Will anything change about America's Forever Wars?

This is something of a downer, but I have to do what I can to amplify it anyway, because it's a critical issue.

In this mystifying moment, the post-electoral sentiments of most Americans can be summed up either as “Ding dong! The witch is dead!” or “We got robbed!” Both are problematic, not because the two candidates were intellectually indistinguishable or ethically equivalent, but because each jingle is laden with a dubious assumption: that President Donald Trump’s demise would provide either decisive deliverance or prove an utter disaster.

While there were indeed areas where his ability to cause disastrous harm lent truth to such a belief -- race relations, climate change, and the courts come to mind -- in others, it was distinctly (to use a dangerous phrase) overkill. Nowhere was that more true than with America’s expeditionary version of militarism, its forever wars of this century, and the venal system that continues to feed it.

For nearly two years, We the People were coached to believe that the 2020 election would mean everything, that November 3rd would be democracy’s ultimate judgment day. What if, however, when it comes to issues of war, peace, and empire, “Decision 2020” proves barely meaningful? After all, in the election campaign just past, Donald Trump’s sweeping war-peace rhetoric and Joe Biden’s hedging aside, neither nuclear-code aspirant bothered to broach the most uncomfortable questions about America’s uniquely intrusive global role. Neither dared dissent from normative notions about America’s posture and policy “over there,” nor challenge the essence of the war-state, a sacred cow if ever there was one. - TomDispatch

Who Biden picks as trade representative will say a lot

This article is a really good overview.

For several presidencies, including those of Obama and Clinton, the U.S. trade representative has been keeper of the orthodoxy. U.S. policies ignored the fate of domestic manufacturing. Instead, they pursued a brand of globalism by and for multinational corporations, especially financial ones.

Biden’s USTR nominee will signal whether he is serious about rebuilding U.S. industry and jobs. - The American Prospect

Pandemic profiteering should be a much bigger story

A lot of people seem to be just resigned to this. A lot of others apparently honestly believe that backing the likes of Trump is the way to change it. It's all really unfortunate.

As over a thousand people in the U.S. alone die each day during the deadliest pandemic in a century, plutocrats and their businesses are thriving like never before, in no small part due to a system rife with profiteering, opportunism, and worker exploitation. So says the report, entitled Billionaire Wealth vs. Community Health: Protecting Essential Workers from Pandemic Profiteers, which focuses on 12 of the most egregious pandemic profiteers—the "Delinquent Dozen"—who include the owners of Walmart and the CEOs of Amazon and Target.

These companies and their owners and executives have benefited from their "monopoly positions," the report states, but their success "hasn't translated into better pay or safer working conditions for the employees showing up to work in a pandemic." - Common Dreams

Look forward, and back, and investigate, and indict

I don’t expect President-elect Biden to make it all about investigating and prosecuting Trump and Trumpers, either. But he can do nothing better for this country than anything that advances the political destruction of right-wing conservatism. Full accountability, no mercy.

In some ways, it makes perfect sense that Biden doesn't want his entire presidency consumed by probes into Trump, his minions, and an inevitable cycle of recriminations. But Donald Trump so misused and abused the federal government that his entire tenure represents an assault on American democracy itself, not to mention a series of crimes against humanity, ranging from literally ripping children away from their parents and caging them to intentionally slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Americans through coronavirus denialism and weaponization of disinformation.

For those reasons, Trump and those who did his bidding must be held to account through both criminal inquiries and uncovering information that could mar the reputations of certain individuals for life. This is absolutely critical to preserving the integrity of our republic moving forward. Using the U.S. government to commit crimes against humanity cannot be tolerated at any level.

Biden can preach unity all he wants, but it is incumbent upon the incoming administration to make it glaringly clear that efforts to subvert our democracy and use the federal government for malign political purposes carry with them a steep cost for everyone involved. This is a fundamental part of safeguarding our democracy. Otherwise, the next autocrat—who will surely be far more competent than Trump—won't think twice before trodding the same paths Trump did, but with greater efficacy and fervor. - Daily Kos

Undoing disastrous Trump farm/food policies

A very informative and helpful guide.

In January 2021, President-elect Biden will have the opportunity to roll back the rollbacks, to re-regulate the de-regulated. These are changes he can make without the aid of Congress; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may slow down the process of confirming his Secretary of Agriculture, but his reach doesn’t extend to the rulemaking process.

In many cases, Biden won’t have to do much to ensure the Trump administration’s most controversial food and farming policies never see the light of day. In others, he’ll need to go to court or issue executive orders. Still more will require Congressional action or a lengthy rulemaking process.

Here’s your guide to the Trump administration’s signature rollbacks—and our predictions on their survival in 2021. - The Counter

President-elect Biden needs to follow through on Yemen

What better way to get started, than to get going on ending a crime against humanity?

One thing Biden can do, start­ing on day one, is end U.S. involve­ment in the Yemen war — involve­ment that he helped ini­ti­ate. ​“By exec­u­tive order, Biden could get the Pen­ta­gon to end intel­li­gence shar­ing for the Sau­di coali­tion airstrikes, end logis­ti­cal sup­port, and end spare parts trans­fers that keep Sau­di war­planes in the air,” Has­san El-Tayyab, lead Mid­dle East pol­i­cy lob­by­ist for the Friends Com­mit­tee on Nation­al Leg­is­la­tion, a pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tion, tells In These Times. ​“He could restore human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to north­ern Yemen. He could use his pow­er as pres­i­dent to put pres­sure on oth­er nations that are sup­port­ing the Sau­di coali­tion — like France, the Unit­ed King­dom and Cana­da — and get them to fol­low suit. He could have the State Depart­ment put a stop on all arms sales to Sau­di Ara­bia unless they meet cer­tain benchmarks.” - In These Times

The best boot-on-Trump's-ass rant I've seen yet

There are a lot of progressives who write with high excellence. Three of my favorites (though they're stylistically quite different from one another), at national websites, are David Dayen at The American Prospect, William Rivers Pitt at Truthout, and Hunter at Daily Kos.

Most importantly, we must look forward, not back. Instead of dwelling on the past, we should instead dwell on the clusterf--k that will be the future if Trump's unending list of white nationalists, professional liars, and eager criminals does not receive our public revulsion, our contempt, and the fullest possible prosecutions. Our nation depends on coming together, here and now, to wipe every last incompetent Republican sycophant from our politics and our televisions.

This means all those that stood by Trump, as he careened through our "norms" and revealed us to be an autocracy in waiting. The pundits. The Republican lawmakers. The "conservative" think tankers. The appointees. Every last one of them has betrayed this nation, has shown themselves to be supporters of even this, and the damage done has been incalculable. It is unforgivable. There is no possible repentance. They must be purged—or the next Republican autocrat may be successful where this incompetent, addled fart of a man was not. - Daily Kos

Military basically says if Trump orders them to do something crazy, they won't

I think that's pretty clear, here. The article spins it a little differently.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley held an off-the-record video call with top generals and network anchors this weekend to tamp down speculation about potential military involvement in the presidential election, two people familiar with the call tell Axios.

Why it matters: The nation's top military official set up Saturday's highly unusual call to make clear that the military's role is apolitical, one of the sources said — and to dispel any notion of a role for the military in adjudicating a disputed election or making any decision around removing a president from the White House. - Axios

More indicators that the end of Big Oil could be sooner than people think

I find myself wondering whether vulture funds and the like will try to get involved. Or already are.

But the pandemic has had a material impact, hastening Exxon’s decline, but the company has been gliding downward for years. Part of its problem has been doubling down on oil, which has made the economy hum along for decades (thanks in part to Exxon’s aforementioned lying). A Carbon Tracker analysis released on Wednesday shows the company’s investment in exploration and resource- and carbon-intensive projects played a role in Exxon’s decline since 2014. The report notes investors “would have been better off putting their cash under the mattress” over the past six years. Climate change means the world needs to rapidly sunset the use of oil or face unspeakable horrors, and will further constrain Exxon’s future as long as it focuses on oil as its main means of making money.

Exxon is hardly alone in layoffs, though its overall totals are among the steepest in the industry. Earlier this year, BP announced it would lay off 10,000 workers as it transition to an “energy” company, a new fresh hell of greenwashing. At the time, the CEO called it the “right thing” to do. With the end of oil now coming up over the horizon, it’s more vital than ever to have a plan for affected workers who are about to or already are losing their livelihoods. - Gizmodo

How Trump's SCOTUS is paid for

Disgraceful, that this is legal, and happens. And imagine the freakouts on the right, and the corporate media attention, if progressives did this kind of shit.

A close informal advisor to President Trump who has been deeply involved in all three of his Supreme Court nomination battles is the sole trustee of a mysterious group that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return uncovered by CREW. The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump’s inaugural committee.

What makes Rule of Law Trust (RLT) particularly interesting is that despite its $80 million haul, the group seems remarkably hollow. It claimed it had no employees and no volunteers in its first year and listed what appears to be a virtual office in Virginia as its main address. Its stated mission is “to advance conservative principles and causes through communications, research, strategy and assistance to other organizations,” but there’s no apparent public information to demonstrate what that work entails, not even a website. - CREW