Wirecutter Union Wins, AOC Meets Chomsky, and Jacqueline Keeler on Native Issues

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Another week has passed, and the big news is still Covid-19—Omicron, to be specific. On Friday, the White House released a statement from its coronavirus response team. To call it abysmal would be an understatement. It’s clear that despite months of failure and repeated warnings from many epidemiologists, Joe Biden is determined to stay the course, relying exclusively on masks and vaccines to end the pandemic no matter how bad things get. In other words, encourage vaccinations while letting the virus rip through communities.

“We are intent on not letting Omicron disrupt work and school for the vaccinated. You’ve done the right thing, and we will get through this,” the administration declared. “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”

It is an unacceptable public health response for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Covid mutates through spread, so controlling the infection rate is essential. Then the statement acknowledges that official policy will allow hospitals to get overrun—presumably because they’re afraid of the political ramifications of non-pharmaceutical interventions like lockdowns.

Already, more than 400,000 Americans have died from the virus since Biden took office, meaning he has surpassed his predecessor’s death toll. The CDC, meanwhile, is projecting a wave of cases, hospitalization, and death that will rival last winter.

So, it seems as though we are in for darker times ahead. Keep masking, avoid crowds, work remotely if you can, and get vaccinated and boosted. But the news isn’t all bad, as you'll see with our picks for the week from our OptOut participating outlets!

Your Corporate Narrative Free-News Roundup From OptOut

Defector has a wonderful story about the Wirecutter union, which recently won pay increases and a host of other benefits in its contract negotiations with The New York Times management. The union previously went on strike from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday to counter the NYT's union busting efforts. We celebrate this victory!

The Wirecutter Union Won | Defector
Then Wirecutter Union went on strike for five days, and got big pay raises. The point here is not to bag on the Wirecutter Union’s willingness to negotiate before striking—the threshold for persuading workers to take such a step is understandably sky-high; its members are heroes, and I want to hug e…

Eoin Higgins at The Flashpoint has a great breakdown of Joe Biden’s refusal to do anything meaningful to tackle the student debt crisis and what it means for the Democrats’ future political prospects.

Political Suicide By Student Loan
The Biden administration is being very stupid, for no reason

Staying with the White House, The Real News Network exposes the Biden administration's cruel immigration policies.

Executive Producer Eddie Conway speaks with organizer Selinda Guerrero about an upcoming protest action at an ICE detention facility in New Mexico and about the need for people to hold Democratic and Republican administrations accountable for their inhumane immigration policies.

Sludge reports that not only is Sen. Joe Manchin a coal profiteer, but he is the father-in-law of an asset optimization manager at oil and gas pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners, which just happens to be the biggest corporate donor to his campaign this election cycle. Partially on account of environmental provisions that would reduce his family’s coal and possibly oil profits, Manchin has blocked the Democratic Party’s agenda, the Build Back Better plan.

Manchin’s Latest Donor Gift
The senator is opposing a Build Back Better Act provision to prohibit offshore oil drilling as his top donor prepares to dramatically increase its oil exporting business through a new offshore terminal for supertankers.

Our friends at The Daily Poster have an excellent scoop about how Amazon helped kill a worker protection bill that would have allowed employees to flee unsafe workplaces. The bill is particularly relevant following deadly tornadoes in the midwest that killed workers—including Amazon warehouse workers—who were told they would lose their jobs if they left the warehouse.

Worker Protection Bill Blocked Before Tornado Disaster
Lawmakers and corporate lobbyists stymied legislation to protect employees’ jobs when they flee an unsafe workplace.

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The American Prospect has a great story about how Punchbowl News wined and dined a bunch of influential D.C. lobbyists in an apparent violation of journalist ethics.

Does Punchbowl News Play by the Rules?
Where hosting a confab for lobbyists meets journalistic ethics

Jacobin published the transcript of an interview by Laura Flanders with important leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky and key leftist U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about the way forward for people, politics, and the planet. Definitely worth checking out!

AOC in Conversation With Noam Chomsky
At 93, Noam Chomsky is the most important leftist intellectual alive. At 32, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of our most important leftist elected officials. The two recently spoke about our prospects for winning a better world.

Listen and watch the interview from The Laura Flanders Show:

Africa Is A Country has a great read about the current discourse surrounding restitution of African cultural artifacts. The piece discusses a forthcoming book by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and how it builds on a previous work by journalist Barnaby Phillips.

Against a willing amnesia
Two books, by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and journalist Barnaby Phillips respectively, detail how we got to this point in the restitution of African heritage.

Counterpunch Radio interviews journalist and author Jacqueline Keeler, a 2022 OptOut app curator, about “a range of critical issues affecting Native people in the U.S. and Canada, including the ongoing struggle against pipelines and extractive industries, the impact of Covid on Native communities, the fight against native mascotry, and more."

Jacqueline Keeler
This time on CounterPunch Radio, author and journalist Jacqueline Keeler joins Eric to discuss a range of critical issues affecting Native people in the US and Canada, including the ongoing struggle against pipelines and extractive industries, the impact of COVID on Native communities, the fight aga…

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That's it for this week. Thanks as always for following the excellent journalism of OptOut's 115 independent news outlets. See you soon!