Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features banjo player Ikey Robinson. Enjoy!

"If a $600 stimulus check isn’t enough for you, then don’t be poor. If you’re poor, get another job. If there are no jobs, find some money. If you find money in unauthorized ways, we’ll throw you in prison. If you decide to just be homeless, we’ll throw you in prison for that too. If all this drives you insane, don’t worry, mental illness is what we have prisons for.

Prison is the social safety net of neoliberalism."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Human Rights Advocates to Biden: No Torture Defenders Allowed

Survivors of torture by U.S. or proxy forces and their advocates on Monday issued an open letter urging President-elect Joe Biden not to nominate torture apologist Michael Morell for CIA director, and calling on the Senate to reject the nomination of Avril Haines for director of national intelligence.

The letter—which was also sent to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee as well as to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris—was organized by Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America, Medea Benjamin of CodePink, and Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture.

In addition to those three activists, signatories to the letter include:

• Mansoor Adayafi, a Yemeni author imprisoned without charge or trial for 14 years in the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
• Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian refugee and artist who was jailed without charge in Guantánamo for 11 years.
• Moazzam Begg, a British Pakistani imprisoned at the U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan—where he says he witnessed Americans murder two detainees—and then, for three years at Guantánamo Bay before being released without charge.
• Sister Dianna Ortiz, a missionary from New Mexico serving during the Guatemalan Civil War who in 1989 was kidnapped, raped, and tortured—she says under the supervision of an American operative—by agents of the genocidal U.S.-backed regime.
• Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a U.S. Army whistleblower who a decade ago revealed that former President George W. Bush and senior members of his Cabinet knew that most of the men and boys imprisoned at Guantánamo were innocent but kept them locked up anyway.
• John Kiriakou, a CIA whistleblower who was prosecuted and jailed for nearly two years by the Obama administration for exposing U.S. torture.

"We believe that the record of Morell and Haines disqualifies them from directing intelligence agencies," assert the letter's signers, who in addition to those mentioned above include some two dozen other activists and advocates. "Their appointment would undermine the rule of law and U.S. credibility around the world. It would be a callous rebuke to people like ourselves and all those who care about human rights and the protection of basic dignity."

"Morell, a CIA analyst under Bush and both deputy and acting CIA director under Obama, has defended the agency's 'enhanced interrogation' (pdf) practices," the letter notes. "These included waterboarding, physical beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and sexual humiliation."

The letter also opposes the confirmation of Biden DNI nominee Haines, who "overruled the CIA inspector general by choosing not to punish agency personnel accused of hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers during their investigation into the CIA's use of torture."

"In addition, Haines was part of the team that redacted the Senate Intelligence Committee's landmark 6,000-page report on torture, reducing the public portion to a 500-page summary," the authors write. They add:

Haines also supported Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel for CIA director. Supervising a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, Haspel was directly implicated in CIA torture. She later drafted the memo authorizing the destruction of the CIA videotapes. Like Morell, Haines has worked both to defend torture and surpress evidence of it. She too, is incompatible with the stated aim of the Biden-Harris administration to restore integrity and respect for the rule of law to government.

"The new administration must show the American people and the world that it acknowledges past disturbing U.S. conduct and will ensure that such abuses never recur," the letter states. "To do that, it needs intelligence leaders who have neither condoned torture nor whitewashed the CIA's ugly record of using torture."

"That is why we urge President-elect Biden not to nominate Mike Morell for director of the CIA and the Senate to reject the nomination of Avril Haines for director of national intelligence," it concludes. "The people of the United States and the world deserve better."

Caitlin Johnstone:

Why It’s Good To Push Politicians To Do The Right Thing (Even When They Probably Won’t)

The debate rages on over whether or not House progressives should force a floor vote on Medicare for All by threatening not to re-elect Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, with one side arguing that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of “The Squad” were elected to advance progressive policies so that’s what they should do, and the other side arguing that AOC is cool so shut up and leave her alone.

As we discussed yesterday, Americans will not be given Medicare for All despite overwhelming public support because an immense amount of power depends on keeping them in a state of financial struggle so they don’t interfere in the affairs of a nation which serves as the hub of a global empire. The US political system does not exist to serve the interests of Americans, it exists to serve the interests of the empire. No part of that system is there to protect the people from the powerful; it’s there to protect the powerful from the people.

There’s a misconception which spans almost the entire US political spectrum, and that is the idea that some part of the system serves the people. Progressives believe they can use the electoral process to obtain economic justice for Americans. Trumpers believe the judicial system is going to overturn Biden’s win any minute now. Liberals believed Mueller was going to drag the entire Trump camp out of the White House in chains.

And that’s just not the case. There is no part of the US political system which is anything other than innately oppositional to economic justice. There is no part of the US judicial system which would ever act to reverse widespread establishment electoral fraud. There was no part of the Special Counsel which was separate from the same unifying power structure that Trump serves to remove him from office over corruption or anything else. Ever since 2016 people have been predicting massive upheavals which radically shift power from one mainstream faction to the other, but it never happens; the imperial machine keeps chugging along with all its parts working in well-oiled harmony.

And that’s all the US governmental system exists for: ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of the imperial machine. But that doesn’t mean there’s no value in pushing for officials to do the right thing.

Yes it is true that AOC and other House progressives will probably lay low instead of doing the right thing that people are pushing them to do, and that even if they do show some spine and force a floor vote on Medicare for All it will be quashed by other politicians on Capitol Hill. Yes it is true that any and all measures which US progressives advance to bring Americans the same social safety nets afforded to everyone else in every major country on earth will be quashed by whatever means necessary to ensure the continuation of a ruling class to manage the global empire. But it is still very worthwhile to push for those things anyway.

You don’t push politicians to do the right thing because you think they will, you do it to show everyone else that they won’t. You get them essentially making your argument for you: Oh we can’t fight for that right now because the system is rigged to nullify our attempts to do so. And this helps spread awareness to the greater public about just how fucked things really are.

Human behavior only changes when there’s an expansion of consciousness, whether you’re talking about individuals or a collective of any size. This might sound like woo woo New Age drivel, but I promise you it isn’t. It just means that people don’t stop doing crazy and self-destructive things until they can fully perceive what’s driving it and why it’s undesirable.

Substance abuse doesn’t end until the user turns and faces the inner demons that have been driving them to use. A religion’s child molestation epidemic doesn’t end until its victims come forward and are actually listened to. Women don’t get the right to vote until awareness spreads that women are actually capable independent thinkers. A society doesn’t collectively reject racism until it collectively becomes aware of how destructive and insane it is. No matter the size or scale, the behavioral dynamics do not change until consciousness is brought into them.

This is where the real battle is being waged. Not ultimately in winning elections or obtaining committee positions, or even really in winning specific battles over policy, but in expanding consciousness. In showing more and more people more and more information about what’s actually going on above and below the surface. That’s what will lead to swift and lasting change.

This is why so much of the battle is happening on the front of propaganda, censorship, and press freedoms. The more unconscious aspects of our world want to keep things secret, distorted, and hidden in the shadows, while those who want change are fighting to turn the lights on. This is also why there’s so much value in getting a political system which doesn’t serve the people to expose itself. First and foremost the quest is to spread awareness of what’s really going on to as many people as possible; people need to become aware that they’ve been duped.

Shitlibs: "Elect them and then hold their feet to the fire!"
Jimmy: "Here's an idea, let's hold their feet to the fire!"
Shitlibs: "Oh God no don't hold their feet to the fire, you'll burn their feet."

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) December 21, 2020

So keep spreading awareness using every tool you have available to you. Pressure the system to do what it’s supposed to be doing, and then when it doesn’t, shine a big bright light on the lock they’ve placed on the door and make a lot of noise about it so that people can see they’ve been trapped.

Things won’t change until a critical mass of people becomes aware that they are happening and how they are happening. Once this awareness has been sufficiently spread, there’s not actually anything our rulers can do to stop us from using the power of our numbers to force real change. They can’t arrest us all; they’ll run out of prison space. They can’t kill us all; they’ll have no one to rule. It’s an unwinnable fight for them, which is why they’re fighting instead to keep all the lights off using corruption, propaganda and secrecy to keep us from opening our eyes at mass scale to what they’re doing.

Our task is to turn the lights on. Their task is to keep them off. The side that wins this battle is the side that wins it all.

Black Critical Care Dr. Taison Bell of UVA on Fighting COVID, Racism & Securing Fair Vaccine Access

With New Covid-19 Strain 70% More Transmissible, Nations Rush to Contain Spread From UK

British government officials met on Monday to discuss the implications of strict new travel restrictions imposed by several countries, following reports of a highly virulent new strain of the coronavirus, which is driving a rapid spread of Covid-19 infections in the London area according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Experts say the new strain does not appear to be more deadly than the novel coronavirus first detected in November 2019, and that they have no reason to believe the new vaccines developed by Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna will not work against the mutation.

Because the strain—which has been named B.1.1.7. and appears to be 70% more transmissible—has been linked to an increase in hospitalizations in the U.K., nations are racing to shut down travel from Britain.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday called on the Trump administration to suspend all flights from the U.K. to New York City, saying that while the mutation has not yet been detected in the U.S., it could currently be "getting on a plane and flying to J.F.K."

French officials on Monday announced it would not allow delivery trucks to travel from the U.K. to France for 48 hours while experts gather information. Canada, India, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland have also suspended flights from the U.K., and Eurotunnel is temporarily halting outbound train service from Britain.

France's truck ban raised some alarm in Britain over the supply chain, as much of the U.K.'s produce at this time of year are imported. Although French trucks are still permitted to enter the U.K., Johnson called an emergency meeting to discuss "the steady flow of freight into and out of the U.K.," a spokesperson told CNN.

"Further meetings are happening this evening and tomorrow morning to ensure robust plans are in place," the spokesperson said.

According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, a small number of cases of the new coronavirus variant have been detected in Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy. South African authorities on Sunday said 80 to 90% of coronavirus samples analyzed since mid-November have shown strains similar to the variant found in the London area.

We Must Reject Austerity Politics: Economist Darrick Hamilton on Why $900B Stimulus Is Not Enough

The exclusive clinic used by members of Congress got an extra $5 million in the latest spending bill.

In a flurry of last-minute legislating over coronavirus relief, congressional leaders abandoned hazard pay for essential workers and emergency funding for local governments that may be on the brink of municipal bankruptcy. But lawmakers did find funding to dramatically increase the budget for the exclusive government-run health clinic that serves Congress.

The Office of Attending Physician, which provides medical services to lawmakers, received a special boost of $5 million, more than doubling its annual budget, which is currently around $4.27 million.

The increase in funding to the OAP, if passed, is the third budget hike Congress has provided to its own health clinic over the last year. The 2019 omnibus provided an increase in funding to the OAP, along with the CARES Act, which passed this past March.

The OAP, described as “some of the country’s best and most efficient government-run health care,” employs several physicians and nurses to provide on-call treatment to legislators on Capitol Hill. The new funding is justified by new services required for confronting the pandemic, though the office also provides lawmakers with the services of a chiropractor, on-site physical therapy, radiology, routine examinations, and a pharmacist.

The significant increase in funding for congressional health services comes as some provisions for working-class Americans were sharply curtailed or eliminated entirely.

COVID Relief Bill is a CRUEL JOKE

US healthcare workers protest chaos in hospitals' vaccine rollout

Frontline healthcare workers saw their hopes dashed last week when a botched algorithm, crashing scheduling platforms and other logistical mishaps thwarted their efforts to be among the first in the US to receive a long-awaited coronavirus vaccine.

Amid a surge in infections overwhelming hospitals around the US, doctors were incensed by administrative failures that denied access to the potentially life-saving shots, even as they volunteered to work in intensive care units or looked after the critically ill. ...

More than 100 Stanford doctors protested on Friday, standing up for respiratory therapists, environmental services workers, nursing staff, residents and fellows who interact with patients. They were unable to lay claim to initial doses of the vaccine, even as they learned that employees doing telehealth from home had nabbed slots. ...

Residents – doctors completing their training after medical school – were especially frustrated because they were being asked to volunteer for the Covid ICU but Stanford’s algorithm was not prioritizing them for vaccination. Ronald Witteles, program director at Stanford’s internal medicine residency program, tweeted that the vaccine rollout “was an absolute mess” and “one of the most upsetting 24 hours I have ever experienced”. ...

On the east coast, doctors in Boston’s Mass General Brigham system were also distraught. After the online scheduling platform crashed, employees filed into a long line on Thursday morning to sign up for shots in-person. But staff in emergency departments couldn’t abandon their patients. Once appointments came back online, availability vanished in minutes, a rush one physician likened to buying tickets to see Taylor Swift.

California hospitals struggle to cope with Covid-19 surge double July peak

Hospitals in California are scrambling to handle an explosion of coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm the state’s emergency care system, with some facilities in hard-hit Los Angeles county even drawing up emergency plans for rationing care.

As of Sunday, more than 16,840 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 infections, more than double the previous peak reached in July. That number could reach 75,000 by mid-January, according to one state model. ...

A document recently circulated among doctors at the four hospitals, which are run by Los Angeles county, calls for them to shift strategy: instead of trying everything to save a life, their goal during the crisis is to save as many patients as possible. That means those less likely to survive will not get the same kind of care offered in normal times. ...

Intensive care units in California are caring for more than 3,610 Covid-19 patients. All of southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have exhausted their regular ICU capacity, and some hospitals have begun using “surge” space. Overall, the state’s ICU capacity was just 2.1% on Sunday. ...

Across the state, 62 patients were being treated at “alternative care” temporary field hospitals, the governor, Gavin Newsom, said at a virtual press conference on Monday. With ICU at or past capacity, at least in southern California and in the San Joaquin Valley region, shelter-in-place orders, which are set to expire at the end of the month, are likely to be extended, he noted.

House Democrats Subpoena HHS and CDC Chiefs Over Alleged Political Interference in Covid-19 Response

Accusing top Trump health officials of "extensive and dangerous" political interference in the coronavirus pandemic response, House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compel them to produce documents concerning the alleged meddling.

Axios reports the subpoenas from the House Select Subcomittee on the Coronavirus Crisis were issued to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield. Democrats are accusing HHS and CDC officials of altering more than a dozen scientific reports over a four-month period earlier this year, as well as of postponing publication of peer-reviewed articles on the virus.

"The subpoenas were necessary because the select subcommittee's investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chairman, wrote in a letter (pdf) explaining the action. "HHS has made clear that it will not provide a timely and complete response to the... subcommittee's requests on a voluntary basis."

The letter alleges that "over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus."

Furthermore, it states that "documents show that HHS officials also attempted to muzzle CDC scientists by retaliating against career employees who provided truthful information to the public and targeting CDC staff with what one employee described as a 'pattern of hostile and threatening behavior.'"

The letter continues:

These unprecedented efforts to influence CDC's reports and bully its staff occurred at the same time HHS officials were privately advocating for a 'herd immunity' strategy to spread the coronavirus widely among Americans, as the select subcommittee revealed in a December 16, 2020 staff memorandum. The select subcommittee needs to obtain all the documents sought... to understand who in the Trump administration was responsible for this political pressure campaign, whether it was intended to cripple the nation's coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity, and what steps must be taken to end this outrageous conduct and protect American lives.

Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee at HHS and formerly a science adviser to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, is a leading proponent of the herd immunity strategy. On July 4 he sent an email to colleagues asserting that "kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk... so we use them to develop herd [immunity]… We want them infected."

Dr. Charlotte Kent, who is responsible for the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, testified before subcommittee staff earlier this month that she was instructed to delete an August 8 email (pdf) sent by Alexander regarding Covid-19 risk in young people.

Kent said the email concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report detailing Covid-19 youth risks during the period when President Donald Trump was pressuring school districts across the nation to reopen.

"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent testified. She also said she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from Redfield.

Both Alexander and Caputo have left their positions amid the controversy.

Biden’s Chief of Staff Says Response to Hack Will Go Beyond Sanctions

The incoming White House chief of staff for Joe Biden said on Sunday that the next administration’s response to a recently discovered cyberattack that targeted several government agencies will be more than “just sanctions.”

“In terms of the measures that a Biden administration would take in response to an attack like this — I want to be very clear — it’s not just sanctions,” Ron Klain told CBS. “It’s also steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to repeat this sort of attack.”

Since the hack on the software company SolarWinds was first reported, many in the media and in Congress were quick to blame Russia. Despite a lack of evidence that Moscow was involved, the Biden administration is reportedly mulling ways to retaliate against Russia. Sources told Reuters that options being considered are financial penalties and hacks on Russia’s infrastructure.

Congress Hits ABYSMAL 13% Approval Rating

Statue of civil rights pioneer Barbara Johns replaces Lee at US Capitol

A statue of the civil rights activist Barbara Johns, who played a key role in the desegregation of the public school system, will be installed in the US Capitol, officials said on Monday, replacing one of Robert E Lee, a leader of the pro-slavery Confederacy.

Johns was 16 when she led classmates at her all-black Virginia high school in protest of substandard conditions, leading to a lawsuit that was resolved in the US supreme court’s 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision, which declared segregation illegal. The statue, provided by Virginia, will replace one of Lee, a Confederate general during the civil war who owned slaves himself.

“The Congress will continue our work to rid the Capitol of homages to hate, as we fight to end the scourge of racism in our country,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “There is no room for celebrating the bigotry of the Confederacy in the Capitol or any other place of honor in our country.” ...

Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, said workers removed the statue from the National Statuary Hall Collection early on Monday morning. Northam, a Democrat, requested the removal. A state commission decided Lee was not a fitting symbol of Virginia and recommended a statue of Johns. Lee’s statue had stood with one of George Washington since 1909 as Virginia’s representatives in the Capitol space. Every state gets two statues.

Kansas City Star apologizes for decades of racist reporting

The Kansas City Star’s top editor has apologized for past decades of racist coverage and the newspaper has posted a series of stories examining how it ignored the concerns and achievements of Black residents and helped keep Kansas City segregated.

The newspaper said a detailed examination of its past coverage and that of its longtime sister newspaper, the Kansas City Times, documented how they often wrote about Black residents only as criminals or people living in crime-plagued neighborhoods and ignored segregation in Kansas City, Missouri, and its public schools.

“It is well past time for an apology, acknowledging, as we do so, that the sins of our past still reverberate today,” Mike Fannin, the Star’s president and editor, wrote.

William Barr: no plans to name special counsel to investigate vote fraud claims

The US attorney general, William Barr, said on Monday he has no plans to appoint a special counsel to investigate claims of fraud around the US election, which have been baselessly made by Donald Trump and many of his political allies.

Trump has not conceded defeat to Joe Biden and continues to tout conspiracy theories about mass fraud at the polls. Asked about Trump’s wishes on Monday, Barr said: “If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool, I would name one, but I haven’t and I’m not going to.”

Barr also said he would not be appointing a counsel to investigate the business interests of Hunter Biden. The son of president-elect Joe Biden has long been the target of attacks by Donald Trump and Republican supporters of the president, who have made wide-ranging accusations of corruption.

Trump Plots to Overturn Election: An Attack on Democracy or a Scheme to Make Millions for Himself?

Conspiracy-theorist lawyer Sidney Powell spotted again at White House

The lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell was back at the White House on Sunday night, reportedly to pitch Donald Trump on a plan to seize voting machines as the US president continues to dispute the result of November’s election, which he lost. ...

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted encouragement to Republicans reported to be considering challenges to the electoral college results when they come before Congress on 6 January. Such moves will in all likelihood not succeed in overturning the result, representing instead political appeals to the Republican base, many by senators who harbour White House aspirations of their own. ...

Powell was cut from Trump’s campaign team after spouting wild conspiracy theories but continues to advance the president’s cause. Spotted by CNN on Sunday night, she denied meeting the president and said it was “none of your business” why she was at the executive mansion.

But she was among attendees at a Friday meeting at the White House at which Trump reportedly proposed naming her as special counsel to investigate alleged electoral fraud, and flirted with the pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s suggestion that the army might be used to rerun votes in battleground states.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was reported to have pooh-poohed the special counsel and martial law plans, but to have asked about seizing voting machines, all ideas knocked down by the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone.

2020 Was a Busy Year for Taking the Climate Fight to the Courts

This year - with its converging crises, from the coronavirus pandemic to longstanding racial injustice to climate-related disasters - was also a remarkably active time for climate litigation. All around the world, communities, organizations, and especially young people turned to the courts in 2020 in strategic attempts to hold governments and polluting companies accountable for exacerbating the unfolding climate emergency. In particular, this year saw a notable uptick in climate accountability litigation with multiple new cases filed in the U.S. and internationally. ...

Over the years there have been more than 1,500 climate-related cases in 37 countries, according to a report on climate litigation trends released this summer. And a new wave of cases in recent years has made it clear that courts are emerging as a critical battleground in the climate fight. This year was notable for the number of new climate cases brought to the courts. At least 20 new cases were filed around the world against governments and fossil fuel companies. ...

September 2020 also saw four new climate accountability lawsuits filed by U.S. cities and states against major fossil fuel firms. The cities of Hoboken, New Jersey, and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as the states of Delaware and Connecticut all brought litigation against ExxonMobil and other such companies for alleged deception and disinformation campaigns that have worsened the climate change problem and resulted in catastrophic and costly consequences such as extreme flooding, monstrous storms, king tides, and scorching heat.

“Every person on the planet is affected by climate change and many communities are already experiencing its repercussions. Fossil fuel companies, who for years lied to the public about the damages their products cause, have so far evaded accountability. The coming together of these two streams - the worsening impacts of climate change and the revelation that fossil fuel companies recognized this internally but misrepresented it publicly - is driving this powerful wave of climate litigation,” said Marco Simons, EarthRights International general counsel. EarthRights International is providing legal representation in a climate lawsuit brought by several Colorado communities against petroleum firms ExxonMobil and Suncor. Additionally, new cases against Big Oil came this year out of Hawaii - with Honolulu suing in March and Maui following with a lawsuit in October. And in Minnesota and Washington, D.C., the two attorneys general filed back-to-back consumer protection cases in June. A case was also brought in D.C. against Exxon by an environmental group called Beyond Pesticides targeting Exxon’s advertising as deceptive greenwashing.

According to one law professor who is closely following these lawsuits, the pressure that new cases exert on the industry is important to help break through the industry-supported narrative on climate change. “This crisis is human caused, and a big part of that human cause was the systematic disinformation campaign,” said Karen Sokol, law professor at Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. These lawsuits help remind the public of the fossil fuel companies' involvement in that disinformation, she said. “These lawsuits have the potential to play a significant role in informing our public discourse as we go forward in responding to the climate crisis,” she added. “A critical part of that, given industry’s role, is understanding the nature of their disinformation campaigns and freeing ourselves, our democratic discourse, from their pollution of it.”

Also of Interest

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

Congress Crams Language to Criminalize Online Streaming, Meme-Sharing Into 5,500-Page Omnibus Bill

Prison Is Neoliberalism’s Social Safety Net: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Indian Farmers’ Protest Takes Tragic Turn

A No Deal Brexit Is Now All But Certain To Happen

Research Arm of Congress Confirms that Mnuchin Never Released Bulk of CARES Act Money Earmarked for Fed’s Emergency Loans

Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement Applaud Latest Economic Council Picks by Biden as 'Major Win'

Biden's pick for agriculture secretary raises serious red flags

AOC responds to being passed over for Energy and Commerce Committee

Tulsi Gabbard: Why I voted AGAINST spending bill

Krystal and Saagar: Tyson Food Managers Bet Money On How Many Workers Would Get COVID

Chuck Rocha Discusses His Book About Bernie's Successful Latino Strategy

Nina Turner Handles Got Ya Question Like A Pro

A Little Night Music

Ikey Robinson & His Band - Got Butter On It

"Banjo" Ikey Robinson - A Minor Stomp

Ikey Robinson & His Windy City Five - Sunshine

Banjo Ikey Robinson & His Bull Fiddle Band - Rock Me Mama

Ikey Robinson w. Jabbo Smith & His Rhythm Aces - Take Your Time

Jabbo Smith & His Rhythm Aces (w Alex Hill & Ikey Robinson) - Michigander Blues

Jabbo Smith and His Rhythm Aces (w Ikey Robinson) - Till Times Get Better

Jabbo Smith's Rhythm Aces - Boston Skiffle

Jabbo Smith w/Ikey Robinson & His Band - I Got The Stinger

Jabbo Smith & His Rhythm Aces - Sau-Sha Stomp