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Here’s the entire event, Nina Turner begins speaking around the 44 minute mark:

Bernie Sanders may not be necessary for 2020, but his vision is

Since the election, top party leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have touted their staunch opposition to President Donald Trump’s agenda, but have done little to offer up a vision that galvanizes the fractured Democratic base.

There’s no denying that many Americans are unhappy with the Democratic Party, with party leadership and with establishment politics as a whole. It’s an increasingly common opinion that all three serve the interests of the wealthy few rather than the middle-class majority.

It’s been said before — and should continue to be said until an aggressive and suitable agenda is laid out — voters not only need, but deserve, a party that provides them with something to vote for as opposed to a party that merely points its finger at Trump and Republicans and says, “Well, at least we’re not that.”

Sanders has all that, and yet, is nowhere near the steering wheel.

But contrary to the belief of many Clinton supporters, or those who have projected their election-loss anger onto Sanders and his followers, acknowledging that the senator is the only galvanizing force in the party and following in his path doesn’t mean Democrats have to bow down to him as their leader. Few are asking anyone to follow his politics unquestionably. Picking up his vision, his direction, however, is starting to seem essential.

Even before they can settle on a 2020 candidate, the Democrats need a vision they can rally around. Sanders, at the very least, has one. It’s a vision, as it turns out, that the most activated voters on the left share (remember those rallies?). Not only that, Sanders has shown an ability to annunciate it, to make it resonate.

In Massachusetts, Protesters Balk At Pipeline Company’s Payments To Police

Pipeline protesters think there’s a reason the reaction from state police officers has been so strong. According to records anti-pipeline protesters recently obtained through a public records request, Kinder Morgan has been reimbursing state police officers from nearby Troop B headquarters in Northampton for their many hours on site. Through October, the total reimbursement has been $957,682.15, according to Cathy Kristofferson, a member of the Massachusetts Pipeline Awareness Network.

Kristofferson made the public records request in response to concerns over the potential effects the payments were having on law enforcement behavior at the site.

It’s not the first time an energy giant has paid police to keep watch over its assets. In Pennsylvania, Kinder Morgan hired off-duty police officers as a “deterrent” at a pipeline in 2013. And at the height of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests last year, Energy Transfer Partners offered to defray some of North Dakota’s costs for patrolling the area. The developer transferred some $15 million into state coffers as a result of patrols on the Dakota Access line at the end of September.

The cost of protecting energy infrastructure is high, no matter who takes care of it. Taxpayers would be understandably loathe to cover the costs of officers patrolling private property. But Kinder Morgan footing the bill for state police protecting this one four-mile loop of pipeline has the local activist community questioning how fair the officers on site can be to protesters when some of their income comes, albeit indirectly, from the pipeline’s operator.

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Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has also expressed dismay about how protests have been handled. “The concerns of local communities are being ignored,” she said in a statement provided to HuffPost. Warren said she believes the police should act with restraint and respect that there are two sides to the issue. And, she said, the company behind the pipeline should not stop citizens from exercising their rights.

“Kinder Morgan should not interfere with peaceful protests,” said Warren.

Concerns related to the pipeline construction extend beyond the rights of protesters. Local roads in this rural area, not used to the volume of industrial traffic, are crumbling. Kinder Morgan “needs to step up and repair damaged roads and areas that it has harmed,” said Warren.

U.S. regulator raises concerns about weights on energy pipelines

A U.S. regulator’s preliminary investigation into the biggest oil pipeline spill this year has raised a red flag that could trigger an extensive and costly inspection of tens of thousands of miles of underground energy lines.

The 5,000-barrel leak on TransCanada Corp’s (TRP.TO) Keystone pipeline on Nov. 16 in South Dakota might have stemmed from damage caused by a weight put in place when it was built in 2008, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said in a report published on Tuesday.

Weights are used to prevent pipelines from moving and reduce the risk of damage or ruptures when water tables rise.

The regulator’s finding has implications for the 2,687-mile (4,324 km) pipeline and others throughout the world. The weights, which tip the scales at 7,000 pounds (3,175 kg) or more, are commonly used, but only the pipeline operators know where they are located.

Damage from weights “could happen on other segments of this pipeline and other pipelines,” said Najmedin Meshkati, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California.

State Rep. Milne calls for freeze on Mariner East 2 pipeline construction

State Rep. Duane Milne, R-167, is calling for a “complete reboot” of the Sunoco Mariner East 2 pipeline.

Milne wants Sunoco to immediately and voluntarily pause construction due to pipeline-associated issues and problems.

The wells of more than 30 West Whiteland residences were impacted by horizontal directional drilling. In turn, Sunoco picked up the tab to connect residents to public water providers and paid each household $60,000 to pay for future water bills.

Sunoco has also spilled drilling fluid more than 80 times.

Also in Milnes’ district, Sunoco is considering changing from HDD to open trench burial of the pipe.

If trench construction in West Whiteland was used, a creek would need to be dammed and diverted within feet of the Chester County Library.

“There has to be time to address ongoing issue and concerns,” Milne said. “There is a complete lack of confidence.

Go Home Trump’: Protesters Spell It Out on Utah Capitol Lawn Day Before Trump Attack on National Monuments

“Go Home Trump,” was the message spelled out by 113 protesters dressed in white jumpsuits.

Artist Cat Palmer organized the protest Sunday on the south lawn of the Utah Capitol ahead of President Donald Trump’s Monday visit, in which he is expected to dramatically reduce the sizes of Bears Ears and Grand Escalante national monuments.

“We don’t have somebody representing our voices right now, right? That’s a problem. Sometimes when we feel helpless we make art hoping our voices will be heard,” Palmer said. “It’s an outlet for people. It’s therapeutic, …. because we are feeling lost right now,” the Salt Lake City Tribune reports.

On Saturday, thousands of protesters angered by Trump’s expected Monday attack on two national monuments in Utah rallied in Salt Lake City, just two days ahead of his visit.

The demonstrators denounced Trump’s expected action, many chanting and holding signs with messages such as “Protect Wild Utah.” Native American groups danced or formed drum circles.

A county in Utah wants to suck 77 million gallons a day out of Lake Powell, threatening the Colorado River

In its current design, the Lake Powell pipeline will transport 86,000 acre-feet — nearly 77 million gallons a day — from an intake 1,200 feet upstream of Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona to Washington County’s Sand Hollow reservoir.

The 69-inch diameter pipeline will have five pumping stations to push water 2,000 feet uphill, and six turbine stations to produce about 45 megawatts of electrical generating capacity. Most of the water will be used by Washington County. Neighboring Kane County will receive roughly 5%.

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the Lake Powell pipeline is a costly taxpayer burden that is not needed now or in the foreseeable future. Its construction in an era of meteorological disruption in patterns of snow and rainfall, moreover, is seen as a threat to the diminishing water levels in the Colorado River. That crucial waterway supplies Lake Powell and 30 million downstream users in Arizona, Nevada and California. (The three states have not commented on the proposed pipeline.)

“The truth behind the Lake Powell pipeline is that it is a water grab from the Colorado River by firms and agencies in Utah to convince Utahans that we are running out of water. We’re not,” said Zach Frankel, founder and executive director of the Utah Rivers Council, a water research and advocacy group in Salt Lake City funded by foundations, members and events.

“The reality is that St. George and Washington County residents have the highest per-person water use in the United States because they have some of the cheapest water rates in the world. Th
ey are wasting a tremendous amount of water there,” Frankel said.

US military agency invests $100m in genetic extinction technologies

A US military agency is investing $100m in genetic extinction technologies that could wipe out malarial mosquitoes, invasive rodents or other species, emails released under freedom of information rules show.

The documents suggest that the US’s secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has become the world’s largest funder of “gene drive” research and will raise tensions ahead of a UN expert committee meeting in Montreal beginning on Tuesday.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is debating whether to impose a moratorium on the gene research next year and several southern countries fear a possible military application.

UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the “bad name” of gene drives in some circles. “Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from Darpa, a US military science agency,” one said.

The use of genetic extinction technologies in bioweapons is the stuff of nightmares, but known research is focused entirely on pest control and Cutting-edge gene editing tools such as Crispr-Cas9 work by using a synthetic ribonucleic acid (RNA) to cut into DNA strands and then insert, alter or remove targeted traits. These might, for example, distort the sex-ratio of mosquitoes to effectively wipe out malarial populations.

Some UN experts, though, worry about unintended consequences. One told the Guardian: “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them.”

U.S. drills in South Korea trigger ‘nuclear war’ warning from North

Two dozen U.S. stealth jets were among hundreds of aircraft involved in war games intended as a show of strength to neighboring North Korea on Monday.

Dubbed Vigilant Ace, the annual military drills come amid heightened tensions in the region triggered by Kim Jong Un’s missile and nuclear tests and ratcheting rhetoric from both sides.

A total of 230 planes will fly from eight locations in South Korea, the Air Force said in a statement.

The Navy and Marine Corps were also participating in what was described as “a realistic air combat exercise” designed to improve the technical cooperation between the American and South Korean militaries. About 12,000 U.S. military personnel are involved.

North Korea described the exercises as a “grave provocation,” claiming in its state-run media Monday that they could escalate the situation “to the brink of nuclear war.”

With crucial Virginia pipeline votes looming, Northam stays out of water-quality debate

During his campaign, Gov.-elect Ralph Northam wanted the regulatory process for a pair of controversial natural gas pipelines planned to be built through Virginia to be “as thorough and environmentally responsible as permitted under state and federal law.”

Yet on the eve of crucial votes by the State Water Control Board that begin this week for water-quality certifications for the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines, the Democratic lieutenant governor appears content to stay away from what critics contend has been a deeply flawed review of the potential water quality hazards posed by the blasting, trenching, ridgetop flattening and tree removal that construction will entail.

The citizen board, whose seven members were appointed by outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who has backed the pipeline projects as drivers of jobs and economic development, will vote over the next two weeks on whether the state will issue certifications under the federal Clean Water Act that there is a “reasonable assurance” that water quality will be protected during construction. The pipelines, already approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies, will cross some of the most mountainous terrain in the state, and opponents contend they cannot be built without dislodging sediment that could damage streams, aquifers and drinking water sources.

Asked whether Northam supports the water board issuing the permits before he takes office in January, a spokeswoman said he “will respect the final determination made at the end of a transparent, science-driven regulatory process.” The spokeswoman did not respond when asked whether Northam thought the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s proposed certifications will adequately protect state waters.

Orrin Hatch comments on Chip health program at heart of social media storm

A social media storm blew up on Sunday after a TV host suggested the Utah Republican Orrin Hatch thought children and pregnant women who receive federal healthcare assistance did not deserve such help because they “won’t lift a finger” to help themselves.

Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman and TV host who shared Hatch’s remarks on Twitter, was accused of taking them out of context. Responding, he said Hatch had been playing “a cartoon version of a GOP senator”.

The chair of the Senate finance committee made the remarks during debate on the tax bill on the Senate floor on Thursday.

Independent reports have said that if the Senate tax cuts became law as they were passed early on Saturday, heavily in favour of richer Americans and corporations, they could add as much as $2tn to the national debt. Republicans counter that the economic stimulus provided by the cuts will cancel out such cost.

During debate, Hatch was pressed by the Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown about the financial plight of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip).

Around nine million children and 370,000 pregnant women are covered by Chip, which Hatch helped to write and which was signed by Bill Clinton in 1997. Its funding lapsed on 1 October, amidst fights over the Affordable Care Act.

Whitmer: Women Face Harassment In Male-Dominated Michigan Capitol

Gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer, one of only two women to have been a legislative leader in Michigan, said the male-dominated Capitol has a “locker room” atmosphere in which it is not uncommon for female lawmakers and employees to confront sexual harassment.

Whitmer, who was a lawmaker for 14 years, recounted once having to combat “very lewd” and “totally inappropriate” comments directed at her by a male senator in the Senate chamber. She was Democratic leader at the time.

“I could only imagine if you didn’t have such a position that I did how extremely uncomfortable, humiliating and intimidating that would be,” Whitmer told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “The hard part is that it’s always on the woman to make the determination. Do you confront it? Do you educate? Do you ignore? What is the safest thing for you? What is the best thing for your career? Women have to make these determinations on the fly all the time.”

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Whitmer and other top Michigan Democrats have come under criticism from the state Republican Party for not demanding the resignation of Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers over multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Democrats in turn have accused Republicans of not sufficiently condemning GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, though Attorney General Bill Schuette — a gubernatorial candidate — recently said he should step aside unless solid evidence is presented to refute allegations that Moore preyed on teenage girls.House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said Conyers should step down, and three Michigan Democrats in Congress and another gubernatorial candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, followed suit.

Whitmer, in a statement, said the reports about Conyers are “ugly and deeply concerning,” but she stopped short of calling for his resignation. “Beyond a thorough investigation, we’ve got to overhaul these broken processes to protect and support people who bravely come forward instead of silencing them,” she said.

Jones trying to boost black turnout in Alabama Senate race

Alabama Democrat Doug Jones is trying to shore up support among black voters in his U.S. Senate race against Republican Roy Moore by appealing for an end to the divisiveness that has long been part of the state’s politics.

Speaking at an event held at a predominantly black church Friday night after stops in heavily black areas of east Alabama during the day, Jones said he hoped Election Day will be historic for the state.

His remarks came on the anniversary of the arrest of black seamstress Rosa Parks in 1955 for her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus. The resulting Montgomery Bus Boycott helped spark the modern civil rights movement.

“We have more in common than we have to divide us,” Jones said at a speech at Maggie Street Missionary Baptist Church. “We cannot let people, candidates and public officials continue to divide us the way this state has been divided in the past.”

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Jones recently made an appearance with young progressive Randall Woodfin, inaugurated this week as the new mayor of mostly black Birmingham. Beneath blue and white balloons, Woodfin urged people to get to the polls to support Jones.

“People keep asking: Can Doug Jones win this race?” Woodfin said to the crowd. “My answer is the exact same every time: Yes.”

The Working Families Party is Transforming Southern Politics

Of all the things to come out of politics in 2017, perhaps the most surprising is the way in which the South, traditionally a deep red region politically, has transformed local politics of the leftist variety. While organizations such as Our Revolution and Democratic Socialists of America have gained much notoriety over the past year, one group that has gone less recognized is the Working Families Party. Despite being formed and headquartered in New York, the WFP has created a left-wing buzz in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, making the South a new hotbed for progressive politics.

Earlier this month, progressive community organizer, LaToya Cantrell, was elected the first female mayor of New Orleans. In the November 18th run-off election, Cantrell became the latest left-wing mayoral candidate elected to a major Southern city. Back in October, the New Orleans WFP came out with a glowing endorsement of Cantrell, stating that: “Whether fighting for more affordable housing in the city or a $15 minimum wage or advocating for strong criminal justice reform to end the school to prison pipeline in our city and take on the bail bond industry – LaToya has clearly demonstrated her commitment to fight for the issues that matter most to New Orleans’ working families.”

Though the race was largely dominated by local issues pertaining specifically to New Orleans and local communities, Cantrell’s progressive brand of politics demonstrates how even in the South, Democrats can embrace a more left-wing view point and still win. This has been an ongoing battle within Democratic circles and the WFP has worked hard to organize and galvanize grassroots support for progressive candidates who can speak directly to the working families in local communities. According to The Huffington Post, the WFP in New Orleans reached out to 40,000 people via text, canvasing, and by phone during the race. According to the WFP’s director of communications, Joe Dinkin, their goal for the country and particularly the South, is to “[seek] outsider candidates who put forward a transformative, progressive vision of making government serve the many and not the few.”

AI Has Already Taken Over. It’s Called the Corporation.

Some of the leading thinkers of our time are unleashing a stream of warnings about the threat of artificial intelligence taking over from humans. Earlier this month, Stephen Hawking predicted it could be “the worst event in the history of our civilization” unless we find a way to control its development. Billionaire Elon Musk has formed a company to try to keep humans one step ahead of what he sees as an existential AI threat.

The scenario that terrifies them is that, in spite of the best intentions, we might create a force more powerful than all of humanity with a value system that doesn’t necessarily incorporate human welfare. Once it reaches a critical mass, this force could take over the world, control human activity, and essentially suck all life out of the earth while it optimizes for its own ends. Prominent futurist Nick Bostrom gives an example of a superintelligence designed with the goal of manufacturing paperclips that transforms the entire earth into one gigantic paperclip manufacturing facility.

These futurists are right to voice their concerns, but they’re missing the fact that humans have already created a force that is well on its way to devouring both humanity and the earth in just the way they fear. It’s called the Corporation.

Women Line Up to Run for Office, Harnessing Their Outage at Trump

For Wendy Gooditis, a real estate agent in the Northern Virginia suburbs, the crystallizing moment came when she heard her state delegate suggest that he had fought gerrymandering in Virginia when his record said otherwise.

For Mai-Khanh Tran, a pediatrician in Southern California, it was the day after the presidential election in 2016 and she looked into the eyes of a young patient with a brain tumor whose family had only recently obtained health insurance.

For Andrea Ramsey, the president of a nonprofit children’s health clinic in Kansas City, Kan., it was in May when her local congressman voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

None of the women had seriously contemplated running for public office before. They had no money or organization. But they were dismayed with the direction of the country, they said, starting with the election of President Trump, and finally decided to act.

They have been joined by hundreds of other women across the nation, with the number seeking elective office rising at every level, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. They were angered by Mr. Trump’s election and energized by the Women’s March in Washington the day after his inauguration, and are now even more driven to get involved after the flood of sexual harassment allegations against powerful men.

Gillibrand and top liberal groups are throwing their weight behind an Illinois woman challenging a ‘radically conservative’ House Democrat

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat and 2020 frontrunner, and top Democratic groups waded into a congressional fight between two Democrats, endorsing a progressive woman challenging one of the most conservative Democrats in the House.

Using her women-focused political action committee, Off the Sidelines, Gillibrand threw her support behind Marie Newman, a former marketing consultant and founder of an anti-bullying nonprofit, in her race against Rep. Dan Lipinski, the 12-year incumbent in Illinois’ third congressional district.

In a statement, Gillibrand said that Newman will be “another vote for health care, for women, and for our LGBTQ friends and family” and highlighted Lipinski’s conservative stances on social issues.

Following the senator’s lead, a group of five prominent progressive organizations, including NARAL, an abortion rights group, and the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights group, endorsed Newman on Monday.

“Illinois voters deserve a Democratic congressional delegation that is as unflinchingly committed to fighting for abortion rights and LGBT equality as they are to standing up to any other racial and economic injustice,” Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, said in a statement. “Congressman Dan Lipinski’s backward, right-wing ideology is profoundly out of step with a twenty-first century Democratic Party and we can’t wait to see him replaced by Marie Newman in the U.S. House.”

Thank you to the passionate & talented women of @thebroadroomnyc for training > 50 women how to raise funds for our campaign to unseat @RepPeteKing! We are a grassroots campaign w > 500 individual donors, & we’re growing quickly. #TeamLiuba @Alyssa_Milano @ElanaLeopold pic.twitter.com/9dAnSJBzw5

— Liuba Grechen Shirley (@liuba4congress) December 4, 2017

This Scientist Wants to Bring Star Trek Values to Congress

Vulcanologist Jess Phoenix never expected to be involved in politics. Until recently her life revolved around science—traveling the world to study different volcanoes and running an educational nonprofit. But the environmental record of the Trump administration has motivated her to run for Congress.

“These guys are basically gutting every environmental protection that existed,” Phoenix says in Episode 284 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “It’s a trend we have to stop now. We can’t let this continue.”

Phoenix is one of a growing number of scientists who are running for public office, spurred on by the group 314 Action, which helps teach scientists how to organize a political campaign. There’s a growing recognition among them that too many elected officials are ignorant of basic science, and that the only solution is for scientists to get in there and do a better job.

“The science candidates are going to be in favor of things that are scientifically proven to work,” Phoenix says. “That’s the one thing that unites all of us.”

She also has one advantage that sets her apart—the support of Star Trek actors like Tim Russ, Robert Picardo, and John Billingsley, all of whom have appeared in her campaign videos. “John saw the correlation between my positions about issues and the Star Trek universe,” Phoenix says, “and how the ideals of Gene Roddenberry’s future matched up with what I wanted to fight for.”

Stack claims ‘natural fit’ with Wolf as Rendell prepares to endorse Fetterman

Former Gov. Ed Rendell on Monday will endorse Braddock Mayor John Fetterman for lieutenant governor in the same Philadelphia City Hall room where Stack announced his reelection bid two weeks ago.

“This isn’t anti-Mike Stack,” Rendell said Saturday at a breakfast reception at the Penn Club of New York. “I just think, whether rightly or wrongly, he’s become a drag on the ticket. And we can’t afford to lose the governorship.”

Financial markets could be over-heating, warns central bank body

and consumer debts are rising to unsustainable levels, the global body for central banks has warned in its quarterly financial health check.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said the situation in the global economy was similar to the pre-2008 crash era when investors, seeking high returns, borrowed heavily to invest in risky assets, despite moves by central banks to tighten access to credit.

The BIS, known as the central bankers’ bank, said attempts by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England to choke off risky behaviour by raising interest rates had failed so far and unstable financial bubbles were continuing to grow.

Claudio Borio, the head of the BIS, said central banks might need to reconsider changing the way they communicated base interest rate rises or the speed at which they were increasing rates to jolt investors into recognising the need to calm asset markets.

“The vulnerabilities that have built around the globe during the long period of unusually low interest rates have not gone away. High debt levels, in both domestic and foreign currency, are still there. And so are frothy valuations.

The warning came as Neil Woodford, one of the UK’s most high-profile fund managers, said stock markets were in danger of crashing, resulting in huge losses for millions of people.

‘Tax Reform’? No, GOP Plan is ‘Wealth Care’

In a State Journal guest column last week, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos couldn’t heap enough praise on the Donald Trump-Paul Ryan “tax reform” legislation pending in Congress.

It got me wondering once again whether the word “reform” means what the dictionary says it does: “to put or change into an improved form or condition.”

It’s another example of how Republicans have been masters at framing their pet crusades with catchy but terribly misleading sound bites that a compliant media accepts as the narrative. Efforts to undermine unions are couched in a nonsensical label called “right to work.” Now any attempt to weaken unions with legislation that prevents them from collecting dues to help pay for bargaining wages and benefits is called by that misleading name.

The party’s succeeded in labeling estate taxes “death taxes,” connoting the idea to a naive public that anyone who dies pays a tax on their sometimes-meager estate when, in fact, it applies only to estates that are nearly $12 million for a couple, a threshold that applies to a handful of deceased millionaires each year.

And then we have the “reforms.” The GOP’s failed attempt earlier this year to repeal Obamacare, which would have tossed some 20 million people off health care coverage by 2020, was nevertheless called “health reform,” and many in the media called it just that while covering the debate. Funny, I don’t think taking health coverage away from millions of people qualifies as a “change into an improved form or condition.”

The President of Honduras Is Deploying U.S.-Trained Forces Against Election Protesters

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, using the specter of rampant crime and the drug trade, won extensive support from the American government to build up highly trained state security forces. Now, those same forces are repressing democracy.

The post-election situation in Honduras continues to deteriorate as Hernández, a conservative leader and stalwart U.S. ally in Central America, has disputed the result of last week’s vote while working to crack down on protests sweeping the nation.

Initial results showed Salvador Nasralla, an ex-sportscaster chosen by an alliance of left-wing political parties as their candidate, leading the vote count after the November 26 presidential election. The lead was substantial enough that a magistrate on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal estimated victory by Nasralla, characterizing his lead as “irreversible.”

The next day the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE by its Spanish initials) announced that Hernandez was closing the gap. Then it suddenly stopped publicizing the tally, alleging that its electronic system went down, prompting criticism from European Union election observers. Police and military flooded the streets in the hours of silence that followed. On Wednesday, the announcement that Hernández had overtaken Nasralla in the vote count was met with disbelief. In the words of Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, “There are only two possibilities: Either the TSE is of Olympic incompetence or it’s committing fraud.”

The turn of events led to chaos on the streets, and Hernández instituted a military-imposed curfew across the nation on Friday. At least one protester has been killed and scores of others have been injured and arrested in violent clashes with police.

The Owner of Two Pot Shops Won a City Council Seat in a Conservative, Rural Town

Washington state has a reputation for being progressive, but the southeastern portion of the state is known to be quite conservative.

It’s there that you will find the small town of Kennewick. The county where Kennewick resides — Benton — was swept by President Donald Trump, with nearly 60 percent of voters backing his bid. And while the state legalized marijuana after a voter referendum, Benton County has been skeptical. They also recently voted for a six-month moratorium on new cannabis production and processing within the county. Many neighboring cities have barred marijuana businesses indefinitely.

But all this didn’t stop 33-year-old Steve Lee, the co-owner of two local marijuana shops, from running for city council and defeating an incumbent in early November. He received 7,138 votes to incumbent Gregory Jones’s 5,351.

In a phone interview with The Intercept, Lee described the town as “super conservative” and said that he saw himself as a “long shot” when he began his race. But he had cut his teeth in politics working for Obama for America in 2007, so he had an organizing skillset he knew he could apply to a local race.

he eventually won his district over by practicing good, old-fashioned retail politics: showing up at events, talking to people, hearing them out, and recruiting them to his agenda.

Big Ag + Big Pharma = Big Problems

If you enjoy a good roasted chicken and would like to continue to do so, you might want to stop reading now.

Because chicken as we know it—breasts cut up onto a Caesar salad, nuggets fried in pieces in a bucket, drumsticks wrapped in plastic in the supermarket—is hardly the Little Red Hen of the children’s tale, free to peck around the farmyard as she goes through the steps of baking her own bread. Chicken is now a commodity protein to be delivered in the form of white meat as cheaply as possible to consumers. And the cost of that system is considerable, as Maryn McKenna outlines in her book Big Chicken.

McKenna’s crusade is against the rising threat of antibiotic resistance, and it is a worthwhile endeavor. Her description of a post-antibiotic world looks a lot like the pre-antibiotic world, in which roughly a quarter of children died of infectious diseases before their fifth birthday, surgery and chemotherapy were impossible, and a skinned knee could be fatal—and often was. It was a horrifying time to be alive.

The development of antibiotic resistance is the inevitable flipside to antibiotic use; it’s how evolution works. When people needlessly use antibiotics or use them improperly—which we still do—antibiotic resistance intensifies, evolving more quickly and granting pathogens immunity to a wider collection of drugs.

But as McKenna argues in Big Chicken, the real culprits that have brought us to the brink of a post-antibiotic age are not overzealous parents and doctors treating kids with ear infections. They are the large agricultural corporations that daily give inordinate amounts of antibiotics to the farm animals we eat.

Farm animals in the US, such as pigs, cows, and chickens, receive more than 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the States.

Sonnen, Pura Energía build solar systems in Puerto Rico as utility woes continue

German battery company Sonnen and its Puerto Rican solar-installing partner, Pura Energía, announced that they’ve installed six solar-plus-storage systems around Puerto Rico and have plans for nine more. The initial six systems were donated, according to a press release from Sonnen, though it’s unclear whether the subsequent nine will be donated or funded by some other entity.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island more than ten weeks ago, Sonnen and its stationary-storage rival Tesla both promised to donate resources to help set up renewable energy systems and microgrids. (Tesla completed a solar-plus-storage installation at a children’s hospital in late October, though it didn’t release details about the size of the installation or its price.)

Since the hurricane, scandal after scandal has complicated the restoration of the island’s main grid, leaving residents relying on diesel or gas generators for power and making cheap, emission-free solar power all the more vital.

The systems installed by Sonnen and Pura Energía each include an array of solar panels, as well as stationary batteries from Sonnen’s Atlanta, Georgia, manufacturing center that store solar energy for evening use.

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Although these community solar and battery installations are small, microgrid advocates argue that they’re a step in the right direction. Local energy production and storage fosters energy resilience, which will become more important as climate change makes grid-stressing heat and weather events more common. Distributed energy systems offer assurance that if a storm takes out a major generation plant, residents of smaller communities don’t need to wait for expensive, long-distance transmission lines to be rebuilt before normal services resume. These concerns aren’t recent or specific to Puerto Rico, either. After Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012, New York state funded microgrid research in the hopes of avoiding the power outages the region experienced in the storm’s aftermath.

Phillippines ‘Anti-Communist’ War: 1,500+ Indigenous Face Displacement, ‘Food Blockade’

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, AFP, have been accused of displacing the indigenous Lumad people in Mindanao and blocking aid shipments of basic food staples from evacuated families numbering in the hundreds, comprising over 1,500 thousand evacuees including hundreds of children.

The food blockade, as civil society groups and social movements have called it, is the largest-scale human rights violation to be alleged following President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown against perceived sympathizers of the communist New People’s Army. On Saturday, Philippine social media was flooded with tweets and posts bearing the trending #NoToFoodBlockade hashtag.

According to the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, or ALCADEV, 345 families comprising 1,688 individuals from 15 communities were displaced in late November amid increased military counterinsurgency operations by the Philippine military.

The displaced are now facing restricted food access in their evacuation centers, where assistance by aid organizations and human rights monitors has proven nearly impossible.

“This is the second the time IPs (Indigenous peoples) in the said area have to evacuate after President Rodrigo Duterte declared Martial Law in Mindanao (in May). Along with this is a spate of human rights violations and killings all over the country,” the non-governmental organization said in a statement released Sunday.

Canada’s Supreme Court Backs Indigenous Rights in Dispute Over Yukon Wilderness

In a victory for indigenous groups, Canada’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Yukon territorial government could not rewrite a plan to protect a vast stretch of wilderness because a joint indigenous-government commission had already agreed to it.

In trying to revise the plan, the court said in a unanimous ruling, the territorial government violated 30-year-old treaties between the government and indigenous groups, which gave those groups a role in deciding how their traditional lands should be managed.

The decision marks the end of a long legal fight between indigenous First Nations and the Yukon government over the fate of 26,000 miles of the Peel Watershed, a pristine region of mountains and rivers that also has huge deposits of coal, gas and minerals.

The decision will have broad ramifications for Canada’s indigenous reconciliation efforts, said Gordon Christie, a professor of aboriginal law at the University of British Columbia.

“This case sends a signal that governments need to abide by modern treaties they’ve signed,” he said.

The GOP Tax Bill Could Forever Alter Alaska’s Indigenous Tribes

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Senate passed early Saturday morning, will change federal law on a matter that has little to do with the tax code. The bill authorizes the sale of oil and gas leases in a section of the ANWR on Alaska’s North Slope, the coastal plain that faces the Arctic Ocean. Soon, energy companies will be able to search for—and extract—oil and gas from the frozen tundra.

The Senate bill will now be reconciled with the House version in conference and go to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

It brings a quiet end to the battle over whether to drill in the ANWR, one of the longest-running and most acrimonious battles in U.S. environmental history. The question has been embedded in federal law for 40 years, nearly as long as Alaska has been a state.

No one will be more affected by the opening of ANWR than Alaska’s indigenous people, who will live among—and work on—the rigs, drills, and pipelines that would follow the discovery of any oil or gas reserve. The discovery of oil or gas in the region could bring an economic windfall to the subsistence tribes that live on Alaska’s North Slope, the coastal plain that faces the Arctic Ocean. But if a major disaster—like an oil spill or gas leak—were to occur in the area, it would devastate their only homeland.

A unanimous Senate… wow.

Senate approves expanding AMBER Alert system to Native American reservations

On Thursday night, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to expand the AMBER Alert warning system on Native American reservations.

The bill will now be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2017 would expand the abduction warning system to clarify that tribes are eligible for Department of Justice grants in order to help law enforcement assemble the alerts. The bill would also help to enhance how the grants are used.

The DOJ will now be able to assist state and local governments to develop and implement AMBER Alert communications plans in order to expedite child abduction alerts to the public.

Currently, the DOJ runs a pilot program for AMBER Alert training for Native American tribes, but the new bill would make the program permanent.

The bill was sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and Steve Daines (R-MT), along with three other Senators, are listed as co-sponsors of the bill.

Judge orders monitoring, audit of Dakota Access pipeline

A federal judge on Monday imposed a series of conditions on the Dakota Access Pipeline, which is currently transporting oil while undergoing a court-ordered environmental review.

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered Dakota Access operators to coordinate an oil spill response plan with federal and tribal officials near Lake Oahe in North Dakota; conduct a third-party audit of the pipeline’s compliance with federal and state regulations; and produce bi-monthly reports on the pipeline’s operations.

Boasberg said the public has “an interest in ensuring the status quo at Lake Oahe is preserved” while the 1,170-mile, 570,000-barrel-per-day pipeline undergoes the new environmental review.

“The interim conditions …. are instead a means by which the court can ensure that it receives up-to-date and necessary information about the operation of the pipeline and the facts on the ground,” he wrote in an opinion issued Monday morning.

Boasberg previously ruled that the Dakota Access Pipeline, which began pumping oil in June, needs to go through a more thorough environmental review process, especially near Lake Oahe, which local tribes consider sacred.

..

Dakota Access argued the court doesn’t have the authority to impose those conditions, and said previous government approvals of the pipeline are sufficient to ensure its safety.

Boasberg disagreed, saying the new conditions are “means by which the court can gather information about the risks posed by the pipeline … and can ensure that the status quo is preserved for both sides.”

Trump rolling back Obama rule on pooling restaurant tips

The Trump administration is rolling back an Obama-era rule that bans employers from pooling workers’ tips.

The Labor Department announced plans Monday to issue a proposed rule to change the Fair Labor Standards Act regulation and allow employers to pool the tips of workers who make full minimum wage and share them with non-tipped workers.

The National Restaurant Association has been fighting hard for the rule change to eliminate what it has said is a pay disparity between waitresses in the front of the house and cooks in the kitchen.

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When the Labor Department first signaled in the semi-annual regulatory agenda that it was changing the rule, worker advocates argued it could allow employers to do whatever they wanted with the tips — including taking a cut themselves.

The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule once its published in the Federal Register

CVS to Buy Aetna for $69 Billion in a Deal That May Reshape the Health Industry

CVS Health said on Sunday that it had agreed to buy Aetna for about $69 billion in a deal that would combine the drugstore giant with one of the biggest health insurers in the United States and has the potential to reshape the nation’s health care industry.

The transaction, one of the largest of the year, reflects the increasingly blurred lines between the traditionally separate spheres of a rapidly changing industry. It represents an effort to make both companies more appealing to consumers as health care that was once delivered in a doctor’s office more often reaches consumers over the phone, at a retail clinic or via an app.

The merger comes at a time of turbulent transformation in health care. Insurers, hospitals and pharmacy companies are bracing for a possible disruption in government programs like Medicare as a result of the Republicans’ plan to cut taxes. Congress remains at an impasse over the future of the Affordable Care Act, while employers and consumers are struggling under the weight of rising medical costs, including the soaring price of prescription drugs. And rapid changes in technology have raised the specter of new competitors — most notably Amazon.

A combined CVS-Aetna could position itself as a formidable figure in this changing landscape. Together, the companies touch most of the basic health services that people regularly use, providing an opportunity to benefit consumers. CVS operates a chain of pharmacies and retail clinics that could be used by Aetna to provide care directly to patients, while the merged company could be better able to offer employers one-stop shopping for health insurance for their workers.

So the corporate retailer, pharmacy and walk-in clinic will now own its own Insurance agency. Seems a little one sided…

Grassley blasts working class for spending on booze, women, and movies

When Republicans talk up their tax plans, they usually make an effort to mention the middle class. The evidence shows that the current GOP proposals, when fully implemented, would actually raise taxes on millions of middle-class households, but at least in their public talking points, Republican officials try to avoid sounding plutocratic.

GOP efforts to repeal the estate tax, however, make the political push tricky – because literally no one in the middle class pays the tax that applies only to estates worth more than $5.49 million. The standard Republican line is that the estate tax is bad for farmers, but the Des Moines Register published a good piece over the weekend, noting that a “review of federal tax data and nonpartisan research on the subject shows that family farmers and small business owners represent a tiny share of estate tax payers, and that the taxes they owe rarely force them to sell land or quit farming.”

The data apparently hasn’t swayed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), an ardent opponent of the estate tax.

In a Nov. 29 interview, Grassley was adamant about the need for change, even if farmers and small business owners represent a tiny minority of estate tax payers. The reason, he said, is as much philosophical as practical.

An estate tax effectively and unfairly taxes a person’s earnings twice, he argued: first when they earn it and again when they die. And, he added, it penalizes savers without touching spenders.

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

It’s rare to see prominent politicians celebrate elitism with such candor. To hear Grassley tell it, multi-millionaires and billionaires – and their heirs – deserve an expensive tax break. If the rest of us spent our paychecks in ways Iowa’s millionaire senator approves of, perhaps we’d be millionaires, too.

Congratulations to our President, @ninaturner, for being one of Politico Playbook's 18 to watch in 2018! https://t.co/1ALzBisNvG

— Our Revolution (@OurRevolution) December 4, 2017

Thank you to the Tuolomne #StateofJefferson for inviting me out & making me feel welcome. As your representative, I’ll fight to honor the proposition by #AbrahamLincoln, “…that a gov’t of the people, by the people, & for the people shall not perish from this earth!”#Roza2018 pic.twitter.com/9X6WC3quLl

— Roza Calderon (@rozacalderon) December 4, 2017

On Global Effort to Protect Migrants and Refugees, US Says, “We’re Out!”

In another testament of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration stance, the United States announced that it is ditching negotiations towards a United Nations pact aimed at protecting the rights of refugees and migrants.

All 193 U.N. member states, including the U.S., adopted the New York Declaration in September of 2016, which included the goals of adopting a global compact on refugees and another on migration. Among the commitments laid out were protecting the human rights of all refugees and migrants and working towards ending the practice of detaining children for the purpose of determining migration status.

In a statement released Saturday announcing the decision, the United States Mission to the U.N. said the declaration “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump Administration’s immigration principles.” Because of this, the U.S. was walking away from participation towards the Global Compact on Migration, the statement said.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the declaration “is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty”—an argument echoed in a statement released Sunday by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

In response to the development, Bill Frelick, director of Human Rights Watch’s refugee program, told the New York Times, “Simplistic solutions like walls will not solve the complex problem of unsafe, irregular, disorderly migration, demonstrating a callous disregard for the lives of migrants and jaw-dropping irresponsibility toward the community of nations.”

Today is a big day for the campaign. We have the signatures we need to get me on the ballot! We couldn't have done it without the help of our volunteers dedicated to #boldprogressiveinclusive leadership for IL-05! #SameenaforCongress #WomeninCongress #WomenLeaders #SheShouldRun pic.twitter.com/MqdmdaSAnJ

— Sameena Mustafa (@SameenaMustafa) December 4, 2017