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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

A major police training association is feeding thousands of cops wild lies about left- wing protesters, saying they’re terrorists and fronts for the Chinese government. A racial justice group is calling on departments to cut ties with the organization.

Meanwhile, as 2020 shapes up to be one of the hottest years on record, the United Nations secretary general warns that humanity is engaged in a suicidal war against nature. He says apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are the new normal, which is terrifying.

And lastly, a San Francisco startup has won approval in Singapore for meat grown in a lab without killing an animal. Folks, they’re making chicken nuggets minus the chicken.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The cops are reading some crazy stuff, let me tell you. A prominent law enforcement training group is promoting a research document riddled with falsehoods and conspiracies, the Associated Press reports. The document urges local police to treat Black Lives Matter activists as terrorists plotting a violent revolution. It falsely alleges BLM and antifa aim to overthrow the United States government using extreme violence.

The International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association in October sent a link to the one hundred and seventy six-page paper, Understanding Antifa and Urban Guerrilla Warfare, in an email news update to its thousands of members. Among its many whoppers, the AP reports, is that the two movements have trained snipers stationed in certain cities. It says antifa and BLM are fronts for Russia and China, and planned attacks around the presidential election. The paper claims that those who protested earlier this year in Portland and Seattle were useful idiots designed to give cover to the hard-core, terrorist trained troops that would follow. It argues the FBI is largely clueless about the threat and, along with the news media, has wrongly focused on violence carried out by white supremacists.

The group’s executive director, Harvey Hedden, told the AP that fact-checking the paper or restricting its distribution would amount to censorship. Oh please. An official with Color of Change, a nationwide racial justice organization, called on police departments yesterday to

cut training ties with the association, saying it encourages a warrior-style mindset that creates more conflict in communities. Can we at least defund whatever part of the police budget is paying for this nonsense? After all, it seems like they’re the ones promoting radical ideas.

UN Warning On Climate

This year will be one of the three hottest on record, the Washington Post reports. Marine heat waves swelled over eighty percent of the world’s oceans, and triple-digit heat invaded Siberia, one of the planet’s coldest places. These and other troubling signs of global warming are laid out in a United Nations State of the Climate report published yesterday.

UN Secretary General António Guterres summarized the findings in unusually stark terms. In a speech at Columbia University, he said QUOTE humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing force and fury ENDQUOTE. To emphasize that time is running out, he cited reductions in biodiversity, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the fact that the past decade was the hottest in human history.

Guterres said nations need to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least six percent per year through 2030 to have a chance at holding warming to slightly above preindustrial levels, the Post reports. But instead, he said, we’re headed in the opposite direction, with increasing global emissions each year. He had a number of other demands for the governments of the world, according to other reports. They included putting a price on carbon, ending fossil fuel subsidies, and helping those around the world who are already facing the dire impacts of climate change. Guterres said he firmly believes that 2021 can be QUOTE the year of a quantum leap towards carbon neutrality ENDQUOTE. It had better be – or else.

Lab-grown Meat Approved

An American startup has become the first company to win government approval to sell meat grown in a laboratory to the public. The company, Eat Just, is based in San Francisco, the New York Times reports. It describes its product as real, high-quality meat created directly from animal cells for safe human consumption.

Singapore’s Food Agency said yesterday that it had approved the product for sale as an ingredient in chicken nuggets. Eat Just’s chief executive, Josh Tetrick, called it a historic

moment. He told the Times QUOTE We’ve been eating meat for thousands of years, and every time we’ve eaten meat we’ve had to kill an animal — until now ENDQUOTE.

Singapore’s Food Agency said it had approved the nuggets after Eat Just submitted a safety assessment to an agency working group with experts on food science, toxicology, nutrition, epidemiology and other fields. Tetrick told the Times that an unnamed Singapore restaurant would begin selling the product soon. He said he hoped that Singapore’s decision to approve his company’s chicken nuggets would spur regulators elsewhere to move faster to regulate lab-grown meat. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration’s approval is not required for most new ingredients, including imitation meat from vegan brands, according to the Times.

Whether or not lab-grown meat sounds appetizing to you, it’s good news for animal rights activists and everyone worried about climate change.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday issued a revised guidance shortening the recommended fourteen-day coronavirus quarantine to ten or even seven days. The decision is an effort to boost compliance. People were blowing off the two-week quarantine after traveling but the CDC hopes they might submit to a single week in isolation.

The Transportation Department issued a new rule yesterday covering animals on airlines. Now only dogs can fly as service animals. The new rule will force passengers with emotional-support animals to check them into the cargo hold – and pay a pet fee – or leave them at home, the AP reports. The government estimates airlines will gain up to $59.6 million a year in pet fees. Is that what this is really about?

The federal government’s only underground nuclear waste dump could run out of room by 2025, the AP reports. The Government Accountability Office in a recent report said better planning is needed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico to avoid potential disruptions. You’re telling me in four years Donald Trump didn’t solve this problem? Shocking.

San Francisco residents who live in apartment buildings with three or more units will no longer be allowed to smoke tobacco inside their homes, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. However, they can still smoke cannabis. Fair enough. It would be pretty messed up would it be if all these places legalized weed but only for homeowners.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

DEC 3, 2020 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn