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WATCH: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Grills Treasury Secretary Mnuchin on Unused CARES Act Funding

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday grilled U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the return of around $175 billion in unused funds allocated for coronavirus pandemic relief.

The quarterly hearing before the House Financial Services Committee is mandated under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in March.

The pandemic stimulus bill provided most Americans with one-time $1,200 payments, while corporations and wealthy individuals were handed more than half a trillion dollars.

At the hearing, Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) urged Mnuchin to prevent some of the $450 billion in authorized CARES Act relief from reverting to the Treasury Department at the end of the year when the designated loan distribution period expires.

Mnuchin has indicated that he will return approximately $175 billion, even as unemployment and other economic hardship caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic persist.

“We are in such a desperate position given the unfortunate gridlock” in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez told Mnuchin. “We’re all aligned in interest in trying to figure out where we can explore maximum flexibility as offered by the statute.”

The freshman Squad member then pressed Mnuchin on the re-allocation of unused CARES Act funds.

Wednesday’s hearing came as Congress struggled to reach a deal on a new pandemic relief bill. On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insisted that a bipartisan $908 billion proposal should be the starting point for any stimulus measure—a figure that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has rejected in favor of $500 billion in what he calls “targeted relief.”

Advocates Applaud ‘Historic’ Moment as MORE Act Advances to First-Ever Marijuana Legalization Vote on House Floor

Advocates for marijuana legalization on Wednesday urged members of the U.S. Congress to support the MORE Act when it reaches the House floor later this week, after the bill passed in the House Rules Committee.

Groups including the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and NORML applauded the advancement of the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act (H.R. 3884), which, among other things, would remove marijuana from the Federal Controlled Substances Act—forcing the federal government to catch up with a growing number of states that have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use in recent years.

“The historic nature of today’s progress cannot be overstated,” said NORML in a statement. “For the first time in American history, the public will see the ‘People’s House’ vote to end the senseless, cruel, and racist policy of marijuana criminalization and prohibition.”

The MORE Act will move to the House floor weeks after voters in five states—New Jersey, Arizona, Montana, Mississippi, and South Dakota—voted to legalize the substance, demonstrating the widespread and diverse support for decriminalization.

Last month, Gallup found that 68% of American adults support marijuana legalization—the highest percentage ever recorded.

DPA has been instrumental in pushing the Democratic-led House to consider the legislation, focusing on the MORE Act’s ability to “prevent further injustice” in communities that have been torn apart by the War on Drugs over the past three decades. Black Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white counterparts, despite the fact that people of all races use the substance in roughly equal numbers.

“Marijuana prohibition continues to rob communities of color and low-income people of economic opportunity, security, their freedom, and even their safety,” Queen Adesuyi, policy manager for the Office of National Affairs at DPA, said in a statement. “The time to end this decades-long assault and begin building these communities back up is long overdue. And while the MORE Act will not undo their pain, it is the most significant opportunity we have had to date to begin to right these wrongs.”

‘Dead-End for Climate’: Coalition Denounces Senate Bill to Fund Nuclear Industry Bailout

A coalition of over 100 groups on Tuesday told U.S. senators that nuclear power is a false solution to the climate crisis as they urged lawmakers to reject proposed legislation that would “put short-sighted economic interests ahead of human lives, racial justice, the health of our environment, and safe drinking water.”

The measure in question is the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020. Introduced in November by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) along with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the legislation seeks to “eestablish United States global leadership in nuclear energy, revitalize domestic nuclear energy supply chain infrastructure, support the licensing of advanced nuclear technologies, and improve the regulation of nuclear energy, and for other purposes.”

The proposed legislation, S. 4897, advanced at a Senate Environment and Public Works hearing Wednesday.

According to Mitch Jones, policy director at Food & Water Watch, “This bill misdirects our investment away from technologies that will speed the deployment of renewables and into an industry that is already being propped up by rate-payer subsidies”

“Instead of propping up the nuclear energy industry,” Jones continued, “Congress should be driving the transition to truly renewable energy.”

Food & Water Watch is among the signatories to the new letter that outlines the groups’ opposition to S. 4897, including that it fails to address multiple long-standing problems with nuclear technology and stands to worsen already existing crises.

The letter cites as one example the mandate for the establishment of a national uranium reserve, which means more uranium mining. But the groups say the legislation would not require mitigation of the environmental harms of uranium mining, and, while “the bill does restrict procurement of uranium for the reserve from mines that are not located on Indigenous peoples’ lands, it does not prohibit mining on those lands entirely.”

US Media Rejected Trump’s Absurd Election Fraud Claims — But Accepted Them From the Latin American Right

Donald Trump’s would-be coup has ended with a feeble surrender, as the outgoing ruler tacitly conceded that the transition to a Joe Biden presidency could begin. Of course, it’s unlikely that Trump ever had serious plans for squatting unlawfully in the White House. Not for the first time, his bark proved to be much worse than his bite.

False allegations of electoral fraud in the run-up to the presidential election were a good way for Trump to rally his base and legitimize voter suppression efforts. Once it became clear that Joe Biden had bested him anyway, the idle claims of fraud supplied Trump with an excuse for failure, and a way to generate ongoing cycles of paranoid entitlement among conservative voters — a useful rallying cry for 2022, perhaps.

However, this shambolic conclusion to a farcical presidency still contains some important lessons. Democratic Party supporters have been given a small taste of what things are like for left-wing movements in Latin America at any given moment. Time and again, we’ve seen popular left-wing governments south of the Rio Grande stigmatized by their conservative opponents with bogus claims of electoral fraud, in order to justify violent protests — and, in some cases, an outright coup.

We’ve also seen those claims of fraud handled with the utmost respect by the same media outlets that dismissed Trump’s allegations out of hand. Trump’s undignified exit should be an opportunity for those outlets to reflect and learn before they grant legitimacy to his Latin American counterparts once again.

Biden’s Possible HHS Pick Shielded Nursing Homes From Liability for COVID Spreads

hode Island governor Gina Raimondo has presided over one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country — and newly obtained documents detail how she helped nursing home lobbyists shield health care companies from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

Now, Raimondo — a former Wall Street executive — is reportedly being considered for the nation’s top health care policy job in the incoming Biden administration.

Politico reported last week that Raimondo, who made her name slashing state workers’ pensions, is one of the finalists to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under president-elect Joe Biden. Raimondo was also previously considered for Treasury secretary, according to the American Prospect.

As governor, Raimondo has slammed proposals to expand Medicare to cover everyone. Amid the pandemic in August, her administration approved health insurance companies’ steep premium increases that were criticized by the state’s Democratic attorney general as “unnecessary and ill-advised.” Health insurers have been raking in record profits, with fewer people seeking care because of the pandemic.

Raimondo has also pushed for Medicaid cuts that nursing home workers warned would result in unsafe staffing levels — and in April, she issued an executive order sought by health care industry lobbyists that shielded nursing homes from lawsuits when their business decisions injure or kill people. The order was later expanded to shield nursing homes, hospitals, and other health care providers.

While the Biden transition is reportedly considering Raimondo for HHS secretary, residents and workers in Rhode Island’s nursing homes have faced deadly consequences. Documents show that Raimondo quickly responded to lobbyists’ demands for an executive order granting them legal immunity during the pandemic.

“What immunity has done is allow nursing homes to act unreasonably without accountability,” one personal injury lawyer told the Providence Journal last month.

Rhode Island currently has one of the highest coronavirus death rates by population in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 70 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the state have been linked to long-term care facilities — only two other states have seen similar nursing home death rates, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“This Strike Is a Fight for Our Lives”: Healthcare Workers Are Walking Off the Job to Demand Pandemic Protections

s a strike wave sweeps the U.S. health­care indus­try amid the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, 700 front­line work­ers at 11 Chica­go-area nurs­ing homes have been on the pick­et lines since Novem­ber 23.

Pri­mar­i­ly Black and Lati­na women, the strik­ing work­ers are mem­bers of SEIU Health­care Illi­nois & Indi­ana and include cer­ti­fied nurs­ing assis­tants (CNAs), dietary aides, house­keep­ers and laun­dry work­ers. They are fight­ing for at least $15 an hour, haz­ard pay and ade­quate per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE).

Their employ­er, Infin­i­ty Health­care Man­age­ment — a for-prof­it chain oper­at­ing sev­er­al nurs­ing homes across Illi­nois and four oth­er states — recent­ly received $12.7 mil­lion in fed­er­al Covid-19 relief, but has so far refused to meet the work­ers’ demands after near­ly six months of con­tract negotiations.

The strike is coin­cid­ing with oth­er health­care-relat­ed work stop­pages around the coun­try, sig­nal­ing grow­ing work­er unrest as the twin pub­lic health and eco­nom­ic crises con­tin­ue to wreak hav­oc on work­ing-class Amer­i­cans — par­tic­u­lar­ly Black and Brown communities.

In New York, over 1,000 nurs­es with the New York State Nurs­es Asso­ci­a­tion (NYS­NA) held a one-day strike at Albany Med­ical Cen­ter Hos­pi­tal on Decem­ber 1, while 200 oth­er NYS­NA nurs­es at Mon­te­fiore Hos­pi­tal in New Rochelle orga­nized a two-day strike on Decem­ber 1 and 2. At both loca­tions, nurs­es are demand­ing improved safe­ty pre­cau­tions and bet­ter pay.

Mean­while, in Wash­ing­ton state, over 100 doc­tors, physi­cian assis­tants and nurse prac­ti­tion­ers with the Union of Amer­i­can Physi­cians and Den­tists staged a two-day strike last week at 20 urgent care facil­i­ties run by Mul­ti­Care Health Sys­tems after being forced to work 12-hour shifts with­out breaks.

The strik­ing SEIU work­ers at the 11 Infin­i­ty-run nurs­ing homes in Chica­go and sur­round­ing sub­urbs plan to stay out indef­i­nite­ly until a con­tract set­tle­ment is reached.

Eddie Benton-Banai, co-founder of American Indian Movement, dies aged 89

Eddie Benton-Banai, who helped found the American Indian Movement partly in response to alleged police brutality against Indigenous people, has died. He was 89.

He died Monday at a care center in Hayward, Wisconsin, where he had been staying for months, according to family friend Dorene Day. Day said Benton-Banai had several health issues and had been hospitalized multiple times in recent years.

Benton-Banai, who is Anishinaabe Ojibwe, was born and raised on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in northern Wisconsin. He made a life of connecting American Indians with their spirituality and promoting sovereignty, and was the grand chief, or spiritual leader, of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge.

Day said he was someone people looked to for guidance in the religious practice of the Anishinaabe Ojibwe people – and he gave countless babies their traditional names.

Benton-Banai’s place in the American Indian Movement, a grassroots group formed in 1968, can be traced to his launch of a cultural program in a Minnesota prison, said co-founder Clyde Bellecourt.

Bellecourt was in solitary confinement when he heard someone whistling You are My Sunshine, and he looked through a tiny hole in his cell and saw Benton-Banai, a fellow inmate, recognizing him as an Indigenous man.

Bellecourt said Benton-Banai approached him about helping incarcerated Indigenous people, and they started the prison’s cultural program to teach American Indians about their history and encourage them to learn a trade or seek higher education. Bellecourt said Benton-Banai thought they could do the same work in the streets, and the program morphed into the American Indian Movement, an organization that persists today with various chapters.

“It started because I met Eddie in jail,” Bellecourt said. “Our whole Indian way of life came back because of him … My whole life just changed. I started reading books about history of the Ojibwe nation … dreaming about how beautiful it must have been at one time in our history.”

One of the group’s first acts was to organize a patrol to monitor allegations of police harassment and brutality against Native Americans who had settled in Minneapolis where it is based. Members had cameras, asked police for badge numbers and monitored radio scanner traffic for mention of anyone who they might recognize as Indigenous to ensure their rights weren’t being violated – similar to what the Black Panthers were doing at the time, said Kent Blansett, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Kansas who has written about the movement.

The group called out instances of cultural appropriation, provided job training, sought to improve housing and education for Indigenous people, provided legal assistance, spotlighted environmental injustice and questioned government policies that were seen as anti-Indigenous.

“Anything they could find that they could insert a Native presence and voice, they were there to do,” said Blansett, a Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee and Potawatomi descendant.