09 May 20
Democracy is not promised, given or owed to anyone. It is a living breathing system. Just like the human body, it thrives with use. In use it is immensely powerful.
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08 May 20
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Reader Supported News
LeBron James Speaks Out on Ahmaud Arbery Shooting Death: 'We're Literally Hunted Everyday'
Jason Owens, Yahoo
Owens writes: "LeBron James has spoken out on the death of Ahmaud Arbery and the video that purportedly shows a man and his adult son chase him down in a truck and fatally shoot him."
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Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont along with Ed Markey of Massachusetts. (photo: CNN)
Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Ed Markey Team Up to Propose Monthly Payments of $2K During Pandemic
Burgess Everett, POLITICO
Everett writes: "A trio of Democratic senators are pitching a big idea: pay most American families thousands of dollars each month until the coronavirus's economic crisis subsides."
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A local militia group is seen at a rally to protest the stay-at-home order amid the Coronavirus pandemic in Columbus, Ohio, April 20, 2020. (photo: Megan Jelinger/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Revealed: Major Anti-Lockdown Group's Links to America's Far-Right
The President Is Goading Anti-Lockdown Militias to Violence
Max Elbaum, In These Times
Elbaum writes: "The tightening of the Trump-GOP-Militia embrace is rooted in the way the Covid-19 crisis has affected Trump's re-election plans."
EXCERPT:
Their nightmare is our dream
They add it all up and see a Biden win as a dangerous open door. They believe coming out of the pandemic there will be irresistible pressure on a new administration to provide universal health and economic protection for working people, tax the wealthy, tackle climate change and restore voting rights.
They fear even small steps in those directions would start an avalanche capable of toppling their already shaky neo-liberal order.
So they go all in for Trump and the GOP, and deploy fascist militias as the shock troops of their campaign.
Historical experience shows that when a powerful wing of a ruling class throws in with grassroots fascists, actual fascism moves from back-drawer possibility to imminent danger. We need to be as clear-eyed as our enemies about the stakes in the current polarization, the possible roads ahead, and where the pivot point of battle lies.
They think November will mark a choice between two roads. That's one thing they are right about.
A longer version of this article first appeared on Organizing Upgrade.
People walk in Times Square as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues in New York City, March 18, 2020. (photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
Coronavirus: US Death Toll Would Have Been Halved if the Government Acted 4 Days Sooner, According to Study
Stephen Chen, South China Morning Post
Chen writes: "The daily death toll from Covid-19 in the United States could have been more than halved if authorities had acted more swiftly in recommending self-isolation and the wearing of face masks, according to a new study."
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Shake Shack is one of a number of big businesses that drew from the Paycheck Protection Program established to aid small businesses. (photo: Getty)
Meet the Coronavirus Profiteers
Nicole Aschoff, Jacobin
Aschoff writes: "While average workers have suffered under the pandemic, huge corporations have helped themselves to enormous amounts of cash."
EXCERPT:
Consider for a moment that Wells Fargo — a company whose executives, for fourteen years, robbed customers through fraudulent accounts, charged mortgage holders unnecessary fees, and forced unnecessary insurance on auto-loan borrowers — was one of the banks entrusted with doling out bailout funds.
It’s not just big companies and banks; Silicon Valley start-ups raised more than $130 billion in venture capital funding last year, yet some start-ups applied for PPP loans. They saw it as an easy way to raise cash, extending their operating “runway” without having to ask venture capitalists for funds which may come with strings attached. And unlike small, family-run establishments, many of these start-ups already have cozy relationships with banks and investors, making it much easier for them to obtain the loans before the fund ran dry.
Taking the cake for bad behavior are the private equity (PE) companies. Despite holding roughly $2.5 trillion in “dry powder” — industry speak for money that can be used to finance investments — buyout firms are crying poverty.
PE executives explained to the Financial Times that “they cannot always divert capital to rescue missions at their existing investments because this could dilute investors’ returns.” As the companies that buyout firms have loaded up with debt to pay themselves fees and dividends hit the skids, PE lobbyists are begging for access to employee support programs and state-backed loans.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo: EPA)
Redacted FBI Document Hints at Israeli Efforts to Help Trump in 2016 Campaign
The Times of Israel and Associated Press
Excerpt: "The exchange between Roger Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday."
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Radioactive water at Canyon Mine. (photo: Blake McCord)
Trump Is Using a Pandemic to Weaken Environmental Law. First Victim: The Grand Canyon
Raúl Grijalva, USA TODAY
Grijalva writes: "President Trump is using the worst pandemic in a century to weaken our environmental laws without public oversight, and he isn't sparing the Grand Canyon."
There's no such thing as a 'safe' uranium mine. Yet a new report recommends excluding these mines from public review and comment.
While Americans shelter at home, waiting for the administration to offer a more effective medical response than injecting bleach, an administration advisory group just released a report recommending opening more public lands to uranium extraction.
The steps recommended in a new report by the Nuclear Fuel Working Group, an industry-stacked panel the president created through an executive order in July 2019, look a lot like pre-determined conclusions.
One of the most alarming should worry every Arizonan, and frankly every American: excluding uranium mines from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which gives Americans the chance to review and comment on major proposals that impact them.
The report, if it’s implemented, paves the way for dangerous mining of the sort that even industry cheerleaders don’t suggest in public.
Report would give polluters a free pass
This is not alarmism. The report spells it out in black and white when it recommends that federal regulators “consider categorical exclusions for uranium mineral exploration and development activities.” A categorical exclusion is offered only to individual projects determined to have no impact on the environment.
These are sometimes handed out to industry in the guise of streamlining or efficiency — which, under recent Republican administrations, have become code words for giving polluters a free pass.
The Trump administration wants to take advantage of widespread stay-at-home policies to weaken laws that protect us from unchecked pollution. A democratic government puts the people first, and cutting environmental regulations while the people aren’t able to go to a public meeting or make sure their voices are heard is not democratic.
These recommendations are another in a long line of industry giveaways being pushed under cover of pandemic without public scrutiny.
The American people should reject this report and the rigged process used to prepare it. And as a credible new analysis from the Grand Canyon Trust shows us, even if we wanted to take the report seriously, there’s no such thing as a truly “safe” uranium mine.
The Canyon Mine, a few miles from the southern entrance to Grand Canyon National Park, was approved in 1986. It’s never produced any uranium, but it’s been far from silent. Over the past few years, the mine shaft has been flooded with tens of millions of gallons of potentially radioactive water that have had to be pumped out and, in some cases, sprayed as mist into the air.
No evidence we need new uranium mining
Three decades of producing nothing but pollution and political controversy is not a good track record — and yet this kind of site is what the Trump administration says we need a lot more of. If we follow the president’s lead, as the Trust report notes with some understatement, “The risks are only made worse if strict environmental protections and monitoring are not required.”
When we take a step back and ask some fundamental questions, it becomes clear that this isn’t even the conversation we should be having.
There has been a 20-year moratorium on new uranium mining claims around the Grand Canyon since 2012. What is the evidence that we should lift it now? What experiences have Americans had that make this such an emergency, rather than the same industry wish list item it’s always been?
The fact is that there’s no evidence our nation’s uranium supply is at risk, or has ever been at risk. There’s certainly no evidence we need to open the Grand Canyon region to new uranium mining. Those who want to do so have never been able to convince the public, so they’ve resorted to moves like pushing this new report, which recommends radical deregulation without bothering to show that it’s necessary.
The House of Representatives passed my Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act last October along bipartisan lines. The bill makes the current moratorium on new mining claims around the Grand Canyon permanent, which — in addition to protecting the canyon in perpetuity — would put an end to the phony debate about whether we should open this wonder of the world to new mining claims.
The Senate should pass my bill and the president should sign it.
Unfortunately, the worst public health crisis in a century hasn’t slowed this administration’s giveaways of our public lands or destruction of our most fundamental environmental laws. It’s time to ask who still trusts the president when it comes to the Grand Canyon, and what they’re basing that trust on other than blind faith.
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