Nordic Nations Set Pace in Electric Planes After Green-Cars Push

Stephan:  Over the past 40 years Republican administrations have trashed the nation, and Democratic administrations have tried to get it back on track. Carter after Ford/Nixon, Clinton after Reagan/Bush, Obama after Bush, and now it will be Biden after the disaster of Trump. And this has been the worst of all.  While the United States is going through the dark night of our national soul, in the rest of the world all sorts of innovative and interesting things are going on, and countries that have made fostering wellbeing their priority are creating societies far better prepared for the coming world.  Here's another example of what I mean.
Nordic airports

The Nordic region’s pace-setting push into green transport is set to extend from cars to the air-travel market.

Iceland this month signaled plans to move toward carbon-free domestic flights by the end of the decade, while Sweden’s Heart Aerospace aims to deliver an electric plane specifically designed to ply routes linking remote Scandinavian settlements within six years.

Coordinating the region’s initiatives is the Nordic Network for Electric Aviation, founded last year and tying together airport authorities and five airlines including Finnair Oyj, Icelandair Group and SAS AB, alongside Heart and other technology innovators. The emphasis on cleaner flights follows Norway’s strides toward banishing the combustion engine, with more than half the cars sold there now electric.

“We have an opportunity here to show the world what’s possible, and also to give the industries in our countries the opportunity to be front-runners and build this market,” said Maria Fiskerud, the NEA’s project manager and former adviser to the Swedish government on aviation biofuels.

The group has received 12 million kronor ($1.4 million) in combined funding from its members and the governments of Sweden, Denmark, […]

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Proud Boys plan to ‘wreak havoc’ at Biden’s inauguration — while dressed in disguise: report

Stephan:  The Proud Boy thugs are planning to do what they can to disrupt the Biden-Harris inauguration. One again this shows that the biggest domestic terrorist issue in the United States, are White supremacist male dominance Trumper bullies. What I want to know is how they operate with such seeming impunity?
Proud Boy Trumper thugs

President Donald Trump notoriously told members of the far-right organization Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” before the 2020 presidential election. Since Trump lost, the Proud Boys have no longer been standing by.

Over the weekend in DC, there were multiple instances of violence and the Proud Boys were accused of burning Black Lives Matter banners at Black Churches.

According to a new report by The Sun, the group is planning false flag operations to impersonate supporters of President-elect Joe Biden while causing chaos at his inauguration.Take advantage of our limited time offer. Go ad-free for just $2 a week. Support independent journalism.

“Members of the Proud Boys are reportedly plotting to disguise themselves as Joe Biden fans to wreak havoc during the presidential inauguration,” The Sun reported. “The Trojan Horse-style plot was revealed on InfoWars alum Joe Biggs’ YouTube channel — on which the right-wing militants were ordered to ‘kick off this presidency with f*cking fireworks.’”

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio explained the plot during a November 20th episode of […]

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Trump admin to cut $200 million in health care funding to punish California for 2014 abortion rule

Stephan:  If you voted for Trump you voted to increase the probability that you will die, that you may not be able to get the healthcare you need or choose, and that women do not get to control their own bodies. This is a classic example of Trump petty vindictiveness.
Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump Credit: Salon/Getty

The Trump administration announced plans to cut at least $200 million in health care funding to California — after President Trump leaves office — in protest over a 2014 state regulation requiring insurers to cover abortions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has proclaimed his agency is the “Department of Life,” announced the move against California during a White House event on Wednesday celebrating the administration’s “work to fight abortion.”

“Unless California amends its policies we will seek to withhold an additional $200 million every quarter until it complies,” he threatened.

Roger Severino, the anti-abortion activist who heads the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, declared ahead of January’s anti-abortion March for Life that the state regulation requiring employers and private insurance companies to cover abortion costs violates the Weldon Amendment, which protects medical providers from being forced to cover the procedure — even though the Obama administration already determined that California’s rule does not violate federal law.

On Wednesday, Severino explained that HHS will respond by withholding $200 million in federal […]

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‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal

Stephan:  With 4% of the world population and 19% of the world's deaths from Covid-19, with over 3,000 deaths each day, one every 20 seconds, many perhaps most of these deaths resulting from the grotesque mismanagement by Trump and his gang how can this be anything but mass murder. Forget about all other Trumpian criminality, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and all the people who aided them, are mass murderers guilty of crimes against humanity. How we, as a country, chose to deal with that will tell us a lot about the consciousness of America, and who we are as people.
President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. | AP /Alex Brandon

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.

“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.

“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural […]

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