FEATURING BRETT WILKINS – US air strikes in Afghanistan have killed at least 30 civilians in Helmand province. The airstrikes are part of a US push to more aggressively attack Taliban forces on the ground that have made headway. According to the Guardian newspaper, “Afghanistan’s Nato-led force said Afghan government forces and US advisers came under fire from Taliban fighters in a compound in Garmsir district and called in an air strike. But the ground forces were not aware of any civilians in or near the compound.”

One survivor of the attack said that there were 16 children among the dead. Another said that there were still bodies buried under the rubble which may increase the death toll.

The US strikes come just days after a major suicide attack in the capitol, Kabul killed 5 British staffers with a private security firm and a separate bombing in Ghazni killed 3 US soldiers. The UN has estimated that there were more civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the first 9 months of this year than at anytime since 2009.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based freelance author and editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. His work focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights.

The US Senate, in a rare show of bi-partisanship, voted 63-37 in a procedural bill to end support to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war. Rather than be motivated by the horrific civilian casualties in Yemen, the vote was a rebuke to President Donald Trump for defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in the face of strong evidence that he had orchestrated the murder of a Washington Post journalist. The Senate’s procedural vote came hours after top Trump administration officials Mike Pompeo and James Mattis attempted to convince Senators that there was not enough evidence linking the crown prince to Jamal Khashoggi’s killing. There was indication that the White House had prevented CIA Director Gina Haspel from meeting with Senators to brief them on her agency’s report that Trump had denied. If Trump continues to dig in his heels, the Senate is likely to take its next vote the following week. Senators Bob Menendez and Republican Lindsey Graham spoke with reporters.  

On the matter of protecting the Special Counsel investigation from White House interference, the Senate was not so united. A bill introduced by Republican Senator Jeff Flake, and Democrats Chris Coons and Corey Booker, would have codified protections for Robert Mueller’s work but it was voted down. Sen. Coons said to media, “I think, frankly, at the end of the day, [Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell has gotten reassurances from the president that he won’t act against Mueller, but those assurances are undermined every single day when President Trump both tweets untrue criticisms of Robert Mueller and his investigation and does other things that are unexpected or unconventional or unjustified.”

Sen. Flake, who threatened to withhold his votes for Trump’s judicial nominees to lower courts then made good on his promise. Flake sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chuck Grassley who chairs that committee announced on Wednesday that he would be canceling all the remaining votes on Trump’s judicial nominees until next year when Flake retires.

Meanwhile in the latest from the Special Counsel’s investigation, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen appeared in court on Thursday morning and made a surprising guilty plea to a charge by the Special Counsel’s team. According to Associated Press he, “is pleading guilty to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia,” and, “admitted to making false statements in 2017 to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.” Earlier this year Mr. Cohen had pled guilty to charges that involved bank fraud and election interference.

The Daily Beast broke the story on Wednesday that Stormy Daniels is accusing her lawyer Michael Avenatti of launching a defamation lawsuit aimed at Trump against her wishes. She also accused Avenatti of starting a second crowdfunding campaign for her legal ...

FEATURING MUHAMMAD ZULQARNAIN ABBAS – The US Senate this week is considering a vote to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen. According to the Washington Post, “A bipartisan group of senators has proposed a spectrum of sanctions focused against the Saudi-led coalition and any other entity fomenting unrest in Yemen. Their bill would also curtail most weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia until the coalition pulls back from its Yemen campaign.”

Meanwhile, a number of prominent figures and former government officials have signed onto a letter urging Congress to end US support for the Yemen war, including noted political analyst and author Noam Chomsky, and former State Secretary Colin Powell.

The World Food Programme in September declared Yemen, “undeniably the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by far.” The impoverished Gulf Arab nation is on the brink of a horrific famine impacting 18 million of its 29 million strong population.

For more information about the organization in the United States visit http://irusa.org.

Muhammad Zulqarnain Abbas, Country Director of Islamic Relief Worldwide – Yemen Mission.

FEATURING ALEXA BENSON-VALAVANIS – This fall the state of California experienced the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. The “Camp Fire” killed a total of 88 people and over the two weeks that it burned, it destroyed more structures than the seven worst fires in state history combined. The retirement community of Paradise, located in Butte County, was destroyed in a matter of hours. One hundred and fifty eight people are still missing.

Survivors of the fire flocked to neighboring Chico where a tent encampment sprang up next to a Walmart as devastated Californians regrouped and hoped for the best about their loved ones and homes, while trying to avoid the horribly toxic fumes that enveloped a huge swath of the Bay area.

Now that the dust and ash has settled, what has happened to the survivors of the Camp Fire? And how are their needs being met?

Alexa Benson-Valavanis President and CEO North Valley Community Foundation.

Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith has won a Senate seat in Mississippi after the runoff election on Tuesday. She beat Democrat Mike Espy in spite of her campaign being dogged by accusations of racism. Espy would have become Mississippi’s first black Senator since the Reconstruction era, had he won. Hyde-Smith garnered 54% of the vote in a race that had made Republicans nervous and had prompted President Donald Trump to schedule two rallies in support of her. Her win now brings to 53 the total number of Senate seats that Republicans control – a larger number than before the midterms. On election-day, Mississippians who were concerned about Hyde-Smith’s racist tendencies and political allegiance to Trump, held protests.

An Associated Press investigation, together with a federal watchdog agency have uncovered that staff at the migrant children’s detention center in Tornillo, Texas, have not been vetted properly. The usually mandatory FBI background checks for mental health staff and caregivers working with children, were waived, putting the safety of the thousands of children at potential risk. The AP report about the waiving of FBI background checks came on the same day as a memo from the Health and Human Services inspector general. The memo says, “Tornillo is using checks conducted by a private contractor that has access to less comprehensive data, thereby heightening the risk that an individual with a criminal history could have direct access to children.”

AP additionally found that BCFS Health and Human Services – which is the non-profit organization running the facility – is severely understaffed. It is providing 1 mental health clinician per 100 children, instead of the required 1 per 12 kids. There are currently more than 2,300 children between the ages of 13 and 17 being housed at the government tent-shelter. Most hail from Central America. Joshua Rubin is one of several activists who traveled to Tornillo and spoke with Associated Press. 

Meanwhile Trump and Republican Party leaders met on Tuesday to discuss the President’s long-standing plan for a border wall and how to fund it. Trump wants $5 billion for the wall and has promised to shutdown the government over it. While a subcommittee has approved the large figure, the Senate is considering $1.6 billion. Trump retorted in an interview with the Washington Post, “We need Democrat votes to have a wall…Now, if we don’t get it, will I get it done another way? I might get it done another way. There are other potential ways that I can do it. You saw what we did with the military, with the barbed wire and the fencing, and various other things.” It appears as though Democrats are only too happy to give Trump at least some of what he wants. Think Progress balked at what appears to be Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer agreeing with Republicans on the $1.6 billion deal, and pointing out that Schumer, “has supported the GOP president’s agenda over a quarter of the time despite representing a state that Trump lost by over 22 points in 2016.”

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FEATURING LAURA CARLSEN – Mexico’s government has asked the US to launch “a full investigation” into the use of tear gas canisters over the weekend that Border Patrol agents lobbed over the fence into Mexico near the San Diego port of entry. On three different occasions, Trump defended the use of tear gas and blamed the refugees for their plight on Monday.

Images of women and barefoot children fleeing the teargas have generated outrage. The US is reported to be processing only about a hundred asylum applications a day, leaving the thousands of refugees stuck in Mexico where there have been clashes with Mexican federal police.

Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, based in Mexico City. She has been closely following the refugee caravan.

FEATURING DANIEL JUBELIRER – President Donald Trump has said that he does not believe the report released by his own government laying out the impacts of global warming. The National Climate Assessment is a product of over a dozen federal government agencies and is mandated by Congress every four years. The White House released this latest report on the Friday after Thanksgiving – likely an effort to bury its conclusions.

The report paints a dire picture of the scenarios we face in continuing to burn fossil fuels. But on Monday Trump said he didn’t believe his own government’s findings. Under Trump the US backed out of the Paris Climate Accord which was agreed to under Obama at the United Nations climate conference in 2015. This year’s UN meeting, COP24, is taking place in Katowice, Poland. Reports emerged earlier this month that the Trump administration was planning a side event at the meeting promoting fossil fuels, in particular coal which is among the dirtiest of fuels.

Daniel Jubelirer, Co-leader of the Sustainus youth delegation to COP24.

President Donald Trump said to reporters on Monday that he does not believe the report released by his own government laying out the impacts of global warming. The National Assessment, released late on the Friday after Thanksgiving, painted a dire picture of the scenarios we face in continuing to burn fossil fuels. But Trump was having none of it. He then claimed that the US was the only country committed to clean air. Under Trump the US is in fact one of the only countries that has backed out of the Paris climate Accord which was agreed to under Obama at the UN climate conference in 2015. This year’s UN meeting, COP24, will take place in Poland next week. Reports emerged earlier this month that the Trump administration was planning a side event promoting fossil fuels, in particular coal – among the dirtiest of fuels.

In news from the US border the Mexican government has asked the US to launch “a full investigation” into the use of tear gas canisters over the weekend that US Border Patrol agents lobbed over the fence into Mexico near the San Diego port of entry. Trump defended the use of tear gas during his trip to Mississippi where he had two rallies to boost a Republican senate candidate. He told reporters, “Nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally,” and added that the gas used was “very safe” and was a “very minor form” of tear gas. He also said at a roundtable, that some of the mothers with children affected by the gas were, “grabbers,” who traffic children across the border in order to appear more sympathetic. He gave no evidence for his ludicrous claim. He then blamed mothers for putting their children into harm’s way saying, “Why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming and it’s going to be formed and they were running up with a child?”

Mississippi voters are heading to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the very last special election of the Congressional midterms. The run-off between Trump-backed Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy has been roiled by accusations of racism and corruption. On Monday seven nooses were found hanging in trees outside the Mississippi Capitol. According to Associated Press, “The Mississippi Department of Public Safety says the nooses were accompanied by handwritten signs referring to Tuesday’s election as well as to lynchings — most of them in the state’s turbulent past, but also one recent case that remains under investigation, of a black man whose body was found hanging in central Mississippi.” It is not clear what the motivations of the perpetrator were but one of the accompanying signs read, “We need someone who respects the lives of lynch victims,” while the other read, “We’re hanging nooses to remind people that times haven’t changed.” 

And the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights has filed a lawsuit against Mississippi’s election officials and governor for sending out absentee ballots late. Officials apparently did not begin to send out ballots until November 17th which meant that many out-of-state voters did not receive their mail-in ballots until the Thanksgiving weekend, leaving them very little time to fill it out,

FEATURING BILL FLETCHER JR. – What happens when a long-time labor and racial justice activist and author writes a work of fiction? You get a page-turner woven through with powerful political analysis. That’s what Bill Fletcher Jr.’s debut novel, The Man Who Fell From the Sky offers.

In this murder mystery set in the 1970s, Fletcher weaves an intriguing tale of a Cape Verdean American journalist named David Gomes who attempts to unravel a case and thereby delves into his own family history and the racial complexities that exist within societies.

Actor and activist Danny Glover praised the novel saying, “Bill Fletcher pulls together history and mystery to create an exciting and compelling story of race and revenge. It is truly an unexpected page turner.”

For more information about the book visit www.billfletcherjr.com and follow Bill on Twitter @BillFletcherJr.

Bill Fletcher Jr., is a racial justice, labor & international activist. He is the former president of TransAfrica Forum, a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, and an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com. He is also the author of a number of books including They’re Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions & Solidarity Divided; Reimagining Labor Unions: Busting Myths, Building Movements; and Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice. His debut novel is The Man Who Fell From the Sky.

FEATURING CAROL BLACKMON – The very last Senate seat of the midterm elections will be decided on Tuesday in a special election in Mississippi. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the former state agriculture and commerce commissioner has held the seat since March after being appointed in the wake of Senator Thad Cochran’s retirement. She faces off against Democrat Mike Espy, former President Bill Clinton’s secretary of agriculture and a former six-year congressman from Mississippi.

Hyde-Smith, who is white, has come under fire for expressing her allegiance to a supporter by declaring she would attend a “public hanging” at his request. Mississippi has a sordid history of lynchings. Espy, who is black, has a fighting chance to flip a seat that has been Republican for many decades. Ahead of Tuesday’s special election photos have emerged of Hyde-Smith posing with confederate artifacts. President Donald Trump has scheduled two rallies in Mississippi to stump for her.

For more information visit www.blackvotersmatterfund.org.

Carol Blackmon, Mississippi Black Voters Matter Fund Coordinator.