18 July 21
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few weeks ago, ExxonMobil lobbyists were caught on tape bragging about their plans to undermine climate policy in coming infrastructure legislation. The strategy seems to already be paying dividends. Look no further than Senator Joe Manchin’s Energy Infrastructure Act of 2021. This bill has Exxon’s fingerprints all over it.
The legislation proposes to make $95 billion in infrastructure investments mainly concentrated in the energy sector. But a close look at exactly where the money is going to go reveals an undeniable bet on dirty energy from the 20th century over clean energy from the 21st. In fact, the bill authorizes $28.8 billion in nuclear, carbon capture and dirty hydrogen over only $410 million in direct authorizations for wind, solar, geothermal and tidal. That’s a ratio of dirty to renewables of over 70-to-1. Even when combining the renewable provisions with the bill’s meager storage and efficiency programs, Manchin still proposes spending twice as much on dirty than he does on clean.
Here is a by the numbers guide to the worst-of-the-worst in the Exxon infrastructure bill.
$12.6 billion: The amount of money for carbon capture
The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) released a report in May rejecting the narrative that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects should be implemented in communities under the guise of Environmental Justice (EJ). The next day, Gina McCarthy, speaking on behalf of the White House, blatantly ignored this EJ recommendation by talking up the role of CCS in Biden’s climate policy. Dismissing the WHEJAC’s recommendations further marginalizes the voices of those who would bear the burden of politicians allowing unproven technologies to embed fossil fuel infrastructure in their communities. This is just one chapter in a continual trend of politicians ignoring legitimate concerns with CCS in favor of Big Oil talking points. The result has been many high-profile projects — such as FutureGen 2.0, the Kemper power plant, and the Texas Clean Energy Project — benefiting from substantial taxpayer investments only to collapse. Senator Manchin wants to continue propping up this polluter scheme by giving away billions of infrastructure investment to CCS.
Senator Manchin’s Energy Infrastructure Act pulls much of its CCS giveaways directly from Senator Coons’ SCALE Act. Notably both Senators Coons and Manchin were named as crucial allies to Big Oil in the recent video of ExxonMobil lobbyists explaining how they work with politicians to undermine climate policy.
Included in both the original SCALE Act and the Manchin bill is the new Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (CIFIA) program. This promises subsidized, low-interest loans for a litany of projects expanding CCS infrastructure, including CO2 pipelines. The current program is authorized $2.1 billion over the next five years. The CIFIA projects would embed sacrifice zones by targeting areas already impacted by fossil fuel infrastructure. These communities already suffer the environmental and health burdens of oil and gas infrastructure and CIFIA funding would entrench this fossil fuel infrastructure rather than retire it and remediate the harms.
Often, CCS infrastructure like pipelines are designed to capture CO2 in order to help stimulate oil production — and sometimes, this infrastructure dangerously malfunctions. This is what happened last year in Yazoo County, Mississippi — a community of majority Black residents and where 34 percent of the population lives in poverty. A pipeline carrying CO2 for enhanced oil recovery ruptured and exposed the community to high concentrations of carbon dioxide, requiring area residents to seek medical treatment. The rupture also killed significant amounts of plants and wildlife in the area.
These are some of the other prominent CCS provisions in the Manchin bill:
- Large Scale Carbon Storage and Commercialization Program: A major new grant program to subsidize “expanded commercial large-scale carbon sequestration projects and associated carbon dioxide transport infrastructure, including funding for the feasibility, site characterization, permitting, and construction stages of project development.”
Authorization: $2.5 billion over 5 yrs (FY22–26)
- Carbon Removal Program: funding to create four regional direct air capture hubs. The projects are to be located in a region with existing carbon intensive fuel production or industrial capacity, or such capacity that has retired or closed in the preceding 10 years. At least two of the hubs are to be built in economically distressed regions with high coal or shale gas resources.
Authorization: $3.5 billion over 5 yrs (FY22–26)
- Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Projects, originally authorized under the Energy Policy Act of ’05, were specifically designed to prolong the use of coal as a feedstock for electricity.
Authorization: $937 million over 5 yrs (FY21–25)
$6 billion: The size of the nuclear bailout
The nuclear industry likes to bundle itself with renewable energy technologies, portraying failing nuclear power plants as clean. This doesn’t pass the laugh test. Nuclear power is incredibly toxic at every stage; the mining, milling and enriching of uranium are all carbon-intensive processes that generate vast amounts of radioactive and toxic wastes. The unsustainable supply and production of nuclear power are compounded by the lack of any plan or capability to safely store the 2,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel produced each year. Additionally, nuclear energy is a massive source of environmental injustice, as the vast majority of uranium mines, mills, production facilities, reactors and waste dumps are located in communities that are disproportionately Indigenous, Black, People of Color, rural and low-wealth.
Wind, solar, and energy efficiency measures are proven renewable technologies that can be deployed much quicker and more affordably than nuclear power. However, instead of allowing the phase-out of aging and uneconomic reactors, Senator Manchin would authorize spending $6 billion through 2026 to bail out these failing facilities. This would harm consumers by keeping expensive, uncompetitive reactors online and hurt the climate by delaying the deployment of renewables.
Modeled on the previously introduced American Nuclear Infrastructure Act, this bailout would create a new economic incentive program managed by the Department of Energy for reactors threatened with closure. In theory, priority for subsidy payments would be given to reactors whose closure would increase air pollution. But the bill is so polluter friendly that no external, third-party verification is required to evaluate claims from utilities about emissions increases. The entire program is straight from the nuclear industry playbook: claim financial distress, threaten closure and use the leverage to demand additional subsidies.
$7 billion: The amount of funding that could be hijacked for dirty hydrogen
One of the newer Big Oil distractions has been the renewed interest in hydrogen. While hydrogen can be used for a variety of industrial and energy purposes, including as a form of energy storage, it is only as clean as the fuel source used to produce it — and 95 percent of hydrogen is produced using fracked gas. Polluters have a vested interest in maintaining this status quo, and producing hydrogen allows them to repackage fossil fuels and other dirty energies as clean. Senator Manchin is happy to oblige, as nearly all of the hydrogen provisions in the Energy Infrastructure Act make no distinctions between hydrogen produced from renewable sources and hydrogen produced from fossil fuels and nuclear. For example, the largest single hydrogen authorization in the bill is $8 billion for a series of regional hubs. Of the four hubs, only one is required to use renewable energy as a feedstock “to the maximum extent practicable,” while two others must use fossil fuels and nuclear, respectively. Given that at least two must be sited with preference to regions with major natural gas resources, and the hubs will be directed to “use energy resources that are abundant in that region,” there is little question of Senator Manchin’s intent that this funding will be used to produce hydrogen from fossil fuels.
- Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs, two of which must be located in economically distressed communities in the regions of the United States with the greatest natural gas resources.
Authorization: $8 billion over five years (FY22–26)
- The Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis Program would fund research, development, demonstration, commercialization, and deployment of hydrogen produced through electrolysis. The eligibility of the high-temperature electrolyzers indicates that fossil or biomass combustion or nuclear energy could be used to provide thermal energy to help produce hydrogen.
Authorization:$1 billion over five years (FY22–26)
$1.9 billion: The size of the giveaway to logging interests
Dirty energy and timber interests are pushing a mind-boggling narrative that cutting down our forests and burning them is somehow part of a climate solution. The logging industry hides behind terms like “fuel reduction” or “restoration”, despite the most current and comprehensive science increasingly finding that such logging, deceptively conducted under the guise of forestry management, will in most cases make wildfires burn more intensely, not less. Over 200 top climate scientists and ecologists recently informed Congress that “thinning” and other logging substantially exacerbate climate change, urging Congress to shift away from funding these types of logging. Despite this, Manchin’s proposal includes massive new subsidies for increased commercial logging on federal public lands. Further, he directs Forest Service road and trail remediation funding to include considerations for increased timber demands and resource extraction.
Manchin proposes authorizing $1.9 billion for commercial logging on public lands. Much of this spending is through the guise of wildfire or forestry management. However, in the absence of environmental standards, benign-sounding activities such as “restoration” and “byproducts” are used to funnel money towards logging and clear-cutting on public lands. Federal land agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and BLM sell public timber to private logging companies and keep the revenue for their agency budgets, creating a perverse financial incentive to continue justifying these logging programs.
- The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program has become heavily dominated by logging interests and U.S. Forest Service personnel, and has become little more than a vehicle for destructive commercial logging.
Authorization: $100 million over five years (FY22–26)
- Mechanical thinning and timber harvesting subsidizes logging on public lands. The Forest Service defines “small” diameter trees so broadly that industrial logging activities could and would qualify. Moreover, the “to the extent practicable” phrase means that the small-diameter language can simply be ignored by the Forest Service. The broad discretion to define “small” and “ecologically appropriate” will result in logging that undermines the resiliency of our forests and results in wildfires burning more intensely.
Authorization: $500 million
- Wildfire and forestry management is often used as a justification for logging, funding post-fire logging on federal public lands with taxpayer money under the guise of “restoration.” In absence of environmental standards, industrial logging and clearcutting could be spun as creating “fuelbreaks” or “removing flammable vegetation.”
Authorization: $500 million for fuelbreaks over five years (FY22–26)
Authorization: $200 million for removing vegetation to create biochar over five years (FY22–26)
Authorization: $200 million for postfire logging over five years (FY22–26)
- ‘Byproducts of restoration projects’ is a guise for subsidizing forest biomass and wood pellets produced from private and public lands. The lack of environmental standards means that the biomass and wood pellet industries would merely need to use the phrase “ecosystem restoration” to promote their logging and clearcutting in order to receive the subsidies — regardless of the truth.
Authorization: $400 million over five years (FY22–26)
20 percent: The Manchin cut to the AML coal fee
Credit where credit’s due, the Manchin bill authorizes $11.3 billion for the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) fund. This is a program to reclaim, or restore, lands scarred by coal mining that continue to pose risks to human health and the environment. Established in 1978, the AML is designed to repair lands wrecked by mining from before the advent of modern environmental law. It covers coal exclusively, and does not fund the immense reclamation needs of either hardrock minerals or uranium.
In theory, $11.3 billion is the largest authorization of the entire Energy Infrastructure bill. Likely, this number is based on the Interior Department’s current estimate of the unfunded reclamation needs of existing sites, which stands at $10.7 billion. This far exceeds the AML’s dwindling unappropriated balance of $2.3 billion. The problem is that even this fresh injection is likely too small. An analysis from the Ohio River Valley Institute finds the number closer to $20.9 billion, likely rising to $26.9 billion by 2050 as new sites are discovered and existing sites become pricier to reclaim because of climate change.
What makes the Manchin proposal so worrying is that it pairs a bailout of the AML with a sharp cut to the AML’s only source of revenue — a fee paid by companies for every ton of coal they extract. The program exacts a different fee for surface, underground, and lignite coal, but the proposal from Manchin would cut all of the existing fees across the board by 20 percent.
The AML fee is slated to expire this September, so renewing and extending it is an urgent matter. But the fee should be raised, not cut, to ensure the long-term viability of the program. Kicking the can down the road is dangerous not just for unreclaimed lands. The United Mine Workers of America is eligible for payments into its health and pension plans from the interest earned on unappropriated AML funds. Although these payments can be back-stopped to a degree by the Treasury Department, the long-term risk of AML insolvency puts added pressure on obligations owed to workers.
Despite the decline of the coal industry, the fee cut is not a negligible gift. For example, the Manchin bill would cut the rate for surface mining from 28 cents to 22.4 cents per ton. According to the Energy Information Administration, the US produced 438.9 million tons of surface coal in 2019. If the Manchin rate had been in effect then, coal companies would have saved a cool $24 million on surface coal fees alone.
$0: The size of the increase in bonding requirements for oil and gas wells on public lands
Orphan wells are one of the many dirty legacies left behind by Big Oil. Millions of oil and gas wells across the U.S. have been abandoned by operators without any effort to clean up the operation or plug the well. These wells emit roughly 281 kilotons of methane annually, contaminate surrounding groundwater, and risk explosion. Remediating these wells is crucial, they are a constant source of dangerous pollution and the clean-up process creates jobs. The Energy Infrastructure Act includes some funds for this cleanup, including $250,000,000 for orphan wells on public lands during the period of fiscal years 2022 through 2031, as well as funds for Tribal Governments. The issue is that the “Exxon infrastructure package” proposes this funding without any bonding reform. Surety, or well-plugging, bonds are intended to guarantee that drillers plug unused wells before abandoning them. However, current bonding provisions have proven far from sufficient in ensuring polluters, not taxpayers, pay for the cleanup.
Orphan wells are not well documented, so clean-up efforts are slow and costly. Unless we increase bonding rates, taxpayers will be forced again and again in the future to bailout Big Oil’s mess. Polluters should be the ones to pay for remediation, which means that bonding reform is needed. We must increase minimum public land oil and gas bonding amounts to $150,0000 on an individual lease and $500,000 in an entire state, as is proposed by bills introduced separately by Senator Bennet, Representative Lowenthal, and Representative Ledger Fernandez. We should also require operators to pay an annual fee for idled wells on public lands. But, this is the “Exxon Infrastructure package,” so the lack of bonding reform is unsurprising. Big Oil benefits from a status quo that allows polluters to walk away from their mess with zero consequences.
Conclusion
In the ExxonMobil sting, Keith McCoy talked candidly about Big Oil’s favorite democrats. No one was surprised to see Senator Manchin on Exxon’s list. Mr. McCoy’s observation, that Senator Manchin is not shy about staking his claim, is clear throughout his infrastructure bill. The over 70-to-1 dirty to renewables is classic Manchin and classic Big Oil. Legislation like this puts at risk President Biden’s promise to put climate at the center of infrastructure.
Nina Turner. (photo: Nina Turner/Facebook)
Samson Energy’s chair has donated $1.25 million to the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC, which endorsed Turner’s opponent Shontel Brown.
he largest donor to the super PAC backing centrist Democratic candidate Shontel Brown in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District special election is an oil and gas executive who belongs to a billionaire family. Activists worry the donations could compromise Brown’s support for progressive climate policy.
Stacy Schusterman, heir and chair of Samson Energy, a fossil fuel company that owns at least 11 oil and gas wells in Wyoming, donated $1.55 million to Democratic Majority for Israel in 2019 and 2020, a super PAC that has in turn spent over $660,000 on ads supporting Brown and attacking her Democratic primary opponent Nina Turner, according to an Intercept review of federal campaign finance records. Schusterman is the super PAC’s largest individual donor.
Schusterman’s fortune comes from a much larger oil and gas business. Her father, Charles Schusterman, founded Samson Investment in 1971 in Tulsa, and the family owned it for 40 years until they sold it to the private equity megafirm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for $7.2 billion in 2011, earning the family a huge windfall. Charles died in 2000; his wife (and Stacy’s mother) Lynn is worth $3.4 billion.
After the sale, Stacy Schusterman started the much smaller Samson Energy from her father’s fortune, investing in oil wells in Louisiana, Texas, and Wyoming. The wells Samson Energy has drilled in Wyoming have been a source of controversy as they are very close to residential areas in Cheyenne, the state’s largest city. Wayne Lax, vice president of the Cheyenne Area Landowner’s Coalition, told Wyoming Public Media in December 2019, “At some point, common sense needs to take over and large, dangerous industrial developments just weren’t meant to go into this densely populated a residential area.”
She’s also been an avid supporter of DMFI super PAC. The super PAC, which formally endorsed Brown in February, has spent millions going after other progressive candidates in previous elections. The group spent $1.4 million attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary and an additional $1.5 million during that election cycle to support moderate Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel and attack his progressive challenger Jamaal Bowman. (Bowman went on to win that election.) Schusterman donated $250,000 to DMFI as the group was aggressively spending against Bowman, and $1 million in December 2019 — right before they launched aggressive attack ads against Sanders; her donations were not publicly available until after the primary. Schusterman donated an additional $300,000 to DMFI on December 18, 2020.
While Democratic Majority for Israel describes itself as working to “maintain and strengthen support for Israel among Democratic leaders including presidential and congressional candidates,” much of the group’s ad spending has not focused on a candidate’s support for Israel and has instead launched various attacks on candidates perceived to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
Evan Weber, a spokesperson for the youth-driven climate organization Sunrise Movement, which has endorsed Turner, panned DMFI’s role in the primary. “DMFI has shown time and time again that it’s nothing more than a front group for corporate, big-moneyed interests who will go to any lengths to stop progressives, especially progressive women of color, from having more power in our society,” Weber said. “Nina Turner is a backer of the Green New Deal and a signer of the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge. Shontel Brown is getting backed by a super PAC loaded up with dirty oil & gas money. The choice for voters in Ohio’s 11th district couldn’t be more clear.”
Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist at progressive watchdog Public Citizen, said the outside spending by DMFI was upending the race. “Nina Turner had been enjoying a comfortable lead for Congress in this Ohio district, reflecting her constituents’ support for progressive policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal,” Holman said. “But that lead has been fading as the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC has raised huge amounts of special interest money from outside the district and is spending much of that money late in the election cycle targeting Turner.”
Oil and gas executives like Schusterman can use their funding as a way to build relationships with members of Congress, Holman said, adding that candidates “know where that money is coming from and they know how it’s being used to promote them. And it’s pretty hard to turn your back on that.”
Schusterman’s involvement in the congressional race through DMFI has left some skeptical that Brown will in fact advocate for a Green New Deal once in Congress. The Green New Deal finances a transformation of infrastructure in the U.S. that would significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption, impacting the profits of oil and gas companies like Schusterman’s Samson Energy.
While Brown, a member of the Cuyahoga County Council, has said she supports the “principles” of a Green New Deal, she has not signed on to the popular “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge that was signed by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential primaries. Turner, a former Ohio state senator, has supported the Green New Deal and signed the pledge. Turner has been endorsed by a number of notable progressives, including Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Brown did tell the Wall Street Journal in March that she would vote for the Green New Deal if it came up for a vote, but appears to not have made environmental issues a central focus of her campaign, except for an environmental justice forum she participated in in April.
Some of Brown’s notable backers have deep ties to fossil fuel interests. Brown’s most prominent supporter, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, received $228,000 from electrical utility interests in 2019 and 2020, and $62,500 from oil and gas interests, according to OpenSecrets. (Electrical utilities are still very fossil fuel-heavy, with about 80 percent of U.S. electricity coming from fossil fuel sources.) Another one of Brown’s endorsers, newly minted Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter, was removed from the No Fossil Fuel pledge website after he repeatedly accepted campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests. Hillary Clinton, who has also endorsed Brown, helped lead the push for shale gas while she was secretary of state, according to Mother Jones. Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas, another Brown endorser, was the fifth highest recipient of oil and gas money among congressional Democrats in 2019-2020.
The Congressional Black Caucus PAC, which endorsed Brown on July 7, has on its board Michael Williams and Al Wynn, who have worked as lobbyists for the petroleum and coal industries, respectively.
Brown’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Schusterman, for her part, did not say what her position was on the Green New Deal, but said through a spokesperson that she supported President Joe Biden’s climate agenda and had made “investments” in “clean tech” and “efforts to protect the environment.” The spokesperson said, “Stacy’s support for DMFI, and the candidates it endorses, is based on her commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and the shared values and interests of these two democratic allies.” The spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Schusterman’s oil wells near residential areas in Wyoming.
A spokesperson for Democratic Majority for Israel said they strongly support the Paris climate accord and Biden’s climate efforts. They declined to say whether the group supports the Green New Deal.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Bill Clark/Getty)
"The embargo is absurdly cruel and, like too many other U.S. policies targeting Latin Americans, the cruelty is the point. I outright reject the Biden administration's defense of the embargo," Ocasio-Cortez said.
The New York Democrat also condemned the "anti-democratic actions" of the government of Cuban President Miguel DÃaz-Canel, saying, "The suppression of media, speech and protest are all gross violations of civil rights."
But she underscored that the US embargo on Cuba, which has been the centerpiece of Washington's policy toward the island nation for six decades, is also contributing to the suffering of Cubans.
Ocasio-Cortez's rebuke of the embargo came after Cuba this week saw the largest anti-government demonstrations in decades, ignited by a desire for more freedoms and an escalating economic crisis.
The situation has increased scrutiny over President Joe Biden's policy toward Cuba.
As Ocasio-Cortez noted in her statement, the UN last month voted for a resolution calling on the US to end the embargo. The Biden administration opposed the resolution. For nearly 30 years, the UN has repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted in favor of the resolution condemning the embargo, with the US consistently standing against it.
When Biden was vice president, the US abstained from voting for the embargo for the first and only time as the Obama administration moved to reopen diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba.
In March 2016, then-President Barack Obama visited Havana and called for Congress to end the embargo on Cuba, which began during the Cold War amid tensions with the Soviet Union.
"It is an outdated burden on the Cuban people," Obama said at the time. "It's a burden on the Americans who want to work and do business or invest here in Cuba. It's time to lift the embargo."
Former President Donald Trump took a drastically different approach to Cuba, reversing the Obama administration's efforts to rekindle relations by tightening the embargo and issuing new sanctions. The Trump-era sanctions have contributed to medicine and food shortages in Cuba.
During his 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to renew engagement with Cuba. "I'd try to reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families," Biden said in September 2020. He added that Trump "has done nothing to advance democracy and human rights; on the contrary, the crackdown on Cubans by the regime has gotten worse under Trump, not better."
But the Biden administration's policy toward Cuba has effectively been a continuation of Trump's approach. Biden is facing growing calls from Democrats to lift the Trump-era sanctions on Cuba and provide much-needed economic relief to Cubans.
Meanwhile, criticism of the embargo among Democrats is also rising. Only Congress can fully lift the embargo.
The broader, purported goal of the US government's perpetuation of the embargo has been to isolate the Communist government and catalyze democratic reforms. But critics contend that the embargo is antiquated and ineffective, and has only served to increase the suffering of Cubans while providing the authoritarian government with a convenient scapegoat for the country's economic woes.
Residents stand in line for breakfast recently at a juvenile detention center. (photo: Jim Hudelson/The Shreveport Times)
he day Brian Lowe attended a training session for police officers on understanding the minds of teenagers, he knew his job would never be the same.
Mr. Lowe, a lieutenant in the sheriff’s office in Tippecanoe County, Ind., immediately recalled encounters with young people in the past — the teens he’d handcuffed for trespassing in a closed park in the middle of the night while hanging out with friends, the students he’d arrested for stealing a cafeteria sandwich. Like most police officers across the country, he had been taught to act as an enforcer, with the idea that teenagers should not get away with anything an adult would not.
But in the training session, “Policing the Teen Brain,” Mr. Lowe learned all the ways that adolescents are different from adults. For instance, because of their less-developed prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain charged with problem solving and controlling irrational behavior — and the coursing hormones of puberty, they are not always in command of their actions. Children who have suffered violence or other trauma are even more likely to become emotionally unstable under stress.
On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content, though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies. (photo: Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo)
CCDH finds ‘disinformation dozen’ have combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms
CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the “disinformation dozen” have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen. Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this week as a driving force of the virus spreading.
On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content, though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies. And 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on these platforms were not removed.
Among the dozen are physicians that have embraced pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot, and, most notably Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy who has also linked vaccines to autism and 5G broadband cellular networks to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kennedy was since removed from Instagram, which Facebook owns, but not from Facebook itself.
“Facebook, Google and Twitter have put policies into place to prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation; yet to date, all have failed to satisfactorily enforce those policies,” wrote CCDH’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, in the report. “All have been particularly ineffective at removing harmful and dangerous misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.”
Although platforms have since taken measures to remove many posts and even remove three of the 12 from one platform, the CCDH is calling on Facebook and Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to completely deplatform the disinformation dozen they believe are dangerous and instrumental in creating vaccine hesitancy at a crucial moment in the pandemic.
“Updated policies and statements hold little value unless they are strongly and consistently enforced,” the report said. “With the vast majority of harmful content being spread by a select number of accounts, removing those few most dangerous individuals and groups can significantly reduce the amount of disinformation being spread across platforms.”
First a Sharecropper, then an artist, now a legend Mississippi John Hurt. Circa early 1960s. (photo: Unknown)
Lyrics Mississippi John Hurt, The Ballad Of Stagger Lee
The Ballad Of Stagger Lee is folk tale that evolved throughout the twentieth century. This version by Mississippi John Hurt recorded in 1964 doesn't match precisely the version of the lyrics below. Still a classic.
Stagolee was a bad man
They go down in a coal mine one night
Robbed a coal mine
They's gambling down there
And they placed themselves just like they wanted to be
So they wouldn't hit each other when they was shooting
Money lying all over the floor
There was one bad guy down there he thought he was
That was Billy De Lyon
So he had a big 45 laying down by the side of him
When they got placed, why, Stagolee spoke to him
He says, "Boys, look at the money lying down here on the floor"
Says, "What would we do if old Stagolee and them was to walk in here?"
This guy picked up his 45 he says
"I wouldn't make a bit of difference"
Says, "Stag's gun won't shoot a bit harder than this one"
About that time, Stag knocked his hat off
And his partner, taking care of the rest
When he knocked his hat off he
He kind of remembered that was Stagolee
And he commenced begging like this
Policin' officer, how can it be?
You can 'rest everybody but cruel Stagolee
That bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
He said, "Stagolee, Stagolee, please don't take my life"
Says, "I got two little babies, and a darlin' lovin' wife"
He's a bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
Here's the answer Stagolee gave him
What I care about your two little babies, darlin' lovin' wife?
Says, "You done stole my Stetson hat, I'm bound to take your life"
It's a magic hat, oh, cruel Stagolee
Boom, boom, boom, boom, with a forty-four
When I spied poor Billy De Lyon, he is lyin' down on the floor
That bad man, oh cruel Stagolee
Gentleman of the jury, what you think o' that?
Says, "Stagolee killed Billy de Lyon about a five-dollar Stetson hat"
He's a bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
Standing on the gallows, Stagolee did curse
The Judge said, "Let's kill him, for he killed some of us"
He's a bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
Standing on the gallows, his head was way up high
At twelve o'clock they killed him, they's all glad to see him die
He's a bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
Policin' officer, how can it be?
You can 'rest everybody but cruel Stagolee
That bad man, oh, cruel Stagolee
At least 4% of the world's newly diagnosed cases of esophageal, mouth, larynx, colon, rectum, liver and breast cancers in 2020, or 741,300 people, can be attributed to drinking alcohol, according to a new study. (photo: markhanna/Getty Images/RooM RF)
he link between smoking and cancer is well-documented and widely known. But alcohol?
"Fewer than one in three Americans recognize alcohol as a cause of cancer," says Harriet Rumgay, researcher at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization. "That's similar in other high-income countries, and it's probably even lower in other parts of the world."
A new study shows just how much of a risk drinking can be. At least 4% of the world's newly diagnosed cases of esophageal, mouth, larynx, colon, rectum, liver and breast cancers in 2020, or 741,300 people, can be attributed to drinking alcohol, according to a study in the July 13 edition of Lancet Oncology. Men accounted for three-quarters of alcohol-related cancers. Of the 172,600 alcohol-related cancer cases diagnosed in women, the vast majority, or 98,300 cases, were breast cancer.
It's the first time, Rumgay says, that research has quantified the risks of different levels of drinking. "Our study highlights the contribution of even relatively low levels of alcohol to the risk of new cancer cases," says Rumgay.
What's the connection?
There are a few biological pathways that lead from alcohol consumption to a cancer diagnosis, according to the study. Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.
Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.
What's more, the combination of drinking and smoking might indirectly increase the risk of cancer, with alcohol acting as a kind of solvent for the carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco.
The more a person drinks, the greater the likelihood of biological damage.
To come up with their statistical estimate, researchers crunched three sets of data: estimated global alcohol consumption estimates, specific cancer risks from alcohol, and estimates of the global incidence of those cancers in 2020.
They found that the more alcohol people drink, the higher their risk of an alcohol-related cancer. Drinking at least two and as many as more than six drinks a day, defined as risky to heavy drinking, posed the greatest risk of a future cancer. Even moderate drinking, two or fewer drinks a day, accounted for an estimated 14%, or 103,000 cases, of alcohol-related cancers, according to the study.
The study's authors suggest that the numbers of alcohol-related cancers are probably even higher than these estimates. "That's because we didn't include former drinkers in our main analysis, even though they may have an increased risk of cancer," says Rumgay. Instead, they looked at countrywide estimates of current drinkers. They also looked only at cancers where the risk factor has been scientifically shown to increase with alcohol use. They didn't include cancers for which emerging evidence suggests are likely linked to alcohol, such as pancreatic and stomach cancers.
When they further analyzed their data incorporating former drinkers and including the two cancers possibly linked to alcohol, the numbers went up significantly. "When we did the analysis and included former drinking, pancreatic and stomach cancers, the numbers increased to 925,000 alcohol-related cancers," she said. That's an additional 185,000 possible alcohol-related cancers, or 5% of all the world's cancers.
Some of the highest proportions of alcohol-related cancers were found in Moldova and Romania, she said. But recent changes in taxing policy, which has increased the cost of alcohol in those countries, have caused a drop in alcohol sales. And that could foreshadow a future reduction in related cancers, she said.
On the other hand, economic growth in places like China, India and Vietnam might lead to increased alcohol use and related cancers down the road. The lowest rates of alcohol-related cancers in the world were found in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where religious-based policies ensure low rates of drinking.
Drinking rates are relatively low in parts of Africa, but that seems to be changing. "Drinking trends show that alcohol use is increasing in countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We predict that the number of cases of cancer in Southern Africa will increase by two-thirds over the next 20 years, and in Eastern Africa, cases will double," says Rumgay.
What that means is that nations in those areas of Africa should be thinking now about strategies to control drinking. "Currently, only 16 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have national alcohol strategies," says Rumgay.
Those strategies could include increasing taxes on alcohol and adding cancer warning labels to alcohol similar to warnings now on cigarette packages.
While such public policies are effective and necessary, says Dr. Amy Justice, professor of medicine and public health at Yale University, we need to go further. Justice wrote a commentary in Lancet Oncology accompanying the alcohol-related cancer study. She agrees with the authors that the results are, if anything, an understatement of the impact of alcohol on cancer cases. And she has suggestions to reduce the burden of alcohol-related cancers that go beyond governmental action.
"I'm a doctor," she says. And as a physician, she thinks about the things she can say individually to a patient, one on one, to encourage them to reduce their drinking. "There's pretty good data that you can get people to decrease their alcohol consumption with brief motivational information," she said.
That might mean teaching doctors around the world to talk about alcohol use as a possible cause when a patient complains of sleep or memory problems or when they have the beginning signs of liver disease. "You tailor the information to the personal concerns of the patient in front of you," says Justice.
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