, we’re about to see the pace of immigration changes slow down significantly.”

Briahna Joy Gray: Biden Tries To Cloak Corporatist Hire With Identity Politics, Betrays Young People

Witness corroborates claim against Graham:

A staffer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger says he participated in that controversial phone call with Lindsey Graham and said he heard Graham ask if state officials could throw out ballots. https://t.co/C0GuO1bfTb

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 17, 2020

Krystal and Saagar: What You NEED To Know About Michigan, Georgia, And The Latest Trump Lawsuits

Trump fires head of US cybersecurity agency that refuted voter fraud claims

Donald Trump has fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and pushed back on the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), in a tweet on Tuesday, saying Krebs “has been terminated” and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was “highly inaccurate”. ...

Krebs had indicated he expected to be fired. Last week, his agency released a statement refuting claims of widespread voter fraud. “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” the statement read. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Krebs, a former Microsoft executive, ran the agency, known as Cisa, from its creation in the wake of Russian interference with the 2016 election through the November election. He won bipartisan praise as Cisa coordinated federal state and local efforts to defend electoral systems from foreign or domestic interference.

Michael Moore Embarrassing Himself For Biden & Harris

Pennsylvania court deals blow to Trump campaign’s bid to overturn Biden win

Philadelphia election officials did not improperly block Donald Trump’s campaign from observing the counting of mail-in ballots, the Pennsylvania supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a major blow to the president’s already flailing legal efforts.

The decision is significant because one of the Trump campaign’s loudest claims since the election has been that they were improperly blocked from observing the counting of ballots in Philadelphia.

While campaign observers were always allowed to observe, the campaign alleged they were being kept too far from the counting – about 15-18ft – to make any meaningful observation. It secured a court order in the days after election day requiring Philadelphia officials to let observers within 6ft. But the Pennsylvania supreme court reversed that decision on Tuesday, noting that Pennsylvania law gives Philadelphia election officials wide discretion to decide the rules around observers.

“The board did not act contrary to law in fashioning its regulations governing the positioning of candidate representatives during the pre-canvassing and canvassing process, as the election code does not specify minimum distance parameters for the location of such representatives,” justice Barbara Todd, a Democrat, wrote for the five justice majority. ...

Even the two Republican justices who dissented from the majority opinion disagreed with the idea, advanced by the Trump campaign, that legitimate votes should be rejected because of improper observation practices.

An Election We Could Not Sit Out: How Indigenous Voters Helped Defeat Trump & Elect Biden

Krystal Ball: Why Dems Love To LIGHT MONEY ON FIRE In Losing Races With Terrible Candidates

Will Trump’s refusal to concede help his base turn out in Georgia’s runoffs?

Donald Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in the 2020 presidential election won’t stop President-elect Joe Biden from taking office in January. But it is having a lasting and divisive impact on the American electorate and that might be exactly what Republicans have in mind as they gear up for a Democratic White House. ...

Political strategists and veterans of transitions see another incentive: keeping Republican voters energized for upcoming Senate elections in Georgia, which could decide which party controls the Senate in 2021. That thinking goes that if voters are still paying attention to politics through November and December instead of taking a break because major elections have been decided, they are more likely to donate and come out to vote in Georgia (if they live there).

That is vital in that keeping control of the Senate will give Republicans a powerful weapon to hobble Biden, frustrating his policy agenda and even limiting who he can pick for his cabinet posts.

The strategy – and the attendant creation of a powerful myth of a stolen election – could also serve to keep many Republican voters motivated in midterm elections in 2022 and eventually the next presidential election in 2024. It could help Republican aims of reducing the Democrats to a single term in the White House in which they will be unable to achieve major policies, especially if Republicans continue to win more House seats.

1% of people cause half of global aviation emissions

Frequent-flying “‘super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study. Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated. The analysis draws together data to give the clearest global picture of the impact of frequent fliers.

Only 11% of the world’s population took a flight in 2018 and 4% flew abroad. US air passengers have by far the biggest carbon footprint among rich countries. Its aviation emissions are bigger than the next 10 countries combined, including the UK, Japan, Germany and Australia, the study reports.

The researchers said the study showed that an elite group enjoying frequent flights had a big impact on the climate crisis that affected everyone. ... The frequent flyers identified in the study travelled about 35,000 miles (56,000km) a year, Gössling said, equivalent to three long-haul flights a year, one short-haul flight per month, or some combination of the two.

The research, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, collated a range of data and found large proportions of people in every country did not fly at all each year – 53% in the US, 65% in Germany and 66% in Taiwan. In the UK, separate data shows 48% of people did not fly abroad in 2018.

The analysis showed the US produced the most emissions among rich nations. China was the biggest among other countries but it does not make data available. However, Gössling thinks its aviation footprint is probably only a fifth of that of the US.

Citing Her Ties to Agribusiness and Fossil Fuels, 160+ Groups Tell Biden That Heitkamp Is 'Wrong Choice' for USDA

As part of progressives' broader battle to push President-elect Joe Biden to claim his "FDR moment" by choosing a Cabinet well-equipped to tackle the nexus of crises the country currently faces, more than 160 organizations came together Tuesday to oppose former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The coalition of environmental, social justice, sustainable agriculture, labor, animal welfare, public health, family farmer, consumer advocacy, and anti-hunger groups sent a letter (pdf) to Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and their transition team detailing Heitkamp's political record as well as her ties to agribusiness and fossil fuels.

Although she is considered the frontrunner to become Biden's agriculture secretary, "progressives have knives out for Heitkamp," Politico reported Monday. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) has expressed interest in the job and progressives have also pointed to Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) or Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) as possible picks.

"Heitkamp is the wrong choice for the USDA because she has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, supports fossil fuel interests, and holds views that are out of step with the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans," says the letter, spearheaded by Friends of the Earth (FOE).

"There will be a big fight on Heitkamp if Biden puts her name forward," Kari Hamerschlag, FOE's deputy director of food and agriculture, told Politico. In a statement Tuesday, Hamerschlag added that "if President-elect Biden is serious about meeting his climate goals, he cannot name Heitkamp as USDA secretary."

Trump officials rush plans to drill in Arctic refuge before Biden inauguration

In a last-ditch attempt to make good on promises to the oil and gas industry, the Trump administration is rushing to formalize plans to drill for oil in the Arctic national wildlife refuge before Joe Biden takes office. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management initiated the process with a formal “call for nominations”, inviting input on which land tracts should be auctioned off in the refuge’s 1.5m-acre coastal plain region.

The call for nominations “brings us one step closer to [...] advancing this administration’s policy of energy independence”, said Chad Padgett, the BLM Alaska state director, in a statement. The call for nominations lasts 30 days, which would allow the bureau to begin auctioning leases for land tracts to oil and gas companies just days before Biden’s inauguration on 20 January. The coastal plain region, where land could be auctioned, is considered some of the country’s last pristine wilderness, containing dozens of polar bear dens, essential migratory bird habitat, and caribou calving grounds held sacred to the Gwich’in people.

“Oil and gas drilling could wipe out polar bears on the coastal plain of the Arctic national wildlife refuge in our lifetimes,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and chief executive of Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement.

Native communities in the region say they will also be disproportionately affected by the leasing of Arctic lands to oil and gas companies. ...

The rush to sell leases appears to be spurred by Biden’s very different approach to public land management. He has promised to “permanently protect” the refuge and ban all new oil and gas leasing on public lands, making it unlikely that leases will be sold once Biden takes office.

Also of Interest

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

How Biden Could Give Everyone Medicare on His Own

Joe Biden's Foreign Policy Team

Rahm Emanuel Is Pushing for Transportation Secretary Post

Georgia lawmaker says Israeli government ‘asked me’ for anti-boycott law she introduced

Labour reinstates Jeremy Corbyn after suspension over antisemitism remarks

Brazilian leftists seek to emulate US Democrats' unity to beat Bolsonaro

Congresswoman Katie Porter Tells the Fed that It’s Got a “Big Problem”

Krystal and Saagar: Zuckerberg CONFRONTED Over Secret Facebook Surveillance, Censorship Tools

Rising: TIGHT RACE In Georgia For Senate Control. Will Trump Moves Backfire?

Rising: Meet The Main Players In Biden Swamp

Saagar Enjeti: How Both Parties FAILED Us On Stimulus Guaranteeing Mass Unemployment, Business Death

A Little Night Music

Mississippi John Hurt - Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor

Mississippi John Hurt - Candyman

Mississippi John Hurt - Cocaine Blues

Mississippi John Hurt - Frankie

Mississippi John Hurt - The Angels Laid Him Away (Louis Collins)

Mississippi John Hurt - Salty Dog

Mississippi John Hurt - Will The Circle Be Unbroken

Mississippi John Hurt - Coffee Blues

Mississippi John Hurt - The Ballad Of Stagger Lee