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With tough races over, Bernie Sanders renews call for changes at DNC

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who declined to engage in the fracas over former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile’s new tell-all book, is pushing for the DNC to adopt at least four changes to its primary process or risk losing credibility with progressive voters.

“Do you believe in open primaries, or do you not?” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview in his Senate office. “Do you believe in transparency or not? Do you believe in keeping 700-plus superdelegates or not? Do you believe in letting people vote in caucuses who currently cannot? Those are the issues. There are some people thinking politically, giving all kinds of reasons [why not] — but those are the issues.”

The focus of Sanders’s mini-campaign is on the DNC’s Unity Reform Commission, created after the 2016 primaries — but before Hillary Clinton’s surprise defeat in the general election — to ease tensions among supporters of the two candidates.

On Dec. 8 and 9, the commission will meet for the last time and present recommendations to the full DNC. Sanders’s goal is twofold: To highlight the changes he wants most and to prevent the issue from fading when the full DNC meets again.

“This will invigorate the party,” Sanders said. “How are you a serious national party when in half the states, there’s no serious Democratic presence?”

Democrats should not silence Brazile

It didn’t take long for white liberals to start attacking Donna Brazile.

From its portals in media and politics, the vindictive left is in battle mode now that Brazile — a longtime Democratic strategist who became the first African-American to run a presidential campaign when she managed Al Gore’s bid for the White House in 2000 — has spilled the beans about how broken our political system really is.

Having served as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee during the final innings of the 2016 election, Brazile ought to know.

In her explosive new book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House,” she reveals a secret agreement that turned the DNC into a wholly owned subsidiary of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The Democratic frontrunner handed over about $20 million to help get the DNC out of debt. In return, she got control of the inner workings of the organization, which is supposed to be neutral in the primaries. This included decisions about when to schedule debates, who should fill key posts and how messages should be shaped.

Clinton’s challengers for the nomination — Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, etc. — never had a chance. The fix was in.

When Brazile was recently pressed by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos — himself a Democratic loyalist who helped elect Bill Clinton president, worked in the Clinton White House, contributed to the Clinton Foundation and joined in regular strategizing calls with top Democrats well into his conversion into a newsman — to say whether she thought the Democratic primaries were rigged, she responded that she found “no evidence” of that.

But Brazile strikes a different tone in her book, insisting that the agreement ensured that Democratic primary battle wasn’t a fair fight and that it “compromised the party’s integrity.”

Meanwhile, there is little integrity to be found in the graceless attacks on Brazile by liberals. In recent days, the Democratic Party insider has been called a “liar,” a “kook,” a “traitor” and worse.

Keith Ellison, Bernie Sanders urge activists to stay politically involved

America’s Democratic party must revitalize itself by paying attention to the people it represents all the time, not just during elections, the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee said Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, of Minnesota, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, hammered home that message during a fundraiser before hundreds of the party faithful in Burlington.

Ellison said the Democratic party has to change the way it has been doing business by focusing on relationships between people who are united by shared values.

Over the last several years, he said, the party has not been doing that.

“We have got to change our culture,” Ellison said. “We have got to go from being a battleground state party to a every state, every county Democratic Party.”

To accomplish that, the party needs to “de-emphasize the money and re-emphasize the people,” he said.

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren Walking Back DNC ‘Rigged’ Comment in New Interview

Elizabeth Warren is reportedly walking back some of her comments that the 2016 Democratic presidential primary was “rigged.”

In an interview with MassLive, Massachusetts’ senior senator said that while the Democratic National Committee may have shown “bias,” the overall primary fight between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was “fair.”

Clinton fires back at Brazile ‘rigged’ claims: ‘That just wasn’t the case’

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday dismissed claims made by former Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile about the party’s presidential primary, saying the way she described the contest “just wasn’t the case.”

“I didn’t know what she was referring to because, as has now come out, that just wasn’t the case,” Clinton said during an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

“But the current DNC leadership really invested heavily in Virginia and New Jersey and other places.”

Jeff Merkley Warns Democrats Not To “Get Distracted” By DNC Fight

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible 2020 presidential contender, warned members of his party Thursday not to “get distracted” by arguing over whether the Democratic National Committee stacked the deck in favor of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 — a fight that was reopened by former DNC chair Donna Brazile’s new book last week.

“If we get distracted by fighting the battle of the last election, we’re going to lose the next election,” Merkley said on BuzzFeed’s Twitter morning show AM to DM Thursday. “And the issues are too important.”

Merkley added, however, that Democrats must ensure that their primary process is fair to all candidates, amid speculation that he may become one himself. “We have to make sure the DNC is an absolutely level playing field for the future. That’s the fight we need to make sure we have going forward so that everyone has a chance to weigh in and make sure that the Democratic primaries aren’t again biased in any kind of way.”

Asked directly if he plans to join the Democratic primary campaign in 2020, Merkley chuckled, but didn’t deny his interest. “You know, right now I think every Democrat in America knows that they could do a much better job than the incumbent,” he said.

Merkley, a progressive, was the only senator to endorse Sanders’ 2016 campaign and has been rumored to be mulling a presidential bid of his own, should the 76-year-old decide not to run again in 2020.

‘Great Things Come Out of Discomfort’: Our Revolution’s Nina Turner

Q: You were quoted recently saying it’s not Our Revolution’s job to fit into the Democratic establishment. What is that job as you see it?

Turner: The progressive left is pushing the Democrats back to where they should be. Back to that 1944 economic bill of rights, when FDR said what the American people should expect, what they deserve. He didn’t say wish for, hope for, kinda. He said what they deserve, what they should expect. And in that list, it was jobs, it was housing, it was having a safety net if you’re older or you lose your job or have been incapacitated in some way. It was health care. What the American people should expect! And that is what we have to get back to. And so our job on the progressive left is to remind Democrats of where we fought to be, and push us there. And it’s uncomfortable, but that’s okay. Great things come out of discomfort. And that’s what we’re doing on the progressive left.

Q: Your predictions for 2018 and 2020?

Turner: It’s going to be hard. I hope that no one is taking President Trump for granted. Even though he has pretty much proven himself unworthy of that seat at this point. What he did show with 2016 is that he has nine lives. So resistance is not the only thing we need to do as conscious-minded folks, as Democrats. It has to be more than resistance; we have to make sure that we plan. Democrats can be successful if they are willing to shift their focus to what everyday Americans want, need, and are asking for. But that requires some humility and a willingness to listen to what people are saying.

Q: Is Bernie going to run again in 2020?

Turner: I hope so! I hope so!

Dems push clearer GMO labeling

Senate Democrats are pushing the Agriculture Department to create a labeling standard for products made with genetically modified organisms (GMO) that is consumer-friendly.

Congress passed a law in July ordering the agency to create a national labeling standard within two years.

The law allows food producers to use QR codes that can be scanned with smartphone. In a letter Tuesday led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), nine Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to consider the obstacles Americans could face in gaining that information electronically.

The senators noted that a recent study required by the law found around 74 million Americans did not own a smartphone in 2016.

“Smartphone ownership is even lower among older and rural Americans, and many rural communities lack the broadband infrastructure that is necessary for QR codes to work,” they wrote.

Despite ‘Misinformation’ Campaign by Telecom Industry, Municipal Broadband Wins in Colorado

Defying a well-financed “misinformation” campaign by major cable and telecom companies to quash competition, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado has approved a ballot measure to invest $150 million in a city-owned broadband utility, while more than a dozen municipalities across the state voted this week in favor of locally-controlled internet.

Although the Fort Collins measure—known as Question 2B before the vote—”does not require the council to create the utility,” according to The Coloradoan, it gives the city council “flexibility in setting up a business model for providing high-speed internet, including entering into a partnership with a private company.”

City Manager Darin Atteberry told the newspaper that the council will meet later this month to discuss the next steps. Atteberry, along with other local leaders and advocates, celebrated the results, though Mayor Wade Troxell criticized the cable companies’ campaign “to misinform the electorate,” and said he was disappointed in the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce for “playing an active role in misinformation.”

Led by Comcast, “cable providers campaigned heavily against the Fort Collins move,” the Denver Post reports, “spending more than $256,000 in television and radio ads.” The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), however, says that by the time of the election, “that figure had jumped to more than $450,000.” In an effort to promote the ballot measure, local residents formed the Fort Collins Citizens Broadband Committee, which raised less than $10,000, but was ultimately victorious.

“This is another David vs. Goliath battle,” Glen Akins, who helped lead the committee, told Ars Technica.

“We overcame the opponents’ massive, record-setting negative advertising campaign because we had a group of dedicated and passionate volunteers who believed in our cause,” Atkins added after the vote. “Our volunteers’ passion inspired our community and our community once again affirmed their desire for better broadband and denounced the influence of outsized spending campaigns in our local politics. Big money can buy ad spots and air time but it can’t buy votes in Fort Collins.”

Zogby: Sanders Would Defeat Trump by 11 Points in 2020

Sen. Bernie Sanders would defeat President Donald Trump by 11 points in a head-to-head match-up in 2020, the best among would-be Democratic challengers, according to the latest Zogby Analytics poll.

Former Vice President Joe Biden would defeat the president by nine points, according to Zogby’s hypothetical poll.

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, performed the best out of the four Democrats Zogby included in its survey, all of whom would nevertheless defeat Trump, according to Zogby.

Trump Nominee Kathleen Hartnett White Ignores Climate Change In Her Own Backyard

Kathleen Hartnett White, President Trump’s pick to chair the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), testified at her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday and, like many Trump nominees to date, showed herself to be an unqualified, polluter-friendly ideologue who rejects mainstream climate science.

“Your positions are so far out of the mainstream, they are not just outliers, they are outrageous,” Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey exclaimed at one point in clear exasperation. “You have a fringe voice that denies science, economics and reality.”

What Markey failed to note, however, is that White has personally experienced climate change-related extreme weather events in her home state of Texas, and scientists say they are only going to get worse.

Unqualified from the Start

White, who Trump previously considered for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, is a cattle rancher and dog breeder who chaired the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)—the Lone Star State’s version of the EPA—from 2001 to 2007 and was a member of the Environmental Flows Study Commission, the Texas Water Development Board and the Texas Wildlife Association board.

Her qualifications for those positions? None.

White earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Humanities and Religion at Stanford, attended Princeton’s comparative religion doctoral program, and completed a year of law school at Texas Tech. It’s not quite the background one would expect for someone serving on environmentally related boards, let alone running the TCEQ. But in Texas, as in Florida and Wisconsin, ideology trumps science credentials, and White holds a politically correct pro-fossil fuels viewpoint.

Alaska Senator Denounced for ‘Deplorable’ Attempt to Force Drilling in Arctic Wildlife Refuge

Environmentalists denounced as “deplorable,” “immoral,” and “toxic” a move by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) to force drilling for oil and natural gas on federally protected public lands in Alaska.

After Senate Republicans—and one Democrat—last month thwarted efforts by a group of Democratic senators and conservationists to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from the fossil fuel industry, Murkowski proposed legislation on Wednesday that would require the Interior Department to approve at least two sales for drilling rights leases within a decade. And because the measure is part of the budget resolution process, it could pass by a simple majority.

While Murkowski—with support from Alaska’s governor and other members of Congress—touted her legislation as “a tremendous opportunity” that would “put Alaska and the entire nation on a path toward greater prosperity,” local and national environmentalists warned of the consequences of her proposal to open up 1.5 million acres of ANWR’s coastal plain to drilling.

“What this bill would do is turn America’s last great wilderness into a lost wilderness,” said Adam Kolton, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League. “It would allow roads, pipelines, gravel mines, and well pads to be erected across the entire birthing grounds of the Coastal Plain, where caribou calve and where polar bear mothers den.”

“It’s deplorable that a backdoor budget maneuver is being used to ram Arctic drilling through without a full, fair and open debate,” Kolton continued. “It’s immoral that this bill would risk the subsistence culture of the Gwich’in for a fool’s gold of exaggerated money and jobs. And it’s wrong to pretend to offer a tax cut with one hand and rob our children and grandchildren of their rightful heritage with the other.”

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Scott Pruitt’s Dysfunctional EPA

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt doesn’t hide his contempt for how the agency has been run, but does profess to care about one of its key programs: Superfund, which oversees the cleanup of the nation’s worst toxic-waste sites. In April, he toured a site in East Chicago, Indiana, contaminated with lead and arsenic, and told residents, “We are going to get this right.”

The following month, Pruitt—Oklahoma’s attorney general before he joined the EPA—tapped one of his former donors, banker Albert “Kell” Kelly, to find ways to accelerate and improve Superfund cleanups. Kelly started by consulting career staff members —often-knowledgeable officials who work at the agency regardless of who holds the White House. But then Kelly closed off the process, conferring with Pruitt to produce a final plan that altered or excluded many of the staffers’ suggestions. Gone, for example, was the idea that EPA officials be identified early on to lead discussions with communities on how contaminated land should be used after cleanup.

“We’re missing a huge opportunity to do something new and different with Superfund,” said one of two EPA employees who described the process to the Center for Public Integrity on the condition of anonymity.

What happened with Superfund is hardly an anomaly. Today’s EPA is wracked with internal conflict and industry influence, and is struggling to fulfill its mission, according to more than two dozen current and former agency employees. A few dozen political appointees brought in under the Trump administration are driving policy. At least 16 of the 45 appointees worked for industries such as oil, coal and chemicals. Four of these people—and another 21—worked for, or donated to, politicians who have questioned established climate science, such as Pruitt and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla).

Career staff members—lawyers, scientists, analysts—are largely being frozen out of decision-making, current and former agency employees said. These staffers rarely get face time with Pruitt and frequently receive top-down orders from political appointees with little room for debate. They must sometimes force their way into conversations about subjects in which they have expertise.

Count me in! (not anytime soon though please)

With Conservation Burials, Death Gives New Life

Natural burials—where bodies are buried in the soil to allow for a hasty decomposition—have already caught on. But an Australian scientist has proposed that the concept of “dust-unto-dust” go even further.

He suggests that natural burials become “conservation” burials, that is, that people use the costs of interring bodies to buy, manage and preserve new land for natural burials, turning them into nature preserves or wilderness areas. Such funds could go toward supporting other conservation efforts, as well.

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“We can create a spectacular legacy for our loved ones,” said Matthew Holden, a lecturer at the University of Queensland, who outlined his ideas in a paper recently published in Conservation Letters. “We can use their dead bodies to protect the most awe-inspiring and critically endangered ecosystems from disappearing from the Earth.”

In the U.S. alone, close to 3 million people die each year, generating an estimated funeral revenue of $19 billion, “far more than the estimated $3 to $5 billion required to protect every threatened species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature,” Holden said. “They could generate revenue that exceeds the amount of money needed to save every threatened species on the planet.”

Green burial practices are also less carbon-intensive than conventional burials, which produce emissions from the manufacture and transportation of embalming fluids, coffins and grave liners, as well as the maintenance of cemeteries. Natural burials are also less expensive than traditional burials. Ornamental caskets and embalming are costly, and the chemicals used in the process, such as formaldehyde, are harmful.

While not every threatened species can benefit directly from conservation burials, “the hypothetical revenue demonstrates substantial potential for increased biodiversity,” he added. “If conservation burials became as commonplace as similar types of after-death charities, such as organ donation, the biodiversity benefits would be enormous.”

#WorldWithoutWalls: A Global Demand From Palestine to Mexico and Beyond

A coalition of Palestinian and Mexican advocacy groups launched the #WorldWithoutWalls Global Day of Action on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, to “unite against the global proliferation of walls,” which they say serve as “monuments of expulsion, exclusion, oppression, discrimination, and exploitation.”

On a webpage dedicated to day of action, Stop the Wall—which is spearheading the effort—features a call to action that describes how nations worldwide contruct barriers to control people. The statement includes signatories representing more than 370 organizations from some 30 countries, and says, in part:

From Israel’s apartheid Wall on Palestinian land to the U.S. Wall of Shame on indigenous land at the border with Mexico—almost 70 walls across all continents are today ripping through people’s lives and lands as they fortify often unilaterally defined borders or limits of state control. They cause thousands of deaths every year and destroy means of livelihoods and hope for many more. They are monuments of expulsion, exclusion, oppression, discrimination, and exploitation….

From India, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, Western Sahara, and Europe, today, the number of walls designed to forcibly define and seal borders has almost tripled over the last two decades. These walls bar the right to freedom of movement and self-determination. They have become are cornerstones in a world where wars, militarization, and exclusion are to substitute justice, freedom, and equality.

Stop the Wall primarily advocates against the barrier erected by the Israeli government along and within the West Bank—often called the “apartheid wall” by critics. U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuous calls for the federal government to build up a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has drawn comparisons to the wall in the West Bank.

New Study Shows Urgently Needed 100% Renewable Transition More Feasible Than Ever

A transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050—or even sooner—is not only possible, but would also cost less and create millions of new jobs, according to new research presented in Bonn, Germany on Thursday.

The German non-profit Energy Watch Group (EWG) teamed up with Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology to present a study at the COP23 climate summit.

The results of the study, according to a forward written by EWG’s president Hans-Josef Fell, show “that a 100% renewable electricity system is an effective and urgently needed climate protection measure. A global zero emission power system is feasible and more cost-effective than the existing system based on nuclear and fossil fuel energy.”

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the warming of the earth to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the report argued that “we need a two-fold strategy: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions down to zero and to remove surplus carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A key aspect of this strategy should be a transition to an emission-free global economy, based on 100 percent renewable energy.”

Moving to this system through the use of solar and wind power, combined with establishing energy storage systems, would bring the total cost of energy from more than 80 dollars to about 60 dollars per MWh.

Thirty-six million jobs would also be created by 2050 through the transition, compared with 19 million energy jobs in the current economy, according to the research.

Lindsey Graham Latest Republican to Admit GOP Tax Plan Is All About Keeping ‘Financial Contributions’ of Donors Flowing

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday became the latest Republican to admit the GOP is trying to ram through massive tax cuts for the rich to satisfy its wealthy donors, telling a journalist that if the party’s tax push fails, “the financial contributions will stop.”

David Sirota, reporter with the International Business Times, responded by noting that it is both “laudably honest for Graham to admit this” and “a repulsive glimpse of how politicans see so many public policies as private financial transactions between them and their donors.”

Graham’s remarks came as Senate Republicans prepared to unveil their tax legislation which, like the House version, would deliver massive tax cuts to wealthy individuals and large corporations.

As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has made a similar comment recently, complaining that his donors are pressuring him to pass tax cuts or “don’t ever call me again.”

AT&T Mega-Merger “Should Die,” Critics Say, But Trump’s Attack on CNN Clear “Abuse of Power”

Amid news reports that the Trump Justice Department is demanding that AT&T sell off CNN as a condition of its proposed merger with Time Warner, press freedom advocates and critics of corporate consolidation are warning that the president’s personal vendetta against the network he has frequently accused of spreading “fake news”—and not a populist concern about excessive concentration of power—is the primary reason behind his opposition to the deal.

“While there are plenty of good reasons to oppose AT&T’s Time Warner takeover, punishing CNN for trying to hold this administration accountable isn’t one of them,” Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, said in a statement on Wednesday. “If today’s news is just cover for an attack on CNN, it’s only the latest example of how Trump is all too willing to abuse his power to intimidate the press. This is how leaders behave in dictatorships, not democracies.”

The Financial Times was the first to report Wednesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) told AT&T it needs to drop Turner Broadcasting—CNN’s parent company—if its $84.5 billion acquisition of Time Warner is to be approved. The DOJ also reportedly suggested that AT&T could sell off DirecTV, but one source told the Financial Times: “It’s all about CNN.”

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump suggested that he did not approve of the AT&T-Time Warner merger on the grounds that it would place “too much concentration of power in the hands of too few”—echoing critiques of the merger leveled by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and other progressive lawmakers.

But many have argued that Trump was using populist rhetoric to obscure his “chilling” desire to suppress media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. In some instances, Trump hasn’t even bothered with the populist language, as was the case when he suggested last month that NBC’s license should be challenged.

Republicans Plan to Turn Puerto Rico Into a Theme Park for Fossil-Fuel Corporations

The House Committee on Natural Resources convened this week to discuss Puerto Rico’s ongoing hurricane recovery efforts. They talked devastation, debt, and regulations, and somewhere along the way, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, made a statement that would have been easy to miss if you weren’t listening closely: “Puerto Rico has the potential of being the Hong Kong of the United States, where businesses would flood in there.”

Hong Kong, in this case, is code for lax labor laws and low taxes on corporations and the wealthy — an economy structured mainly around pleasing the private sector. If Tuesday’s hearing was any indication, that’s exactly the path a cadre of House Republicans and federally appointed officials in Puerto Rico are eager to take the island down post-Hurricane Maria, with a special eye toward fossil fuel development.

It’s not the first time Gohmert has made such a claim. On Tuesday, congressional representatives heard from the executive director of Puerto Rico’s fiscal oversight board, a body installed by Congress in the summer of 2016 to help deal with at least $74 billion in municipal debt, through a bill known as PROMESA. In hearings in the lead-up to that bill’s passage, Gohmert was more explicit about the idea he reiterated this week. “Puerto Rico ought to be the model for how free markets could work,” Gohmert said in April 2016. “It could be the United States’s Hong Kong, because there is no federal income tax. All it would need is to streamline and not have such a bloated government.”

“If it were not for all the government workers,” he added, “there would be no need to have a … higher corporate tax than the United States itself has. … I would think that if you could get it down to around 12 percent, business would be flocking.”

Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna: Stop All Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia Now

For more than two years, Congress has remained quiet as the United States backed a brutal war in Yemen, supporting a coalition that has killed thousands and starved the country into one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century.

But a growing number of progressive members of Congress have come forward to challenge the consensus that arming Saudi Arabia is in America’s interest. Earlier this year, former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told The Intercept that Saudi Arabia “is not an ally of the United States,” and that the United States should rethink its relationship with the Gulf kingdom.

One of these representatives is Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who went a step further in an interview with Jeremy Scahill for the podcast, Intercepted.

“I know this would never pass probably either house of Congress, but do you believe that the United States should stop entirely selling weapons to and giving military assistance to Saudi Arabia?” Scahill asked.

“Yes, I do,” Khanna said. “I don’t think the Saudis’ human rights record or their record in military conflicts are consistent with our values. I don’t think that we should be engaged in interventionism in the Middle East. … We have this record of interventionism that has not made us any safer. And I view our pragmatic, or expedient, alliance with Saudi Arabia in the same way.”

Earlier this year, Khanna introduced a resolution that condemned the war and would have used a provision of the War Powers Act to halt U.S. support for Saudi Arabia.

Dreamers Take Over Senate Building to Demand New Protections

Over 1,000 Dreamers on Thursday marched to the Capitol and gathered at the Hart Senate Office Building, demanding Congress pass a clean DREAM Act by December. The demonstration in Washington was part of United We Dream’s “Here to Stay” Day of Action, which sparked staged walkouts and rallies nationwide.

“We are here, we have 1,000 Dreamers and allies from around 20 states that were asking Republican leadership and Congress in general to provide a pathway to citizenship in the DREAM Act to all the DACA-eligible youth that were affected by the Trump administration’s decision,” protester Isaias Guerrero said. “We are sending a clear message that we want the DREAM Act passed now, a clean DREAM Act, and for it to be before December.”

Dreamers face deportation after President Donald Trump in early September rescinded former President Barack Obama’s 2012 administrative program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which gave an estimated 800,000 young people renewable two-year protection against deportation and work permit eligibility.

Some protesters were arrested by Capitol Police during the chants in the Hart Senate building, and Ainta Zea, a student at American University in Washington, D.C., said she was “right next to people who were getting arrested.”

“Literally all they were doing was chanting, and they had a big poster that said, ‘We demand a clean DREAM Act now.’ So it was the most petty reason to get arrested, and it shows that the police force only serves in the interest of the state and not the people. Time and time again, you keep seeing this happen, even today,” she said.

Socialists Just Showed the Democratic Party How to Win Across the U.S.

Tuesday night’s progressive electoral wave is proof that embracing a bold left agenda is the key to victory.

We Now Know Just How Bad the Flint Water Crisis Was for Pregnant Women

When the city of Flint, Michigan, temporarily switched its water source to the Flint River in 2014, it didn’t treat the water properly. The untreated river water corroded pipes, allowing lead to leach into the water. Tests found lead levels in the region’s water to be higher than that of hazardous waste, but the city failed to warn residents of the danger for months. State officials are now facing criminal charges for their role.

The devastating health consequences of this lapse are now becoming clear. A recent paper finds that the city’s lead crisis may have sparked a drop in birth rates and a precipitous rise in miscarriages. For the working paper, Daniel Grossman from West Virginia University and David Slusky from the University of Kansas compared fertility rates in Flint to those in other Michigan cities before and after Flint changed its water source in 2014.

They found that fertility, or the birth rate, declined by 12 percent among Flint women, and the fetal death rate increased by 58 percent. The authors describe the difference as “horrifyingly large,” but say it’s also an undercount, because it doesn’t include miscarriages that happened before the 20th week of gestation, which is when most hospitals start counting. It did not appear that women were worried about the lead and opting not to have kids—sadly, it seemed more likely that they weren’t aware of the lead threat.

Senate Republicans Release a Tax Bill That’s a Big Giveaway to the Rich

On Thursday, Senate Republicans released a tax cut plan that closely tracks the business-friendly bill introduced last week in the House. But that bill has little chance of becoming law in its current form thanks to a Senate rule that requires 60 votes for legislation that adds to the deficit beyond 10 years.

In the past five days, three different studies have found that the House bill would provide nearly half of its benefits to the top 1 percent of Americans, while raising taxes on tens of millions of middle-class families. The Senate bill generally sticks to that approach.

Both the Senate and House bills, each named the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, though the Senate bill would not make the switch until 2019. For individuals, the Senate bill would also create seven tax brackets ranging from 10 percent to 38.5 percent, compared to four brackets between 12 percent and 39.6 percent in the House.

Like the House bill, the Senate plan would lead to far more people taking the standard deduction, instead of itemizing their tax returns. But it gets there by a different route. Senate Republicans are keeping the current $1 million cap for deducting mortgage interest, while the House bill reduces it to $500,000. The Senate also broke with the House by keeping the deduction for medical expenses and student loan interest.

New study links natural disaster with revolutions

From 305-30 BCE, ancient Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic Dynasty, a Greek family put in place after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. Though Egypt’s wealth and importance were legendary during this time, it was also a period of great civil unrest. Perhaps because they were being ruled by foreigners, the Egyptian people revolted against their leadership several times during the 200s, sparking civil wars. But now scientists believe these revolts may have broken out in part because of a chain reaction started by volcanoes halfway across the world.

There’s no doubt that the Egyptians were chafing under the yoke of their foreign monarchs. The days of the great pharaohs were over, and leaders from the north were replacing Egyptian culture with Greek gods and architecture. But why did the Egyptians’ resentment boil over into open revolt sometimes and remain at a steady simmer otherwise? Historian Francis Ludlow of Trinity College, Ireland, and his colleagues believe that ash, dust, and other particles released by volcanoes during the 200s BCE caused temperatures to cool around the globe. Cooling resulted in less water evaporation, which meant less rain for northern Africa and, therefore, less flooding of the life-giving Nile River.

Because the ancient Egyptians were a farming culture that lived and died by the harvest, the annual Nile flood was key to survival. Floods meant nutrient-rich waters fed the fields and everyone could eat. Nile levels were so important to the Egyptian economy that the government based tax amounts on readings from “Nilometers,” stone wells fed by the river where they could measure its height in cubits. If the levels were trending too high (destructive flooding) or too low (drought), taxes were scaled back to account for people’s diminished fortunes.

Years with low rainfall inevitably meant people wanted for more and had less to lose. Gripes with the government became full-scale rebellions, like the 20-year “Theban revolt” that started in 207 BCE and the “Egyptian revolt” against Ptolemy III between 245-238 BCE. Both came after periods of increased volcanic activity. Though many other factors were in play, there is an undeniable correlation between eruptions and rebellion against the Ptolemaic regime.

UK prosecutors admit destroying key emails in Julian Assange case

The Crown Prosecution Service is facing embarrassment after admitting it destroyed key emails relating to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy fighting extradition.

Email exchanges between the CPS and its Swedish counterparts over the high-profile case were deleted after the lawyer at the UK end retired in 2014.

The destruction of potentially sensitive and revealing information comes ahead of a tribunal hearing in London next week.

Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

The CPS, responding to questions from the Guardian, denied there were any legal implications of the data loss for an Assange case if it were to come to court in the future. Asked if the CPS had any idea what was destroyed, a spokesperson said: “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted.”

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Maurizi, a reporter on La Repubblica who has covered WikiLeaks since 2009, has been pressing both the CPS and its Swedish counterpart for information relating to Assange and extradition.

Unhappy over the limited material released so far, she is taking her case against the CPS to an information tribunal on Monday and Tuesday.

“It is incredible to me these records about an ongoing and high-profile case have been destroyed. I think they have something to hide,” Maurizi said.

Puerto Ricans face rain and floods in wrecked homes still without roofs

Of all the basic necessities still missing for Puerto Ricans more than a month after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, one is almost immediately obvious: the lack of shelter.

In neighborhoods across Puerto Rico, particularly outside the capital San Juan, many residents with damaged roofs have struggled to get even the most threadbare of defenses against the elements.

The distribution of tarpaulins, considered a standard first emergency response by aid workers, has not happened smoothly in Puerto Rico. While there is no firm estimate of houses with missing or damaged roofs, more than 230,000 dwellings in Puerto Rico were hit by the hurricane.

“The tarps should be handed out like candy to everyone and the fact they aren’t is crazy,” said Katia Avilés-Vázquez, a university lecturer who has helped with community recovery efforts.

Fema said it has provided 65,000 tarpaulins to local authorities to distribute and has 100,000 more in a warehouse. Samaritan’s Purse, an NGO, said it has given out 42,000 covers.

But many people still are without any shelter over their heads.

Ramón Rosario, a spokesman for Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló, acknowledged there has been a problem in getting enough tarpaulins to affected Puerto Ricans.

America’s cruel way to punish poor debtors: take away their driver’s license

amian Stinnie is one of the millions of people in America who have had their driver’s licenses suspended because of unpaid debt. Despite spending much of his childhood in foster care, Stinnie graduated from high school with a 3.9 grade point average. While seeking work after losing his first low-paying job, he received four traffic violations and racked up $1,000 in fines and costs.

Because he was unable to pay the full amount within 30 days, his license was automatically suspended. As is routine in many states, including Virginia, where Stinnie lived, no one asked him if he could afford to pay. So, like three-quarters of those suspended, Stinnie lost his license essentially because he was poor, not because of the infractions themselves.

At that point, Stinnie joined the millions of Americans who face the dilemma of getting to work, taking a sick child to the hospital, or buying groceries while risking penalties for driving with a suspended license.

Needless to say, many people take the risk because they have no choice; at least 75% of those who have their licenses suspended keep driving. So the debtor may be arrested again for driving without a license, this time to be incarcerated and certainly to be hit with another set of fines and fees.

Across the United States, many jurisdictions use this cruel method to coerce payment from people who owe fines and fees to the state. State and local governments do this in large part to balance their books in the face of dwindling tax revenues, heedless of the fact that it makes it much more difficult for the working poor to get to the jobs they need to pay off their debts.

Elizabeth Warren tarnishing image with money deal

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is boosting her bulging campaign war chest through a joint fundraising deal with her political action committee and the state party that’s funneled nearly $2 million to her re-election bid in just nine months.

It’s an arrangement similar to the one Hillary Clinton had with the Democratic National Committee that drew fire from Warren, who said it showed the party’s national primary was stacked against Bernie Sanders.

Donors have been cutting five-figure checks to the Elizabeth Warren Action Fund since it launched in January as a joint fundraising committee with her own PAC for a Level Playing Field and the Mass. Democratic State Committee.

It’s transferred more than $1.86 million to her own re-election campaign — or 15 percent of her $11.9 million total haul in 2017 — through an agreement that guarantees her the first $5,400 of any donation, her PAC the next $5,000 and the state party the proceeds there­after up to $10,000.

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While legal and increasingly popular, such agreements can be problematic, as evidenced by the controversy around the joint deal between the DNC and Clinton, which gave her campaign tight control over the party’s operations during the primary.

Poll: 6 in 10 Massachusetts voters approve of Elizabeth’s Warren’s Senate performance

With less than one year left before the 2018 congressional mid-term elections, nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts residents say they are happy with how Elizabeth Warren is handling her job representing the state in the U.S. Senate, a new poll has found.

According to a Western New England University Polling Institute survey released Thursday, voters approve of the Democrat’s job performance by a 63 to 30 percent margin — up from the 55 to 27 percent approval rating she saw in November 2015.

Not surprisingly, Warren, who is up for re-election next year, saw the largest amount of support from Democrats, with 89 percent backing her work in the U.S. Senate, followed by 55 percent of unenrolled voters and 26 percent of Republicans.

By contrast, 64 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of unenrolled voters and 7 percent of Democrats said they “disapprove” of the senator’s job in office.

Mounting GOP retirements threaten House majority

A retirement wave has hit House Republicans, emboldening Democrats who have become increasingly bullish about their prospects of winning back a majority in 2018.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Thursday became the latest Republican to announce he would not seek another term.

The 13-term Virginian followed Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), both of who announced Tuesday — hours before Republicans suffered sweeping losses at the polls — that they’d retire from Congress.

All told, 29 Republicans will not seek reelection to their House seats, compared to only 11 for Democrats. Fifteen Republicans are retiring outright, rather than seeking other political offices or positions. Only two Democrats are doing the same.

“Anybody who has a pair of eyes and ears knows that the House is in play and at risk,” Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who heads a moderate GOP caucus and is not seeking reelection next year, told The Hill. “And I’m sure that fact enters into the calculation of many members who are contemplating their futures.

“Do you really want to go through another year like the last one?” Dent asked.

Mueller investigating Flynn over alleged plan to turn cleric over to Turkey

Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into an alleged plot involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn to return a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. to Turkey, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

FBI agents have asked at least four people about a mid-December meeting in New York, in which Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., allegedly spoke with representatives of the Turkish government about removing cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. in exchange for as much as $15 million.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Gulen of orchestrating a 2016 failed coup attempt and has urged the U.S. to extradite the cleric.

The December meeting was attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey, who has described the proposal to the Wall Street Journal as “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” Woolsey has said he attended at the request of an associate of Flynn and that he sought to notify then-Vice President Joe Biden through a mutual friend.

China signs on to Alaska gas pipeline, but it’s far from set

The latest push in a decades-long effort to commercialize vast stores of Alaska’s natural gas got a boost when the state announced a deal with three Chinese companies. But the $43 billion project is far from reality.

The agreement advances a project to move gas through a pipeline to the Alaska coast, where it would be liquefied and shipped to China and other points in Asia. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping looked on as Alaska’s governor and representatives from the companies signed the deal Thursday in Beijing.

But the fanfare does not ensure one shovelful of tundra gets overturned. Similar efforts to build a natural gas pipeline have fizzled repeatedly.

Here’s a look at the new project:

Organic farmers claim Atlantic Sunrise pipeline work violated conditions

Blair and Megan Mohn spent six years converting their traditional Lancaster County farmland of corn and soybeans to meet the exacting requirements to grow certified organic hay.

They had to let 60 acres of fields lie fallow for six years, years they received no farm income. An Amish farmer grows the organic hay to feed his dairy cows so he can sell organic milk.

Now, the Mohns claim that their hard, environmentally sound efforts have been wiped away when builders of the Atlantic Sunrise gas pipeline descended on their Conestoga Township property, ignoring promised safeguards drawn up by the pipeline builder itself.

“They just came out and did it like any other construction site,” says Blair Mohn. “It makes you angry and frustrated and it’s so disturbing. We spend so much time putting this land into a pristine environment. We did everything we could and through we were being good stewards of the land.”

In a response to the allegations to LNP, pipeline builder Williams Partners denied there have been any violations.

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The Mohns have complained to Williams Partners and FERC about these alleged violations of Williams’ “Certified Organic Agricultural Lands Mitigation plan”:

*For weeks, heavy equipment was stored on the property.
*Nonorganic bags of mulch have continued to be stored on the property.
*For weeks, trucks traveled between the organic farm and a neighboring nonorganic property.
*Soil from an adjacent nonorganic property blew onto the organic farm.
*Creosote treated wood planks are being used as a roadway paver.
*Signs warning construction workers of an organic farm were not posted.

It’s Never Been More Important for Big Companies to Listen to Local Communities

On paper, the project seemed like it would be a hit: The investment by the mining company would bring jobs and 21st-century technology to an economically poor area and tax revenues to the government. So why were citizens blocking the roads and protesting in the streets, drawing considerable attention from NGOs and the media and delaying the project?

This is a familiar scene for companies building mines, pipelines, oil fields, and, more recently, even renewable energy and large real estate projects. Look no further than the recent protests against the completion of the Keystone and the Dakota Access pipelines, or the opposition that stopped the development of the Cape Wind Associates’ offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

Conflicts like these with local communities are not only divisive, they are expensive. For example, the delays associated with social conflict at large mining operations can run in the vicinity of $20 million per week. According to our calculations, Energy Transfer Partners, the company developing the Dakota Access pipeline, incurred over $800 million in damages as a result of conflict with local indigenous communities that quickly escalated when activists joined the protest and opposition campaign.

Clearly, the failure to recognize the risk of social conflict can cost millions of dollars and set investments back by years. Yet the same companies that spend months and millions tweaking operational details devote only a small fraction of their resources to understanding and addressing the social risks they face. The result is a limited ability to recognize how their decisions affect — and are affected by — local problems and concerns.

Meet the group that just put more than 30 local progressives into office

Run for Something is leading a Democratic wave, one school board election at a time.

Colombian Indigenous Groups Agree Deal to End 40-Day Strike

Colombian Indigenous communities finally put an end to their 40-day general strike on Thursday, after reaching an agreement with the national government regarding education, land issues and human rights.

A permanent assembly has now been established by the communities in order to monitor implementation of the agreement, Indigenous National Organization of Colombia (ONIC) spokesman Luis Fernando Arias announced in a press conference.

During his speech, Arias denounced how “accommodating” the government has been of violence committed against Indigenous peoples, “allowing apathy and neglect to be the main public policy applied.”

Indigenous communities mobilized in 17 locations across the country, despite a strong police presence that resulted in “over 40 people injured, seven people under investigation and hundreds of threats,” Arias said. He also accused police of using “non-conventional weapons” as “a mean of dissuasion” against “peaceful social protest.”

The agreement guarantees Indigenous collective rights, implementation of the peace agreement reached with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia last year, and an agenda to meet the demands of Indigenous communities where the mobilizations took place. It was signed in Caldono, in the south-eastern province of Cauca.

Hong Kong’s indigenous fight to save heritage

Big developers are buying up government land in Hong Kong at a record rate.

But one of the city’s last indigenous communities is standing up to them to save their village and heritage.

‘Nightmare Scenario,’ Declare Aid Groups, as Saudis Put Yemen Under Total Blockade

Nearly 20 humanitarian agencies on Wednesday warned of a “nightmare scenario” after the Saudi-led coalition blocked off all entry points to Yemen, a decision that cuts off life-saving aid and compounds the catastrophe in the war-ravaged country.

“Yemen is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 21 million people in desperate need of assistance,” said Shane Stevenson, country director for Oxfam. “To prevent more lives from being lost and the needless suffering of millions, it is vital that aid is not delayed or impeded another hour.”

The Saudi coalition—which, with assistance from the U.S., has been waging a military campaign against Houthi forces—announced the closure of all Yemen’s air, land, and sea ports on Monday after the kingdom intercepted a missile launched by Houthi rebels.

Yemen is in the grips of the fastest-growing cholera epidemic on the books, is facing the world’s worst food crisis, and has seen its health infrastructure decimated by the ongoing conflict.

Thank you to the @monroedems for hosting a wonderful Democratic Party Dinner last night. It was so nice and exciting to see so many activists and community leaders come together for dinner, conversations, and Democratic unity. #MonroeDems are ready for 2018! #FlipIN09 pic.twitter.com/SiEnujDm8b

— Liz Watson (@LizForIndiana) November 10, 2017

What’s the lesson from Election Day? The people want more hope & healing and less hate & hurt.

— Ben Jealous (@BenJealous) November 10, 2017

Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition will allow greater medical research into treatments for epilepsy, PTSD, addiction, pain relief & more.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) November 8, 2017

2018 is right around the corner! @mdevitojr addressing the club tonight. pic.twitter.com/ibeVXb41Bz

— Bay Ridge Democrats (@BayRidgeDems) November 10, 2017

Thanks Plano and our amazing volunteers for such a great town hall tonight! pic.twitter.com/EUR9nywPrm

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) November 10, 2017