A November 2020 article, published by *HoneySuckle Magazine*, promotes a particular “humane” animal farm, while sharing alternative perspectives by Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns and Alex Hershaft of Farm Animal Rights Movement:
“Even high standards for animal care do not meet the demands of many animal rights groups. For example, Dr. Karen Davis from United Poultry Concerns (UPC) preaches a vegan and cruelty-free lifestyle. When asked about safe farming practice, such as that of Seven Sons, she finds that ‘when you get into the details of animal farming, the word humane and ethics just don’t apply, not compared to how you would want your dog, or your cat, or yourself to be treated.'”
“‘I should caution you that we are abolitionists, in the sense that we are less concerned with how animals are treated on factory farms than that they are raised for food altogether. We oppose all oppression of all sentient beings, however gentle,’ was the warning I received by email before interviewing Alex Hershaft, co-founder and president of Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), a vegan blogger <https://theveganblog.org/> and holocaust survivor.”
Today, I was a guest on the Louie B. Free Show: Brainfood from the Heartland out of Ohio. Louie and I discussed the emotional life of turkeys and chickens and what turkeys suffer in being raised and slaughtered for food. We then turned our attention to all the wonderful animal-free “meat and dairy” products that are now readily available so that no animal needs to suffer and die for the dinner plate. Thank you, as always Louie, for a great interview! – Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns
Dr. Anthony Fauci has a word for his industry colleagues.
In a conversation with the American Medical Association, Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said physicians need to be careful about their public statements. “Stay completely apolitical,”he said over the weekend. “Don’t get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician…
Dutch health officials ordered the culling of 48,000 chickens after an outbreak of highly pathogenic bird flu was discovered on a farm in the northern province of Groningen.BIOSECURITYAVIAN INFLUENZADISEASESHEALTH & DISEASEbyThe Poultry Site11 November 2020, at 7:22am
Reutersreports that the measures are the latest taken in the Netherlands, a leading exporter of poultry and eggs, after the H5N8 disease was first found in wild fowl.
The latest cull comes shortly after animal health authorities ordered 200,000 chickens to be culled in the eastern town of Puiflijk earlier in November.
As masses of people poured into the streets to celebrate the end of Donald Trump’s fascist rule, the lame duck president’s lawyers were filing frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to nullify Joe Biden’s victory. But none of these suits, even if successful, would change the results of the election.
Shortly after CNN called the election for Biden, Trump said in a statement, “Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated.”
First of all, only prosecutors prosecute cases — in criminal court. Private litigants in civil cases are called plaintiffs. And second, anyone who has the money to hire a lawyer can bring a lawsuit about anything. Thousands of legal actions are filed every day, but very few are taken seriously by judges. It’s unclear whether Trump is even paying his hired guns; Rudy Giuliani once said he works for Trump without pay.
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For months, Trump has mounted a concerted strategy to preemptively discredit the election results, spewing unsupported allegations of voter fraud with mail-in ballots. Republicans and the Trump campaign have filed myriad lawsuits, even before the election, all seeking to erect obstacles to voting.
Mindful that many more people than usual would vote by mail to protect themselves from the coronavirus, Trump sowed the seeds of doubt about the validity of mail-in ballots. With no evidence whatsoever, he fabricated claims of massive voter fraud. With no regard for the health risks, Trump encouraged his minions to vote in person, insisting the election results must be known on Election Day. Trump’s supporters obliged and most voted at the polls. It was therefore no surprise that the overwhelming number of mail-in ballots were cast by Democrats.
Early Wednesday morning, as his putative lead began to evaporate, Trump tweeted, “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.” Trump had said in no uncertain terms that he wanted Amy Coney Barrett installed on the Supreme Court to decide the election in his favor. But although counting of mail-in ballots continued, no votes were cast after Tuesday.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. if you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” Trump falsely claimed Thursday night. But as retiring Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Michigan) tweeted, “a legally cast vote does not become ‘illegal’ simply because a candidate does not like the vote.”Judges have dismissed Trump’s lawsuits in Georgia and Michigan for lack of any evidence to support fraud allegations.
The same night, in a White House briefing, Trump said, again falsely, “We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually. And then our number started miraculously getting whittled away in secret.” The tabulations were not conducted in secret; they were witnessed by both Republican and Democratic poll watchers.
Moreover, on election night, the count appeared to favor Trump since most Democrats cast mail ballots, which take longer to count. Some states, including Pennsylvania, forbid the counting of any ballots until Election Day. A Democratic-sponsored bill in Pennsylvania would have allowed mail-in ballots to be opened and counted before Election Day in light of the anticipated surge due to the pandemic. But Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature defeated the bill. Since Trump’s strategy was to declare victory on election night, the GOP forces likely sought to prevent mail-in ballots from diluting Trump’s apparent early lead. Furthermore, election workers didn’t even open mail ballots until November 4, since several counties required all workers to conduct the election on November 3. This explains why it took longer to report the vote counts in Pennsylvania.
On Saturday morning, Trump erroneously asserted, “I won this election, by a lot.” At the time, Biden was leading in the electoral vote — 253 to 214 — and he had received 4,250,184 more popular votes than Trump.
The Pennsylvania Case
It was Pennsylvania that put Biden over the top in electoral votes. CNN and other news outlets called Biden the winner on Saturday morning. Trump falsely tweeted about “…Pennsylvania, which everyone thought was easily won on Election Night, only to see a massive lead disappear, without anyone being allowed to OBSERVE, for long intervals of time.”
Again falsely, Trump also tweeted, “Tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states.”Trump is mounting a full-court press to steal the election from Joe Biden.
There was nothing illegal about counting ballots that were postmarked by, but received after, Election Day. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled that ballots could be counted if received by Friday, November 6.
Trump’s challenge to mail-in ballots received in Pennsylvania between November 3 and 6 is the only case that the U.S. Supreme Court might review, and even that is unlikely, since those ballots would not alter the election results.
Twice before the election, Republican state legislators and the Republican Party of Philadelphia asked the high court to halt Pennsylvania’s three-day extension for receipt of mail-in ballots. Twice they were rebuffed. The first time, the Court deadlocked 4-to-4, leaving the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in place. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three remaining liberals — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — to uphold the state court’s decision. Right-wingers Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to block the ballots.
Although the Supreme Court refused to review the case for lack of time, Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas wrote a statement on October 28, suggesting the Court could still hear the case after the election. They described the plaintiffs’ request as a “last ditch attempt to prevent the election in Pennsylvania from being conducted under a cloud.” Barrett has not yet participated in this case.
On Saturday, Alito ordered Pennsylvania’s secretary of state to segregate, and separately count, mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day. The Pennsylvania attorney general affirmed that the state had already segregated them. But the number of ballots in contention is so small it would not affect the outcome of the election. The Court is thus not likely to review this case.
Trump’s spate of frivolous lawsuits will not reverse the results of the election. In spite of Trump’s pattern of lies about massive fraud from mail-in ballots, his cases don’t allege widespread fraud. Judges have dismissed Trump’s lawsuits in Georgia and Michigan for lack of any evidence to support fraud allegations. The cases Trump has won involve primarily technicalities involving small numbers of ballots. Trump’s cases include closer access of election observers, signature verification on mail ballots, nonresident voting and the mixing of a small number of ballots. Trump’s forces are seeking a recount in Wisconsin, which is unlikely to change the results in that state.
Trump probably thinks the Supreme Court, with his three appointees, will respond to his court challenges by handing him the presidency. That won’t happen. But his flurry of lawsuits is also designed to cast doubt on the integrity of the election. As Robert Reich noted, “Trump backers are trying to push Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint their own slates of Trump electors. That’s why the campaign has launched empty legal challenges to perfectly normal vote counts – trying to sow enough doubt to give the state legislatures political cover to appoint their own electors.”
In his desperation to maintain power, we can expect Trump to pull out all the stops in the next two-and-a-half months before Inauguration Day.
He plans large rallies to rile his gun-toting base. He has enlisted most Republican leaders, including Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, to collaborate with his attempted theft of the election.
Since the election, Attorney General William Barr told department officials that he didn’t see massive voter fraud or a systemic problem. But on Monday, under pressure from Trump, Barr authorized federal prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities.” He limited the investigations to what he described as “clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” Weeks before the election, the department had removed its prohibition on voter fraud investigations prior to an election.
In response to Barr’s directive, Richard Pilger, the Justice Department official directing voter fraud investigations, immediately stepped down from his job in protest.
Barr’s authorization will give McConnell and other GOP leaders ammunition to oppose Biden’s victory.
Trump is mounting a full-court press to steal the election from Joe Biden. The refusal to accept the election results by Trump and his congressional and Justice Department accomplices, coupled with his obstruction of the transition process, do not bode well for a peaceful transfer of power.
Game wardens say that on opening weekend, about 100 hunters convened where a large herd of elk was easily visible on a ranch enrolled in the Block Management Program. Hunters reportedly fired into the herd, killing roughly 50 elk. One elk remained unclaimed and two were confiscated from hunters who were cited. Those three elk were donated to a local food bank.
Officials believe some additional animals were wounded but not recovered.
During the incident, Chad Elliot and Jackie Hines of Garden City, Kansas, and James Zeigler of Ringling were cited for unlawful hunting from a public highway. Zeigler was also cited for…
The Trump administration has removed Michael Kuperberg from his role as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, an alarming move that may have grave consequences for future discussions and planning regarding climate change.
Kuperberg’s removal came on Friday. The agency he had overseen crafts a key report called the National Climate Assessment every four years, as required by law. The report encompasses the views and assessments of 13 federal agencies regarding how climate change will affect the United States. The next report, scheduled for a 2022 release had already been postponed before this latest development.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States.
Now the work begins: to make the handoff between governments, figure out who will fill key posts, and start making the to-do list.
It’s not clear yet who will control the Senate. That may end up becoming the biggest obstacle for Biden’s administration, particularly his ambitious agenda to deal with climate change.
His proposal calls for an aggressive shift to clean energy, carbon neutrality by the middle of the century, and massive federal investment to drive these changes. Contrast that with President Donald Trump, who put forth no plan to deal with climate change and actively undermined existing policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
But Biden’s most ambitious ideas — particularly using $1.7 trillion in government money — requires Congress to go along, and it’s not clear he’ll have a willing majority. Even a narrow Democratic majority could be thwarted by the filibuster.
Biden is also likely to undo most, if not all, of Trump’s environmental rollbacks with his executive powers. Trump has repealed or weakened 125 environmental regulations, like protections for endangered species and environmental risk assessments for infrastructure, and has opened protected wilderness for fossil fuel development and logging.
Some of the most notable rollbacks are of rules seeking to cut greenhouse gases, like the Clean Power Plan, energy efficiency standards, and fuel economy regulations for cars and trucks. Many of these rollbacks are also tied down in ongoing lawsuits across state and federal courts that may take months to resolve.
President Trump put forth no plan to deal with climate change and actively undermined existing policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Just untangling this mess alone may end up keeping Biden’s hands full. “It’s not just flipping the dial and going from Trump back to Obama,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who studies environmental policy. “It could actually take much of an entire term in office to reverse that reversal.”
And without drastic action soon, greenhouse gases will continue to increase in the atmosphere, the planet will continue to heat up, and disasters worsened by climate change will extract an increasingly dear toll from the US economy.
There’s a lot a president can do from the White House without Capitol Hill, however. The questions are how quickly the head of government can get these things done and how much of what gets done will last through another administration.
Biden has a strong list of executive actions to pursue on climate change
Even if Biden were to reverse Trump’s policies on climate change, that would only get the US back to where it was four years ago. At that point, US greenhouse gas emissions were flat and the country was not on track to meet its climate change goals under the Paris climate agreement.
To make up for lost time and to advance, the US needs more policies to limit greenhouse gases and facilitate the shift to clean energy.
However, as Vox’s David Roberts explained, it’s unlikely that Biden would be able to pass this agenda through Congress as part of a Green New Deal-type package. Congressional Republicans like Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell have already dropped hints that they plan to stymie Biden’s agenda when he takes the White House.
That means a more piecemeal approach may be needed.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will likely lead Senate Republicans in blocking President-elect Biden’s climate agenda.
“I think one big strategy that will be important for a Biden Administration without a Democratic Senate is to have a suite of climate policies rather than relying too heavily on any single policy — think of it as the ‘don’t place all your eggs in the same basket’ approach,” said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Los Angeles, in an email.
Some of these tactics could include stricter efficiency standards for appliances, more stringent fuel economy rules for vehicles, and appointing members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who factor climate change into energy policy, according to Carlson.
The Biden campaign seems to have realized this as well. One of the climate policy survey questions Vox posed to the Biden campaign was about how Biden plans to use the powers of the presidency to put points on the board.
Campaign press secretary Jamal Brown told us that Biden has come up with at least 10 executive actions to pursue off the bat:
Using the federal government procurement system — which spends $500 billion every year — to drive toward 100 percent clean energy and zero-emissions vehicles.
Ensuring that all US government installations, buildings, and facilities are more efficient and climate-ready, harnessing the purchasing power and supply chains to drive innovation.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation — the fastest growing source of US climate pollution — by preserving and implementing the existing Clean Air Act, and developing rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100 percent of new light- and medium-duty vehicles will be electrified and annual improvements are made for heavy-duty vehicles.
Doubling down on the liquid fuels of the future, which make agriculture a key part of the solution to climate change. Advanced biofuels, made with materials like switchgrass and algae, can create jobs and new solutions to reduce emissions in planes, oceangoing vessels, and more.
Saving consumers money and reducing emissions through new, aggressive appliance and building efficiency standards.
Committing that every federal infrastructure investment should reduce climate pollution, and require any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
Requiring public companies to disclose climate risks and the greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains.
Protecting biodiversity, slowing extinction rates and helping leverage natural climate solutions by conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.
Protecting America’s natural treasures by permanently protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attacks on federal lands and waters, establishing national parks and monuments that reflect America’s natural heritage, banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs, and establishing targeted programs to enhance reforestation and develop renewables on federal lands and waters, with the goal of doubling offshore wind by 2030.
These actions are only a slice of how Biden plans to address climate change, and there may be more. There are also more contentious executive actions Biden could potentially take, like revoking authorization for the Keystone XL pipeline or denying oil and liquefied natural gas export licenses.
However, executive actions alone won’t be enough to bring the US on track to have a carbon neutral economy by 2050. The private sector — power companies, manufacturers, businesses — will also have to act, which may require a combination of incentives, regulations, and advances in technology.
And while climate change is a high priority for Biden, he will also be facing the Covid-19 pandemic and will be shaping the government’s response to the virus that is currently killing more than 1,000 Americans every day. Balancing the two crises of Covid-19 and climate change will be a formidable task.
Biden’s domestic climate agenda could end up stalled in the courts, but he can push for more action around the world
The idea behind executive actions is to use authorities under existing laws rather than passing new ones.
However, while executive orders don’t need approval from Congress, they can still be challenged by courts. For example, the Supreme Court in 2016 stepped in to stay the implementation of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Trump later repealed the plan and replaced it with a much weaker regulation.
One area where Biden does have a lot of room to maneuver on climate change is foreign policy. Biden has already pledged to rejoin the Paris climate agreement as soon as he enters office. From there, Biden wants to use the US’s weight as an economic and diplomatic player to push other countries to do more on climate change.
“He will lead a major diplomatic effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets, including convening a climate world summit to directly engage the leaders of the major carbon-emitting nations of the world to persuade them to join the United States in making more ambitious national pledges, above and beyond the commitments they have already made,” Brown told Vox.
While the US is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and currently ranks second in emissions behind China, it only comprises 15 percent of humanity’s current emissions output. That means addressing climate change would require nudging other countries to curb their own emissions and shift to clean energy.
There are also other international agreements on issues that touch on climate, like the Montreal Protocol that places limits on hydrofluorocarbons, a class of potent, heat-trapping gases.
The US can also leverage its power as a major economy to sway the rules of trade, using agreements to hold trading partners accountable for their contributions to climate change.
But here, too, the Covid-19 pandemic looms large. International cooperation will be needed to limit the spread of the disease between countries, and a major international climate meeting has already been postponed due to the pandemic. Many countries are also facing their own economic crises and may push climate change concerns to the back burner.
The good news: Americans are more motivated to tackle climate change than ever
Biden has leaned heavily on his experience as vice president during his campaign, but it’s clear that 2021 will not be like 2009. While there will be an ongoing economic crisis and some demand for an economic stimulus, Congress may be an even bigger obstacle now than it was then.
On the other hand, when Biden is sworn in, he will be taking the reins of a country that is much more motivated to tackle climate change than his previous turn in government. Addressing climate change continues to rank as a high priority according to polls across the US. Since Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, a coalition of states, cities, and companies have stepped in to enact their own goals to limit greenhouse gases. They’ve also been in the trenches challenging Trump’s rollbacks and building a legal framework for state and local action on climate change.
“For four years, we’ve fought tooth and nail against the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle critical protections [for the environment] and reverse hard-fought progress,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement about the US withdrawing from the Paris accord last week.
Climate activists project flames and commentary on the side of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, on October 21.
Meanwhile, some of the big industry blocs that have resisted policies around climate change have begun to fracture. Earlier this year, five automakers — Volvo, Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen — reached a deal with the state of California to impose tougher emissions limits on themselves, defying the Trump administration’s efforts to relax those rules.
Some appliance manufacturers have pushed back against Trump’s efforts to relax efficiency standards for appliances like dishwashers. Major power utilities are also betting big on clean energy. For example, Arizona Public Service, the largest power utility in Arizona, committed to producing all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050, despite the fact that the state does not have a mandate to do so. Even major oil companies are starting to grapple with how they will cope in a world where carbon dioxide emissions must be constrained.
These divides could provide an opportunity for Biden to create coalitions that want action on climate change and from there, nudge the holdouts to do more. But such alliances are fragile and it will take finesse to keep such a group from falling apart. “I think Biden can assume that he would have some industry support to work with,” Rabe said. “This would require really careful political work to hold that supportive coalition together.”
The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved fossil from the extinct human species Paranthropus robustus suggests rapid evolution during a turbulent period of local climate change, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex. Credit: Jesse Martin and David Strait
Males of the extinct human species Paranthropus robustus were thought to be substantially larger than females—much like the size differences seen in modern-day primates such as gorillas, orangutans and baboons. But a new fossil discovery in South Africa instead suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex.https://9784545134c4db1a6ecc2077996b5cc4.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
An international research team including anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis reported their discovery from the fossil-rich Drimolen cave system northwest of Johannesburg in the journalNature Ecology…
UNION COUNTY, S.C. (WLOS) — Union County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a missing hunter in Union County at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7.
The hunter was reported missing near Red Bud Rd. in Union County.
The deputies, along with South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, began the search for the hunter Nov. 7 with K-9 units from both departments deployed, along with a helicopter from South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s (SLED) Aviation Unit.
Officers called the search at about 11:30 p.m. due to the terrain and nightfall, according to the UCSO.
The search continued at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, with K-9s, search and rescue and aviation.
At approximately 1 p.m. Sunday, Union County Fire & Rescue personnel located the body of the missing hunter, who has been identified by the Union…
Area MnDNR Conservation Officer Weekly Reports – Nov. 10, 2020Written By: Prepared by Joe Albert, Communications coordinator | Division of Enforcement | Nov 10th 2020 – 7am.
District 2 – Bemidji area
CO (Conservation Officer) Tom Hutchins (Crookston) reports completing Phase 3 of field training with COC (Conservation Officer Candidate) Corey Sura. Sura gave a presentation via ZOOM to the Principles of Wildlife Management class at Bemidji State University. The officers handled several complaints on area wildlife management areas, as well as a deer-carcass litter complaint. Some violations encountered over the firearms deer season opening weekend include hunting with the aid of bait, transporting loaded firearms in motor vehicles, and taking big game from the roadway.
CO Tim Gray (Bagley) responded to the usual deer-season opener complaints. He also found a young girl fishing with her dad from a public access dock in shorts and flip flops, which is a firearms deer…
KEY WORDS
© Getty Images Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the American Medical Association: ‘We know that dexamethasone clearly diminishes the death rate in people requiring mechanical ventilation and/or people who require high-flow oxygen.’
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