16 October 20
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15 October 20
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RSN: Maité Rizo | Is the Cuba Blockade a Myth?
Maité Rizo, Reader Supported News
Rizo writes: "Even when I didn't understand what it was to be Cuban, it was clear to me that we struggled because of the blockade. Since I was a child I heard many times at home and at school: 'The United States is bad.'"
It was the simplest way for the little ones to understand. I grew up hearing that everything around me was the fault of the blockade. Perhaps for that reason, when we began to thoroughly investigate the impact of the blockade for the film series “The War on Cuba,” and how we wanted to treat it, for me it was already a worn-out issue.
The Cuban people have lived for almost sixty years with restrictions imposed by the United States government. Many times we do not even notice how much this policy affects us, because in a certain way we get used to so many decades of economic war along with the problems of our country, and because no, it is not all the fault of the blockade. But it exists, and its impact is real.
When a new leader arrives in the White House, we Cubans hold our breath. We live in fear that the next one could be worse. And so it wasn’t until the arrival of Barack Obama that we finally saw the light. Many blame only the Cuban government for our economic shortcomings, but when bilateral relations improved, our economy also regained its charm.
But we had little time to appreciate this change. Donald Trump arrived, and he ruined everything that both countries had advanced in normalizing their relations.
In the last three years, Cubans have gone through some of the worst crises in our history, affecting all sectors. For example, in September of last year, the United States prevented the country from receiving fuel, and Cuba had to readjust its operation with only 30 percent of the oil it needed. Put like that, they are only figures, but when you live here it is frustrating to see your people wait for hours for public transportation, start cooking with charcoal, and see private businesses, which were just beginning to flourish, go bankrupt.
“The War on Cuba” is a documentary miniseries made by Belly of the Beast, a media outlet made up of various Cuban and foreign professionals. We are a team that aims to show the impact of US policy on the people of the island and the various ways that Cubans find to resolve the situation and survive.
We show entrepreneurs, private business leaders, farmers — people who, without even having defined political positions, pay the price of the measures imposed “against the Castro government,” “to save Cubans from communism,” and other reasons that have been justified during sixty years of the blockade.
We want to show this issue in the most impartial way possible, a reality that cannot be ignored and that the mainstream media rarely shows in depth. We chose everyday stories, which are repeated in every town on the Island.
In the past few months I have come to recognize the impact on many people who cannot have medicines and health equipment due to the economic siege. These are perhaps the most widespread stories, but I also recognized how many of my daily needs depend on the measures that the United States imposes on Cuba.
The embargo, as the US calls it, is perhaps a political strategy for them, but for more than 11 million people it is a daily problem.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
A sign directs residents outside an early voting polling location for the 2020 presidential election in Atlanta, Georgia, Monday, Oct. 12, 2020. (photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty)
The Powerful Norm of Accepting the Results of a Presidential Election
David Priess, Lawfare
Priess writes: "In a year filled with threats to other presidential norms, the 2020 election also presents a challenge to this tradition of concession. President Trump and Vice President Pence have both failed to affirm that they will accept the results of the election."
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Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, questions Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the second day of her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (photo: Leah Millis/Getty)
ALSO SEE: US Supreme Court: Senate Committee Sets
October 22 Confirmation Vote
Democrat Senators Make Final Pitch to Slow Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation Hearing
Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
Wilkinson writes: "In an undoubtedly losing battle to block President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Democratic senators used a final day of hearings to press their case for why Judge Amy Coney Barrett is dangerous to Americans' healthcare and personal rights."
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Demonstrators wearing protective masks hold signs during an eviction strike in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. (photo: Nina Westervelt/Bloomberg)
As the Housing Crisis Explodes, the Trump Admin Is Quietly Undoing Its "Eviction Moratorium"
Rebecca Burns, In These Times
Burns writes: "The Trump administration has quietly walked back federal protections for renters, giving property owners more leeway to pursue eviction cases."
Following a pressure campaign from landlords and real estate groups, the Trump administration is giving landlords more leeway to evict tenants.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released an unprecedented order halting most residential evictions in order to stop the spread of Covid-19. But in new guidance released Friday, the agency clarified that “eviction” just means physical removal. Landlords are still free to take tenants to court to try to get them to pay up, and even secure eviction judgements that can be carried out as soon as the CDC’s order expires January 1.
“The Order is not intended to terminate or suspend the operations of any state or local court. Nor is it intended to prevent landlords from starting eviction proceedings, provided that the actual eviction of a covered person for non-payment of rent does NOT take place during the period of the Order,” reads a “Frequently Asked Questions” posted on the CDC’s website.
The agency’s eviction ban initially appeared to prohibit landlords from filing eviction cases in court, which is often used as an intimidation tactic against tenants and can leave a black mark on their records.
The apparent weakening of the order followed a pressure campaign by landlords and real-estate trade groups nationwide, which have filed more than 25 separate lawsuits since the federal moratorium took effect September 4.
One suit, filed September 8 by a Virginia landlord in U.S. district court, argues that the CDC’s actions “are unprecedented in our history and are an affront to core constitutional limits on federal power.” The case was later joined by the National Apartment Association and is supported by the Charles Koch-backed New Civil Liberties Alliance, as reported in the Washington Post. A response in the suit, filed October 2 by attorneys for the federal government, contended that nothing in the order prevents landlords from initiating eviction suits in court — a position now affirmed in the CDC’s official guidance.
The guidance released Friday also specifies that landlords have no obligation to inform tenants of the CDC’s order, which advocates worry will create an even more unequal playing field. To be protected under the order, tenants must make a declaration to their landlord that they’ve made their best effort to pay rent and obtain government assistance, among other requirements. But it’s unclear how most tenants would know to exercise the protection.
“Landlords often belong to associations that keep them up-to-date with any changes to the law they need to know about, but it’s not like there’s a tenant e‑mail list,” said Pam Bridge, director of Litigation and Advocacy at Community Legal Services, a Phoenix-based nonprofit law firm.
Bridge also noted that landlords will now be expressly permitted to challenge “the truthfulness” of a tenant’s declaration in court, which could subject them to a standard of evidence that’s difficult to meet. Documentation that tenants have tried to obtain rental assistance, for example, may be hard to come given that many local governments have awarded this assistance via lotteries where the number of applicants quickly overwhelm phone lines or online systems.
“It concerns me that this could end up being a subjective decision by judges, with every judge handling this differently,” said Bridge.
Even prior to the new guidance, three national housing rights groups — the Center for Popular Democracy, Right to the City Alliance and People’s Action — said during a press conference last week that highly uneven enforcement of the moratorium had created “mass confusion” and allowed thousands of evictions to proceed in apparent violation of the CDC’s order.
Emily Brockman, a mother of a 5‑month-old in Lexington, Kentucky, recounted how she ended up in court for unpaid rent in September after losing her job as a result of the pandemic. Brockman said that she had attempted to use the CDC’s declaration to stave off eviction.
“[The judge] just looked at my landlord and said, ‘What would you like to do?’ Of course they said they would like to move forward with the eviction,” she recalled during the press conference.
“Everything happened so fast. I was shocked. I had assumed I was going to be safe under the CDC guidelines because I matched perfectly,” Brockman continued.
Brockman connected with an attorney through the Lexington Housing Justice Collective and, on the day the sheriff was supposed to show up at her house to evict her, received word that she had been granted another hearing in appeals court. The eviction order was temporarily overturned, and Brockman is now waiting for another court date in January, after the moratorium expires.
But advocates worry that the further weakening of federal protections could leave vulnerable renters exposed even sooner. The U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey found that of 58 million households, roughly one-quarter had no or only slight confidence in their ability to pay November rent. The possibility of federal rent and mortgage assistance is tied up in negotiations over another Covid-19 relief package, and the $60 billion currently on the table is far below the $100 billion that housing groups estimated was necessary to help just the lowest-income households avoid eviction.
Meanwhile, local protections for eviction are rapidly expiring. In Miami-Dade county, where unemployment claims are rising again and a state eviction moratorium expired at the end of September, eviction filings have nearly returned to their pre-pandemic rate, according to Alana Greer, director of the legal nonprofit Community Justice Project.
“Right now, the CDC order is the last line of defense,” she said.
NBC is hosting a townhall this week with Donald Trump. (photo: Getty)
NBC Is Giving Donald Trump, Who Refused to Debate Joe Biden This Week, a TV Special Instead
Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate
Mathis-Lilley writes: "NBC's motto or catchphrase or whatever is 'The More You Know.' But ironically, certain people at the network seem like they never learn anything!"
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Anti-Netanyahu protesters. (photo: Amir Levy)
Bibi's Henchmen Threaten to Turn Israel Into a Mafia State
Noga Tarnopolsky, The Daily Beast
Tarnopolsky writes: "A top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu threatened the attorney general on Wednesday - the same day that an apparent Bibi supporter attacked daily newspaper Haaretz, a mainstay of liberal Israeli journalism - as the country appeared to careen from start-up nation to mafia state."
A top Netanyahu consigliere threatened to release incriminating evidence about the attorney general if corruption charges against the prime minister are not dropped.
Miki Zohar, Netanyahu’s coalition whip and one of the men closest to the prime minister, threatened to release incriminating data about Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, the man who indicted Netanyahu last November, if he doesn’t quit and cancel Netanyahu’s trial, which opened in May. Netanyahu stands accused of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
The threat comes on the heels of an embarrassing leak broadcast on Tuesday by right-wing political analyst Amit Segal, in which Mandelblit was heard in 2015 referring to then-State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan as a “maniac.”
“If Mandelblit does not immediately resign and revoke the indictments against Netanyahu, I promise more tapes will be leaked,” Zohar said in an interview on Tel Aviv’s Radio 103FM, apparently outing himself as the source of the dirty tricks broadcast by Segal.
“There is another criminal story about Mandelblit that hasn’t yet seen the light of day,” Zohar continued.
Asked by the news anchor if he was threatening the attorney general, Zohar replied, “No, I’m not threatening—it’s a promise. But that’s what’s going to happen. If he doesn’t resign, there will be an earthquake here.”
Netanyahu immediately attempted to distance himself from Zohar’s eruption, which, if associated with the prime minister, could embroil him in accusations of extortion.
In a statement, his office said the threats “were made without the prime minister’s knowledge and he takes exception to them. The prime minister did not discuss the matter with Zohar. The prime minister has reservations about Zohar’s words and does not approve of them.”
In a second, tweeted statement, in his own voice, Netanyahu again denied any knowledge of the attempted blackmail. “As I said,” he repeated, Zohar’s statement “was unacceptable to me. I deeply object and it is good that Zohar made it clear that this was not his intention.”
Zohar also scrambled to protect Netanyahu, whose trial is scheduled to resume in December.
“To banish any doubt, I would like to make it clear that I did not speak with the prime minister or any of his team before the interview… I had no intention of threatening anyone. Even if my words were understood differently, I would like to clarify again that I had no intention or desire to make any threat against the Attorney General.”
Mandelblit’s office responded sharply, saying that “threats won’t deter the attorney general from doing his job… Any attempt to intimidate him by threatening to reveal slanderous materials will fail.”
Nonetheless, some of Netanyahu’s men could not resist gloating about the smear against the attorney general, who is viewed as a mortal enemy among Bibi’s allies. Interior Security Minister Amir Ohana, a close ally of Netanyahu, could not resist tweeting “I told you so.”
Two members of the Likud, Netanyahu’s political party, also filed formal police complaints against the attorney general on Wednesday.
The same day, a man whom police later identified as a known burglar walked into the Haaretz building late in the morning and vandalized the building’s main electrical network, disrupting the paper’s website for several hours.
The man, 41, from the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, quickly left the building, but waited by the entrance until he caught sight of investigative reporter Gidi Weitz, and, in what Haaretz called “a tirade,” screamed, “What do you want from Bibi? Where is your car? Do you have a car here?”
The man, who has not been named, was captured hours later and will be arraigned on Thursday.
Even before Netanyahu’s indictment, the first for an Israeli prime minister, Weitz was best known for his uncompromising probes into Netanyahu’s alleged malfeasance.
His last major scoop, published in late September, revealed transcripts of the police interrogations of Netanyahu, and included the prime minister’s (apparently inadvertent) admission of alleged crimes, such as taking effective control of major media outlets while in office.
When a police investigator asked the prime minister how many “direct requests” he made to the owner of Walla, an Israeli news portal, asking him to post, delete, or change articles, Netanyahu responded, “I suppose there were a great many… Walla is hundreds of negative articles about me. Hundreds. So certainly there’s a reason to call every day.”
Police: Did you talk to him about appointments and firing journalists at Walla?
Netanyahu: I don’t remember specifically, but I do remember that there were conversations of that kind. I don’t deny them. It’s completely natural.
Police: In other words, you, communications minister and prime minister, talk to [Walla owner Shaul] Elovitch about firings and appointments at Walla?
Netanyahu: I try to persuade him.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid condemned the Haaretz incident and linked it to Netanyahu’s prior calls for the arrests of journalists who cover his alleged crimes, saying it was nothing less than an “attempt to silence the free press by the incited supporters of a leader who sees democracy and free speech as a threat to the state.”
In a September editorial, Haaretz slammed Netanyahu’s attempt “to turn investigators into criminals.”
When indicted, Netanyahu denounced what he called an attempted coup against his rule, and said, “the time has come to investigate the investigators. The time has come to investigate the state prosecution.”
In an analysis posted late Wednesday, Weitz said that Zohar was “the person who most clearly expresses the mafioso culture that has taken over” in Netanyahu’s circle. The threat against Mandelblit, Weitz wrote, “demands an investigation into suspected extortion.”
For months, Israelis have been rattled by escalating violence directed at anti-Netanyahu protesters, whose ranks have been growing since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Israel now has the unfortunate distinction of leading the world in new cases of COVID-19 per million inhabitants, and Netanyahu is widely blamed for the debacle.
The most recent demonstrations have been diminished and dispersed by a government decree banning political rallies further than half a mile from the protester’s domicile, but with the end of the emergency measure, which was described as an element of the country’s fight against the virus, a collective of anti-Netanyahu movements has announced a massive gathering in front of the prime minister’s official residence on Saturday night.
Between 10,000 to 20,000 people are expected to gather for the reunion rally, and protest leaders, concerned both by the police violence that has plagued previous demonstrations and by aggression on the part of pro-Netanyahu thugs, have demanded increased protection.
Days ahead of Saturday’s protest, two central Israel men were arrested and charged with attacking demonstrators. On Thursday, the police announced the arrest of a 20-year-old Jerusalem man suspected of attacking a journalist.
The Black Flags, one of the anti-Netanyahu movements, has called Zohar “the central nexus in Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal organization, a mafia led by a defendant accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.”
Crime Minister, another group, laid the blame for the incident at Haaretz’s newsroom squarely on the prime minister’s shoulders. “Netanyahu has targeted the media, the left and protesters as enemies of the state, and as a result, bullies now set out every day to attack these targets. Miraculously, it has not yet cost human life.”
A still from a video of the undercover investigation into alleged animal abuse at Erath County Dairy Sales in Texas. (photo: Strategies for Ethical and Development)
Alleged Animal Abuse in US Dairy Sector Under Investigation
Sophie Kevany, Guardian UK
Kevany writes: "Evidence of what appears to be aggressive animal abuse, practices leading to heightened disease risk and cows being passed off as organic at a Texan auctioneers has been presented to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) by undercover welfare investigators."
Claims of violent treatment and cows being passed off as organic have been presented to the Department of Agriculture
A second, separate abuse investigation at a dairy farm is on its way to court in California.
The allegations come at a time of upheaval for US dairy. The first half of 2020 was blighted by Covid-19-related milk dumping, 10-year price lows and a slump in demand from schools and restaurants.
But by July, a combination of stay-at-home orders, financial handouts to US citizens and government food program purchasing saw the spot cheddar price, a key dairy indicator, set a record high of $3 (£2.30) a pound, according to Tom Bailey, a senior US dairy market analyst at Rabobank.
The first investigation centres on Texan auctioneers, Erath County Dairy Sales (ECDS). Undercover video footage filmed at ECDS between January and March 2020, and released online on Thursday, was delivered to the USDA by the US-Brazil based NGO, Strategies for Ethical and Environmental Development (Seed).
In one video, the undercover investigator, hired as an animal handler, is told that removing a cow’s ear tags, and replacing them with new “back tags” that indicate a cow is organic, can triple or quadruple their meat sale value.
In another clip, the investigator films himself collecting ear tags from the ground. In a third, the undercover operative is told: “Out-of-state cows come in, they turn into Texas cows when they leave.”
The investigator said he witnessed the tag switching process. First, a bladed tool was used to remove the ear tags, which are part of the USDA’s animal disease traceability framework. These tags were not replaced. Instead, another tag, known as a back tag or sticker, was glued to the cow’s back. The stickers indicate the cow is organic and from Texas.
Removing ID tags from a cow’s ear breaks the link with the animal’s health and veterinary history, the investigator told the Guardian.
A Seed spokesperson said the tags were designed to control disease transmission risks – between animals and from animals to humans – linked to factory farms and the movement of animals from farms to auction and slaughterhouses.
The investigator said one of his greatest concerns was consumers. “I’d imagine people buying this meat with zero traceability, and no idea where it came from, regardless of what’s on the label.”
The footage also appears to show a cow being kicked in the head and neck area, overcrowded transport conditions, cows with sore legs, or shaking on the ground and lying in puddles, a downed animal repeatedly shocked with a cattle prod and sick and dying cows dumped in a pile together.
Proof of the investigator’s time at ECDS includes daily Google Maps location shots, photos of the day’s newspaper, pay cheque stubs and other dated paperwork.
ECDS’s majority stockholder and president, Jimmy G Beyer, did not respond to phone calls, messages or emails (via his son) requesting comment. The person answering the phone at the company eventually asked the Guardian to stop calling.
A lawyer for California-based NGO, Animal Legal Defense Fund, said she was “not too surprised” by the tag switching accusations. “We have seen this type of thing before,” said Kelsey Eberly. She fears the practice is “more common” than people would expect, mainly “because the price premium is so much higher” for organic and better welfare meat and dairy.
Eberly is currently taking legal action against the California-based Dick Van Dam Dairy, accusing it of systemic abuse. The lawsuit, filed on 30 September with the California superior court for Riverside County, is based on undercover video footage filmed by Animal Outlook in November 2019.
The video is narrated by actor Kate Mara. Drawing on the video evidence the lawsuit alleges that Dick Van Dam Dairy supervisors and staff used violence to control the cows.
Violent handling tactics listed in the lawsuit include: repeatedly jabbing cows’ faces, legs, and udders with splintered wooden canes and metal pipes; kicking them in the face and udders; tail twisting; and poking fingers in cows’ eyes.
The lawsuit further alleges evidence of teat injuries and blood turning milk pink (which was discarded), and that the bodies of newborn calves were left to decompose.
Contacted by the Guardian, the executive vice-president of co-operative Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Monica Massey, said the DFA does not tolerate animal abuse and had “ceased accepting any milk” from the Dick Van Dam Dairy.
Massey said milk from the dairy was no longer part of its products, DairyPure and TruMoo, and added that although Dick Van Dam was not a DFA member, it had “supplied small amounts of milk” to a California DFA processing facility.
In an email, the Van Dam family lawyer, Stephen Larson, described the allegations as “manufactured and false”. He said the “so-called” Animal Legal Defense Fund “waited nearly a year to even file this publicity-driven lawsuit, which belies their claims of any animals being endangered. The videos and pictures were either staged or are taken wholly out of context, and we look forward to the truth coming out in this lawsuit”.
The USDA, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the USDA’s National Organic Program did not respond to requests for comment on either investigation.
A Seed spokesperson said the USDA had confirmed that its Office of Inspector General was investigating the animal cruelty charges at ECDS.
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