HUMORLESS QUEERS

Wall Street has started traded water futures. What are water futures? And what might it mean for the future of this most basic human right? Then, Kade explains what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is, which Trump has threatened to veto the military funding bill if it doesn’t contain reforms to Section 230. Kade explains why Section 230 is a foundational law for the internet itself, and why Congress has called Trump’s bluff on Section 230.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

* Bloomberg: California Water Futures Begin Trading Amid Fear of Scarcity

* Water: Futures market invites speculators, challenges basic human rights – UN expert

* California’s Water Market

* EFF: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

* Background on the National Federal Eviction Moratorium (from the National Low Income Housing Coalition)

Election week is finally here, and if you’re like us, you’re probably freaking out. We have all already been stressed, experiencing a sort of collective trauma as the nation has lost 220,000 people and counting to the pandemic. This episode, Alexis talks to social worker and researcher Leah Goldstein (her sister) about what the pandemic has done both those she works with in clinical practice, but also to all of us broadly.

This episode is full of tips for how to cope in a healthy way with our stress and anxiety — be it community, being kind to ourselves, pausing and breathing, checking the facts, or, giving our inner negative voice a name (like “Denise”), and telling them to shut up.

We explain how oil prices went negative. Along the way, we explain what a commodity is, how futures work, and why Russia may have started a price war in order to bankrupt U.S. oil producers.

The specifics of how futures for light sweet crude oil work led to the dramatic price collapse, as those holding the futures contract for physical delivery of crude oil in May became increasingly desperate to sell it.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

A Big Oil Bailout Would Be the Opposite of the Green New Deal We Need – Alexis for Truthout

“The ongoing economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic has caused oil demand to plunge worldwide. On March 6, Russia withdrew from its pact with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and began producing more oil, driving the price of oil down even further. Russia may have been motivated, at least in part, by a desire to hurt U.S. shale oil producers. And while some, like Mexico, took steps to protect themselves against just such a price collapse, U.S. oil producers were loaded up with debt and totally vulnerable to a sudden drop in oil prices. By April 1, Whiting Petroleum Corp. became the first major U.S. fracking company to file for bankruptcy since the pandemic began, with many analysts predicting more bankruptcies to come.

…Energy companies make up a whopping 13 percent of the lowest-rated, riskiest kind of corporate debt. And for 10 out of the last 11 years, energy companies accounted for the majority of the junk bond debt. Why should the Fed reward a decade of bad bets by oil companies?

Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastic Industries (April 2020) – the Center for International Environmental Law

The Big Oil Money Pit – Friends of the Earth

Russia Takes Aim at U.S. Shale Oil Producers – WSJ

What are junk bonds

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We discuss the McConnell 3.0 corporate bailout bonanza bill that failed in the Senate thanks to Democratic opposition. We talk about what happens next on the COVID19 response in the House. And we look at the way support for Cancelling Student Debt as an economic stimulus has been quickly gaining steam.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Maxine Waters: Proposed Legislative Responses to COVID-19

There are 16 Senate Dems on the record in favor of cancelling student debt as a part of any stimulus, INCLUDING Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The list is:

* Warren, Brown, Durbin, Sanders, Duckworth, Reed, Blumenthal, Gillibrand, Van Hollen, Merkley, Baldwin, Harris, Markey, Booker, Shaheen, Menendez. (These are the folks who signed a Warren/Brown letter)

There are 30 House Dems on the record in favor, INCLUDING House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters:

* Chair Waters including cancelling a minimum of $10,000 in federal student loans are a part of her proposal

* A Rep Ayanna Pressley/Ilhan Omar letter supporting cancelling student debt in the stimulus got 27 signers (29 total).

You can send your lawmakers (House and Senate) an email using Student Debt Crisis’ petition: https://studentdebtcrisis.org/cancel-student-debt-stimulate-economy/

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The markets are crashing. The Federal Reserve is giving loans to big banks and big companies–what about small and medium business? Why cancelling student debt would boost the economy. Surveillance proposals in the coronavirus pandemic, including facial surveillance ripe for abuse. Righteous anger from Senator Sherrod Brown. And good stimulus proposals from Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters.

(apologies for a bit of static in the recording at a few points!)

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

List of mutual aid efforts across the nation

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s stimulus plan

Rep. Maxine Waters stimulus plan

Mitch McConnell’s Senate page

This is deeply concerning. Why would FDIC do this now, in the midst of a crisis? Hoping others won't notice? Greater access to the safety net for 2 companies that are going to have cash flow problems? I warned about the dangers of ILCs in August.https://t.co/7EbXN1GNZO https://t.co/XsVTjbFRRR

— graham steele (@steelewheelz) March 18, 2020

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We discuss former Mayor Pete’s horrific record in South Bend, how he’s decided to stop reading LGBTQIA media entirely because it criticized him, and what it means for someone to know they’re queer, but stay in the closet in order to pursue political power. Kade asks, poignantly, “someone who will sacrifice something that is that intimate to their personhood in pursuit of their political ambitions will sacrifice anyone.” And we discuss the meme LGBTQ: Let’s Get Buttigieg to Quit.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

QueersAgainstPete:

* Open Letter

* Chicago Pete fundraiser action (Jan)

* San Francisco Pete fundraiser action (Feb)

Queers Not Here for Mayor Pete:

* Petition

* Think you’re supporting the LGBTQ community by supporting Mayor Pete? You’re not.

* A close look at Pete on racial justice & criminal punishment

News Reports on Pete:

– The Intercept: “white officers discussed at length a plan to persuade Buttigieg to fire Boykins, using two Buttigieg donors as go-betweens. ‘It is going to be a fun time when all white people are in charge,’ one officer is quoted saying”

– Salon: Pete said “if you had shown me exactly what it was inside me that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife. If you had offered me a pill to make me straight, I would’ve swallowed it before you had time to give me a sip of water,”

Image by Eli Erlick

The ACLU of Mass found that a company called “Suspect Technologies” tried to convince police to hand over a database of driver license photos. Kade’s tireless work fighting for privacy is validated by a cop who warns the surveillance capitalist that they’ll be “run out of town by privacy zealots!” We also discuss Elizabeth Warren’s transformational student debt cancellation plan. And Kade makes a strong case for impeachment

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Patreon, or below.

Discuss the episode over at our reddit subthread, r/HumorlessQueers. 

Support the show on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

* #FreeBlackMamas: https://nationalbailout.org* The Yellowhammer Fund provides funding for anyone seeking care at one of Alabama’s three abortion clinics and will help with other barriers to access* Magnolia Fund: DO YOU NEED HELP PAYING FOR AN ABORTION IN GEORGIA? WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU.* ‘They Would Go Absolutely Nuts’: How a Mark Cuban-Backed Facial Recognition Firm Tried to Work With Cops* Alexis’ piece at Truthout, Warren’s Plan to Abolish Student Debt Came from Grassroots Pressure * The Mapping Student Debt project* Elizabeth Warren’s tool to see how much student debt you’d have cancelled.

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

We speak with David Oks, campaign manager for Mike Gravel. Mike Gravel is a former Senator from Alaska who’s running what is arguably the farthest left campaign of the 2020 Democratic primary. And we discuss Abolish ICE, housing, education, prison abolition, war, shifting the overton window, reparations, direct democracy, a tribunal for climate crimes, a new government agency (the “Corporate Harm Prosecution Agency”) to measure and account for negative externalities, and more.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, or below.

Discuss the episode over at our reddit subthread, r/HumorlessQueers.

Support the show on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Mike Gravel’s extensive issues platform (or the google docs version here).

We discuss the latest on big tech companies spying on our faces, from a NYT experiment with a feed in Bryant park, to some scary face surveillance of a Muslim population in China. We also hit on state-level efforts to fight this “plutonium of AI.” We also break down Trump’s incitement against Rep. Ilhan Omar and the pathetic response from Democratic leadership. Listen at iTunes, Patreon, or below.

Support the show on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

TAKE ACTION – BILLS FIGHTING FACE SURVEILLANCE:

* Massachusetts is still set to consider a Face Surveillance moratorium. * Live in San Francisco? Please support the “Stop Secret Surveillance” ordinance! * Find your member on the Board of Supervisors here. Then give them a call and urge them to vote to Stop Secret Surveillance: https://sfbos.org/roster-members* If you don’t know your district, you can look it up here: https://sfelections.org/tools/districts_lookup/* Supervisor @AaronPeskin intro’d it, and right now, and @hillaryronen & @MattHaneySF are co-sponsors. Tweet at them to say THANKS!* Tell your friends & family to support the ordinance as well, by signing this ACLU petition.* Learn even more about the ordinance at this Engadget piece by Andrew Tarantola.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

* 78 machine learning researchers have signed an open letter calling on Amazon to stop selling facial surveillance to police, and defending research from Joy Buolamwini at MIT finding racial and gender bias in Amazon’s face detection software* NYT also published a story about the Chinese government’s use of FS to track and control Uighurs* Face surveillance is as dangerous as nuclear plutonium* Who defended Rep. Omar from the Trump incitement? Bernie, Warren, Castro; full list here.19 of the 282 Democrats/independents in Congress (~6.5%) defended Ilhan Omar on here within six hours of Trump’s tweet (link)*

Past episodes on the Tsarnaev Trial:

* E23: Includes review of the book Maximum Harm by Michelle McPhee about Tsarnaev* E6: https://www.humorlessqueers.com/2015/06/03/the-tsarnaev-trial-big-bank-felonies-the-patriot-act-e06/

* E3: https://www.humorlessqueers.com/2015/01/15/problems-with-the-tsarnaev-trial-wall-street-2015/

We speak to Vanessa A. Bee, writer and editor at Current Affairs, about Joe Biden, bodily autonomy, consent, power, Biden’s defenders, floating Stacey Abrams’ name without asking, being a hugger, how easy it is to ask first and change your own behavior.

Listen at iTunes, Patreon, or below.

Support the show on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

How to Not Talk About Uncomfortable Shoulder Rubs – Vanessa A. Bee, Current Affairs

What Lucy Flores Can Teach Us About How We Value Women’s Feelings – Nelini Stamp, Glamour

Meet the Candidates! (Part 1) – Current Affairs Podcast

Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash