Trump keeps funneling money to farmers and rural America ahead of the election — topping out at $46 billion

Published on October 12, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris

Farmers. (Shuterstock)

President Donald Trump is continuing to try and funnel money to rural America and to farmers as the election approaches.

During Trump’s trade wars, farmers and manufacturing took a brunt of the hit. As the administration continued it’s war on the Affordable Care Act, funding to rural hospitals dried up and they began to close. Funding cuts to the Postal Service means rural post offices are also closing. Trump’s only option left is to continue flooding farmers with cash in hopes he can buy their loyalty.

“Federal payments to farmers are projected to hit a record $46 billion this year as the White House funnels money to Mr. Trump’s rural base in the South and Midwest ahead of Election Day,” the New York Times reported Monday.

The American Farm Bureau calculated debt in the farming sector is expected to increase by 4 percent, reaching a record $434 billion. Farmer bankruptcies have been record-setting as well with another 8 percent increase charted August 2019-2020. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, throwing money at the problem hasn’t stopped the bankrupcies.

“The pandemic has pressured prices for many commodities, squeezing farmers who raise crops and livestock, and prolonging a six-year downturn in the Farm Belt,” the Journal explained at the time.

Trump’s pledges to save rural America have not only turned out to be another in his line of broken promises.

“Farmers are not the only constituency benefiting from the president’s largess: He has promised $200 prescription drug cards to millions of seniors, approved $13 billion in aid to Puerto Rico, which could help his prospects in Florida, and he directed his Agriculture Department include letters signed by him in millions of food aid boxes that are being distributed to the poor,” the Times recalled.

It’s remarkably similar to the empty promises Trump made just weeks before the 2018 midterms in which he swore there would be a “middle-class tax cut” after the election. It never came either.

“There are both economic and political motivations for these payments,” said University of Missouri’s Patrick Westhoff, who directs the agriculture research center.

Democrats and ethics groups are concerned that the move is another attempt for Trump to bribe voters ahead of an election.

“For the first time in history, a president has repeatedly usurped congressional authority in order to personally dispense tens of billions of dollars in federal farm subsidy payments that would not otherwise have been paid,” said Ken Cook, president of an organization that tracks the spending. “This is an authoritarian power grab used to buy political support from voters who are essential to his re-election.”

Trump has only made it worse, announcing at a Wisconsin campaign rally that he’d be delivering another $13 billion in aid to farmers. Trump even shifted $100 million from an account that barred subsidies to the tobacco industry to a fund that could help prop up the North Carolina industry as it’s appearing more and more like a swing state with a crucial Senate election.

The Government Accountability Office also took issue with $14.5 billion in farm aid from 2019 when they published a report in September. They found that the aid was being allocated with politics taken into consideration, with “the bulk of the money went to big farms in the Midwest and southern states, including Mr. Perdue’s home state of Georgia.”

Read the full report from the New York Times here.

Man arrested in plot to kidnap Michigan governor previously profiled in Swedish newspaper





By: WXYZ Staff
Posted at 6:27 AM, Oct 12, 2020

One of the men arrested for his involvement in a militia group's planned kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the subject of a feature story in a Swedish newspaper in June.

In a report originally published by Expressen on June 21, reporter Nina Svenberg and photographer Joel Marklund met the subject of their next story, 21-year-old Paul Bellar, at an anti-coronavirus lockdown rally in Lansing, Michigan dubbed "Judgment Day."

"(Bellar) spoke about the Boogaloo movement," said Svanberg, a U.S. correspondent for Expressen. "He said that they were a part of the Boogaloo movement and he also said, 'Well, I'm going to get in trouble for saying this.'"

After the rally, the journalists met at Bellar at his home in Milford, Michigan where Bellar showed off his weapons and talked about his views on the government.

"I feel like the American civilization has to know that it's going to possibly revolt against the tyrannical government," Bellar said during an interview with Svanberg at his home on May 14. "I feel people have had enough of it and they're willing to pick up arms for it."

"He said it's a tyranny," Svanberg said later. "He repeatedly talked about the system as a tyranny."

Svanberg also says he talked about his militia, which held training preparing for different scenarios.

"He even said at one point, 'We are not crazy people, we are not planning to burn things or something like that, we are just here to protect our country,'" Svanberg said.

However, according to the FBI and Michigan State Police, they were planning much more than that. Investigators allege Bellar was appointed "sergeant" of the "Wolverine Watchmen," an anti-government group conspiring to target law enforcement, attack the Capitol in Lansing and kidnap Whitmer.

"He talked about them communicating via encrypted chat groups," Svanberg said. "He pulled out his phone and said there were about 50 people in that chat group consisting of men and women, former veterans, all kinds of backgrounds."

A federal investigation, aided by two informants inside the group's encrypted chats, kept police up to date with the group's plans, movements and training.

"He said he had been followed by the police, he was aware that the police were watching him as he described it," Svanberg said. "His big fear was that the feds or the police would come knocking on his door, he said that was what he was expecting."

On Thursday, what Bellar said he was expecting happened. Bellar was arrested in South Carolina and now faces charges for weapons, gang membership and terrorism.

"He also said that his worst nightmare was to be described as a domestic terrorist and that the feds would come and take his guns because, and I quote, 'that won't end well,'" said Svanberg.

Now, Bellar is currently in the process of being extradited back to Michigan to face trial for those charges, which would carry a maximum of 42 years in prison.

To read Svanberg's story, click here.

This story was originally published by Brett Kast on WXYZ in Detroit.

Copyright 2020 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

BERNIE SANDERS CELEBRATES HIS HOME STATE’S MARIJUANA REFORM MILESTONE

BRENDAN BURESOCTOBER 13, 2020

In partnership with The Fresh Toast

“Let me congratulate the state legislature for making Vermont the 11th state in the country to legalize marijuana and also for expunging past marijuana convictions,” Sanders tweeted.

Vermont made history in 2018 by becoming the first state to legalize recreational cannabis through the Legislature. Lawmakers forgot one thing, though — to create a regulated and legal marijuana market in the process.

The state prohibited cannabis sales for the past two years, even though residents could possess and consume the substance without penalty. That changed last week when Vermont Gov. Phil Scott allowed a bill that would legalize recreational cannabis sales without his signature. He also signing separate legislation that would expunge prior marijuana-related records statewide.

RELATED: Pandemic Boosts Marijuana Legalization Support In New Jersey

Congratulating his home state was none other than Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was happy Vermont will soon have safe and legal access to cannabis products.

“Let me congratulate the state legislature for making Vermont the 11th state in the country to legalize marijuana and also for expunging past marijuana convictions,” Sanders tweeted.

“Now, it is time for Congress and the federal government to end the war on drugs and legalize marijuana nationwide,” he added.

Sanders ardently supported federal cannabis reform throughout his 2020 presidential run, stating in interviews that our current marijuana laws are “insane” and “too many lives are being destroyed.” He said that if elected president, he would have legalized cannabis nationwide his first day in office.

Photo by rabbit75_ist/Getty Images

Since Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee, Sanders has remained an important voice around cannabis issues and policies. When civil unrest broke out this summer following the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other Black Americans, it started a dialogue in this country around police reform. Sanders argued that legalizing cannabis should be part of the conversation.

“State after state have moved to legalize marijuana, and it is time for the federal government to do the same,” he said. “When we talk about police department reform, we must end police officers continuing to arrest, search or jail the people of our country, predominantly people of color, for using marijuana.”

RELATED: Kamala Harris Promises Decriminalization, Cannabis Stocks Surge

Sanders created a “unity” task force with Biden to decide important policy stances around criminal justice reform, which led to some heated discussions around cannabis. The task force ultimately did not recommend ending marijuana prohibition, in part because Biden supports decriminalization but not legalization.

During the vice presidential debates last week, VP nominee Kamala Harris declared a Biden-Harris administration would prioritize decriminalizing cannabis if elected. It represented the biggest promise made by a national party’s presidential nominee around marijuana reform to date.

Harris said, “We will decriminalize marijuana and we will expunge the records of those who have been convicted of marijuana.”

Read more on The Fresh Toast

 

CALIFORNIA FIRES BURN FOR RECORD 4 MILLION ACRES IN 2020

ISAI ROCHAOCTOBER 12, 2020LA WEEKLY

Between record-breaking heat that Gov. Gavin Newsom attributes to climate change and lightning strikes sparking fires in the forest brush, more than 4 million acres of California land have burned in 2020, including the state’s very first “Gigafire.”

Los Angeles County is still battling the Bobcat Fire that has burned through 115,796 acres of the Angeles National Forest and destroyed 87 homes. The blaze is now at 92 percent containment, but not before a month-long battle that saw as many as 1,600 personnel joining the fight.

The Bobcat Fire started near Azusa on September 6, after 200 acres had already burned. Officials from the Unified Incident Command of the Angeles National Forest, Los Angeles County Fire Department, Monrovia Fire Department and the L.A. County Sheriffs said the fire moved quickly and by the end of that first day, it had burned through more than 1,800 acres.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke on the record-breaking fire season, saying, “The climate crisis isn’t some far off threat — it’s here at our doorstep. How we rise to confront it will determine our very survival.”

As the Bobcat Fire continued to push through terrain in the San Gabriel Valley, it remained at zero percent containment for five consecutive days. In that span, foothill communities in Duarte, Bradbury, Monrovia, Arcadia, Sierra Madre, Pasadena and Altadena were all given evacuation warnings, being asked to have evacuation plans in place with emergency supplies and personal belongings packed. Those evacuation orders were eventually lifted as crews were able to corral the fire before reaching the San Gabriel Valley homes.

Fears of the Santa Ana winds pushing the fire closer to communities never materialized, as the winds instead pushed the fire north, helping fire crews along the way.

By September 11, fire crews consisting of more than 500 personnel, using 50 engines, two aircrafts, five dozers and five water tenders brought the fire to 6 percent containment, a number that stood for four days and eventually went down to 3 percent as the fire “outpaced containment,” according to the Angeles National Forest.

Thick smoke from the Bobcat Fire billowed down throughout the county, forcing a smoke advisory that declared the air quality unhealthy and in some cities, hazardous. L.A. County residents were asked to avoid outdoor activities, especially for children, older adults and sensitive groups.

“It is difficult to tell where smoke, ash or soot from a fire will go, or how winds will affect the level of these particles in the air, so we ask everyone to remember that smoke and ash can be harmful to health, even for people who are healthy,” Muntu Davis, Health Officer for Los Angeles County said. “If you can see smoke, soot or ash, or you can smell smoke, pay attention to your immediate environment and take precautions to safeguard your health.”

The Bobcat Fire is part of a record-breaking 4 million acres that have burned throughout California this fire season. In comparison, 118,000 acres had burned in California by this same time in 2019.

“This is the largest fire season in terms of total acreage impacted we’ve had in some time,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “You put it in comparison terms … to last year, it’s rather extraordinary, the challenge that we’ve faced so far this season.”

While the source of the Bobcat Fire is still being investigated, Southern California Edison believes it could have been started by a malfunction in its utility equipment, according to the Associated Press.

Edison is working with federal investigators and has turned in the equipment in question.

Outside of L.A. County, Northern California is experiencing the largest fire in California history. As of this writing, the August Complex Fire has burned more than 1 million acres, becoming the first “Gigafire” in modern history. The fire has burned for nearly two months and was ignited by lightning strikes on August 16, according to CAL Fire.

“If that’s not proof point, testament, to climate change, then I don’t know what is,” Newsom said of the million-acre fire.

After California recorded its highest temperature of all time at 137 degrees in Death Valley this August, and Los Angeles County felt a record high temperature of 121 degrees on September 6 in Woodland Hills, Newsom reiterated his ongoing sentiment that climate change is “self-evident.”

President Donald Trump visited California on September 14 in order to assess the fire season himself. In a meeting to discuss the fires, Newsom looked to find “an area of commonality” with the president, as Trump said he believed the culprit was vegetation management, not climate change. California Secretary for Natural Resources, Wade Crowfoot, emphasized that the science of climate change cannot be ignored, to which Trump responded, “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.” Crowfoot then responded with, “I wish the science agreed with you,” to which Trump said, “I don’t think science knows, actually.”

Despite the differing opinions, Newsom continued that California needed more federal help, with 57 percent of California being federal forest land, to which President Trump said, “I’m all for it. That’s something I feel strongly about.”

“We really need that support,” Newsom said to Trump. “We need that emphasis of engagement and we are fully committed to working with you to advance that cause.”

Continuing his emphasis on climate change, on September 23, Newsom turned to the automobile industry, signing an order that would ban the sale of all gas cars by 2035, saying, “ Cars shouldn’t give our kids asthma, make wildfires worse, melt glaciers, or raise sea levels.”

Since then, Newsom has frequently noted the connection between gas cars, climate change, how it has affected California weather and in turn, the wildfires that burn through the state every year.

“Climate change isn’t something to address in the distant future,” Newsom said. “The climate crisis is here.”

Column: Make way for Slayer Pete. Buttigieg is the Biden campaign’s ruthless secret weapon

(Charlie Neibergall / AP)

By MARY MCNAMARACULTURE COLUMNIST AND CRITIC LA TIMES

OCT. 12, 2020

5:36 PM

Mayor Pete has found his format: the five-minute, remote-feed evisceration.

He always looks so nice, Pete Buttigieg — handsome in that white, Midwestern, college yearbook way, with a smile that seems bucktoothed but isn’t and those perfectly, and apparently naturally, arched eyebrows.

Last year, as we got to know him during the Democratic presidential nomination race, he bore the weight of being the first openly gay presidential candidate easily, as if it was no big deal. Sure, it takes a certain level of, shall we say, personal confidence to imagine that going from mayor of South Bend, Ind., to the White House is a possible career trajectory, but his was a quiet, respectful confidence, befitting a Rhodes scholar and a Naval intelligence officer.

So maybe it should not be surprising to discover that when Buttigieg swore to do whatever he could to ensure the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that “whatever” turned out to include “speak softly and carry a sling blade.”

Last week, having served as stand-in for Vice President Mike Pence during Harris’ debate prep, Buttigieg must have seemed a natural choice for a predebate interview. Fox News’ Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier certainly thought so, asking Harris’ former rival a preloaded question about her public policy differences with Biden. Standing in front of Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, Buttigieg gave his now viral-famous answer:

“Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates,” Buttigieg said. “And if people want to play that game, we could look into why an evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with the president caught with a porn star, or how he feels about the immigration policy that he called ‘unconstitutional’ before he decided to team up with Donald Trump.”

Cue stunned silence in the studio and the sound of a kajillion social media posts.

Steve Doocy must have missed the segment and the tweets because he had Buttigieg on “Fox and Friends” the next morning. When asked a question about President Trump refusing to participate in a virtual debate, Mayor Pete answered: “I don’t know why you’d want to be in a room with other people if you were contagious with a deadly disease, if you care about other people. But maybe the president of the United States doesn’t care about other people.”

Later in the interview, when Buttigieg brought up the president’s denigration of fallen American soldiers, Doocy, having learned nothing even from his very own interview, interrupted to insist the president had denied those reports. Buttigieg let him down easy with a classic “If you really believe the president now on this kind of stuff,” he said. “I’ve got a bridge to sell you.”

Then, during an MSNBC interview on Sunday, Buttigieg followed a touching response to National Coming Out Day with a calm, cool and collected shredding of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s just-made opening statement ahead of her confirmation hearings. “This is what nominees do. They write the most seemingly unobjectionable, dry stuff,” Buttigieg said. “But really what I see in there is a pathway to judicial activism cloaked in judicial humility.”

Then he launched into a soliloquy that evoked the award-winning play “What the Constitution Means to Me.”

“At the end of the day, rights in this country have been expanded because courts have understood what the true meaning of the letter of the law and the spirit of the constitution is,” he said. “That is not about time traveling yourself back to the 18th century and subjecting yourself to the same prejudices and limitations as the people who write these words. The Constitution is a living document because the English language is a living language. And you need to have some readiness to understand that in order to serve on the court in a way that will actually make life better.”

He went on to add that even the founding fathers — the guys that these “dead-hand originalists claim fidelity to” — understood the importance of changing with the times.

It’s tough to make a term like “dead-hand originalist” go viral, but Buttigieg pulled it off — and from the comfort of his irritatingly immaculate kitchen, no less.

Certainly, he’s come a long way since April, when Room Rater gave him a 4/10 for a “Morning Joe” interview conducted in front of a bookshelf with a highly regrettable haircut. “Pete on the dangers of cutting one’s own hair,” the arbiter of work-from-home backgrounds tweeted.

Now, with his quarantine buzz cut ‘n’ beard grown back and gone, respectively, Mayor Pete is scoring nothing but perfect 10s, at least on liberal social media, which just last night circulated his 2019 answer to questions about late-term abortions, often with grateful weeping emojis.

The Biden/Harris campaign, naturally, has expressed gratitude for Buttigieg’s high-visibility support (on top of everything else, he does a mean Mike Pence impersonation), and it would be wise for them to continue to do so. It is easier for candidate supporters to offer lacerating commentary than it is for the candidates themselves — that’s why every candidate has a coterie of surrogates. But it’s hard to think of one who has been quite as effective, particularly during a news cycle that threatens to be overrun by the president’s reaction — physical, political and psychological — to his COVID-19 diagnosis.

Never mind the Room Rater score; during the Democratic primary race, Buttigieg was often dinged for seeming dull, intellectual and, frankly, a bit nerdy. Even then, this was pretty hilarious, given the fact that he was not only the first openly gay presidential candidate but also the first openly gay presidential candidate who saw active service in the military.

Now it’s even more hilarious and, frankly, a bit startling because now we know better. Now we know that what lies behind that white shirt, dark tie and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” face is not a policy wonk but a rhetorical assassin. With a loving husband, a really nice kitchen and deadly aim.

So, as Lin-Manuel Miranda (of whom Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, are fans) asked in “Hamilton,” what do we think, “Treasury or State?”

Irish locals show their colors in Biden’s ancestral home

Published on October 12, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

 

Laurita Blewitt, a cousin of US presidential candidate Joe Biden

Thousands of miles east of the White House in Ireland, a pop-art portrait of US presidential candidate Joe Biden towers over his ancestral hometown of Ballina, County Mayo.

In the town on Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast, the Democrat’s distant relatives are thrilled to have one of their own bidding for America’s highest office.

“Obviously we’re 100 percent behind Joe Biden,” Laurita Blewitt, the former vice-president’s third cousin, told AFP.

“We’ve got that family connection and we’ve got that friendship and relationship with him,” the 37-year-old said.

Biden’s family roots run deep in Ireland, with a heritage described as “roughly five-eighths Irish” by genealogist Megan Smolenyak.

She has traced his lineage to east-coast County Louth and Ballina — a town of 10,000 people, which is dotted with brightly colored shopfronts and bisected by the River Moy.

In 1851, Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt joined the legions of Irish fleeing famine and poverty for a fresh start in New York.

‘Irish soul’

The mural was raised by a band of locals last month, and Ballina is twinned with Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden was born in 1942.

The 77-year-old politician has visited twice — first in 2016 when crowds turned out to see president Barack Obama’s deputy.

In 2017 he came back and turned the first sod for a new regional hospice — a cause near to his heart after his son Beau’s death from cancer two years earlier.

Biden wrote that when he dies, “northeast Pennsylvania will be written on my heart”.

“But Ireland will be written on my soul.”

He is mining a rich tradition of American statesmen touting Irish heritage.

In the 20th century, John F. Kennedy was most closely tied to the “Emerald Isle”, and had to overcome anti-Irish, anti-Catholic prejudice to win the White House.

But others including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have all claimed ancestral links to Ireland.

‘Soft power’ –

Ten percent of Americans claim Irish heritage — a 31-million-strong bloc vastly larger than the five-million population of Ireland itself.

Those links helped give Washington an intermediary role in resolving the 30-year “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, a sectarian conflict that killed 3,500 in Ireland and the British province itself, before it largely ended in 1998.

Lately, Britain’s Brexit withdrawal from the European Union has threatened the cohesion promised by Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement.

US politicians have stepped in, warning London that a post-Brexit UK-US trade pact could be at risk if the peace is undermined.

Their alarm has reportedly been stoked by energetic briefing by the Irish embassy in Washington.

“The connections between Ireland and the US are incredibly strong,” said Ballina local councillor Mark Duffy.

“It is that soft power,” he added. “Ireland does definitely punch above its weight on the international stage.”

Division –

Thinking of their ancestral homelands, Irish-Americans may evoke a lush green idyll of tight-knit communities.

But in the midst of a bitter US election campaign between Biden and President Donald Trump, America’s own divisions have spilt over into the Irish countryside.

Biden’s third cousin Joe Blewitt — a local plumber — decorated his van with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the campaign: “Joe Biden for the White House and Joe Blewitt for your house.”

He received hate messages and one harassing call from a private number where an American voice told him: “Trump is going to be president.”

“There is an awful lot of hatred,” the 41-year-old mused.

Laurita Blewitt travelled to Las Vegas to canvas for Biden during the Democratic primary process in February.

“Any time I visit the States now it’s not like that friendly, open, welcoming place that it used to be,” she said.

“Everyone’s a little bit more suspicious now.”

But she said after four years of a Trump presidency that has upended all political conventions, a Biden victory next month may provide “a little bit more normality”, both at home and abroad.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate in style here on the third of November,” she grinned.

Calls grow in US to make Indigenous Peoples’ Day a federal holiday

Published on October 12, 2020 By Common Dreams

Native American (Shutterstock)

The national chorus of those calling to make Indigenous Peoples’ Day an official federal holiday to replace Columbus Day once and for all continued to grow Monday as Native Americans and their allies called out for a permanent and annual recognition for what has been taken from native people and communities as well as a celebration of their countless contributions to the national fabric.

In a Monday op-ed at Common Dreams, activist and author Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project, argues that celebrating Christopher Columbus with a federal holiday each year is as much an affront to history as it is to Native Americans who lived here for thousand of years before the European explorer’s arrival in 1492.

The so-called “discovery” of the Americas by Columbus, writes Villanueva, “was no discovery at all. He was not the first person to step foot on this soil, nor was he even the first European. Rather, he was a man who sailed and stumbled upon an island that had been inhabited by millions of Indigenous peoples for centuries. His true legacy is not one of discovery, but rather one of conquest, exploitation, and genocide.”

In a tweet shared with the #IndigenousPeoplesDay hashtag, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) said that “dedicating this day to the strength and resilience of Indigenous peoples, we condemn those who have tried to erase us, and build strength through understanding.”

“Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a way to honor the people who lived and thrived on this continent before colonization,” said Haaland. “The celebration of this day is a long time coming. Activists, community organizers, and the Indigenous community worked hard lobbying lawmakers, hosting rallies, and showing our culture proudly wherever we go so that we could finally correct the record and recognize the real history of this country.”

Last week, Congresswoman Haaland and other members of the Native American Caucus—including Reps. Norma J. Torres (D-Calif.), Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), and Betty McCollum (D-Minn.)—introduced a bipartisan Congressional Resolution (pdf) calling to designate the second Monday of October as Indigenous People’s Day in place of the current federal holiday of Columbus Day.

“This Indigenous Peoples’ Day Resolution is an opportunity to honor the true nature of our founding and re-focus a federal holiday on the incredible cultural contributions of Native peoples that have been absent from our celebrations until now,” Rep. Torres said in a statement on Friday. “Indigenous peoples thrived in the Americas for thousands of years before Europeans arrived, and endured incredible hardships as a result of colonization. Federal holidays should celebrate our heritage and culture, but also honor the struggles that led to society as we know it. Native cultures provide an enduring tapestry of traditions and beliefs that enrich our union and our daily lives. I’m excited to join my colleagues in calling for a true celebration of these contributions through an annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

As Villanueva writes in his op-ed:

This past year, we’ve witnessed an awakening across the United States to this country’s dark, racist history. Calls for justice and reparations are growing louder and louder, but when it comes to reconciling the American myth with Indigenous truth, the U.S. still has a long way to go.

For centuries, the Euro-centric gatekeepers of history have erased our story and our humanity from textbooks and classrooms. Imagery in Hollywood films presenting Indigenous people as “savages,” and racist mascots in professional sports have normalized the mocking of our culture and sacred customs. Our communities face continued systemic racism—from disproportionate access to healthcare and quality education, to discrimination in jobs and wages, to violence by the police, and more. We continue to fight every day for our autonomy and for our right to the land that was stolen from us.

On this second Monday of October 2020, we can take an important step toward healing by abolishing Columbus Day, and instead, establishing a nationwide Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) backed her colleagues’ demand in a pair of tweets Monday, writing that Indigenous Peoples’ Day should act as “a reminder of the work we must do to begin repairing the harm and trauma our country continues to cause Native and Indigenous people.”

According to Villanueva, “To celebrate Columbus Day is to celebrate America’s violent, centuries-long history of colonialism and racism. It’s to celebrate a man who enslaved and slaughtered millions of Indigenous people and stole our land. The holiday is a monument to white supremacy, and it’s time we abolished it.”

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING

Caterpillar bets on self-driving machines impervious to pandemics


By Rajesh Kumar Singh  

© Reuters/CATERPILLAR Jason Ramshaw demonstrates the Cat Command remote control console at Caterpillar's Construction Industries EAME Sales Rally in Malaga

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Question: How can a company like Caterpillar try to counter a slump in sales of bulldozers and trucks during a pandemic that has made every human a potential disease vector?

Answer: Cut out human operators, perhaps?

Caterpillar's autonomous driving technology, which can be bolted on to existing machines, is helping the U.S. heavy equipment maker mitigate the heavy impact of the coronavirus crisis on sales of its traditional workhorses.

With both small and large customers looking to protect their operations from future disruptions, demand has surged for machines that don't require human operators on board.

Sales of Caterpillar's autonomous technology for mining operations have been growing at a double-digit percentage clip this year compared with 2019, according to previously unreported internal company data shared with Reuters.

By contrast, sales of its yellow bulldozers, mining trucks and other equipment have been falling for the past nine months, a trend that's also hit its main rivals including Japan's Komatsu Ltd <6301.T> and American player Deere & Co .

Fred Rio, worldwide product manager at Caterpillar's construction digital & technology division, told Reuters that a remote-control technology, which allows users to operate machines from several miles away, would be available for construction sites in January.

The company is also working with space agencies to use satellite technology to allow an operator sitting in the United States to remotely communicate with machines on job sites in, say, Africa or elsewhere in the world, he said.

Caterpillar's automation strategy was not born during the COVID-19 era, though. The company stepped up investments in such technologies as it emerged in 2017 from the longest downturn in its history, as part of a plan to increase recurring revenue from lucrative sales of services.

But it's early days, and such tech remains a niche part of Caterpillar's operations. Though it does not break out the revenue from technology sales, the rising demand is unlikely to make a major impact anytime soon on the group's revenue, which stood at about $54 billion last year.

It is also a costly endeavor with the company pumping billions into R&D as a whole. Yet it is not clear if demand for autonomous and remote tech will hold up in a post-pandemic world while, in the longer term, there is the risk that a technology-driven improvement in productivity could drive down sales of new equipment.

'IT HAS GOT CRAZIER'

Nonetheless, autonomous technology is helping Caterpillar win equipment deals from customers that were previously not buying a lot of its machines.Last year, Rio Tinto signed up the company to supply self-driving trucks, autonomous blast drills, loaders and other machines for the construction of the Koodaideri iron ore mine in Australia, which is expected to be operational next year.

Rio Tinto declined to comment on the equipment deal.

The mining industry has already adopted some technologies for self-driving trucks and remote operation of load-haul-dump machines. However the suspension in activities worldwide following government-mandated lockdowns at the peak of COVID-19, as well as recent outbreaks of infections at coal mines in Poland, have accelerated the deployment of those technologies.

Anthony Cook, general manager for autonomous haulage systems at Caterpillar's rival Komatsu, said a lot of customers had brought forward their spending plans following the pandemic in a bid to take drivers out of mining trucks.

He said the COVID-19 crisis had not hit the fortunes of his autonomous business: "If anything, it has got crazier."

CATERPILLAR'S IN SPACE

Caterpillar and Komatsu hold the lion's share of the global autonomous haulage system market worldwide.

But Illinois-based Caterpillar has a competitive advantage, according to some analysts, as its technology can be retrofitted onto competitors' equipment, making it a better fit for mixed fleets. Komatsu's technology currently only works with its own machines.

Komatsu's Cook said that while retrofitting offered a short-term solution, his company was developing technology to allow different brands of equipment to operate together "safely and efficiently", which he added would offer long-term benefits.

But Jim Hawkins, general manager at Caterpillar's resource industries division, said the ability to retrofit had helped drive up sales, because mining companies can buy the hardware and software to make machines operate autonomously without paying the much larger cost of overhauling their whole fleet.

That is a selling point at a time when miners are grappling with the virus-induced business uncertainty.

Caterpillar sells autonomous operation technology separately from its machines. While retrofitting existing fleets has been the biggest driver for growth until now, Hawkins says an increasing number of customers are now ordering autonomous-ready mining trucks.

The company charges mining customers a hardware fee, a software fee and recurring licensing fee. In all, the technology could cost from $50 million to hundreds of millions of dollars, depending upon the size of the fleet and the duration of the contract, Hawkins said.

All these applications are part of the company's endeavor to increases services revenue, which tends to be more resilient and profitable than equipment sales. It aims to increase services sales to $28 billion by 2026 from $18 billion in 2019.

Rob Wertheimer, machinery analyst at Melius Research, said the need for mining companies to replace an aging mining fleet and their growing demand for autonomous upgrades should help Caterpillar, with its tech giving it a "differential" advantage over rivals.

"Strategically, they are in a better place," he added.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Joe White and Pravin Char)

Trump’s promise to revive Wisconsin manufacturing with FoxConn deal has been an utter flop


Published on October 12, 2020 By Sarah Toce RAW STORY

US President Donald Trump speaks about the impeachment inquiry during a tour of the Flextronics computer manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas (AFP Photo/MANDEL NGAN)

President Donald J. Trump is touting a program that continuously fails as proof that he’s responsible for reviving the U.S. manufacturing industry.

In a letter to the Taiwan-based company’s Vice Chairman Jay Lee, Wisconsin’s economic development agency said Foxconn was a long way away from building the large TV screens it had proposed in 2017, when it promised to eventually create 13,000 jobs in the state.

The Apple Inc supplier’s plans for the Mount Pleasant factory are now unclear, the letter from The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) said

It was the second year in a row the company missed its targets.

“Once Foxconn is able to provide more accurate details of the proposed project, such as its size, scope, anticipated capital investment, and job creation, WEDC would be able to offer support for the project with tax incentives,” wrote Missy Hughes, WEDC’s secretary & chief executive officer.

“The planned $10 billion, 20-million-square-foot campus was hailed by the White House as the largest investment for a brand new location by a foreign-based company in U.S. history,” Reuters reported. “But for many the factory has become a symbol of failed promises in Midwestern states like Wisconsin that were key to Trump’s 2016 election and are now closely watched swing states in the Republican’s bid to be re-elected on Nov. 3.”

Wisconsin says Foxconn short of 2019 jobs pledge, misses out on tax credits

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Wisconsin factory hailed by President Donald Trump as proof he was reviving U.S. manufacturing did not create enough jobs in 2019 to earn its owner Foxconn Technology Group tax credits, the state said on Monday, the second year it has missed its targets.

© Reuters/DARREN HAUCK Shovel and FoxConn logo are seen before the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump for the Foxconn Technology Group groundbreaking ceremony in Mount Pleasant

In a letter to the Taiwan-based company's Vice Chairman Jay Lee, Wisconsin’s economic development agency said Foxconn was a long way away from building the large TV screens it had proposed in 2017, when it promised to eventually create 13,000 jobs in the state.

The Apple Inc supplier's plans for the Mount Pleasant factory are now unclear, the letter from The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) said.

The planned $10 billion, 20-million-square-foot campus was hailed by the White House as the largest investment for a brand new location by a foreign-based company in U.S. history.

But for many the factory has become a symbol of failed promises in Midwestern states like Wisconsin that were key to Trump’s 2016 election and are now closely watched swing states in the Republican's bid to be re-elected on Nov. 3.

Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who inherited a deal from his Republican predecessor to give Foxconn $4 billion in tax breaks and other incentives when he took office in 2019, has sought to renegotiate the state's contract with the firm.

Foxconn said in a statement it employed more than the minimum 520 full-time workers by the end of the year to get the credit.

“WEDC’s determination of ineligibility during ongoing discussion is a disappointment and a surprise that threatens good faith negotiations,” it said.

WEDC’s review found Foxconn had fewer full-time employees than the minimum, however. It also fell short of its employment goal in 2018.

"Once Foxconn is able to provide more accurate details of the proposed project, such as its size, scope, anticipated capital investment, and job creation, WEDC would be able to offer support for the project with tax incentives," wrote Missy Hughes, WEDC's secretary & chief executive officer.

(Reporting By Caroline Stauffer in Chicago; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

                                       IS IT HALLOWEEN YET? 

  

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