Burt Bacharach, one of the composers of this tune, died yesterday in his California home. He was 94.

He co-wrote many pop hits that many enjoyed over the decades. I picked this song first because I saw the fatality count today passed 19,000 from the earthquake in Turkey & Syria.

Nicaragua frees 222 political prisoners and flies them to US

More than 200 prisoners jailed by Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime during a ferocious two-year political crackdown have reportedly been freed and flown to the United States.

“This is huge,” Georgiana Aguirre-Sacasa, the daughter of one of the prisoners – the elderly former foreign minister Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa – told the Guardian on Thursday morning as she digested the shock news of her father’s release.

“This has been a very long slog for us and I just can’t believe it,” said Aguirre-Sacasa, her voice breaking with emotion as she spoke.

“I woke up at 5am to all of this. I cannot believe that he is on a flight to Dulles [airport in Washington DC] right now. I cannot believe it … It has been 19 months,” she said of her father who was arrested and jailed in July 2021.

Aguirre-Sacasa said the released Nicaraguan prisoners included key members of Nicaragua’s political opposition such as the former presidential candidates Cristina Chamorro and Arturo Cruz. The Associated Press reported that another on the plane was the opposition activist Félix Maradiaga, who was detained in June 2021 in the lead-up to Nicaragua’s presidential elections which President Daniel Ortega won, amidst widespread claims the vote had been rigged.

“Everybody is on the plane … all of them,” Aguirre-Sacasa said as she raced from Oakland to Washington DC to pick up her freed father.

“It is a massive freeing” of prisoners, the dissident former ambassador Arturo McFields told the Associated Press on Thursday morning.

McFields, who broke with Nicaragua’s “dictatorial” president Daniel Ortega last March, said the US state department had confirmed 222 prisoners were sent to Washington by plane earlier in the day.

Nicaragua’s crackdown began in June 2021 as Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, moved to obliterate any challenge to their Sandinista government before the November presidential election. Over the following months scores of opponents were thrown in jail before Ortega – who has been in power since 2007 – won another five-year term in an election the US president, Joe Biden, claimed had been “rigged”.

That crackdown came after another major offensive against government opponents following a 2018 uprising against Ortega that saw hundreds killed and thousands injured. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans fled abroad in the wake of that clampdown, with many prominent politicians, religious leaders, activists and artists seeking shelter in other countries.

In an interview late last year the celebrated Nicaraguan author Gioconda Belli, who lives in exile in Madrid, voiced despair over her country’s “Orwellian” authoritarian tack.

“I feel very desolate about what is happening,” she said, amid reports the political prisoners were being deprived of food and tortured in Nicaraguan jails. “Some of them look really haggard,” Belli added, vowing to keep speaking out against Ortega’s dictatorship.

Fetterman in ‘Good Spirits’ and Under Observation After ‘Feeling Lightheaded’

Freshman U.S. Senator John Fetterman was under medical observation overnight Wednesday and into Thursday after saying he felt “lightheaded,” according to his staff.

Fetterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a statement Wednesday night that the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania—who suffered a stroke in May of 2021—had been brought to a local hospital where “initial tests did not show evidence of a new stroke.”

Calvello said doctors were running tests and that Fetterman would remain overnight for “observation.”

“He is in good spirits and talking with his staff and family,” Calvello added. “We will provide more information when we have it.”

Roast him. Let's hear Schultz defend his coffee empire’s national campaign to silence workers. https://t.co/kOueQrqFug

— Teamsters (@Teamsters) February 9, 2023

If Seymour Hersh’s reporting is correct that US blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, it’s a major act of international terrorism (and would be labeled as such if Russia did it to us). His account is very specific, down to exactly how it was done:https://t.co/Jj8r8yJard pic.twitter.com/Q6Y0NzLEcQ

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) February 8, 2023

This has been mentioned at c99%. I expect Amy Goodman will try to get to the bottom of it by talking to Hersh directly.

BREAKING: Over 200 workers who make NBC News, MSNBC, and the TODAY Show have walked off the job.

The @nbcnewsguild says they're on strike today in response to NBC’s illegal firing of union members and refusal to agree to a fair first labor contract after 3 years of negotiations.

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 9, 2023

Temple University Rescinds Tuition Aid and Benefits for Striking Graduate Workers

In Philadelphia, teaching and research assistants at Temple University who’ve been on strike since January 31 have been told they’ll lose their tuition and healthcare benefits. The Temple University Graduate Students’ Association called the strike in an effort to boost pay and conditions for the student workers, who earn less than $20,000 a year. The cutoff in health benefits left some students unable to fill prescriptions, while others have had to cancel doctor’s appointments. The strikers were given until March 9 to pay the entire balance of their tuition or they will face a $100 late payment fee, with a financial hold placed on their accounts. A lead negotiator for the union called Temple’s decision “needlessly cruel.”

If Temple’s decision is allowed to be enacted, it will be devastating to other graduate students at other private institutions who are paid poorly because they will likely follow suit to intimidate them.

From Grist. The article has embedded the documents. Grist does not have a paywall if you wish to read more or see the documents.

Documents show how a pipeline company paid Minnesota millions to police protests

The morning of June 7, 2021, Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Nelson of Beltrami County, Minnesota, bought water and refreshments, packed his gear, and prepared for what would be, in his own words, “a long day.” For over six months, Indigenous-led opponents of the Line 3 project had been participating in acts of civil disobedience to disrupt construction of the tar sands oil pipeline, arguing that it would pollute water, exacerbate the climate crisis, and violate treaties with the Anishinaabe people. Officers like Nelson were stuck in the middle of a conflict, sworn to protect the rights of both the pipeline company Enbridge and its opponents.

Nelson drove 30 minutes to Hubbard County, where he and officers from 14 different police and sheriff’s departments confronted around 500 protesters, known as water protectors, occupying a pipeline pump station. The deputy spent his day detaching people who had locked themselves to equipment as fire departments and ambulances stood by. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter swooped low, kicking dust over the demonstrators, and officers deployed a sound cannon known as a Long Range Acoustic Device in attempts to disperse the crowd.

By the end of the day, 186 people had been detained in the largest mass-arrest of the opposition movement. Some officers stuck around to process arrests, while others stopped for snacks at a gas station or ordered Chinese takeout before crashing at a nearby motel.

These latter details might be considered irrelevant, except for the fact that the police and emergency workers’ takeout, motel rooms, riot gear, gas, wages, and trainings were paid for by one side of the dispute — the fossil fuel company building the pipeline, which spent more than $79,000 on policing that day alone.

When the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission gave Enbridge permission in 2020 to replace its corroded Line 3 pipeline and double its capacity, it included an unusual condition in the permit: Enbridge would pay the police as they responded to the acts of civil disobedience that the project would surely spark. The pipeline company’s money would be funneled to law enforcement and other government agencies via a Public Safety Escrow Account managed by the state.

By the time construction finished in fall 2021, prosecutors had filed 967 criminal cases related to pipeline protests, and police had submitted hundreds of receipts and invoices to the Enbridge-funded escrow account, seeking reimbursement. Through a public records request, Grist and the Center for Media and Democracy have obtained and reviewed every one of those invoices, providing the most complete picture yet of the ways the pipeline company paid for the arrests of its opponents — and much more.

From pizza and “Pipeline Punch” energy drinks, to porta potties, riot suits, zip ties, and salaries, Enbridge poured a total of $8.6 million into 97 public agencies, from the northern Minnesota communities that the pipeline intersected to southern counties from which deputies traveled hours to help quell demonstrations.

By far the biggest set of expenses reimbursed from the Enbridge escrow account was over $5 million for wages, meals, lodging, mileage, and other contingencies as police and emergency workers responded to protests during construction. Over $1.3 million each went toward equipment and planning, including dozens of training sessions. Enbridge also reimbursed nearly a quarter million dollars for the cost of responding to pipeline-related human trafficking and sexual violence.

Reporters for Grist and the Center for Media and Democracy reviewed more than 350 records requested from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, pulling out totals described in invoices and receipts and dividing them into categories such as equipment, wages, and training. Each agency had its own method for tracking expenses, with varying levels of specificity. In cases where reporters were unable to cleanly disentangle different types of expenses, those expenses were categorized as “other/multiple.” Generally, totals should be considered conservative estimates for each category.

The $79,000 that Enbridge paid for the single day of arrests on June 7, which doesn’t include much of the Enbridge-funded equipment and training many officers relied on, displays the wide range of activities and agencies Enbridge’s money touched. The attorney’s office of Hubbard County, where the protest took place, even attempted to get Enbridge to reimburse $27,000 in prosecution expenses. In other words, the area’s top arbiter of justice assumed that Enbridge would be covering the cost of pursuing charges against hundreds of water protectors. (The state-appointed escrow account manager denied the request.)

Some of the most surprising Enbridge invoices were from institutions and officials associated with protecting Minnesota’s environmental resources and preserving a balance between industry and the public interest. No agency received more escrow account money than the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, which is also one of the primary agencies monitoring Line 3 for environmental harms. Of the $2.1 million that the DNR received, the funds were mainly used to respond to protests and train state enforcement officers about how to wrangle protesters, in some cases before construction had even begun. Conservation officers joined police on the front lines of protests, on the pipeline company’s dime.

A lollipop chart shows the top agencies to receive reimbursements from Enbridge. The Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources was the top recipient at over $2 million.
Grist / Jessie Blaeser

The Aitkin County-run Long Lake Conservation Center, one of the oldest environmental education centers in the U.S., provided facilities to police to the tune of over $40,000, which the sheriff’s office paid using Enbridge funds. And a public safety liaison hired to coordinate among Enbridge, the Public Utilities Commission, and local officials was paid $120,000 in salary and benefits by the pipeline company over a year and a half.

The invoices also document, in unusual detail, the connection between fossil fuel megaproject construction and violence against women: Enbridge reimbursed a nonprofit organization for the cost of hotel rooms for women who had reportedly been assaulted by Line 3 workers. The pipeline company also helped pay for two sex trafficking stings conducted by the Minnesota Human Trafficking Investigative Task Force, leading to the arrest of at least four Line 3 pipeline workers.

The state of Minnesota also considered police public relations to be expenses eligible for Enbridge funding. John Elder, at the time spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department, put out police press releases and responded to journalist queries on behalf of the Northern Lights Task Force, which was set up to coordinate emergency response agencies throughout the protests. Enbridge ultimately reimbursed the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office for 331 hours of his work at a wage of $80 per hour. (St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said he was not in office during pipeline construction and could not comment on Line-3-related work, and Elder did not respond to requests for comment.)

A year earlier, Elder had handled Minneapolis police PR when one of the city’s officers killed George Floyd, sparking an unprecedented wave of nationwide protests. Elder was behind the notorious press release stating that Floyd had “physically resisted officers” and died after he “appeared to be suffering medical distress.” Hours later, a bystander video went viral, showing that the medical distress followed an officer pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Fallout from the press release did not stop law enforcement agencies from choosing Elder to lead officials’ public relations surrounding the Line 3 protests.

Water protectors contend that the state of Minnesota’s arrangement with Enbridge trampled their constitutional rights. With 97 criminal cases unresolved across the state, five defendants in Aitkin County are pursuing motions arguing that the escrow account created an unconstitutional police and prosecutor bias that violated their rights to due process and equal protection under the law. They want the charges dismissed. Attorneys with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund’s Center for Protest Law and Litigation previously used the defense against charges filed by Hubbard County that were ultimately dismissed. They’re now preparing a separate civil lawsuit challenging the use of the escrow account on constitutional grounds.

Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabe activist and founder of the Indigenous environmental nonprofit Honor the Earth, is among those arguing in court that charges should be thrown out. Aitkin County, the jurisdiction behind the allegations she’s fighting, was reimbursed $6,007.70 for wages and benefits on just one of the days she was arrested. LaDuke believes the money amped up the police response.

“They were far more aggressive with us, far more intent on finding any possible reason to stop somebody,” she said. “Law enforcement is supposed to protect and serve the people. They work for Enbridge.”

LaDuke added that she believes the DNR’s Enbridge money represents a “conflict of interest.” In addition to its role in monitoring the pipeline’s full Minnesota route, the agency is directly responsible for the ecological health of 35 miles of state lands and 66 waterways where Line 3 crosses — and where Anishinaabe people have distinct treaty rights to hunt, gather, and travel. To date, the DNR and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency have charged Enbridge over $11 million in penalties for violations that include dozens of drilling fluid spills and three aquifer breaches that occurred during construction. LaDuke and others have criticized the agency’s response to the incidents, noting that it took months to publicly disclose the first of the aquifer breaches.

Juli Kellner, an Enbridge spokesperson, emphasized that the escrow account was operated by an independent manager who reported to the Public Utilities Commission, not the oil company. Kellner said the account was created to relieve communities from the increased financial burden that public safety agencies accrued when responding to protests.

“Enbridge provided funding but had no decision-making authority on reimbursement requests,” she said.

Ryan Barlow, the Public Utilities Commission’s general counsel, said the commission had no comment about the appropriateness of specific expenses: “If expenses met the conditions of the permit they were approved; if they did not, they were not approved.”

In a statement, the DNR said that receiving reimbursement from Enbridge does not constitute a conflict of interest: “At no time were state law enforcement personnel under the control or direction of Enbridge, and at no time did the opportunity for reimbursement for our public safety work in any way influence our regulatory decisions.”

When asked why its officers were trained how to use chemical weapons ahead of the protests, the DNR said their peace officers’ overall mission is “protecting Minnesota’s natural resources and the people who use them” and that such equipment, while occasionally necessary, “is not used as part of conservation officers’ routine work.”

Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes said his agency’s response was dictated by the protestors and water protectors. “If they want to block roads, threaten workers, and cause $100,000 worth of damage to Enbridge equipment, well, we have a job to do, and we did it,” Aukes said, adding that Enbridge is a taxpayer that officers have a duty to protect. “Enbridge is a big taxpayer in Hubbard county and we would be doing an injustice if we didn’t support them as well.”

“We were in the middle,” added Aitkin County Sheriff Dan Guida. “There were probably times when it seems like we dealt with water protectors in a more criminal way, but they were the ones breaking the law.” He added that officers had no knowledge of the reimbursement plan and that the funds spared taxpayers the cost of policing the pipeline.

It’s true if you don’t think about it. pic.twitter.com/KqMuuL01Ci

— Jen Perelman (@JenChangeFL) February 9, 2023

Move over Bernie. Joe Biden wins the WSJ who’s the most socialist award! Let’s go dark brandon!

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155731808/plan-to-collect-menstrual-data-on-high-school-athletes-in-florida-is-voted-down

The Florida High School Athletic Association’s board of directors has voted 14-2 to remove questions about high school athletes’ menstrual history from a required health form for participation in high school athletics.

The vote comes after weeks of controversy surrounding questions on the medical form, which is typically filled out by a physician and submitted to schools. The board approved a recommendation by the association’s director to remove the questions, which asked for details including the onset of an athlete’s period and the date of that person’s last menstrual cycle.

During an emergency meeting, the association’s attorney read public comments into the record for about an hour. The comments overwhelmingly opposed requiring athletes to report those details to school athletic officials, citing privacy concerns.

The debate comes at a time of heightened concern around reproductive rights in Florida and around the country, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Some members of the public also raised concerns that such information could be used to discriminate against transgender athletes.

The new form will become effective for the 2023-24 school year.

Will DeSantis ride roughshod over this association to get his way?

House is recessed for “district work” until Feb 23rd.