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Powerful drugs recently authorized by the FDA are expected to help patients suffering from the earliest stages of COVID-19 avoid the most severe symptoms. President Donald Trump even once referred to Regeneron’s antibody treatment as a “cure” for the virus.

But there are still some issues that have yet to be resolved.

The US, like several other developed nations, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secure supplies of Eli Lilly and supplies of the Regeneron.

Officials are working to establish sites to infuse the medications to patients with mild to moderate disease who had until recently been advised to stay home.

Both the Eli Lilly and Regeneron monoclonal antibodies mimic proteins the body normally makes to block the virus from entering cells; they were cleared by the FDA earlier this month. They’re the first drugs authorized specifically for non-hospitalized patients, and are targeted at those at risk of severe symptoms because of older age, obesity and other chronic conditions.

Experts told Bloomberg that while Trump touted Regeneron’s therapy after receiving it in October, infectious disease doctors noted that the evidence supporting the drugs’ use in Covid-19 is not yet definitive. Yet there’s hope they could help the country battle its worst-ever coronavirus surge, as average daily infections soared to almost 170,000 over the last week. About 90,500 Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Thursday.

Coronavirus-beset hospitals around the US are grappling with more infected staff, said Allison Suttle, chief medical officer at Sanford Health, a nonprofit health system based in South Dakota. Treatment that keeps patients from being admitted to overcrowded hospital wards is offering a tantalizing reprieve, she said.

The US has paid Eli Lilly $375 million to lock in supplies of its antibody medication – the amusingly-named “bamlanivimav”, equivalent to 300,000 vials of the antibody, bamlanivimab, over the next two months. The government has also awarded Regeneron $450 million to make and supply enough doses of its antibody cocktail for another 300,000 patients through the end of January. Both companies intend to scale up supply for the U.S. next year.

Submitted by Rusty Weiss of The Mental Recession,

Robby Dinero, the owner of Athletes Unleashed gym located in Orchard Park, New York, tore up a $15,000 fine from the Erie County Health Department during a live Fox News interview.

Dinero got hit with the extraordinarily hefty fine following a confrontation in which roughly 50 business owners attending a meeting inside the gym refused to allow a pair of sheriffs and a health inspector entry to the building without a warrant.

“They picked a fight with a Marine and a whole bunch of patriots,” the gym owner said in a separate interview with WBEN, before pointing out that “The Constitution protects those rights.”

The moment tonight when Athletes Unleashed gym owner Robby Dinero ripped up the $15k fine he received today from @ECDOH LIVE on @FoxNews. The fine was for holding a rally inside his gym Friday night. @NewsRadio930 pic.twitter.com/FUk6sOSCX4

— Tim Wenger (@TimWBEN) November 25, 2020

New York Gym Owner Rips Up His Fine, Says He Will Not Comply

Dinero, speaking with Fox anchor Sandra Smith, reiterated that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lockdown edicts infringe upon his rights.

The veteran, having pointed out Cuomo’s and Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries, challenged them to look their constituents’ children in the eyes and tell them their parents’ work is not “essential.”

The lockdown rules, he believes, deny citizens their Constitutional right to earn a living.

Dinero then ripped up the fine on camera while supporters behind waved American flags and shouted, “We will not comply.”

Robby Dinero, the owner of Athletes Unleashed, tells WBEN that this protest today is about one thing: Freedom. They’re protesting the continued lockdown and he said they’re not able to get customers and because of the shutdown, they can’t replace them. pic.twitter.com/zf1wHgcloy

— WBEN NewsRadio 930AM (@NewsRadio930) November 23, 2020

Confrontation With Business Owners and Authorities Goes Viral

Last week, Dinero held a meeting with business owners inside his gym. He explained that the meeting was a protest of New York’s regulations that have closed gyms, salons, and other businesses deemed nonessential.

Oddly enough, despite the state’s blind eye to riots under the guise of ‘protests’ over the summer, authorities took issue with this particular peaceful protest. Sheriffs and the health inspector showed up and things escalated as the business owners refused to let them on the property without a proper warrant.

“Get out! Get out!” they repeatedly yelled.

As the authorities leave, one protester can be heard shouting, “Take your Commie s*** elsewhere!”

Cuomo has been regulating everything in his state during the pandemic, from what time New Yorkers can eat in restaurants to what they can eat in restaurants, and on to what people can do in their own home. His constitutional overreach has prompted several sheriffs to refuse to enforce his orders. 

Cuomo responded by calling any sheriff who refuses to enforce his edicts a “dictator.” He said that without a hint of irony.

Some fascinating new details have emerged regarding last Sunday’s (11/22) unprecedented visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Saudi Arabia.

First to recap, amid widespread reports that the Saudis will be the next Arab country to normalize ties with the Jewish state, after the UAE and Bahrain were the first to do so, Netanyahu met with crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS) the Saudi city of Neom. It was also in the presence of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

This was reported as a “covert meeting” – also given Riyadh officially denies it took place while it was widely acknowledged in Israeli and international press. The two leaders reportedly discussed joint efforts to counter Iran, an issue which already saw intelligence and operations sharing in places like Syria.

Reuters on Friday released new bombshell information alleging the whole meeting with Netanyahu was done without the approval or even knowledge of the Saudi head of state, King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

The Times of Israel also underscored that “Saudi Arabia’s King Salman was reportedly kept out of the loop about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s secretive trip to the kingdom this week for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.” And further:

Quoting a Saudi source and a foreign diplomat in Riyadh, Reuters reported Friday that normalization with Israel appeared off the table as long as the Saudi monarch is alive — an analysis also made Thursday by a senior Israeli source cited by Israeli TV.

Given the king’s age and increased reported senility, MbS has in recent years acted as de facto head of the kingdom, but it remains an incredibly bold move (the meeting with Israel’s leader) especially given King Salman is said to be against any ‘normalization’ with Israel. 

And then there’s this incident from thie G-20 the prior week… the video was said to have been intentionally leaked:

#Saudi King Salman does not remember where was the last #G20 summit and he doesn’t remember if he participated in that summit.
Saudi CP #MBS tells him that he (MBS) went instead of the King for the Japan summit. https://t.co/Zk43ChU69b

— Nabeel Nowairah (@NabeelNowairah) November 21, 2020

“A video was leaked during the G20 summit which showed MbS correcting the confused king’s recollection, a leak which sources said was intentional,” according to Reuters.

It appears MbS plans to further sideline his father especially when it comes to foreign policy, relying on the ‘poor health’ angle to argue Salman is incapable of making crucial decisions as official head of state.

Submitted by Market Crumbs,

Last month we wrote about the strength in the sports card market and how blue chip sports cards may actually be a better investment than blue chip stocks, at least over the last decade.

The Daily Mail says data from PWCC—which manages the largest trading card auction venue in the world, shows the index of the top-performing 500 cards had a return on investment of 216% since 2008 compared to 135% for the S&P 500.

“The market’s just on fire,” PWCC director of business development Jesse Craig told the DailyMail.com.

Another corner of the collectors world that is on fire is the market for rare video games. Driven by nostalgia and a flood of money, the last few months has seen record prices paid for video games.

In July, a copy of Super Mario Bros. brought a winning bid of $114,000 and set a new record for the most ever paid for a video game. The video game, which is the first in the popular Super Mario Bros. series, was one of the first variants produced after Nintendo began sealing the games in shrink-wrap in 1985.

“The demand for this game was extremely high, and if any lot in the sale could hit a number like that, it was going to be this one,” Heritage Auctions’ Director of Video Games Valarie McLeckie said.

With just over four months having passed since the copy of Super Mario Bros. set a new record, it was easily topped by a $156,000 winning bid last Friday for a sealed copy of 1990’s Super Mario Bros. 3. Heritage Auctions said 20 bidders were trying to acquire the video game following an opening bid of $62,500.

This particular game is a rarity for the way the word “Bros.” is printed on the front cover, slightly covering Mario’s famous white glove. This particular cover indicates it’s the earliest version of Super Mario Bros. 3 that was produced.

“We couldn’t be more pleased about breaking the world record for the second time in the same year,” McLeckie said. “That said, it’s no surprise that another Mario game, which so many of us grew up with, would set the new bar.

It’s not just Super Mario Bros. games attracting top dollar. A Pokémon “Red Version” for Nintendo’s GameBoy auctioned for $84,000 last week, marking a record price for a Pokémon title and more than four times the pre-sale estimate. At July’s auction, 27 bidders attempted to acquire a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! before it ended up selling for $50,400.

With virtually every asset soaring in price, who knows which nostalgic item from your childhood will be the next hot collectors item.

Over 60 protesters were arrested in anti-lockdown demonstrations on Saturday, as activists clashed with police who sought to break it up.

If only it was a BLM demonstration.

Nobody can answer the question sufficiently.

Why is there a 2 tier policing system in the UK that treats lockdown protesters like criminals while literally kneeling and bowing for Black Lives Matter? https://t.co/yTkabMfVEa

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 28, 2020

According to The Guardian, “officers were attempting to disperse the protesters after the Metropolitan police argued the demonstration was unlawful under coronavirus bans on gatherings after the removal of the specific protest exemption.”

Rights groups, however, believe the protests should be permitted under the “reasonable excuse” law, and called the de-facto ban as “alarming.”

First arrest at antilockdown protest taking place at King’s Cross Station, London. Police cited covid restrictions before the arrest. #kingscross #antilockdown pic.twitter.com/AuqMKk2h0P

— Urban Pictures (@Urban_Pictures) November 28, 2020

Officers faced jeers from demonstrators and chants of “shame on you” and “choose your side” as they sought to end the protest and enter crowds to make arrests, some forcibly. They were also pelted with missiles on at least one occasion, video footage showed.

The Metropolitan police tweeted: “Officers have made over 60 arrests following groups gathering in London today. These were for a number of different offences, including breaching coronavirus restrictions. We expect this number to rise. We continue to urge people to go home.” –The Guardian

“Please ensure you have access to social media throughout the day, as the rally will need to be reactive to circumstances,” wrote anti-lockdown group StandUpX in a Telegram post. “Bring pots, pans, whistles, party horns and anything you can to be heard,” the post continues.

“I got pushed about by police for no reason earlier, just cause they’re squashing up anybody that wants to complain. This is no free country,” one protester told Sky News, while another held a sign saying “Your fear leads to losing our liberty.”

The protest comes weeks after 190 people were arrested on Nov. 5 during another lockdown demonstration.

According to police spokesman Stuart Bell, “This type of behaviour not only breaks the law, it also risks spreading the virus between multiple areas of the country. It is for this reason that we urge people not to travel into London and this is also why we will be taking appropriate enforcement action if this happens.”

We assume he’s OK with BLM protests.

Here we go again. Why do the Met #TakeTheKnee to #BlackLivesMatter & soft-soap #ExtinctionRebellion – yet send in the bovver-boys to an anti-lockdown protest, or when somebody they don’t like speaks at Speaker’s Corner?

It’s blatant two-tiered policing #londonprotest pic.twitter.com/jq2Pn5fRpL

— Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) November 28, 2020

“In practice, police are increasingly treating protests as banned,” said Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo, who has campaigned for civil liberties during the lockdown. “The incompetence and casual authoritarianism demonstrated by the Met police here is breathtaking. The right to protest is the bedrock of any democracy. It’s clear to me that there’s a deliberate attempt to chill that right and misrepresent the law,” she added.

“As the government takes unprecedented steps to interfere with our rights, sidelines parliament and attacks the rule of law, undermining protest is another threat to our ability to hold it to account and stand up to power. Protest and dissent are the lifeblood of a healthy democracy, and even more so important in a public emergency,” said Gracie Bradley, interim director of rights group “Liberty.”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Our national claim of moral superiority is no longer plausible.

A very strong case can be made that America is now a moral cesspool. Consider just three cases: Jeffrey Epstein, the CEO of Pfizer and JPMorgan Chase.

Sadly, Epstein is the epitome of America’s elite: getting away with abusing children for years, if not decades; when finally caught a few years ago, escaping with a legal wrist-slap; acquiring a fortune of $200 million without creating any jobs, innovations or value; buying his way into the good graces of Harvard, MIT and a seemingly endless parade of celebrities, politicians, scientists, etc.

And very par for the course in America’s elite: Epstein’s crimes were known by America’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies, but rather than indict him, they made him an “intelligence asset” that had to protected from exposure to the consequences of the rule of law.

When some tiny sliver of light was shed on his decades of blatant corruption and exploitation, a sliver that implicated the wealthy and powerful, then Epstein was dispatched in classic Deep State fashion, in a manner that speaks volumes about the banana “republic” nature of America.

Pfizer’s CEO arranged a massive sale of Pfizer stock and then timed the release of overhyped vaccine data to maximize his private gains.

Nothing illegal here, just another example of what I call legalized looting.

JPMorgan Chase manipulated markets to maximize its gains, and its $1 billion fine is just the cost of doing business in a pervasively corrupt society and economy. Nobody ever goes to prison for these billion-dollar skims, scams, frauds amd embezzlements; financial criminals get a get out of jail free card with every crime.

These three examples are just a few of thousands of examples of insider skimming and gaming the system, abuse of power, fraud, pay-to-play, embezzlement, racketeering and other forms of corruption that enrich the few at the expense of the many.

Whenever I mention America’s moral decay, somebody is always quick to discount the decay with cliches such as “there’s always been corruption” or “it’s human nature, you’ll never get rid of it.”

These pathetically flimsy excuses mask the reality that America’s moral decay has reached extremes that eventually trigger collapse in the financial, social and political realms.

The decay of civic virtue and the social contract is so gradual that only the few who recall specific set-points from previous generations even notice the advancing rot.

A third of the Roman Senate was killed in combat during the disastrous defeat at Cannae; can we imagine a third of the U.S. Senate putting their own lives at risk? No, we cannot; that level of sacrifice is unthinkable in America today. The protected elites have no real skin in the game. The consequences of their mismanagement fall on the unprotected many.

Can we imagine the two eldest sons of a present-day political scion volunteering for combat overseas, with one killed in combat and the other severely wounded? (Joe Kennedy, Jr. and John F. Kennedy in World War II.) Such elite sacrifice is unimaginable in today’s America.

As for the social contract: to saddle young people with highly uncertain prospects with $1.7 trillion in student loan debt would have been unimaginable, If not criminal, two generations ago. Now this ruthless exploitation of students–in essence, punitive debt-serfdom that enriches the wealthiest few who own the student loans–is now the norm. Parasitic elites sucking the powerless dry is now the status quo in America.

This academic paper (via A.P.) sheds light on the severe consequences of moral decay: Moral Collapse and State Failure: A View From the Past.

In summary, the authors examined premodern states / empires with an eye on socio-economic systems that generated a social environment which provided real benefits to citizens via a moral code and good government practices.

(I would include the early Tang and Song dynasties in China of examples of such systems that were not democratic but which offered a judiciary of recourse, investment in infrastructure and other forms of public good, rule of law and social mobility.)

Yes, elite corruption is ever-present, but good governance requires limiting elite corruption as part of the social contract in which citizens support the state (paying taxes, etc.) because the state provides for the common good.

The authors point out that citizens expect relatively little of autocracies in the way of public good because the citizenry know the autocracy is a self-serving, corrupt elite. But governments that earned the consent of the governed by providing for the common good are held to a higher standard.

When the moral code that requires service to the public good decays, the legitimacy of the state collapses. Here is a quote from the paper:

“Moral failure of the leadership in this social setting brings calamity because the state’s lifeblood–its citizen-produced resource-base–is threatened when there is loss of confidence in the state, which brings in its wake social division, strife, flight, and a reduced motivation to comply with tax obligations.

In the resulting weakened fiscal economy, services that citizens have come to depend on fail, including public goods and administrative control of corruption.

To realize and sustain good government is especially difficult owing in large part to the importance of shared moral obligations between citizens and the state.”

In other words, a strict moral code that requires elites to devote resources and leadership for the public good is the critical foundation of the entire social, economic and political order. When this moral code decays, the state and its elites both lose legitimacy and the consent of the governed.

Put another way: once the elites have decayed to exploitive, self-serving, profiteering parasites, the public has no interest in supporting the state or its elites. Rather, they will cheer the collapse and ruin of the parasitic elites.

The explosive rise of elites’ wealth and power in the past few decades has been documented and charted, and I’ve repeatedly posted charts showing that virtually all the real income gains of the past 20 years have flowed to the top 0.1%. This RAND study found that America’s elites siphoned $50 trillion into their own pockets in the past two generations: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018.

This is the chilling summation of America’s terminal moral decay from Moral Collapse and State Failure: A View From the Past:

“Many citizens perceive that they have little stake in what should be a democratic society.

Decline in citizen confidence is compounded by a great economic transition in the US, a U-turn over the last five decades in wealth and income inequalities.

These economic shifts are undergirded by a new ethos and practices that enshrine shareholder value, personal freedom, nepotism, cronyism, the comingling of state and personal resources, and narcissistic aggrandizement in ways rarely seen in the early history of our Republic.”

Our national claim of moral superiority is no longer plausible: America is a moral cesspool that cannot be drained.

*  *  *

My recent books:

A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook coming soon) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF).

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

*  *  *

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Summary:

• US sees new record as daily tests top 2 million
• Germany tops 1 million cases
• Merkel urges Germans to do more to rein in virus
• London avoids toughest COVID restrictions
• Hundreds of Argentines take to the streets
• Italy ICU patients fall
• Japan plans distribution of vaccines
• WHO official weighs in on COVID measures

* * *

Perhaps the biggest COVID-19 news comes out of the US, as LA County has temporarily banned public and private social gatherings of individuals from different households will be banned for at least three weeks starting Monday under new restrictions local health officials unveiled on Friday, citing a continued surge in COVID-19 infections.

This latest public health order affects some 20 million people living in and around the second-largest city in the US. After a US judge barred NY Gov Andrew Cuomo from placing restrictions on religious gatherings, LA County specifically exempted religious services and protests due to the fact that they are constitutionally protected gathering.

After falling test numbers led to lower case numbers for a few days, the numbers jumped back on Saturday.

In Europe, the total number of cases in Germany topped 1 million, making Germany the 12th country to top that milestone, just days after Mexico became No. 11.

Given the new numbers, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to do more to rein in the pandemic and called on Europe’s ski resorts to do more to stop vacationers.

Meanwhile, London plans to avoid the toughest coronavirus restrictions when England’s partial lockdown ends next week, allowing municipalities in England to start allowing more patients. The number of severely ill French patients in ICU fell to the lowest level in more than three weeks. Argentines are still mourning the death of soccer icon Diego Maradona ignored virus restrictions. In Australia, Victoria reported 0 new cases for the 28th straight day, a new record, which suggests that Australia might be among a handful of western nations that can reliably hold Christmas holidays with only limited restrictions.

Globally, coronavirus cases have reached 61,585,651 according to Johns Hopkins University data, while the worldwide death toll has hit 1,441,335.

Here’s some new coronavirus news from overnight and Saturday morning:

Hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets of Buenos Aires to mourn Wednesday’s death of soccer icon Diego Maradona, upending the nation’s strict Covid restrictions (Source: Bloomberg).

The number of patients in Italy’s intensive-care units fell to 3,846, the first decline in seven weeks, and new infections dropped 20% from a week ago, adding to signs that the virus is spreading more slowly in the country (Source: Bloomberg).

Japan looks to begin distribution of COVID-19 vaccines by the March end of the fiscal year as clinical trials on a number of candidates move forward. Tokyo aims to secure enough vaccine for the country’s entire population by the first half of 2021. It is set to source doses for 145 million people from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna (Source: Nikkei).

The WHO’s top emergency official weighs in on the origins of the novel coronavirus. “I think it’s highly speculative for us to say that the disease did not emerge in China,” Mike Ryan told a virtual briefing in Geneva after being asked whether COVID-19 could have first emerged outside China. “It is clear from a public health perspective that you start your investigations where the human cases first emerged,” Ryan said (Source: Nikkei).

Authored by Tyler O’Neil via PJMedia.com,

While most Americans were eating turkey and stuffing at whatever kind of socially-distanced gathering their state government would allow, “peaceful protesters” — who never spread the coronavirus, apparently — toppled statues and spray-painted anti-Thanksgiving messages to celebrate the holiday.

Vandals targeted statues of President William McKinley in Chicago, a veterans monument in Portland, an Abraham Lincoln statue in Spokane, Wash., and two statues in Minneapolis: one of George Washington and another celebrating pioneers.

“Stop colinization [sic]. End Thanksgiving. F**k 12,” vandals spray-painted on the plinth of the Washington statue in Washburn Fair Oaks Park in Minneapolis. The vandals targeted the statue either late on Wednesday night or early on Thanksgiving morning.

As dawn arose on #ThanksgivingDay in #Minneapolis, two historical colonial statues were toppled & defaced.

George Washington’s statue was taken down & the Pioneers Statue was vandalized with the words “no more genocide” “decolonize,“ “#landback,“ & more.https://t.co/Y3zcdckTz3

— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) November 27, 2020

A group organizing under the Pan-Indigenous People’s Liberation (PIPL) network took credit for the vandalism, which they said was part of a “national decolonial day of action.”

A few miles away from the Washington statue, vandals also targeted a large granite monument to pioneers in the city’s B.F. Nelson Park. Vandals spray-painted the messages, “no thanks,” “no more genocide,” decolonize,” and “land back” on the statue, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.

Sorry, 1619 Project, But the Mayflower Was Far More Pivotal to American History

Park Board spokeswoman Dawn Sommers promised, “We will start removing the paint as soon as we can.”

Both a George Washington and “Pioneer Statue” were vandalized during the Thanksgiving holiday in Minneapolis. The Washington was knocked over and splattered with paint. The Minneapolis Park and Rec. board is working to “address and respond using a racial equity lens” (WCCO) pic.twitter.com/yGD0nymLPP

— WDBJ7 (@WDBJ7) November 27, 2020

“Land back” seemingly refers to The LANDBACK campaign, a Native American movement supposedly fighting “white supremacy.” The campaign calls for the dismantling of the “white supremacy structures” supposedly responsible for removing Native Americans from their lands, including the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service; for the defunding of “white supremacy” in the forms of the police, the military-industrial complex, Border Patrol, and ICE; a “return” of “all public lands back into Indigenous hands”; and a policy of “consent.”

This iconoclasm is nothing new. While it began with Confederate monuments, this summer vandals progressed to targeting America’s heroes, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. Then came Mahatma Gandhi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, black Union soldiers, and freed slave Frederick Douglass. Vandals even attacked a monument to 9/11 firefighters and painted a statue of Jesus black.

However, targeting patriotic symbols just before Thanksgiving seems particularly disgusting.

Early on Wednesday morning, police prevented vandals from toppling a statue of President William McKinley in a Chicago park. The vandals tethered a rope to a police car and spray-painted the statue with the words “Land Back,” NBC 5 Chicago reported. Activists have condemned McKinley, who served as president from 1897 to his death in 1901, as a racist because he championed westward expansion.

Vandals Try to Pull Down Chicago Park’s McKinley Statue https://t.co/9Ob1xs9ayS pic.twitter.com/3q5lFVzLcH

— NBC Chicago (@nbcchicago) November 28, 2020

Vandals in Spokane, Wash., spilled red paint on a statue of Abraham Lincoln in an attack that may or may not have been related to the “Land Back” campaign.

Someone is not feeling so thankful on this holiday as the Abe Lincoln statue on Main & Monroe in Downtown Spokane has now been vandalized.

SPD is looking into this. @kxly4news pic.twitter.com/WOpSe5MKSh

— Maher Kawash (@MaherKXLY) November 26, 2020

New York Times Finally Admits the Black Lives Matter Riots Left ‘Long-Term Economic Damage’

In Portland, the antifa group Youth Liberation Front called for “a decentralized, anti-colonial day of action on Thanksgiving eve,” with the message, “F**k Thanksgiving, F**k Black Friday!”

The Youth Liberation Front, an antifa group, was one of several who incited violence in Portland to oppose Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/o4HlkvKaZZ

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) November 27, 2020

An antifa mob broke windows and sprayed graffiti, including the phrase, “Land Back.” Portland police arrested three suspects.

The antifa radicals targeted a veterans’ monument at Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery. Vandals spray-painted, “F**k USA,” and “Eat sh*t, colonizers!” on the Soldiers Monument Statue, unveiled in 1903 to honor soldiers of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, and the Indian Wars.

“Fu** USA” graffitied on the base of a statue that was toppled in Lone Fir Cemetery sometime this morning. The statue was erected in 1902, in honor of Indian, Spanish-American, Mexican, and Civil War Veterans. #PDX #Portland pic.twitter.com/iOy7T2vD7z

— Independent Media PDX (@NDpendentPDX) November 26, 2020

Antifa rioters also spray-painted, “F**k Thanksgiving” underneath an ATM.

“F— Thanksgiving”

Overnight many businesses on Hawthorne Blvd. in southeast Portland were defaced with BLM, antifa & other far-left messages. Antifa earlier this week gave instructions on how to scout out & attack locations for Thanksgiving. #antifa pic.twitter.com/zCFAkPvvAU

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) November 26, 2020

Such Thanksgiving attacks on national symbols make perverse sense in light of the Black Lives Matter riots this past summer, the Marxist critical race theory promoted by The New York Times‘ “1619 Project,” and the impact of organizations like the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Just before Thanksgiving, the SPLC published an article entitled, “Indigenous Slavery and the Thanksgiving Difference.” In that article, Harvard University professor Tiya Miles argues that “Thanksgiving is a holiday long past due for an overhaul.”

Miles claims that the mythology of the First Thanksgiving “is based on a misunderstanding of the early relationships between Wampanoag residents and the English newcomers at Massachusetts Bay.” She notes that Tisquantum (popularly known as Squanto) served as a translator between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims, having learned English during his capture and enslavement in England.

She also notes that the Wampanoag leader Pumetacom allied with the Narragansetts and Nipmucks in a war against the colonists that ended in the natives’ defeat. “Thousands would be killed or sold into slavery in the conflict, which ended Indigenous independence in New England. It is no wonder that some Native American families see Thanksgiving as a day of mourning,” she writes.

Much of the history between Native Americans and European settlers is indeed tragic, but leftist narratives often deprive the victims of their agency. Tisquantum, for instance, appears to have been plotting to overthrow the Wampanoag leader before Tisquantum’s untimely death, and his machinations likely contributed to the ultimate Puritan victory. History is far messier than the simple narrative of evil European colonialism and “white supremacy” suggests.

Americans should reexamine our history, but the nefarious message of Marxist critical race theory suggests we should upend society in order to satisfy historical grievances in the name of racial justice. This toxic vision undermines the very real progress America has made in terms of establishing civil rights regardless of race and in terms of securing broad prosperity through a free market economy.

Americans have a great deal for which to be thankful, even in the midst of a pandemic. Rather than railing against the supposed oppressors who established and celebrated Thanksgiving, these vandals should consider just how indebted they are to the system that provides peace and prosperity to the United States.