Saturday Snippets: Natives buying back stolen land; raising govt’s ‘social cost of carbon’ metric

Saturday Snippets is a regular weekend feature of Daily Kos.

Some Native tribes are buying back ancestral lands snatched from them

It’s expensive and the process can take years, but many American Indian tribes have been buying back lands taken from them, often at gunpoint or through connivery, during the colonization period of U.S. history. Even after they buy it, there is a complicated 16-step process before they can gain the right to govern the newly acquired land under the unique form of semi-sovereignty established between the federal government and the tribes. The Klamath tribe, for instance, recently purchased 1,705 acres of wetlands, timberland, and meadows in southern Oregon, part of what was once a 1.8 million-acre territory the government left it with when the tribe was forced in 1864 to cede 23 million acres. By 1954, with the Klamath victims caught up in the government’s effort to wipe out Native identity by terminating the tribes, all of their land had been taken. The Klamath have since been trying to buy as much of that land as they can. 

Willa Powless, Klamath Tribes’ council member at large, said the purchase was a big step toward piecing together a “broken heart,” adding, “Our people are born with a spiritual connection to the land that we all feel and we all know and our elders teach us about.” Another council member at large, Clayton Dumont, said, “I hear elders say, ‘The land doesn’t belong to us, we belong to it.’ And I think that’s true,” “The more of it we get back, the more we can care for it, the healthier the land will be and the healthier we will be.” The Klamath aren’t alone. There has been an increase in such purchases in recent years despite all the difficulties in doing so. The Yuroks of California have purchased some 80,000 acres in the past 10 years. And the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin has bought back two-thirds of its original 65,432-acre reservation, much of which was lost through “deceit and trickery,” said Bobbi Webster, the tribe’s public relations director.

Biden administration expected to return “social cost” of carbon to Obama level

The law requires the federal government to weigh costs and benefits of proposed new regulations. Unless a dollar value is placed on such benefits—such as improved health and longer lives—the calculation doesn’t pass muster. Under the Trump regime, that was exactly what happened. The value it put on actions to address the climate crisis was just $1 a ton of carbon dioxide. Under President Obama, that figure was $52. Which is likely to be what President Biden’s team will settle on temporarily while it works out an entirely new metric. Economists and environmental advocates think the $52 figure is way too low. For instance, Michael Greenstone, a University of Chicago economist who served as chief economist for Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, co-authored a working paper in January that put the social cost of carbon at $125 per ton or more. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Lord Nicholas Stern published a paper Monday saying, “It is clear that climate change involves the management of risks of enormous magnitude and multiple dimensions, which could destroy lives and livelihoods across the world, displace billions, and lead to widespread, prolonged, and severe conflict.” Returning to the Obama-era social cost number would be mistaken, they said, because it wouldn’t be enough to support policies that keep the world from exceeding a 2-degree Celsius rise from pre-industrial temperatures. Anything above that scientists say would be catastrophic.

MIDDAY TWEET

NASA Scientists & Engineers successfully landed a rover & helicopter on planet Mars, where it’s 100 degrees below zero, 120 million miles away. On that same day it was cold in Texas. Millions of people lost electricity. Conclusion: Maybe NASA, not politicians, should run Texas. pic.twitter.com/YzioIXBiij

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) February 20, 2021

Enrollment at community colleges plummets during pandemic

Community colleges have traditionally provided a place for people unable to afford college or not interested in a four-year degree to acquire higher education, learn a trade, or, as an older person, gain new skills. Such colleges in many states have made attendance significantly more expensive than in the past, but they still give students access to opportunities they would not otherwise have had. Typically, during economic downturns, enrollment rises, as was the case during the Great Recession. But in our current crisis, that hasn’t been the case. Enrollment fell 10% from fall 2019 to fall 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Hard hit were older adult students. Taking classes while trying to stay afloat economically and keeping up with family obligations is no easy matter for many people in the best of times. But during the pandemic and the recession caused in the response to it, older students lost jobs or could not boost their own education while supervising their children’s online classes and dealing with all the mundane matters like grocery shopping that economic restrictions made more difficult. “The majority of them are working, many of them in industries that have been decimated by the pandemic,” said Martha Parham, a senior vice president for the American Association of Community Colleges. “Trying to navigate that and take classes is a very daunting challenge at this time.” 

Fauci says it’s “disturbing’ that most people being vaccinated against COVID-19 are white

In an interview on Joy Reid’s “The Reid Out,” America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci labeled the racial disparities in who is getting vaccinated against the coronavirus “very disturbing.” People of color are “getting a double whammy against them, not only do they have the propensity because of their jobs out in the community to get infected, they have the underlying conditions that make them more likely to get a serious outcome,” he said. Fauci took note of a sense of “understandable vaccine hesitancy” among minority communities, which he said should be addressed more pro-actively. “We’ve got to really extend ourselves in the community to get the access to minority populations that they don’t have,” he said, noting that President Biden has commanded authorities to set up vaccination centers in communties heavily populated by Black people, the Indigenous, and other people of color.

GOP politicians gave Texans the yoyo treatment in deep freeze—“you’re on your own” 

As sweeping power outages and sub-freezing temperatures stripped millions of Texans of fresh food or heat, causing an unknown number of deaths, Marco Lopez, an organizer with South Texas–based community organization La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), thought to call a woman he knew in the Linda Vista colonia, an unincorporated border community. As it turned out, she didn’t have light or water, and had been cooking on a makeshift stove she’d built outside. Her car had broken down, so she was stuck at home—and even if she could drive, the nearest Walmart was closed.

“I was like, holy crap, I need to give her some food, pobrecita,” Lopez said. The two went to eat and buy tortillas, a pack of which she gave to the mechanic fixing her car.

With many state and local politicians falling down on the job of disaster relief, mutual aid networks and organizations like LUPE have been helping cold and hungry Texans. [...]  Even when mutual aid efforts involve city or state government, organizers are skeptical of their government’s ability to act quickly.

IN CASE YOU’RE SHORT OF READING MATERIAL

Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Social Distancing FRIDAY!

Late Night Snark: Dems Rock, Repubs Suck Edition

Clip of President Biden at Wisconsin town hall: By the end of July we'll have 600-million doses, enough to vaccinate every American. As my mother would say, by the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors, we'll be in a very different place by Christmas than we are today.

Trevor Noah: Wow. Who would've seen this coming? After all that talk from Trump, it turns out Biden is the one who’s gonna have people saying 'Merry Christmas' again. The Daily Show

"Texas has been hit especially hard because of the cold, which puts the Republicans who run the state in a tough spot, because they did a lot of mocking of California when our power went out. So now the governor, Greg Abbott, has been working hard to push the blame to Democrats and the Green New Deal, which doesn’t even exist yet. And Tucker Carlson has been helping him out by blaming windmills. But the reason for the blackouts is frozen instruments at coal, natural gas, and nuclear facilities. Windmills are actually holding up disproportionately well by comparison. So don’t believe anything Con Quixote says." —Jimmy Kimmel

Continued…

See? I told you it was continued. But did you believe me? Nooooooo...

"[Trump's] impeachment highlights a fundamental tenet of our legal system. All Americans, regardless of status, are entitled to a speedy trial by a jury of your cowardly partisan sycophants and henchmen. —Jon Stewart on Twitter

"This has to be the dumbest trial I've ever seen. Here's how dumb it was: the jurors deciding the case were the ones who were attacked by the defendant. The trial took place at the scene of the crime. And then afterward one of the jurors [Mitch McConnell] who voted to acquit Trump ran out and said, 'Someone's gotta prosecute this guy! He did it! This man belongs in jail!' I feel bad for Pence—43 of his work friends were like, 'C'mon, Mike, they only tried to hang you, stop being such a drama queen." —Colin Jost, SNL

"During Trump's impeachment trial, House managers showed security footage of Capitol rioters violently attacking police. Here's a little black history for you: just because there's video evidence doesn’t mean you're going to get a conviction." —Michael Che

The first images sent back to Earth from the Mars Perseverance rover! pic.twitter.com/mjqJETjPye

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) February 19, 2021

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“Tucker Carlson said Joe and Jill Biden's marriage is ‘as real as climate change.’ Because it's been around since the Carter administration, and it's only getting hotter?” —Stephen Colbert

"Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70. The death of the staunchly-conservative defender of Republican family values was announced today by his fourth wife." —Me

And now, our feature presentation...

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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 19, 2021

Note: Tomorrow is National Handcuff Day. It’s a timely reminder that no member of the Trump family will ever find themselves in cuffs. Because only medieval stocks will do.

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By the Numbers:

Sunday Sunday SUNDAY!!!

Days 'til National Sticky Bun Day: 2

Joe Biden's approval rating in the latest NBC News poll: 62%

Percent of Americans polled by Gallup who say the COVID-19 situation is getting worse, down from 63%: 39%

Amount included in the Democratic Covid relief bill for FEMA: $50 billion

Increase in retail sales last month, led by vehicles and clothing and, obviously, Joe Biden's swearing-in: 5.3%

Year Ford plans to go all-electric in Europe: 2030

Rank of desserts/sweets, soda, and fast food/dining out, respectively, among the things people are giving up for Lent, according to a YouGov poll: #1, #2, #3

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Tis the season…

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CHEERS to making America functional again. The extremely popular Biden administration is making progress on so many fronts at once, the full list would delete my daily allotment of pixels. Tomorrow marks his first month in office, and we've gotten a taste of Joe's trademarks: quiet, teamwork-based competence punctuated by equal parts unvarnished realism over the challenges we face and optimism about our ability to overcome them. Recently Politico did a piece on 46's leadership style, and I must've sighed with relief a hundred times while reading it:

Biden fills his day with policy memos, virtual meetings with outside experts and, of course, visiting staff around the building. […] Each day, Biden holds an intelligence briefing, receives a coronavirus update and reads a daily briefing book, which includes schedules, policy memos and intelligence briefs about the next day, according to the White House official.

“He likes a concise and thorough briefing paper that clarifies what are the competing concerns, backgrounds, who are the stakeholders, what are the precedents, what are the consequences, and then discussing with core advisers and then debating it with outside experts,” [Sen. Chris] Coons said. “He learns at the intersections of reading and debating.” […]

Biden is also talking regularly with governors, mayors and local elected officials to seek “input about how things are going on the ground," according to a White House official. Last Wednesday, for example, he called Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican. … “He likes to talk to people," a former aide said. "He’s the classic definition of extrovert. He likes to feed off other people and likes to win over rooms and people with his thinking and logic and policies and proposals and so part of the way you do that is you give feedback and get feedback by talking to people.”

 [Sigh] Make that a hundred and one.

CHEERS to sticking the landing. It's not every day you get to shout, "Mars, bitches!" and mean it literally. Or, as Nicolle Wallace said on my teevee: "We are watching a triumph of the human quest for knowledge and understanding." Damn right. How cool to see NASA's scientists and engineers erupt in rational exuberance yesterday afternoon upon learning the Mars rover Perseverance touched down on the Red Planet safe and sound after its "7 minutes of terror." (An investigation is underway into how that horrifying clip of Mike Pence singing 99 Bottles of Non-Alcoholic Beer on the Wall in the shower got embedded on the rover's hard drive.)  I will never fail to turn into a blubbering mess when the control room erupts like this after hearing the magic words…..

Touchdown confirmed. The #CountdownToMars is complete, but the mission is just beginning. pic.twitter.com/UvOyXQhhN9

— NASA (@NASA) February 18, 2021

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The first photos have already come back. So far they reveal dust, rocks and, not surprisingly, a P.O. box serving as an offshore tax shelter for Jared and Ivanka.

"CHEERS!" to fixing the worst domestic mistake in American history. On February 20, 1933, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment, which would repeal the 18th (also known as "that no-good stinkin' prohibition"). Once it was adopted, the booze again flowed free and unfettered. C&J will be performing a historical reenactment of that moment in our living room around 9 tomorrow morning.  Same as we do the other 364 days of the year.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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miren esta obra de arte en la arena: ✨ el castillo de Hogwarts ✨ pic.twitter.com/f1HOj8PGh2

— Magia de Lectores ✨⚡️📚 (@MagiadeLectores) February 16, 2021

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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JEERS to really bad ideas from really good presidents.  On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the order that would lead to the "relocation" (read: forced detention) of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals living here.  How do we know it was a really, really bad decision?  Because nutcase Michelle Malkin thinks it was a really, really good decision.  Case closed.

JEERS to Rush Limbaugh. He died, and that's all I plan to say except to break this C&J exclusive: his accomplishments were so prolific that we’ve been told he's getting some very special treatment in the afterlife. Since he was such a well-rounded racist-bigot-misogynist-homophobe-xenophobe-hypocrite-glutton-hater, he'll spend eternity being rotated through all the circles of hell.

CHEERS to home vegetation. A quick rundown of what may show up on our TVs this weekend. Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow have the latest on “Greg Abbott's Katrina” and the pandemic. Or, if you're news'ed out, you can watch a pitch for "high heels that are sexy and comfortable" on Shark Tank (ABC) or catch a new Whose Line on The CW.

Meanwhile, on the Mutant Garden Channel...

The most popular home videos, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. (Topping my list: Disney’s superhero-squirrel flick Flora and Ulysses, which gets 71% Fresh rating. “And the Oscar goes to...”) The NHL schedule is here and the NBA schedule is here. Or there's the Los Angeles Open golf tourney (I refuse to call it by its current corporate-sponsored name, so sue me) on CBS.  Rege-Jean Page (whose pecs are the breakout stars of Netflix's Bridgerton) hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: the team assembles evidence of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's crimes against humanity (read: his own people), and a report on the rise in Trump cultists’ threats against U.S. judges. And John Oliver, whose piece on pandemics of the future was so great last week, breaks down another pressing issue into bite-chunks Sunday night at 11 on Last Week Tonight.

Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:

Meet the Press: Dr. Anthony Fauci; former member of Congress Will Hurd (The Cult-TX).

Big weekend for Doc Fauci.

This Week: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki; Rep. Steve Scalise (The Cult-LA).

Face the Nation: Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price; Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner; National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan; former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger.

CNN's State of the UnionRep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Dr. Anthony Fauci; Rep. Michael McCaul (The Cult-TX); Gov. Asa Hutchinson (The Cult-AR).  

Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Dr. Anthony Fauci on the pandemic and Bill Gates on climate change, which should outrage viewers since both topics are hoaxes in nutty Fox World.

 Happy viewing!

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Ten years ago in C&J: February 19, 2011

TWENTY HAIL MARYS to tracking your transgressions.  Did you hear about the new Catholic iPhone app?  It's designed to let you neatly and tidily keep track of all the times you've acted like a total rule-breaking jerkwad in front of God, so that when you go to confession you won't forget any of the sordid details of your sinful, sinful ways.  Oh, and this is nice: for every ten sins you commit, you get one free.  Oops, no, wait…sorry 'bout that.  I'm being told that only applies to priests.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to evening calisthenics. This happened eight years ago this weekend, as First Lady Michelle Obama was promoting her “Let’s Move” initiative to get We The People (especially kids) off our asses. This sketch with Jimmy Fallon—The Evolution of Mom Dancing—racked up over 27 million views. It’s too great to let it fall into the cracks of history, so enjoy this encore…

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Top that, Jill.

Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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McConnell Ally John Thune Claims Holding Republicans Responsible For Impeaching Trump Is ‘Cancel Culture’

Senator John Thune, who serves as the Senate GOP whip and is a deputy of Mitch McConnell, decried punishing Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump as a form of “cancel culture.”

Thune (R-SD), in an interview with the Associated Press, defended colleagues such as Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Ben Sasse (R-NE) who have been censured by county Republican parties for joining Democrats and voting to impeach or convict the former president.

“There was a strong case made,” he said referencing the presentation made by House impeachment managers, apparently unaware of charges they used doctored evidence.

“People could come to different conclusions,” added Thune. “If we’re going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can’t be doing that ourselves.”

Thune and McConnell both voted to acquit Trump.

RELATED: Sen. Ben Sasse Joins List Of Anti-Trump Republicans Censured By Their Own Party

John Thune Thinks Censure Is The Same As Cancel Culture

As The Political Insider’s Becky Noble reported earlier this week, “nearly every Republican Senator who voted to convict” Trump “has either been censured by their Republican voters or faces censure in the near future.”

Thune went on to express his preference for those candidates who opposed Trump.

“At the grassroots level, there’s a lot of people who want to see Trump-like candidates,” he said. “But I think we’re going to be looking for candidates that are electable.”

That’s an odd thing to say considering one recent poll shows a vast majority of Republican voters want to see Trump play a big role in the future of the party and another shows Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) more exemplifies the party than Cheney.

Speaking of Greene – Why did Thune support ‘cancel culture’ when it came to her?

In response to the House GOP choosing not to punish Greene for her controversial comments, Thune said, “I think we’ve got to be a party of ideas and policies and principles and get away from members dabbling in conspiracy theories.”

Doesn’t that seem to indicate he wanted Greene censured or stripped of her committee assignments – canceled – as Democrats eventually did?

RELATED: Democrats Just Introduced A Bill That Would Ban Trump From Being Buried At Arlington National Cemetery

Trump Hammers Mitch McConnell

Thune’s comments are the first made by a high-profile Republican after Trump ravaged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as “a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack.”

“The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Trump said in a statement.

Thune’s response is incredibly hypocritical, considering he indicated just last week that he was open to censuring Trump should the impeachment conviction fail.

“I know there are a couple of resolutions out there … I’ve seen a couple of resolutions at least that I think could attract some support,” he said.

It’s okay to cancel Trump but not Liz Cheney? What a rube.

Engaging in a civil war with the former President is not going to end well for establishment Republicans. They’re practically canceling themselves right before our eyes.

The post McConnell Ally John Thune Claims Holding Republicans Responsible For Impeaching Trump Is ‘Cancel Culture’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Don’t look now, but GOP already in disarray over Senate battleground races

With any luck, Donald Trump will apply the very same kiss of death he did in the Georgia Senate runoffs to at least a half dozen 2022 races that stand to decide the fate of the Senate.

In fact, we are already seeing Trump's toxic sludge begin to seep into those races in critical states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, swing states with open seats that are potentially fertile ground for Democratic pick ups.

In Pennsylvania, the vote of retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey to convict Trump has already pitted county parties against Republican moderates like former Rep. Ryan Costello, who is eyeing a bid to replace Toomey. In saner times for the GOP, Costello might be the type of statewide candidate with crossover appeal that the Mitch McConnell wing of the party would champion. 

But Costello has made the fatal error of defending Toomey's vote against Trump. "Former Trump aides, in turn, are making plans to torpedo Costello before he announces a campaign," writes Politico.

Cue Trump-pardoned grifter Steve Bannon. "Any candidate who wants to win in Pennsylvania in 2022 must be full Trump MAGA," Bannon, a former member of the most corrupt White House cabal in American history, told Politico. Bannon also called Costello a "sellout to the globalists" in a separate statement.

Costello had the temerity to claim the rush to censure to Toomey will "hurt Republican candidates," and he even called a censure resolution drafted by his home county, Chester County Republicans, "staggeringly dumb."

The statement of one GOP county official that went viral really summed up the Trump loyalty test and why the inanity of his cultists is anathema to any reasonable voter. “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing, whatever he said he was doing,” Washington County Republican chair Dave Ball told Pittsburgh television station KDKA Monday. “We sent him there to represent us, and we feel very strongly that he did not represent us.” 

Of course, Toomey represents nearly 13 million constituents and a majority of Keystone State voters rejected Trump at the ballot box last November.

As Trump advisers promise to take aim at Costello, the former congressman dismissed the effort. “They can say whatever they’d like, it won’t bother me,” he said. “It might help my fundraising, to be honest with you.” Costello has also dissed "Sloppy Steve" Bannon's broadside because "he's forever indebted for his pardon."

So Pennsylvania is off to a rousing start, but North Carolina isn't any less intriguing. Similar to Toomey, the state's retiring GOP senator, Richard Burr, voted to convict Trump. But Burr is vacating his seat under the cloud of a trading scandal in which he dumped a bunch of stock just before the pandemic tanked the market. While Trump lost Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes, he narrowly won North Carolina by roughly 74,000 votes.

But Burr's conviction vote forced state Republicans to choose sides with nearly all of them lining up behind Trump. According to CNN, the state party censured Burr, he was banned from at least one county GOP headquarters, and every Republican eyeing his seat took Trump's side. So much for moderation—whoever wins that primary will almost surely be the most Trumpy of the bunch. And certainly the prospect of Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump potentially entering the race is already pushing the GOP primary to extremes.

The problem isn't lost on GOP strategists in the state, who fear Trump's brand took a big hit in the aftermath of Capitol insurrection. But they also aren't speaking openly about it. "They're all making a play for the primary," one state Republican strategist told CNN anonymously. "But my worry is that we're going to lose the seat because we get the Trumpiest guy of the bunch."

On the flip side of the equation, Trump's influence already has Republican strategists fretting he could doom their chances in potential pick-up races. In particular, they fear Trump's tinfoil hat loyalists such as Arizona GOP party chair Kelli Ward and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene could kill whatever chances they have to defeat Democratic incumbent Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.  

These races and more are likely to offer a bevy of Trump-inspired surprises for Republicans throughout the 2022 cycle. 

Gillibrand confirms Cuomo nursing home probe, but doesn’t back impeachment or resignation

Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand said she believes Gov. Andrew Cuomo-- who is under heavy scrutiny due to an expanding nursing home scandal in New York-- should not resign or be impeached, despite an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department.