Kamala Harris Called Out Covid Lies and Guilty Men

The Democratic nominee for vice president won a critical debate against Vice President Mike Pence with facts, figures, and a demand for accountability.

By John Nichols
TODAY 12:37 AM


Mike Pence spent time preparing for the last vice presidential debate of his miserable political career and came up with what he thought was a strategy. The chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force set out to deflect attention from the Trump administration’s failure to respond to a pandemic that has cost more than 210,000 American lives by claiming that any reference to that failure should be seen as “a great disservice to the sacrifices the American people have made” over seven wrenching months of sickness, death, and economic devastation.

It was an old talk-radio trick trotted out by a cut-rate host from Indiana who parlayed his right-wing litmus-test results into a subservient vice presidency. Pence somehow imagined those tired tricks would work in a debate with a former prosecutor and state attorney general, with a senator who had mastered the politics of the largest state in the nation, with a woman who had mounted a serious presidential campaign in which her debate skills were her strongest suit.

Pence has miscalculated frequently in his long political career. He tried to make a name for himself as a “radio personality” when he suffered from personality-deficit disorder. He lost elections. He aligned himself with political charlatans, including one Donald John Trump. But he has rarely misjudged a circumstance so badly as he did Wednesday night, when he faced Senator Kamala Harris on the debate stage in Salt Lake City.

Joe Biden’s running mate shredded the vice president’s strategy by looking into the camera and speaking to the American people not as a Rush Limbaugh wannabe but as a leader who is prepared to level with a nation that is literally sick of the lies it has been told by Trump and Pence.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-pence-covid-debate/

Jimmy Kimmel @jimmykimmel : The ideal plexiglass barrier for tonight's debate

Texas officer charged with murder after shooting a 31-year-old Black man who tried to intervene

( Yea, there are only a few bad apples. )



Texas officer charged with murder after shooting a 31-year-old Black man who tried to intervene in a dispute, attorney says

By Joe Sutton, Jon Passantino, Raja Razek and Amir Vera, CNN

Updated 9:19 AM ET,
Tue October 6, 2020

(CNN)

A police officer in Texas was charged with murder after the fatal shooting of a 31-year-old Black man, authorities said.

Wolfe City officer Shaun Lucas responded to a call about a possible fight after 8 p.m. Saturday, just north of the city center, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

"Officer Lucas made contact with a man, later identified as 31-year-old Jonathan Price, who was reportedly involved in the disturbance. Officer Lucas attempted to detain Price, who resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away," a DPS statement said.

Lucas used his Taser and then fired his weapon, hitting Price, the statement said. Price later died at a hospital, according to the statement.

"The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not (objectively) reasonable," it said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/us/jonathan-price-police-shooting-texas/index.html

Ben Crump @AttorneyCrump: This racist woman HARASSED Philip Evans, an innocent Black man,

Ahmaud Arbery Case: Men Accused Of Killing Have Racist Past On Social Media

The state wants social media posts introduced as evidence.


Published 7 hours ago
Written by BET Staff

While the men accused of killing Ahamud Arbery are awaiting trial, their past is coming back to haunt them. The state of Georgia is asking for their racist history on social media to be introduced as evidence.

Gregory and Travis McMichael, the father and son who followed Arbery while jogging in Brunswick, Ga., have been charged with murder and aggravated assault. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a recent court filing claims that Travis McMichael posted a “racial highway video Facebook post,” “a Racial Johnny Rebel Facebook post” and sent a racial text message in 2019.

His father reportedly posted a “Identity Dixie Facebook post” and “Racial Johnny Rebel Facebook post.”

William Bryan, who followed them and recorded the incident, is charged with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment charges. He also faces possible hate crime charges and is currently under investigation for sex crimes. The state wants to “introduce unspecified racist messages extracted from Bryan’s cell phone. At a bond hearing in July, lead prosecutor Jesse Evans said Bryan repeatedly used the n-word in texts that contain ‘a ton of filth.’”


https://www.bet.com/news/national/2020/10/05/ahmaud-arbey-racist-social-media.html

Joe Biden @JoeBiden : Folks, if you live in:

The Supreme Court turned away Kim Davis' case, but Thomas (joined by Alito)

Fiona Whelan Prine : I wish I could just have visited with @JohnPrineMusic in the hospital

Amazon near tipping point of switching from rainforest to savannah - study

Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent

Mon 5 Oct 2020




Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned.

Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

New research shows that this tipping point could be much closer than previously thought. As much as 40% of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

Any shift from rainforest to savannah would still take decades to take full effect, but once under way the process is hard to reverse. Rainforests support a vastly greater range of species than savannah and play a much greater role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Parts of the Amazon are receiving much less rain than they used to because of the changing climate. Rainfall in about 40% of the forest is now at a level where the rainforest could be expected to exist as savannah instead, according to the study, led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on computer models and data analysis.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/05/amazon-near-tipping-point-of-switching-from-rainforest-to-savannah-study

Jeffrey Levin @jilevin: Do you know the difference between "social progress" and "socialism"?