20 November 21
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Joe Biden is well aware of the damage Joe Manchin is doing to what he says is his domestic agenda. But he still affords him the courtesy of a white gentlemen.
All of this will come into sharp focus as the Build Back Better Act moves from success in the House to an uncertain fate in the Senate. Poised to reject or at least reshape the would-be landmark legislation is Joe Manchin and he isn’t normally very accommodating towards Progressive initiatives.
Joe Manchin is corrupt, plain and simple. His direct ties to the energy industry and his own personal stake in the affairs that come before him as Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee make him outrageously conflicted. Merely having that chairmanship should make Joe Manchin a loyal servant of the Democratic Party.
This gives or should give Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer all the leverage they need to move Manchin on social spending. It is not that Biden and Schumer cannot move Manchin it is that so far they have so far chosen not to.
Again for the record, Joe Manchin is rather unlikely to flee the Democratic Party. Progressive Democratic Strategist Chai Komanduri broke this down quite nicely with Ari Melber in September. The gist of what Komanduri was saying is that Manchin would likely not be able to mount a successful Senate campaign in West Virginia as a Republican or an Independent. In truth according to Komanduri, Manchin really doesn’t have anywhere to go.
I fairness it’s not impossible that Manchin could leave the Democratic party and still remain as the Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee but it isn’t very likely. Biden and Schumer should be able move Manchin with appropriate levels of persuasion and force. It will require some tact, but it’s hardly a bridge too far.
Joe Manchin is doing considerable damage to the Progressive planks in Biden’s platform. Is he Biden’s nemesis or Biden’s foil? Is Joe Manchin giving Joe Biden the excuse he needs to move to the center and abandon the Progressive programs that got him elected? Or is Joe Manchin the anchor chained to Biden’s approval ratings that he ostensibly appears to be?
The degree to which Biden and Schumer are willing to confront and rein in the duplicitous actor from West Virginia will tell the tale. Joe Manchin doesn’t own the Chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee, it is granted to him by the Democratic Party. The time has come for Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer to remind him of that.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Bernie Sanders. (photo: Antonella Crescimbeni)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California defended a measure to lift the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that people can deduct from their federal tax bills to $80,000 from $10,000 through 2026. The $10,000 limit was imposed under President Donald Trump's 2017 tax law.
"This isn't about who gets a tax cut, it's about which states get the revenue they need in order to meet the needs of the people," she said at her weekly press conference. "That is a fight that I will continue to make."
She claimed that tax cuts for the rich "isn't the result" of the House bill. But experts say lifting the SALT cap would overwhelmingly benefit richer Americans. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projects most millionaires would be in line for a tax cut under the House Democratic proposal.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont pushed back against Pelosi, saying "I think it's bad politics, it's bad policy."
"Bottom line, We need to help the middle class, not the 1%," he told CNN's Manu Raju.
Their dispute comes as Democrats become increasingly anxious with the largest slice of Biden's social spending bill: a tax cut for rich Americans residing in high-tax, predominantly blue states.
"This is giving them a better deal than they had even before 2017," Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, told Insider. "They will have more benefits under Democrats than even Republicans gave them under President Trump."
Other Democrats are uneasy with the SALT provision. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana told NBC News he wasn't "a big fan" of the idea because "it gives tax breaks to the wrong people."
"It would be preposterous if this legislation ends up cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in America," Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado recently told Insider.
It's also generating frustration in the House. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, a vulnerable Democrat in next year's midterms, wrote on Twitter that SALT relief appeared like something Republicans would do instead.
"The fact that more people and orgs on the Democratic side aren't up in arms about this is wild," he wrote in a follow-up tweet.
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means panel, told Insider it "absolutely" becomes more difficult for Democrats to tout the legislation to the public if it delivers a hefty tax cut to the rich.
"When you just do the math and you find out that most of it's going to the very, very wealthy, it makes it harder to support," Beyer said.
Sanders is spearheading negotiations design an alternate plan alongside Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey that would cut the level of tax benefits for the wealthy. They're eyeing an income cap ranging between $500,000 and $550,000.
Sen. Ron Wyden said, "The idea the government can peruse digital car data without a warrant should sit next to the Geo Metro on the scrap heap of history." (photo: Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
Federal authorities can extract photos, texts, and other sensitive data from automotive computers, The Intercept previously revealed.
Recent automobile models rely heavily on computers for everything from navigation to engine diagnostics to entertainment, and entice drivers to connect their smartphones for added features and convenience. These systems log drivers’ movements while also downloading deeply sensitive personal information from their smartphones over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi — typically silently, without their knowledge or consent.
The conversion of cars into four-wheeled unprotected databases, with troves of information about owners’ travels and associates, has presented low-hanging fruit for law enforcement agencies, which are able to legally pull data off a vehicle without the owner’s knowledge. They are aided by a small but lucrative industry of tech firms that perform “vehicle forensics,” extracting not only travel data but often text messages, photos, and other private data from synced devices. Critics say this exploits a dangerous gap in the law: If police want to search the contents of your smartphone, the Fourth Amendment demands that they obtain a warrant first; if they want to search the computer built into your car, they don’t need any such permission, even if they end up siphoning data that originated on the exact same smartphone.
The new legislation, titled “Closing the Warrantless Digital Car Search Loophole Act,” would bar such warrantless searches; evidence from them would be inadmissible in court, to establish probable cause, or for use by regulatory agencies. The measure was introduced in the Senate by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis, and in the House by Rep. Peter Meijer, the Republican representing West Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, and Rep. Ro Khanna, the Democrat in the San Francisco Bay Area’s 17th.
“The idea the government can peruse digital car data without a warrant should sit next to the Geo Metro on the scrap heap of history,” Wyden said in an advance announcement shared with The Intercept.
In May, The Intercept reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had contracted with MSAB, a Swedish company specializing in digital device cracking, to purchase vehicle forensics kits manufactured by Berla, an American firm. MSAB marketing materials make clear how powerful these kits are, touting the ability to pull “[r]ecent destinations, favorite locations, call logs, contact lists, SMS messages, emails, pictures, videos, social media feeds, and the navigation history of everywhere the vehicle has been,” as well as data that can be used to determine a target’s “future plan,” and “[i]dentify known associates and establish communication patterns between them.”
CBP’s use of such tools is among the warrantless uses of car data that would be blocked by the new bill, Wyden spokesperson Keith Chu confirmed.
The bill protects a diverse range of data collected by today’s cars, including “all onboard and telematics data” in the vehicle or in attached “storage and communication systems,” including “diagnostic data, entertainment system data, navigation data, images or data captured by onboard sensors, or cameras, including images or data used to support automated features or autonomous driving, internet access, and communication to and from vehicle occupants.”
There are carveouts; the bill exempts vehicles that require a commercial license to drive as well as traffic safety research and situations subject to “emergency provisions in the wiretap act and the USA Freedom Act, enabling the government to get a warrant after the fact,” according to an overview shared by Wyden’s office.
The bill has endorsements from an array of left-leaning groups, including due process advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation. But the Republican backing underlines that digital privacy and surveillance concerns resonate across party lines. “New vehicles are computers on wheels, and my constituents in Wyoming should have the same 4th Amendment protections for their vehicles as they do for their phones and home computers,” Lummis said in the announcement.
Eric DeValkenaere, center, is comforted by attorneys Dawn Parsons, left, and Holly Hastings, after Jackson County Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Youngs announced that he found the Kansas City Police detective guilty in the fatal December 2019 shooting of Cameron Lamb. (photo: Jill Toyoshiba/KC Star)
DeValkenaere is the first Kansas City law enforcement officer to be convicted for the fatal shooting of a Black man. Following the conviction, the department suspended DeValkenaere without pay.
"What we sought in this case was a just outcome and that's where we stand today," Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told reporters shortly after the verdict was rendered by Presiding Judge J. Dale Youngs.
Donna Drake, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department, said in an email that the department acknowledged the court's decision.
"Every officer involved shooting is difficult not only for the members in the community, but also the members of the police department," she said.
The department said that DeValkenaere had been suspended pending termination as a result of his conviction.
DeValkenaere is believed to be the first Kansas City law enforcement officer since 1941 to have stood trial for the fatal shooting of a Black man. The police officer in the earlier case was acquitted.
Jackson County prosecutors argued that DeValkenaere recklessly shot Cameron Lamb on Dec. 3, 2019, as Lamb was sitting in a pickup truck and backing into his garage at 41st Street and College Avenue.
The shooting occurred not long after a police helicopter spotted a red truck chasing a purple Mustang at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour through a residential neighborhood.
Prosecutors argued that DeValkenaere acted recklessly by entering Lamb’s property without a warrant, knocking over a makeshift fence and firing his weapon within seconds of coming upon the pickup truck.
Defense lawyers contended that DeValkenaere, a 20-year veteran of the Kansas City Police Department and a member of its Violent Offender Squad when the shooting occurred, was responding to an ongoing danger and had probable cause to enter Lamb’s property.
DeValkenaere waived his right to a jury trial and the case was tried before Youngs. The four-day trial ended last week and Youngs took the case under advisement.
In finding DeValkenaere guilty on both counts with which he was charged, Youngs ruled that Lamb had an expectation of privacy on his property and that DeValkenaere and his partner, Sgt. Troy Schwalm, had no justification to enter onto the property, as both did that day. Schwalm was not charged in the case.
Delivering his verdict from the bench in a courtroom packed with supporters and family of both DeValkenaere and Lamb, Youngs said that the two plainclothes policemen had no arrest warrant, no search warrant and no probable cause to obtain either.
Neither were there exigent circumstances nor a hot pursuit that might have justified their entrance onto the property, Youngs said, noting that the car chase had ended some time earlier.
"Based on the court's review of the law and the facts, the court concludes that the backyard and particularly the carport were within the curtilage," Youngs said, referring to the area immediately surrounding a dwelling. "And the occupants demonstrated a reasonable expectation of privacy."
Youngs took about 13 minutes to read his findings of fact and conclusions of law. As he pronounced DeValkenaere guilty, DeValkenaere slumped slightly in his seat and lowered his head.
Shouts of jubilation could be heard in the courthouse hallway as the courtroom emptied, and members of Lamb's family and supporters tearfully embraced.
DeValkenaere faces a minimum statutory punishment of three years on the involuntary manslaughter conviction and a minimum statutory punishment of three years on the armed criminal action conviction.
He remains free on bond pending sentencing, which Youngs said he would set at a later date.
Altogether, the trial and convictions marked a stunning development in the strained relations between the Jackson County Prosecutor's office and the Kansas City Police Department.
Baker, the prosecutor, has accused the department of not providing a probable cause statement in the case, forcing her to take the case to a grand jury.
In an extraordinary letter addressed to Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith in April 2020, Baker said that police "hold a special place in our community" and, for that reason, they have strong protections under Missouri law.
"But officers are not entitled to a special process when they are the subject of a criminal investigation. Investigations must be neutral," she wrote. "Our system depends on this. Neutrality is especially important when you are investigating someone who works within your own ranks."
DeValkenaere's attorneys were not immediately available for comment, but they are expected to appeal the verdict.
After the verdict, S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing the Lamb family, called it "momentous" and "historic."
"These instances of justice in our system are far too rare, but there was something that happened here that was different," he said outside the courthouse.
Merritt represents the parents of three of Lamb's minor children, who have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DeValkenaere and the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he did not view the guilty verdicts as an "indictment broadly" of the Kansas City Police Department.
"Instead what it is is the criminal justice system," Lucas said. "The prosecutor saw a concern, the grand jury indicted, a judge found a defendant guilty today. We go through this process regularly. This is with a different class of defendant but at the same time, I know the men and women of our law enforcement community will continue to go out and do the important work to keep this city safe.”
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City released a statement saying it was "celebrating the verdict."
Economic sanctions and financial hardships have given rise to a multitiered system of exchange rates in Iran. (photo: Essam al-Sudani/Reuters)
Ordinary Iranians have become the main victims of the U.S. blockade as the devaluation the rial has led to limited purchasing power and higher prices.
Ever since May 2018, when the United States, under former president Donald Trump, pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal, and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Iran, the rial has constantly been losing its value against major foreign currencies, witnessing an over nine-fold decrease.
Lower output
Analysts said the drop in the value of a national currency partially results from the decrease in domestic production and increase in imports.
In the case of Iran, the sanctions have mainly targeted the country's lifeline, which is oil exports. The sanctions, though, have failed to produce the U.S. desired result, which is to hammer out a new nuclear deal, yet are among the main factors having battered the Iranian economy through blocking the country's access to its foreign currency incomes. This has led to the country's failure in importing essential raw materials serving as the production sector's main feedstock.
Head of the Iranian Workers' Association Fathollah Bayat told Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) that at present, securing foreign currency resources for importing raw materials has become a grave problem for domestic producers due to the U.S. sanctions. In the absence of the required raw materials imported at reasonable prices, domestic producers fail to adequately meet the market demands and thus prices spike.
Another Iranian labor official Ali Aslani said that most factories are currently reliant on importing raw materials, adding that "in the modern world, all countries are dependent on one another." However, ever since the sanctions were reimposed on the country, they have failed to purchase sufficient and high-quality products due to fluctuations in the domestic foreign currency market, leading to a rise in the prime cost of the final goods and greater pressure on customers, he added.
Liquidity growth
Meanwhile, as sanctions-caused plummeting oil revenues increased Iran's fiscal deficit, the Iranian central bank has printed more money to cover the budget deficit, resulting in excess liquidity in the market. Kamran Nadri, a professor of economy at Iran's Imam Sadiq University, said that liquidity growth is another main reason behind the devaluation of a national currency when a country's production sector is not capable of meeting domestic demands.
Also, in an analysis published by ISNA, economic expert Mohammad Baqer Zohrab-Beigi explained that increasing market liquidity from US$214 million to US$1.42 billion in seven years “has been among the most serious miscalculations in the implementation of financial policies by former Iranian administrations, which had turned a blind eye to experts' recommendations and warnings."
With similar opinions, Ali Cheshmi, a member of the academic board of the Economy Department of Iran's Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, said that surplus liquidity is among the factors negatively affecting the value of the national currency, particularly when there is no balance between supply and demand in the domestic market.
Regarding the high liquidity which has contributed to the inflation rate in Iran, Hossein Askari, a professor of economics, told the Tehran Times in August that Iran must "put the brakes on money printing" and "use a rational rule for money creation."
Poverty threshold
Ordinary Iranians have become the main victims of the U.S. sanctions and their negative impacts, as the devaluation the rial has led to limited purchasing power and higher prices. Notably, the U.S. sanctions, as a result, have thrown millions of Iranians below the poverty threshold.
According to the Iranian Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, the per capita poverty line in Iran stood at US$44.78 per month in the Iranian year to March 2021. In this period, Iran's poverty line saw an increase of 38 percent compared to the figure of the same time span a year before, when almost one-third of the country's households (26 million out of 80 million) were below the threshold, predicting that the situation will exacerbate by March 2022.
It blamed the mainly sanctions-caused inflation and recession for the Iranian people's worsened economic situation and woes, saying the low-income class of the society is bearing the brunt of the pressure, as they have lost their ability to buy some of the staple goods. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, Iran's inflation rate stood at 45.4 percent in late October.
Vowing to fight poverty, the administration of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said it will focus on boosting domestic production, and expanding relations with neighboring states, while simultaneously pushing for the removal of the sanctions.
Wild bison. (photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic)
From Montana to Alberta, Indigenous communities are developing ecotourism tied to the keystone species’ restoration.
Bison last roamed the hills around North Saskatchewan River Valley more than 150 years ago. They were key to the cultural, spiritual, and economic health of the Métis Nation, members of which gathered by the thousands in the spring and fall for the bison hunt.
But bison populations plummeted in the 1800s due to overhunting by European settlers. The return of bison marks an important step in reconciliation for the Métis, who relied on the species for survival and are one of three recognized Indigenous peoples in Canada, along with First Nations and Inuit peoples.
Marois, head of the Métis Crossing cultural interpretation center near Edmonton, was a leading force in launching the property’s wildlife park, which opens to the public in December 2021. At the park, visitors can learn about Métis culture through a new series of interpretive tours focused on a herd of 16 bison. The property’s first hotel also opens next month, giving guests the chance to try winter pursuits such as snowshoeing, learning how to smoke traditionally harvested bison, and stargazing with Indigenous storytellers.
“When we talk about wanting to share our story in an experiential way, it’s not about looking at pictures or old things behind glass. It’s about making it real for people,” says Marois.
Métis Crossing’s new 300-acre park is part of a larger movement to get bison (Bison bison)—or buffalo, the term more often used in Native communities—back onto tribal lands in North America. These woolly symbols of strength aren’t just essential to the well-being of Indigenous communities, but also to vast ecosystems.
Restoring a keystone species
It’s estimated that 30 to 60 million bison once roamed the plains from Mexico to Canada. Much like the large wildebeest herds in East Africa, bison helped aerate the soil and disperse seeds important for biodiversity through their wallowing (dust-bathing) behavior. By 1900, there were less than a thousand of them.
For Native communities, buffalo were “life’s commissary”—sources of food as well as shelter and tools—and central to spiritual belief systems, says Jason Baldes, Tribal buffalo program manager for the U.S.-based National Wildlife Federation.
“Because of our colonial history—a history of Congress and legislation promoting the destruction of buffalo as a means to subjugate Native Americans—animosity is still felt in the agricultural industry,” Baldes says. “When buffalo were eliminated and tribes were finally forced on reservations, it made way for large beef operations to come into existence and rule the land.”
A member of the East Shoshone tribe, identified as Gweechoon Deka (“the buffalo eaters”), Baldes has made it his life’s work to reintroduce conservation bison—whose genes have not been mixed with those of cattle—to western reservations including his own 2.2 million-acre Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Wind River is now home to 98 bison, and Baldes has already seen a positive impact on the plant communities. The reservation welcomes visitors to powwows, heritage sites, and hiking trails.
In nearby Yellowstone National Park, travelers catch glimpses of one of the oldest remaining herds, which now numbers more than 5,000. Yellowstone Forever, a nonprofit organization, hosts year-round educational tours such as wildlife photography workshops and overnight stays at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch, where guests can snowshoe while admiring bison, wolves, and elk from afar.
Currently, bison aren’t allowed to roam outside the park due to fears they might transmit a disease called brucellosis to cattle. With limited habitat inside the park, yearly culls are used to control the population. But there’s been growing interest in moving disease-free bison to tribal lands, and in 2016 the park established the Bison Conservation Transfer Program with tribal partners to begin this process. Another key priority, says Baldes, is shifting land use away from livestock and toward natural ecological integrity.
“If we can decolonize our thinking, we can incorporate more holistic management styles and recognize the ecological and cultural importance of this animal to people and tribes,” Baldes adds. “It’s not just a Native American story, it’s an American story.”
Bridging the knowledge gap
The tangled history of bison remains largely unknown to many North Americans, but one project in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa is aiming to change that. If successful, the Bison Bridge Foundation could help turn the old I-80 bridge, which spans a stretch of the Mississippi River, into the world’s longest human-made wildlife crossing and the first national park for either state.
Part of the proposal includes dedicating a hundred acres of grasslands to a bison enclosure. Pedestrians and cyclists on the adjacent path would be able to view the herd safely and car traffic would be rerouted to a new bridge built farther down the river.
When putting together the proposal, Illinois-based conservationist Chad Pregracke sought the guidance of ecological and tribal experts including Baldes, who says the project could provide a unique opportunity to educate more people about the history of bison. After all, 42,000 cars drive across the existing bridge each day.
Pregracke, who became a local hero through his river cleanup organization Living Lands and Waters, believes bison could boost tourism to the Quad Cities, benefit the environment, and reduce the waste and costs associated with demolishing the current bridge.
But the project is not without its critics. Cristina Eisenberg, an ecologist who blends Indigenous traditions with western science, says that keeping bison in small enclosures can be exploitative. She argues that volunteer science projects can make a more meaningful impact.
A recent expedition she led with the environmental nonprofit Earthwatch, “Restoring Fire, Wolves, and Bison to the Canadian Rockies,” got travelers involved in field research in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta and in the Blackfeet tribal lands, while being immersed in the culture of the Kainai First Nation.
Partnering with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Blackfeet Tribe moved 90 bison from Elk Island National Park in Alberta to its reservation in Montana. Future goals include opening the boundary between the reservation and Glacier National Park, giving the herd more room to roam and visitors more chances to see the animals.
Eisenberg cites the Buffalo Treaty, created by Leroy Little Bear, a Kainai First Nation elder, as an exciting development in the push for free-ranging bison. Since 2014 more than 50 First Nations and tribes have signed on to support the creation of a string of bison reserves that would function as a corridor, allowing wildlife to resume their natural migration between the U.S. and Canada.
Expanding the herds
In the U.S.’s Northern Great Plains, where cattle grazing remains the prevailing use of land, Wizipan Little Elk, a citizen of the Sicangu Oyate (Rosebud Sioux Tribe), dreams of fulfilling a goal inspired by one of his elders: to dedicate one million new acres to buffalo.
Through the Wolakota Regenerative Buffalo Range on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Little Elk’s Rosebud Economic Development Corporation and partners are establishing the world’s largest Native-owned and managed bison herd. The 28,000-acre range will be home to 1,500 animals and form the backbone of what he calls “the new Lakota economy”—a project that benefits the community financially, socially, and environmentally.
“I always tell people, if we can do it here, this kind of work can happen anywhere. And, quite frankly, this is the kind of approach that’s needed if we’re going to solve the climate crisis,” says Little Elk.This work is just one component of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s larger regenerative agricultural movement and their “Seven Gen Plan,” a 175-year strategy to increase the prosperity of the Lakota people and the region. Once the herd is built up over the next few years, they’ll explore tourism opportunities such as a new museum, which will add to the region’s existing cultural highlights, including the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, an active archaeological site, and Watecha Bowl, a Sioux Falls restaurant serving Lakota cuisine.
In the future, Little Elk says they may explore building a meat-processing facility but stresses that “buffalo will always be treated like buffalo”—grass-fed, honored, and harvested according to spiritual and cultural protocols, which include using every part of the animal.
Reflecting on the day when the first hundred bison were released onto the Rosebud Sioux’s territory in October 2020, Little Elk says he felt emotional. “Buffalo have taken care of us for thousands and thousands of years and we really owe them,” he says. “This is one small first step in providing them with a space to be who they are.”
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