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Former President Barack Obama delivered a moving speech during day nine of COP26 that took his successor to task and urged collaboration between individuals and nations in order to continue fighting climate change for the long haul regardless of political affiliation or motivation. While many outlets chose to focus on Obama’s soundbite-worthy call for young folks to “stay angry” and let that frustration motivate them, his speech on Monday was less about righteous fury and more about the urgent action this crisis requires.

Obama acknowledged some of his and his party’s own shortcomings while also noting how the Biden administration is stymied by similar problems. “I am convinced that President Biden’s Build Back Better bill will be historic and a huge plus for U.S. action on climate change. But keep in mind, Joe Biden wanted to do even more. He’s constrained by the absence of a robust majority that’s needed to make that happen,” Obama said. “Both of us have been constrained in large part by the fact that one of our two major parties has decided not only to sit on the sidelines, but express active hostility toward climate science and make climate change a partisan issue.”

The House is expected to tack up the Build Back Better Act next week. Obama made it clear that “saving the planet isn’t a partisan issue,” however, and urged Republicans to take climate change seriously. That notion extends to countries that may not be making as much progress as the world hoped for when 175 signees first adopted the Paris Accord in 2015. That number is now closer to 200 but many countries—the U.S. included—failed to meet many of the goals highlighted in that framework.

“Paris showed the world that progress is possible, created a framework, important work was done there, and important work has been done here. That is the good news,” Obama said. “Now for the bad news: We are nowhere near where we need to be yet… The consequences of not moving fast enough are becoming more apparent all the time. Last month, a study found that 85% of the global population has experienced weather events that were more severe because of climate change.”

Obama admitted that the U.S. did itself and the planet no favors by leaving the Paris Accord during the Trump administration but praised the companies that “chose to stay the course” and prioritize reducing emissions. Still, more must be done, especially when it comes to investing in a net-zero future. This is where the Build Back Better Act plays a key role, as even at its most stripped-down, it allows for historic investments in climate action. Ahead of the House vote, call on lawmakers to pass BBB. The U.S.—and the world—simply cannot wait.

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We have noted multiple times in the last year that the COVID-19 pandemic is turning into a largely Republican pandemic. That doesn’t mean that non-Republicans aren’t still getting sick, but the places where the most COVID-related deaths happen are places that most vote Republican, have Republican-controlled government, and cast their votes for Donald Trump one year ago.

That hasn’t changed. If anything, the divide has only been widening in recent months. That’s the conclusion reached by The New York Times‘ David Leonhardt, who notes that the gap in new deaths “between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point.”

The deaths correlate strongly—very strongly—to a county’s level of Trump support. But Leonhardt notes that the gap in cases is now shrinking again—possibly because in conservative regions, so many residents have now been infected with the virus that “natural immunity” is beginning to build up.

In places like Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida, COVID-19 cases are decreasing after the recent surge. It’s likely not due to any changes in behavior; there are just considerably fewer people around who haven’t already gotten sick.

As to the why of the partisan divide, there isn’t much mystery behind it. Republicans are more likely to believe conspiracy theories about the pandemic, about masking, and about the vaccines now widely available. Those conspiracy theories translate into a willingness to engage in riskier pandemic behaviors, a political desire to refuse the vaccine because Reasons, and (as countless internet-reported deaths have indicated) hesitancy even when it comes to receiving medical treatment. It’s a rich tapestry of social paranoia, and it’s leading the vaccine-hesitant into what could end up being a “herd immunity” reached the hard way.

A just-out KFF poll gives more insight on how we got to this point. The central finding is that misinformation and disinformation about the pandemic are absolutely rampant, with nearly four in five American adults either believing in or being unsure of the validity of at least one of the major false claims currently making the rounds in disinformation circles.

Here, too, the partisan divide is pronounced. Republicans are far more likely to believe multiple false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic, still-unvaccinated adults are much more likely to hold those beliefs, and as for how they might have come to that information? Again, there are no surprises to be seen.

Fox News viewers were several times more likely to believe false information about the pandemic than the viewers of other network or cable news shows. Only 12% of those who “trust” Fox News for COVID-19 information believed none of the eight tested conspiracies the polling group tested; for most other major news outlets, 40% could reject all of them.

The divide between Fox and “real” news outlets is even starker than that suggests, however. Fox News viewers were more likely to believe at least one false COVID claim than viewers of outright conspiracy outlets Newsmax and OANN. You read that right: Fox News viewers know less about the pandemic than those who rely on conspiracy sites.

Take a bow, Tucker freakin’ Carlson. Your network is killing the folks that watch it.

There’s no expectation that these trends aren’t going to continue. There’s no reason to believe that anyone in Republican governance will treat masking, vaccination, or other pandemic measures with any less scorn than they currently are. If anything, the DeSantis experience of allowing a massive red-state surge, weathering the resulting deaths, and boasting when the resulting infections dwindle again after local pockets of herd immunity are reached may encourage other conservative leaders that they, too, can bluff their way through 60,000 or so deaths and still claim a leadership trophy after the worst of it is over.

It’s shaping up to be quite a winter, and if you’re still not vaccinated you should fix that as soon as you possibly can. It’s going to be you versus the pandemic, and you can’t count on your local leaders to give a flying damn whether you catch it or don’t.

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● VA State House: While Virginia Republicans currently lead in 52 races for the state House and Democrats in just 48, the final outcome hasn’t been decided yet because two contests where Democrats trail are poised for recounts.

One of those two Democrats, Del. Martha Mugler, in fact conceded on Friday, prompting House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn to issue a statement congratulating Republicans on their victory. But Mugler, who represents the 91st District in the Hampton Roads area, rescinded her concession over the weekend after a tabulation error cut Republican A.C. Cordoza’s lead almost in half, from 185 votes to just 94.

Just to the south in Virginia Beach, 85th District Rep. Alex Askew is likewise in a very tight race, just 127 votes behind Republican Karen Greenhalgh. Both races are within the 0.5% margin that would trigger an automatic recount paid for by the state. If somehow both elections were to flip, Democrats and Republicans would find themselves with 50 seats apiece in the House, necessitating a power-sharing agreement. Recounts very seldom change electoral outcomes, though the error in Mugler’s race gives Democrats very good reason to pursue a thorough review.

Redistricting

● GA Redistricting: On a party-line vote on Friday, a committee in Georgia’s Republican-run state Senate advanced the GOP’s new map for the chamber. The proposal represents an extreme gerrymander: Donald Trump would have won half of the Senate’s districts by at least 15 points despite losing statewide. The full Senate will reportedly take up the plan this week.

Campaign Action

● ID Redistricting: Idaho’s evenly divided bipartisan redistricting commission has approved new maps for the state, making minimal changes to the congressional boundaries. The legislative map, which is used to elect both the state Senate and House, likewise does nothing to affect the GOP’s dominance. Commissioners must now forward their plans to the secretary of state’s office (which will likely happen this week), at which point anyone unhappy with the maps has 35 days to challenge them before the state Supreme Court.

● SC Redistricting: South Carolina’s Republican-run Senate has released a draft map for its own chamber. Lawmakers have yet to unveil proposals for the state House or Congress.

● WI Redistricting: Wisconsin’s Republican-run state Senate passed the GOP’s new redistricting proposals for Congress and the state legislature on a party-line vote on Monday. The Assembly, which is also in Republican hands, will reportedly take up the maps on Thursday. After the Senate vote, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers reiterated his pledge to veto “Republicans’ new gerrymandered maps.”

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Saving Arizona PAC, the group funded with a $10 million donation from billionaire Peter Thiel, has released a poll from Fabrizio Lee arguing that the ad campaign it’s running has had an impact on next year’s GOP primary. The PAC’s endorsed candidate, Thiel Capital chief operating officer Blake Masters, trails state Attorney General Mark Brnovich 26-14, but a previously unreleased August survey had Brnovich ahead by a wider 29-5 spread. Predictably, Saving Arizona’s ads have attacked Brnovich for failing to act on the Big Lie, something Donald Trump himself has of course also whined about.

● NC-Sen: The far-right Club for Growth, which has already spent millions promoting Republican Rep. Ted Budd in next year’s Senate primary, has put out a new poll from WPA Intelligence suggesting their candidate is surging. The numbers find former Gov. Pat McCrory leading Budd 36-33, compared to a much larger 45-21 margin in June. Former Rep. Mark Walker is at 13% in both polls. The Club’s ads have focused on publicizing Donald Trump’s endorsement of Budd.

● NH-Sen: Are we there yet? Republican Gov. Chris Sununu told Fox News on Friday night that he’ll “probably come to some decision in the next week or so” regarding a bid against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, adding, “Maybe sooner.” Sununu made the remarks in Las Vegas while attending an event held by the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Governor

● GA-Gov: DeKalb County CEO Mike Thurmond indicated on Friday that he might run in next year’s Democratic primary for governor if Stacey Abrams declines to seek a rematch, saying, “I’m always interested. Hope springs eternal in every political heart, but we’ll see what the future brings.” Thurmond, who lost a bid for Senate in 2010 by a 58-39 margin, also made it clear that he’d defer to Abrams, who hasn’t said anything publicly about her plans.

● MA-Gov: State Attorney General Maura Healey is still weighing a bid for governor, saying on Saturday, “I continue to seriously consider running for governor. And I’ll make a decision soon.” In mid-July, she said she’d “know more by fall” about her plans. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has likewise refused to offer a specific timetable about whether he’ll seek a third term, saying last week only that he’d decide “soon.”

● PA-Gov: State Senate President Jake Corman, who’s been eyeing a bid for governor, is reportedly planning a “special announcement” Thursday, at which the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Andrew Seidman says “he’s expected to launch his campaign for governor.” Corman would join a very large Republican field in the race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, while Democrats have consolidated around state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

House

● IL-06: EMILY’s List has endorsed freshman Rep. Marie Newman as she seeks re-election in Illinois’ redrawn 6th District, where she’s been thrown together with fellow Democratic Rep. Sean Casten.

● MI-13: State Rep. Shri Thanedar said on Monday he’s considering a bid for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, which is currently held by Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Thanedar, however, didn’t indicate he has any beef with the congresswoman, and redistricting is still underway, so there’s no telling where the next incarnation of the 13th District might end up. That might not matter much to Thanedar, though: After badly losing the 2018 Democratic primary for governor despite spending $10 million of his own money, he moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit and spent another $300,000 to win a safely blue state in the state House.

● MO-04: State Sen. Caleb Rowden, who had been considering joining the GOP primary for Missouri’s open 4th Congressional District, has announced he won’t run.

● NC-06: Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, who last year became the first Muslim woman to win elective office in North Carolina, announced on Monday that she’ll run for the redrawn 6th Congressional District. Allam had been considering a bid for the old 4th District, the predecessor to the new 6th, which became open when veteran Democratic Rep. David Price announced his retirement last month. She joins state Sen. Wiley Nickel in the Democratic primary. The 6th is a safely blue seat in the Chapel Hill-Durham area that would have voted for Joe Biden 73-25 last year, according to Dave’s Redistricting App.

● NJ-03: Wealthy yacht manufacturer and yoga instructor Robert Healey has entered the race against Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, though the seat’s precise future remains uncertain as the Garden State’s redistricting commission has yet to release even a draft map. The New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein previously reported that Healey “is expected to self-fund a major portion of his campaign” and noted that he’s a former punk rock singer who is “[h]eavily-tattooed with long hair and nipple piercings,” though in a more recent photo, he appears to have cut his hair and shaved his beard.

● OR-05, OR-06: Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader announced over the weekend that he’d seek re-election in Oregon’s 5th District, which contains his home town of Canby, rather than in the new 6th, where more of his current constituents have wound up. Though the 6th is slightly bluer (it would have voted for Joe Biden 55-42, while the new 5th would have gone 53-44), it’s already attracted the attention of some heavyweight progressive Democrats, making it less appetizing for the Blue Dog Schrader. However, the congressman still faces a primary challenge from attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who kicked off a bid recently.

● PA-17: Democratic operative Sean Meloy, who previously worked as a campaign staffer for retiring Rep. Mike Doyle, launched a bid for Pennsylvania’s open 17th Congressional District on Monday. Meloy, who is currently an official with the LGBTQ Victory Fund, would be the first gay person to represent the state in Congress. He joins Navy veteran Chris Deluzio in the primary.

● SC-01: Physician Annie Andrews has announced a challenge to Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, making her the first notable Democrat to do so. The 1st is tough territory for Democrats, though—it voted 52-46 for Donald Trump last year as Mace was ousting Rep. Joe Cunningham 41-39—and Republicans in the legislature may try to make it redder in the redistricting process.

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Robert Baird at The New Yorker takes a deep dive into the negotiations on President Biden’s agenda and the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

The C.P.C.’s show of strength came as a surprise. Not since the Democratic Study Group, an organization of liberal House members who helped steer civil-rights legislation through the blockade of Southern Democrats in the nineteen-sixties, had a group of left-leaning members of Congress acted with such concentrated force. The C.P.C. was founded three decades ago, but, as recently as 2015, The American Prospect described the caucus as “a fragile informal coalition that has lacked the same kind of leadership, money, publications, communications strategy, or clout” as its predecessor. Jayapal told me that when she first joined, “People got together, and they got mad at what was happening, but there wasn’t infrastructure built for the caucus to be strong.”

Brian Klaas in interviewed by Molly Jong-Fast on how Democrats can fight Republican extremism:

“Democrats have been given power. They need to wield [it],” he says. “The idea of protecting some comparatively insignificant norm while letting the rest of democracy burn is totally antithetical to everything we understand about how to protect democratic institutions.” That, and the rest of us need to “beat the authoritarian party at the ballot box while you still have democracy.”

The alternative? More extreme people in office. In fact, it’s what Klaas’ book is about: examining why so many leaders are awful humans, with the rest of us at their mercy. It’s how we got people like Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Lauren Boebert making political decisions in the first place. 

“The way you set up the system of power determines who ends up putting their hat in the ring for it,” he says. “When you have Trump as the figurehead for the party, the people who are thinking about [running for office] that are on the fence… they’re thinking they’re going to lose the primary. So they bow out. Whereas the Lauren Boeberts and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world, they’re full speed ahead.”

Ed Kilgore takes on the 90s take on Democratic strategy:

Sometimes when I hear a bit of popular music from the 1990s — whether it’s the boy-band stylings of NSYNC or the guitar-rock version of Radiohead — it seems familiar and momentarily with-it until I realize, Oh my God, this was a quarter-century ago!

Similarly, when I read Mark Penn and Andrew Stein’s op-ed in the New York Times offering a take on the current plight of the Democratic Party, I certainly recognized a familiar tune from the ’90s. This was the heyday of the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization I loyally served in various capacities for about a decade, eventually becoming vice-president for policy. I feel that like most of my colleagues from that era, I have evolved a lot since then, as has the Democratic Party and the United States of America. But the Penn-Stein analysis shows no evolution at all: It’s a view of the current political landscape from the perspective of 1995 at the latest, and thus offers very bad advice to today’s Democrats.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post editorial board writes in support of vaccine mandates:

Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve heard outrage expressed that somehow public health measures are a restraint on people’s liberty. Beyond doubt, the restrictions have been onerous for many. But they must be weighed against the benefit. Face masks, social distancing, better ventilation, hand hygiene and vaccines have saved lives. The vaccines available today, free and widely available in the United States, are an unprecedented boon. No generation before had such highly effective vaccines invented, manufactured and distributed in such a short period of time. Listen to the voices of those unvaccinated people sickened in the hospital or on their deathbeds saying they wish they had taken the vaccine. Vaccines are a near-certain pass to avert misery, a protection against hospitalization and death. Isn’t that freedom?

On a final note, don’t miss Paul Krugman in The New York Times on infrastructure week:

But if infrastructure spending is a political winner, why didn’t it happen under Donald Trump? The Trump administration first declared Infrastructure Week in June 2017, but no legislative proposal ever materialized, and by the time Trump was voted out of office the phrase had become a national punchline. Why?

It wasn’t just incompetence, although that was part of it. The bigger story is that the modern Republican Party is constitutionally incapable — or maybe, given recent behavior, that should be unconstitutionally incapable — of investing in America’s future. And, sad to say, pro-corporate Democrats, whom we really should stop calling “centrists,” have some of the same problems.

Trump talked big about infrastructure during the 2016 election campaign. But the “plan” released by his advisers — it was actually just a vague sketch — was a mess. It wasn’t even really a proposal for public investment; to a large extent it was an exercise in crony capitalism, a scheme for taxpayer-subsidized private investment that would, like the “opportunity zones” that were part of the 2017 tax cut, mainly have ended up showering benefits on wealthy developers. It was also completely unworkable.

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In the news today: As Ted Cruz grouses that teaching children about vaccination amounts to “propaganda,” fellow Senate seditionist Josh Hawley says he’ll be adopting “masculinity” as his new central political theme. As Democratic strategist James Carville gets hammered for another tired take on “wokeness,” the people trying to sell “wokeness” as a danger are racist conservative billionaires who’ve devoted themselves to stoking similar panics for decades now. Meanwhile, the Biden White House walks back a prior Biden statement suggesting Biden was rejecting compensation for refugee families caught in Trump’s intentionally cruel separation policies.

Today’s been a weird, weird day. There may be something in the punch.

Here’s some of what you may have missed:

• White House clarifies Biden ‘perfectly comfortable’ with settlements for separated families

• Josh Hawley thinks he can make telling his base to stop watching porn a major political campaign

• Big Bird is just the latest piece of children’s culture to trigger Republicans

• James Carville’s rebuke of ‘wokeness’ is nothing more than a rebuke of Blackness

• Guess what, Karen? CRT is a straw man backed by GOP billionaires who don’t even care about the issue

Community Spotlight:

• LGBTQ Literature: A transgender prophet in revolutionary-era America

Also trending from the community:

• NY Times: COVID is Getting Even Redder

• Atlanta D.A. empaneling special grand jury to investigate Trump attempt to steal Georgia

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Tech companies are failing at combatting Spanish-language disinformation, lawmakers and advocates said during an online panel last week. NBC News reports that while tech companies flag or remove English-language posts, the same often doesn’t happen for Spanish-language versions of those posts.

“Platforms use the vast majority of their resources to (remove) misinformation within English language content,” New Mexico U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján said in the report. The panel, organized by anti-disinformation group Free Press Action, featured Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, “a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, which regulates deceptive trade practices,” the report continued.

The panel, which also featured Minnesota U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar and California Rep. Tony Cárdenas, comes as another NBC News report last month highlighted rampant Spanish-language COVID-19 disinformation. That report cited the massive use of free messaging apps like WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, by younger Latinos in particular. ”The outsized use of this technology also makes these apps prime for spreading misinformation, particularly among Latino communities,” Nielsen noted in a report last month.

NBC News reported that the legislators from the panel last week “have been pressuring social media platforms such as Facebook to step up their monitoring and blocking of disinformation in other languages, particularly on Covid-19 and vaccines that they said is costing lives. The problem is far worse for non-English-speaking families, they said.”

“Platforms are even more behind when it comes to cracking down on non-English information,” Klobuchar said in the report. “Unfortunately reports have shown that Facebook will flag English language posts containing lies about vaccines days before acting on the same post in Spanish.” Klobuchar noted that “[s]ometimes Spanish language posts never get flagged. You can still find Spanish language Facebook posts from November 2020 that promote election lies with no warning labels.”

This was similarly noted by Equis Research and Equis Labs co-founder Stephanie Valencia in The Washington Post late last month. “More recently, we’ve seen that Facebook will flag vaccine misinformation content in English, but the same content in Spanish takes days to get flagged, if it ever does,” Valencia continued. “The online activist group Avaaz found Facebook failed to issue warning labels on 70 percent of misinformation in Spanish, compared to only 29 percent in English.”

Documented last year reported on a number of rumors being spread among Spanish-language social media. One claimed that children who test positive for the virus would be taken from their parents.  “According to Google, the text first appeared on a Facebook page called ‘Un Dia Mas,’” the report said. “That Facebook account serves as a ‘content farm’—a person or group of people who share entertaining images to draw an audience.” Within just two hours, the text from that post was picked up by an account with millions of followers.  

While legislators and advocates have said it’s long past time to take a sledgehammer to Facebook, Slaughter said there is action that can be taken now. “The FTC should not wait for federal legislation to act,” she said according to the report. “We should use all tools in our statutory toolbox to protect American consumers and competition … to investigate and take appropriate enforcement actions where we can.”

“I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again: Spanish-language misinformation campaigns are absolutely exploding on social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, etc,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted last week, writing it puts “English misinfo campaigns to shame … So for all the English-only pundits out there who want to wax ideological poetic about Latino polling numbers, please understand that what’s happening now is way beyond a scale most English-only speakers can see.”

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The United States has a long, long way to go when it comes to protecting, honoring, and respecting LGBTQ+ people. There have been significant wins in relatively recent years—marriage equality, for example, and the growing number of openly LGBTQ+ elected officials—but we’ve also seen hateful legislation signed into law and violence against vulnerable queer groups continue year after year. In the not-so-distant past, LGBTQ+ folks lacked even the most fundamental dignities and protections, and few people were able to be both “out” and hold a position of power. That’s part of why the late Harvey Milk is still such an important icon.

And now, he’s finally being recognized by the U.S. Navy. As reported by the Associated Press, the Navy honored Milk on Saturday by christening and launching a ship in his memory. Milk, who became famous as the first openly gay politician in California, who was later assassinated by Dan White, first served in the Navy for four years. He was kicked out of the military because of his sexual orientation.

At the ceremony, which took place in San Diego, California, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro described Milk and other openly (or suspected to be) queer sailors as being “forced into the shadows” or pushed out of the Navy entirely. “That injustice is part of our Navy history,” he stated. “But so is the perseverance of all who continue to serve in the face of injustice.”

Milk served in the Navy in the 1950s, a time when openly queer people were not allowed to serve in the military. According to CNN, the Navy became suspicious of Milk, who served as a diving instructor during the Korean War, when supervisors noticed him hanging at a San Diego park frequented by gay men. Milk was eventually forced to resign after being confronted about his sexual orientation.

“He has a less-than-honorable discharge,” said Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, who attended the ceremony. “He was forced to resign because he was gay.” Though families can appeal to have these dishonorable discharges reversed, Milk said they want to keep his late uncle’s as it is for the sake of history, arguing that we “have to teach our history to prevent ourselves from going backwards and repeating it.” According to NPR, it’s estimated that more than 100,000 people were discharged over their (real or perceived) sexual orientation. 

The ship, called the USNS Harvey Milk, will replenish aircraft carriers with fuel while they’re at sea. The decision to name this ship after Milk actually dates back to 2016, when Ray Mabus (who at the time served as Navy secretary) declared that the six new oilers would be named in honor of civil rights advocates. Rep. John Lewis, Lucy Stone, Robert F. Kennedy, Earl Warren, and Sojourner Truth are the others.

Milk championed and campaigned on issues that are still, sadly, relevant today; for example, he introduced legislation to protect LGBTQ+ people from housing and employment discrimination. He also worked to make sure that teachers couldn’t be fired for their sexuality. As Daily Kos has covered, we’re still seeing allegations of teachers being fired or pushed to resign because of their sexual orientation. We also know housing and employment discrimination are alive and well, especially when it comes to trans people of color and queer sex workers. 

Milk was shot and killed by White, a former colleague who worked as both a city supervisor and former police officer, when he was just 48 years old. Milk was serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when White killed him, as well as Mayor George Moscone, on Nov. 27, 1978. White shot and killed Moscone first, then entered Milk’s office and shot him five times, killing him.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein was actually in city hall when the shootings occurred, found Milk herself, and announced the deaths on the news. In recalling the murders in an interview with NPR back in 2018, Feinstein said it’s still “traumatic.”

“I tried to get a pulse in his wrist and put my finger in a bullet hole,” she told the outlet. “And it was clear he was dead. And that changed the world.” Though Feinstein was not present at the ceremony on Saturday, she wrote a letter saying the ship will hold a “rich legacy” of leadership.

White, who consistently opposed LGBTQ+ rights and battled with Milk about politics, was sentenced to only seven years in prison. 

You can watch some news footage from the time below, including some clips of Milk walking with constituents—happy, brave, iconic.

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The coronavirus pandemic’s shake-up of the U.S. economy still hasn’t fully resettled, and it’s clearly visible in reporting on businesses looking for workers and workers looking for jobs. On the one hand, top retailers say their industry is heading into its busiest time of the year desperate for more workers—so much so that some top retailers are raising pay or offering signing bonuses or referral bonuses. On the flip side, many job seekers say they’re not getting interviews—let alone offers—for jobs they’re well-qualified to do, including in retail.

The reasons people might hesitate to go back to retail jobs aren’t hard to figure right now: Retail workers are exposed to a lot of people, and many have contracted COVID-19 on the job. Customers have assaulted workers in disputes over mask-wearing and other public health precautions. Top executives and shareholders have been handed large piles of cash while workers saw their meager hazard pay cut while the pandemic was still raging.

“A lot of people do not want to work in retail right now—I really, really see it,” a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman told The New York Times. “People are not feeling appreciated or fairly compensated, and I think this whole COVID thing has made them really rethink that. They want to feel valued.”

Some chains say they are working on the compensation side, at least. Saks Off Fifth raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Walmart’s minimum wage is now $12 an hour, but new hires in some stores are now starting at $17 an hour. Nordstrom’s bonus and incentive pay topped out at $400 for the 2020 holiday season but could reach $650 this year. Amazon warehouse jobs can come with up to $3,000 as a signing bonus. Macy’s is giving current employees referral bonuses of up to $500 if they help bring in new employees. 

Other retailers are offering some additional flexibility. Best Buy is allowing job applicants to submit videos rather than be in-person for first-round interviews. L.L. Bean’s call center workers are now remote—as the percentage of remote workers drops, but many people are still looking for such jobs—and, its CEO said, “we have changed our shift structure so you can do two- or four-hour shifts.” Saks Off Fifth not only won’t be open on Thanksgiving this year—something an increased number of retailers are steering clear of—but won’t have extended holiday hours.

But while retail companies say they’re having trouble finding the workers they need, some job seekers say retail companies don’t seem to be interested in them. One 62-year-old Texas man with decades of retail experience told The Washington Post he had only gotten three interviews since June, and in one, the store manager strongly implied he wasn’t getting the job because of his age. This is not someone who’s holding out for high pay—one job he was recently disappointed not to get paid $11 an hour.

An experienced bartender looking for work in Los Angeles said many places he applied are being more, not less, specific in their demands of workers. “The preeminent vibe I’m getting is the people hiring are desperate, but they are unwilling to adjust their expectations at all,” he told the Post. That’s bars, not retail, but it’s not hard to imagine that outside of the incentives retail companies are telling the Times they’re offering, the reality of finding retail work is also in many cases that of companies being desperate and demanding at the same time.

And, as companies struggle to find workers for whatever reason, the ones they have are burning out on increased demands. In the recent Nabisco strike and the ongoing Kellogg’s strike, workers are citing mandatory overtime as a key issue pushing them to the brink. Amazon, where warehouse workers suffer high rates of injuries and turnover is astronomically high, has traditionally had mandatory overtime during high-demand periods, like the holidays.

October brought good news on the job creation front, but the pandemic’s economic impacts are still with us—and workers should be using this moment to demand better treatment on the job. 

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A number of House Democrats have asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into the border “shadow police unit” that human rights groups said in a letter late last month has covered up agent abuses for years. The Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) said in its Oct. 27 letter that Border Patrol’s Critical Incident Teams’ (BPCIT) actions “to withhold, destroy, and corrupt evidence and to tamper with witnesses have gone unchecked for decades.”

“The allegations of ‘Shadow Units’ or ‘Critical Incident Teams’ within U.S. Border Patrol, made public by the San Diego Union-Tribune article, are very disconcerting,” Representatives Juan Vargas, Sara Jacobs, and Joaquin Castro tell the Justice Department. “The accusations of obstruction of justice, corruption, and extreme misconduct must be thoroughly investigated and, if true, those involved must be held accountable immediately.”

SBCC wrote that BPCIT has existed since at least the late 1980s, and played a key role in the cover-up around the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, who was hog-tied, beaten, and tased by border officers. ”By the time he reached the hospital, he was brain-dead, and he died days later,” The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year. But as SBCC wrote, BPCIT obstructed the investigation by tampering with evidence and attempting to falsely portray the dad of five U.S. citizens as violent. BPCIT at one point even tried to push the FBI to charge Hernandez Rojas with assault “while he lay brain dead in the hospital. The FBI declined.”

“All use-of-force incidents investigated by BPCITs should be re-examined,” SBCC said in that letter. “As a priority, the investigation of Anastasio Hernández Rojas’s death should be reopened. It is a landmark case as the first ever to go before an international tribunal where it is currently pending.”

SBCC’s Oct. 27 letter called on Congressional leaders including Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Gary Peters, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, and Rep. Jerry Nadler to open an investigation into this shadow police unit. It’s unclear from House Democrats’ Nov. 4 letter if they intend to open their own investigation. What is available from the letter requests “the Department of Justice open an investigation into these allegations,” and “that U.S. Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security cooperate throughout this investigation.”

“Government agencies and departments such as U.S. Border Patrol are established to provide safety and security to the United States and the people in our country, not to shield its agents or the agency from criminal prosecution,” the three legislators continued. “If these allegations are true, it will further diminish the trust between the public and law enforcement agencies.”

We know it’s not just this secretive shadow police unit that’s worked to protect abusive border agents; it’s also the agency itself. The House Oversight and Reform Committee, chaired by Maloney, said in a report last month that just two agents were fired for their participation in a racist Facebook group where posters mocked an unaccompanied child who died alone while in U.S. custody. Despite dozens of agents being implicated, the committee said CBP and its union fought to shield them from any accountability. 

One agent, who posted “among the most explicit and offensive graphics and comments” and was recommended for firing by the Discipline Review Board, actually retired with full benefits before any actions could be taken. Dozens of others “found to have committed misconduct” continue to “work in positions of power over migrants, including families with children,” the report said. “After completing the disciplinary processes, these agents returned to their previous duties working face-to-face with migrant populations at the border, in detention, and throughout inspection and processing.”

“SBCC has documented over 150 deaths resulting from encounters with border agents since 2010,” the coalition said in its letter. “The actual number might be significantly higher. According to a 2020 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, CBP does not have reliable information on deaths and ‘has not consistently reported deaths of individuals in custody to Congress.’ Apart from deaths, abuse is rampant … Despite the magnitude of harm, few border agents are held accountable. In fact, not a single agent has been successfully prosecuted for use of force on duty that ended in death. Not a single one in the nearly 100 years that Border Patrol has existed. Zero.”