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This evening's music features blues piano player Marcia Ball. Enjoy!

"Democrats constantly tell leftists that they need to compromise with billionaires, bankers, exploitative corporations, war profiteers and sociopathic government agencies, and that they are simultaneously also incapable of compromising with the left on any agenda whatsoever."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

With Tara Reade’s Allegations, Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Only the Latest Chapter of America’s Accountability Problem

America’s accountability problem is being laid bare. Once a global superpower, today jeers of “failed state” better describe our geriatric empire. Having survived impeachment, America’s acquitted president poorly navigates an unclear future as a pandemic rages and a recession looms, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in its global wake. An embattled population barrels toward a national election between two accused rapists and known liars: President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden. ...

Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, was one of eight women who registered complaints of inappropriate touching in April of last year — before Biden ever jumped into the presidential race. ...
Now Reade, not Biden, is on trial in the American media landscape. Democrats, the party of “believe women,” are changing their tune, terrified at the prospect of another four years of a Trump presidency. ... If Democrats continue to do nothing, Reade’s accusation should prove that sexual misconduct allegations in either party are nothing more than a mild political inconvenience.

The lack of impetus to replace Biden speaks to how Washington, D.C., has long neglected creating a culture of accountability. Some of the darkest chapters of U.S. history have been classified away. Our villainous past remains unprosecuted as bipartisan bombs continue falling. America’s lack of understanding wrongdoing enables figures who should have atoned in order for the country to progress to instead linger in political relevance. If you supervised torture and destroyed evidence, like Gina Haspel, you can still get promoted. If you’re a war criminal, like George W. Bush, you can be rehabilitated. If you’re a judge, credibly accused of sexual conduct, like Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, you, too, can become a Supreme Court justice.

Now, high-profile Democratic endorsements for Biden signal that a quest for the truth — and a reckoning for the allegations against him — will never come. ...

Biden’s record is long and troubling. Some voters, myself included, are struggling with a moral debate in response to the electoral options before us. We face an impossible choice and feel disgust at being put in this position. “It’s a mind-fuck.” Gira Grant said, about the inevitable choice between Trump and Biden. “I want to appreciate how that feels and how uncomfortable that is. I think it’s just, like, ripping something back about our culture and our politics and revealing it to us. I don’t think it’s necessarily new.”

With a Distracted Public, the Pentagon Tries to Get Away With Killing Innocent Civilians

The United States’s wars continue to rage in the Middle East and Africa against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even in normal times, these conflicts got little public scrutiny. But with attention more occupied than usual, some U.S. military operations have been escalating even further. In recent years, these conflicts have become even deadlier for innocent people. The Trump administration has shown itself to be not just indifferent, but positively encouraging of the killing of civilians in foreign wars.

If there is a time to get away with killing people with no fear of accountability, it’s now. Yesterday, the Pentagon released its annual report on civilian casualties in its wars for the year 2019. According to the report, 132 civilians were killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria. In Yemen and Libya, countries where the U.S. also carries out airstrikes, the report simply claimed that no civilians were killed last year. “All DoD” — Department of Defense — “operations in 2019 were conducted in accordance with law of war requirements,” the report flatly stated, “including law of war protections for civilians.”

We already know from independent reports that Pentagon official figures on civilian casualties are, in general, woefully underreported. A 2017 investigation published by the New York Times found that, during a U.S. air campaign in Iraq, potentially thousands more civilians were killed than reported in official figures. In some cases, the military used video footage showing strikes on Islamic State positions as propaganda material, when in reality the footage showed airstrikes hitting homes full of civilians. Independent monitoring groups like Airwars have also documented thousands of civilian deaths from U.S. aerial campaigns that have gone unacknowledged in official figures.

The report issued to Congress this year was in line with new reporting requirements intended to provide more oversight about the impact of U.S. military operations on civilians. But the utility of these reported figures seems questionable: The military conducts almost no on-the-ground investigations of the impact of its strikes and is evidently willing to report figures that are absurdly low — literally incredible — for the sake of political expediency.

Trump charges Obama with 'biggest political crime in American history'

Donald Trump continued to fume over the Russia investigation on Sunday, more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller filed his report without recommending charges against the president but only three days after the justice department said it would drop its case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

“The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” the president wrote in a tweet accompanying a conservative talk show host’s claim that Barack Obama “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration”.

The tweet echoed previous messages retweeted by Trump, which earned rebukes for relaying conspiracy theories. On Sunday afternoon the president continued to send out a stream of tweets of memes and rightwing talking heads claiming an anti-Trump conspiracy. One tweet by Trump simply read: “OBAMAGATE!”

Crowdstrike admits 'no evidence' Russia stole emails from DNC server

In leaked conversation Obama says US 'rule of law' at risk after Flynn case dropped

Barack Obama has reportedly said the “rule of law is at risk” in the US, after the justice department said it would drop its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. ... Flynn, a retired general, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador about sanctions over election interference, which were levied by Obama at the end of his presidency. ...

Trump publicly toyed with pardoning Flynn and his supporters mounted a fierce campaign in support of the general, who had not been sentenced, before the decision to drop the case was announced on Thursday. It prompted fierce criticism from Democrats and many in the mainstream media, met by counter-attacks from the White House.

On Friday, Yahoo News reported that it had obtained a tape of a web talk between the former president and members of the Obama Alumni Association. “The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed – about the justice department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama reportedly said. “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury [in fact Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI] just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic – not just institutional norms – but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. ...

The president has repeatedly blamed Obama for the FBI investigation into Russian election interference which expanded to include links between his campaign and Moscow. Last week, Trump retweeted a conspiracy theorist who claimed Obama directed the investigation.

On Thursday Trump said at the White House: “What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented … and I hope a lot of people will pay a big price because they are dishonest, crooked people. They are scum, human scum.”

Covid-19 With Virologist Dr. Christian Bréchot, Plus Rambo Goes To Venezuela | Useful Idiots

The “Coup” Attempt in Venezuela Seems Ridiculous. But Don’t Forget — Regime Change Is the U.S. Goal.

On Monday, Venezuela captured two former U.S. special forces soldiers, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, after what authorities described as their “botched beach landing in the fishing village of Chuao.” A video was released of Denman telling his interrogators that he had been tasked with capturing the Venezuelan president. Meanwhile, Florida-based ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, head of the private security firm Silvercorp USA, appeared in a video alongside a former Venezuelan military officer in combat fatigues, in which he confirmed that Denman and Berry were working for him. (Press reports have since revealed that Goudreau had meetings with former longtime Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller, had signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition, and also claims to have been in contact with the office of Vice President Mike Pence.)

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former director of the CIA, spoke at a press conference where he issued his very carefully worded denial: “There was no U.S. government direct involvement in this.” He also couldn’t help but brag to reporters about how it “would have gone differently” if the United States had been behind it. (Memo to Pompeo: Google “Bay of Pigs.”)

Who knows? Perhaps Washington wasn’t involved this time. Perhaps Trump is correct to say that this particular fiasco, which sounds like the plot of a bad Hollywood movie, “has nothing to do with our government.”

Then again, this is an administration of liars, fabulists, and grifters. Dishonesty is the hallmark of the Trump White House. Their denials, therefore, are pretty worthless.

South Dakota governor threatens legal action if Native American tribes don't remove coronavirus checkpoints

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Friday told the state's Native American tribes to take down their coronavirus checkpoints along state and U.S. highways within 48 hours or face legal action.

The Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have put up traffic checkpoints to monitor highway traffic and contain the spread of COVID-19, according to South Dakota Public Radio (SDPR). The tribes closed their borders as soon as they detected their first case. ...

Leaders of both tribes told SDPR they do not plan to comply with the governor’s orders and said her requests lack legal merit.

Trump Death Clock: Creator Eugene Jarecki Says “Reckless Mishandling” of COVID-19 Must Be Quantified

Scientists concerned that coronavirus is adapting to humans

Scientists have found evidence for mutations in some strains of the coronavirus that suggest the pathogen may be adapting to humans after spilling over from bats. The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stress that it is unclear how the mutations affects the virus, but since the changes arose independently in different countries they may help the virus spread more easily. The spike mutations are rare at the moment but Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases and a senior author on the study, said their emergence highlights the need for global surveillance of the virus so that more worrying changes are picked up fast.

“This is exactly what we need to look out for,” Hibberd said. “People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”

Studies of the virus revealed early on that the shape of its spike protein allowed it to bind to human cells more efficiently than Sars, a related virus that sparked an outbreak in 2002. The difference may have helped the latest coronavirus infect more people and spread rapidly around the world.

Everybody Must Stay Home

You can catch it when you’re at the grocery store
You can catch it off the handle of a door
You can catch it from your friend just dropping by
You can catch it like a baseball from the sky
I know you feel so all alone
But everybody must stay home

You can get it if you’ve got the Memphis blues
You can get it you’ve got nothin to lose
You can get it if you’ve got the name Abraham
You can get it if you are the weatherman
I know you feel so all alone
But everybody must stay home

You could get it off the Parkin meetahs
You could Get it from hanging around the theatahs
You could get it if your name is Joan Baez
You could get it and then give it to the prez
I know you feel so all alone
But everybody must stay home

You might shake hands thinking you are brave
But you won’t be when you're set down in your grave
You might shake it like you shake your tambourine
You might shake it with bob Dylan in his dream
Well I know you feel so all alone
But everybody must stay home

Dont you go out to Maggies farm no more
You better scrub your hands like they made you scrub the floor
Dont bring those cracked lips any closer there Ramona
Dont share a beer especially a corona
I know you feel so all alone
But everybody must stay home

Up to 43m Americans could lose health insurance amid pandemic, report says

As many as 43 million Americans could lose their health insurance in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute. Prior to the pandemic, 160 million Americans, or roughly half the population, received their medical insurance through their job. The tidal wave of layoffs triggered by quarantine measures now threatens that coverage for millions.

Up to 7 million of those people are unlikely to find new insurance as poor economic conditions drag on, researchers at the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation thinktanks predict. Such enormous insurance losses could dramatically alter America’s healthcare landscape, and will probably result in more deaths as people avoid unaffordable healthcare.

“The status quo is incredibly inefficient, it’s incredibly unfair, it’s tied to employment for no real reason,” said Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy adviser for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “This problem exposes a lot of the inadequacies in our system.”

If the pandemic results in a 20% unemployment rate, as some analysts expect, researchers at the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) predict anywhere from 25 to 43 million people could lose health insurance. Many will use social safety nets to obtain insurance, including Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income people. However, eligibility criteria varies from state to state, with more restrictions in Republican-led states.

Coronavirus Could Finally Kill the U.S. Postal Service

Ilhan Omar ALMOST Calls Out Pelosi Over Stimulus Screwing

Here are a couple of excerpts from an interview with AOC in the Intercept.

With Congressional “Abdication” Over Coronavirus, Ocasio-Cortez Says She Is Reduced to Lobbying for Burial Costs

Aida Chavez: I wanna start with the lack of congressional hearings because of the pandemic. I know some committees and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) are holding their own Zoom hearings. But ultimately the House has no rules for remote voting or plans for official hearings in place. Do you feel restrained or alienated from your congressional duties? How is this impacting the ability to legislate and get some progressive accountability of the Trump administration?

AOC: It’s really hard to understate how devastating this has been, in terms of our legislative and oversight abilities, for an average member of Congress to do their job. Even our ability to just write and submit legislation has been completely decimated because a lot of our institutions … whether it’s the Office of Legislative Counsel, which is in charge of actually formalizing the text for our bills, whether it’s being able to have hearings in person … We’re not able to do our job legislatively. At all.

Now, we are able to do a lot of work in terms of our districts. That is something this has allowed me to do — I’m able to do a lot more in the community and do a lot more kind of casework. But in terms of our ability to actually advance legislation, be a part of writing legislation and conducting oversight of the Trump administration’s very flagrant corruption — we are at a complete loss. And I think that abdication of our ability — I think that’s not only abdication but that kind of challenge and those very hard limitations in our legislative responsibilities in D.C. — have had enormous impact on the response.

Aida Chavez: In a lot of ways you’ve almost been acting like a first responder, going out into the community and physically handing out groceries and supplies. You’ve been seeing the suffering with your own two eyes. Is it disorienting to go out and give people food and supplies in your community, then going to work and seeing Congress bail out corporations? Just the gap between you representing a district that’s taking this particularly hard and then, honestly, most members of Congress?

AOC: It’s devastating. I kind of went off on an Instagram story last week because I feel like I’m the cleaning crew for Congress’s neglect and mess. When we go to D.C., we’re with all of these members that are from a lot of communities that are very distant; they’re one, two degrees away from this crisis. And almost everyone is impacted one way or another from the closing of our economy. But that’s very different from having the bodies pile up in our backyard. And for me to have to go out every Friday and feed people who are hungry and try to get people help and health care who are dying — it is directly because of Congress and the federal government’s failure and inability to really acknowledge this crisis not just in scale but in time. So in terms of there being disorientation, for me, on one hand it gives you whiplash, but on the other hand it also gives you an immense amount of clarity.

I could not stomach voting for that last relief bill, knowing that I had to go straight back to my community and go right back to having to fundraise for diapers and fundraise for food myself because the federal government has chosen not to.

We’re having trillions of dollars in federal response being hacked out by three to five people in a backroom. And then they bring it back to over 500 members of Congress and the only option that you get is yes or no. And I’m personally boggled as to why these bills are passing almost unanimously with almost no dissent. This is pretty unprecedented in the history of Congress. And a lot of times that dissent and coalition building is healthy; it shows diversity of thought. And I want to be very clear that a lot of the time the pressures to support these bills are not about us talking about the merits of taking one approach or another, it’s just about these bills showing up and saying like, “Are you going to vote no on $2 for a hospital?” And doing that means that you’re going to have to allow unprecedented corporate expansion of power in the United States, and the idea that it is almost unacceptable to reject that choice is … it’s a sad state of affairs that we’re in right now frankly.

Rich going gangbusters as striking workers replaced with prison labor

RIP Little Richard:

Little Richard, rock'n'roll pioneer, dies aged 87

Little Richard, one of the pioneers of the first wave of rock’n’roll, has died. He was 87. Richard, whose real name was Richard Penniman, was born in Macon, Georgia in December 1932. He had been in poor health for several years, suffering hip problems, a stroke and a heart attack.

Richard’s son, Danny Penniman, first confirmed the pioneer’s death. In a statement, Richard’s agent, Dick Alen, said: “Little Richard passed away this morning from bone cancer in Nashville. ...

On Saturday, tributes poured in. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said Richard “pioneered rock’n’roll”. Beach Boys lyricist Brian Wilson said “he was there at the beginning and showed us all how to rock’n’roll”. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tweeted that Richard was “one of my all-time musical heroes”.

Elvis Costello said: “Play Rip It Up. Very loud. Then play it again. There’s nothing anyone can say, that says it better.”

There was also praise from Keith Richards and from Jagger, who tweeted: “He was the biggest inspiration of my early teens and his music still has the same raw electric energy … as it did when it was first shot through the music scene in the mid-50s.

“When we were on tour with him, I would watch his moves every night and learn from him how to entertain and involve the audience and he was always so generous with advice to me. He contributed so much to popular music.

“I will miss you Richard, God bless.”

Chris Hedges: "Bernie just wanted to be part of the club" & "failed us."

New York State Tries to Suspend Democracy; NYT and WaPo Shrug

Blaming health risks due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the New York State Board of Elections announced last week that the state would simply cancel its Democratic presidential primary, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden to be proclaimed the victor without a vote. The response from the country’s two most prominent newspapers? Meh.

Under the headline “New York State Cancels Its Primary, Angering Sanders Camp,” the Washington Post‘s Sean Sullivan (4/27/20) framed the story as simply a battle between the Sanders campaign (and its allies) and state election officials, offering back-and-forth quotes from both sides. Sullivan did include one quote from an outside expert—but only to dismiss a Sanders adviser’s suggestion that the move offered a “precedent” to Trump to “use the current crisis as an excuse to postpone the November election.”

“Not so, an elections expert said,” retorted the Post, quoting the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan group Common Cause: “You’re comparing apples to oranges.”

As we’ve written before (FAIR.org, 5/4/20, 3/23/20), many journalists seem fixated on reassuring the public that Trump can’t postpone or cancel the November presidential election, while ignoring the frighteningly real threats to our democratic elections generally (though see the New York Times‘ Emily Bazelon—5/5/20—for a vital recent exception to this trend). Could Sullivan have asked any voting rights experts about the threat to democracy posed by canceling a primary election, rather than just looking for reassurance about November?

The New York Times‘ Stephanie Saul and Nick Corasaniti (4/27/20) similarly framed the story as a dispute between the Board of Elections and “Bernie Sanders and his legion of progressive supporters.”

It’s worth noting that the Sanders camp wasn’t the only incensed party. Candidate Andrew Yang sued the Board of Elections over the move, as the Times failed to report until Yang’s lawsuit—joined by Sanders delegates—was ruled on by a federal judge (New York Times, 5/5/20). Judge Analisa Torres wrote in her ruling (Law360.com, 5/5/20):

The removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party’s nomination, but also deprived their pledged delegates of the opportunity to run for a position where they could influence the party platform. And it deprived Democratic voters of the opportunity to elect delegates who could push their point of view in that forum.

The Times didn’t quote a single outside expert on the dangers of the move, nor did they question the state’s motives, which it presented as being based entirely on the health and safety of voters and poll workers. (The Sanders camp was not arguing for people to turn out at polls during a pandemic, but for a switch to a vote-by-mail system—Washington Post, 4/27/20.) The fact that it would help reduce the influence of progressive Democrats at the Democratic National Convention, and probably suppress the progressive vote in down-ballot elections, it seems, is immaterial. The article closed with words from state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs:

“We’re not being unfair, we’re just reacting to a global pandemic which happens to be centered in New York at the time.” He added: “In a situation like this, lives have to trump politics, no pun intended.”

While Saul and Corasaniti mentioned the role of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo—who endorsed Biden long before the former vice president announced he was running (Democrat & Chronicle, 1/2/19)—they simply repeated his claim that the decision lay with the board, and that “I don’t even understand the issue, to tell you the truth.”

But it’s not hard to see through his feigned ignorance: It was Cuomo’s 2020 state budget that included a provision that gave the Board of Elections the unusual power to remove candidates from the ballot (Common Dreams, 4/21/20), along with provisions that would weaken third parties—like the Working Families Party, which frequently runs progressive challengers against state Democrats (Gotham Gazette, 4/13/20), much to Cuomo’s displeasure (New York, 6/7/18).

As one-time Cuomo challenger Zephyr Teachout pointed out in the Nation (5/6/20), suspending a campaign is different from terminating it; multiple presidential candidates in recent history have returned days or even months after suspending their campaigns. Giving a two-person unelected board the discretion to cancel an election when candidates have not terminated their campaigns is something you would think the home paper of record would take a bit more seriously.

At least on the editorial side of the Post, columnist Henry Olson (4/28/20)—no Sanders fan—gave voice to the deep problems with New York’s move. At the Times, FAIR could find not a single editorial voice speaking out against the Board’s move.

Krystal Ball: Biden courts Republicans while kicking Left in the teeth

The Planet Is Probably in Worse Shape Than We Can Even Predict

Sea levels will rise by more than 3 feet. Up to a fifth of everything living in the world’s oceans will die. More than 200 million people will be displaced by rising seas or forced to move to cooler places. Those are science’s current predictions for what a climate-changed world will look like in 2100. But those estimates could be lowballing how bad the crisis will get.

Scientists rely on elaborate computer simulations that use data from the past to predict what will happen in the future, as people pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The first climate models, developed in the 1960s, were eerily accurate: They correctly predicted how much hotter the world would be today given the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Since then, models have been the basis for the UN’s gold-standard reports that have helped policymakers glimpse into what the climate will look like in the coming decades. ... But scientists worry that today’s climate models might not be as good at predicting the next fifty years — even as tools and data have gotten better. Why? Models are only as good as their inputs. Because the facts on the ground are changing so fast, predictive climate models are getting less reliable, and scientists know it.

“It’s not a surprise that we’re being surprised,” said Theodore Scambos, who studies Antarctic ice sheets at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “We're seeing things occur now that we weren’t anticipating because the world has never been like this before.” ...

The bad news is that most of the new research isn’t about processes that could take carbon out of the atmosphere and make climate change less severe. Quite the opposite: Most of the data that scientists are collecting suggests that global heating will be worse than predicted. “If you watch how the reports have changed,” said Jessica Hellman, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, “more of our errors have tended to be underestimations of how bad things could be.”

Coronavirus Is Forcing Farmers to Give Their Pigs Away on Craigslist — And Even Euthanize Them

Fears of Bolsonaro's Threat to the Amazon Realized as New Data Shows Rainforest Destruction Up 55%

Greenpeace on Friday warned of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's attacks on environmental law in his country as new data showed that deforestation has "skyrocketed" in the Amazon rainforest this year, particularly in Indigenous territories.

A Greenpeace Brazil analysis found that deforestation on Indigenous lands within the Amazon from January to April 2020 rose by 59% compared with that same four-month period last year. Based on data from the Brazilian Space Research Institute's DETER monitoring system, the environmental advocacy group accounted for deforestation alerts across nearly 3,259 acres of Indigenous territories so far this year.

From Jan-April, deforestation in Indigenous lands increased by 59% in Brazil. Illegal loggers, miners and land-grabbers don’t work from home, and are taking advantage of the current crisis to invade Indigenous lands, threatening to expose #covid19 to Indigenous People. pic.twitter.com/wwalZ8zKxR

— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) May 8, 2020

Preliminary data released Friday by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) also revealed a surge in deforestation throughout the country's portion of the world's largest rainforest. The 2.7 million square mile Amazon spans nine nations, but the majority of it is in Brazil.

"Destruction in Brazil's portion of the Amazon increased 64% in April, compared with the same month a year ago," Reuters reported Friday, citing INPE data. "In the first four months of the year, Amazon deforestation was up 55% from a year ago to 1,202 square kilometers (464 square miles)."

Bolsonaro took office in January 2019 and immediately got to work on his agenda targeting the environment and Indigenous Brazilians. As international scientists have warned over the past year that "human activities are drying out the Amazon," the Brazilian president has faced global condemnation for rising deforestation and his attempts to open up the Amazon to more agribusiness and mining.

Indigenous Campaigners Protest As KXL Pipeline Construction Begins Amid Legal Challenges

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping them from gathering to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, indigenous rights advocates displayed a "virtual banner" as oil giant TC Energy began placing pipes in the ground this week despite legal challenges to the pipeline.

"Not Today. Not Tomorrow. Not Ever. No KXL. Mni Wiconi," read the virtual banner, shared in a video posted to Facebook by the climate action group 350.org.

"We do not consent to their dirty tar sands KXL pipeline," the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) tweeted.

Indigenous peoples have long told @TCEnergy we do not consent to their dirty tar sands KXL pipeline.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.#NoKXL

Join us in taking a stand here:https://t.co/QPaOuWb1cYhttps://t.co/v2kUdYoNbs

— Indigenous Environmental Network (@IENearth) May 6, 2020

In an email to supporters late Friday, IEN explained how the construction was taking place less than a month after federal Judge Brian Morris ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had improperly issued a permit to TC Energy—authorizing it to construct the pipeline at water crossings along its nearly 1,200 mile route from Alberta to Nebraska—without conducting a thorough review of the project's environmental impact.

Separately, wrote campaigner Joye Braun, "the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Fort Belknap Tribe, and the Indigenous Environmental Network have ongoing lawsuits against the federal government regarding the approval of KXL, arguing that the international border crossing approval was illegal, that it violated treaty rights, and that construction during a global pandemic not only puts communities at risk of COVID-19 infection, but raises the risk of sexual violence perpetrated upon Native women."

A ruling has not yet been handed down in those cases, but hearings took place in April.

"Despite the legal challenges, pipe has been laid at the international border crossing between the United States and Canada—even while the drop in tar sands and oil prices makes tar sands inviable," wrote Braun.

IEN called on supporters to fight the construction of the pipeline by contacting TC Energy's financial backers including Chase Bank and Liberty Mutual, Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney, and "three governors who could force TransCanada to comply with federal and state permits and conditions: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts."

"This pipeline will not be built," wrote Braun.

More, nauseating detail at the link.

At Least $72 Million in Coronavirus Bailout Loans Went to Big Oil and Gas Companies

The oil business is in rough shape these days, but it’s got friends in high places. And they’re coming with cash.

Multimillion-dollar companies in the oil and gas sector scored at least $72 million in federally-backed loans earmarked for small businesses, according to financial records reviewed by VICE News. And that’s despite warnings from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that big companies should look elsewhere for funds to survive the pandemic, and could face audits or even “criminal liability” if they misstate their needs.

At least 16 drillers, fuel transporters, oil technology firms and service providers tapped the Small Business Association’s Paycheck Protection Program, which was created by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March, the records show. Most of those borrowers are valued at over $10 million on the stock market.

Also of Interest

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

Screen New Deal: Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia

Biden sexual assault claim divides Democrats as Republicans pounce

The day police bombed a city street: can scars of 1985 Move atrocity be healed?

Syria Spinmeisters Fumble Attempts To Narrative Manage OPCW Leaks

New House Documents Sow Further Doubt That Russia Hacked the DNC

Coronavirus economic shocks could prove catalyst for Erdogan's political decline

Pelosi’s Super Shady Stock Deal Exposed

Meet the Fed’s Global Plunge Protection Team

Republicans Are Using the Coronavirus Crisis to Win Long-Desired Bank Deregulation, Raising Potential for Bank Failures

Keiser Report | MOAR MONEY!!!

The Perversity of Needing to See Ahmaud Arbery Die on Video to Recognize That His Black Life Mattered

Cuomo alerts states to mystery coronavirus illness after three children die

Internet Censorship, Ego Death, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

From Juanita Broaddrick to Tara Reade: In Forty Years Has Nothing Changed at All?

Russian journalists accuse NY Times of stealing stories that earned it Pulitzer Prize – for second time

Krystal and Saagar: Polls show voters believe Tara Reade as Bill Maher questions, 'Why now?'

Saagar Enjeti: Media faces 'Extinction Level Event' as Russiagate, #MeToo IMPLODE

Ryan Grim: Does the establishment want 'the squad' to lose?

Krystal and Saagar: Fed bank president REVEALS real unemployment rate, 'Worst is yet to come'

Krystal and Saagar: Obama delivers hilarious half-hearted endorsement of Biden

Krystal and Saagar: Chris Hayes' STUNNING lack of self-awareness on Russiagate

Canada: DNA discovery lends weight to First Nations ancestral story

Betty Wright, US soul, funk and R&B singer, dies aged 66

A Little Night Music

Marcia Ball - La Ti Da

I Want a Tall Skinny Papa

Marcia Ball - Louella

Marcia Ball - That's How It Goes

Marcia Ball - I'd Rather Go Blind

Marcia Ball - I'll Be Doggone

Marcia Ball - That's Enough Of That Stuff

Pinetop Perkins & Marcia Ball - Pinetop's New Boogie Woogie

Marcia Ball | KNKX Studio Session