In his first in-person event since the end of his 2020 primary campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday will deliver a major address on the “unprecedented and dangerous moment” in which Americans find themselves as a result of President Donald Trump’s threats to the future of democracy in the United States.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, the independent senator from Vermont has been warning his supporters to prepare for a “nightmare scenario” in which Trump bombards the public with misinformation about the results of the November election or refuses to leave office voluntarily if voted out.

Now—in an effort to persuade the country to adopt his agenda for ensuring that voters can participate safely and freely in the election and that the results will be honored—Sanders intends to spend the next several weeks bringing his message to the American people, beginning with Thursday’s speech at George Washington University’s Jack Morton Auditorium. 

Since early September, Sanders has suggested in an interview with Politico and in messages to his email list that too many news outlets, social media platforms, legislators, and citizens have underestimated Trump’s willingness to maintain his grip on power by undermining the legitimacy of the election—for which early voting has already begun. 

Sanders is not alone in his concerns. As Common Dreams reported at the beginning of the month, researchers have warned that Trump could try to prematurely claim an election night victory on November 3 based on same-day voting by Republicans but excluding millions of uncounted mail-in ballots cast by Democrats in key battleground states, which could unleash confusion and chaos if not adequately handled. 

The senator has pointed out other ways Trump is already laying the groundwork for a potential chain of events that could have politically and socially destructive ramifications. In a recent email, Sanders summarized the multiple ways that Trump has threatened U.S. democracy:

• When asked in July if he would accept the results of the November election, Trump told Fox News, “I have to see“;
• The president has questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting, while his Postmaster General has worked to undermine the postal service;
• Despite being behind in almost every national poll and most battleground state polls, Trump told supporters last month that the only way he could lose is if the election is “rigged”; and
• Trump has also threatened to delay the election. 

Sanders has been adamant that the country must be prepared to counter any attempt made by Trump to stay in power if he loses to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

Specific action items endorsed by Sanders include: allowing mail-in-votes to be counted before Election Day, as they arrive; educating the public that there is no longer a single Election Day, which means the final results may not be known on November 3; ensuring that local officials are equipped with a plan for Election Day and the days that follow; and regulating political harassment and disinformation on social media. 

“Nothing less than our democracy is at stake,” Sanders said in early September. 

Tapes secretly recorded by the Environmental Investigation Agency reveal that two large mining companies in Alaska have far more expansive plans for a mine near the Bristol Bay fishery than they have publicly acknowledged in statements to the U.S. Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“We are shocked at the depth and breadth of Pebble’s deception.”
—Rachel James, SalmonState

The EIA on Tuesday released more than an hour’s worth of conversations the group secretly recorded in August and September with Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, and Ronald Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty Minerals, which owns Pebble. EIA investigators posed as potential investors in the companies’ mining projects in order to hear the executives speak openly about their plans. 

In the “Pebble Tapes,” the two mining executives speak openly about their plans to build a large, long-term mine at Bristol Bay’s headquarters in western Alaska—not a small 20-year project, as the companies have said in official statements to the U.S. government. 

Watch a compilation of the discussions below: 

In the tapes, EIA asks Thiessen if the companies are planning “unstoppable” growth of the mining project, past the scale it applied for last year.

“Yes,” Thiessen replies. “Once you have something like this in production why would you want to stop?”

Thiessen and Collier detail their plans for a mine with a 180- to 200-year lifespan, with an expanded footprint after its first 20 years—the amount of time it told the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment, in written testimony last year, that the project would last.

Rather than processing 180,000 tons of mineral deposits per day, as stated in the companies’ Environmental Impact Statement, Collier and Thiessen admitted provately that they plan to increase their daily production rates to between 220,000 and 320,000 tons after the mine’s first 20 years. 

The Audubon Society of Alaska tweeted that the tapes “reveal what we suspected. This is not a small, short-term project.”

“These tapes show that potential investors are given an entirely different vision for this massive mine than the government and the public,” said Alexander von Bismarck, executive director of EIA. “We think that is important information to release. The public, and especially the people of Alaska, should know about the scope of a project with permanent impacts on one of the most pristine ecosystems on Earth.”

In addition to planning a project that could last two centuries rather than two decades, Pebble and Northern Dynasty are hoping to activate the Donlin Mine, 175 miles north of Bristol Bay’s headquarters, if the Pebble mine is approved.

“There is a lot of logic to us joining forces to make a single corridor,” Thiessen told EIA investigators, while Collier added, “If you flip the Pebble switch on, it’s likely that you may be also flipping on the Donlin switch.”

“While the public is told this is a 20-year project, investors are told it will go for up to 200 years,” said von Bismarck. “While the public is told it will be five square miles, investors are told that it could spread over the entire valley and literally pave the way for other mines, hundreds of miles away.”

Critics of the Pebble mine near Bristol Bay say the project will pollute the bay, which supports a $1.5 billion fishery.

“We are shocked at the depth and breadth of Pebble’s deception,” said Rachel James, Bristol Bay campaign coordinator for SalmonState, which advocates for Alaska’s wild fisheries. “From their manipulation of the Alaska governor’s office, to the truth of their plan for a massive 200-year mine, to cozy relationships with the Army Corps and EPA political appointees, it’s clear they will stop at nothing in their plans to build a toxic mega-mine at the headwaters of the greatest sockeye salmon run left on the planet.”

In addition to conservationist groups, 30 local native tribes which rely on the region’s salmon for their subsistence culture have opposed Pebble as well as  protested the Donlin gold mine.

“The proposed project poses too much risk to our lands and our food sources which we have an obligation to protect and develop responsibly for future generations,” wrote 10 tribes in May.

Watch the Pebble Tapes in their entirety here.

Instead of adhering to congressional intent by building up the nation’s inadequate supply of N95 masks and other equipment to combat the Covid-19 crisis, the Pentagon has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriated taxpayer funds to private defense contractors for drone technology, jet engine parts, Army uniform material, body armor, and other purposes not directly related to the pandemic.

As the Washington Post reported Tuesday morning, the Department of Defense—headed by former Raytheon lobbyist Mark Esper—”began reshaping how it would award the money” just weeks after Congress in March approved a $1 billion fund under the Defense Production Act to help the nation “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”

“The Trump administration has done little to limit the defense firms from accessing multiple bailout funds at once and is not requiring the companies to refrain from layoffs as a condition of receiving the awards,” the Post noted. “Some defense contractors were given the Pentagon money even though they had already dipped into another pot of bailout funds, the Paycheck Protection Program.”

As the U.S. still faces major shortages of testing supplies and N95 masks six months into the pandemic, the Post reported that the Pentagon has used congressionally approved funds to dish out $183 million to luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce and other companies to help “maintain the shipbuilding industry,” tens of millions for “drone and space surveillance technology,” and $80 million to “a Kansas aircraft parts business.”

A subsidiary of Rolls-Royce also received $22 million from the Pentagon “to upgrade a Mississippi plant,” according to the Post.

Mandy Smithberger, a weapons industry analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told the Post, “This is part and parcel of whether we have budget priorities that actually serve our public safety or whether we have a government that is captured by special interests.”

The Pentagon’s misuse of taxpayer funds aimed at addressing the Covid-19 pandemic has drawn a rebuke from the Democrat-controlled House Appropriations Committee, which characterized the Defense Department’s rewards to defense contractors as a clear violation of congressional intent.

“While the Department plans to execute a portion of that funding for personal protective equipment (PPE) as intended by Congress, most of the funds will be used to address the impact of Covid–19 on the [defense industrial base], which was not the original intent of the funds,” the committee said in a July report (pdf).

Pentagon officials insisted to the Post that the funds were allocated appropriately, citing the need to “protect key defense capabilities from the consequences of Covid,” but Slate’s Elliot Hannon argued the Defense Department’s generous taxpayer-funded gifts to private corporations amount to little more than “a colossal backdoor bailout for the defense industry.”

Pointing to the Pentagon’s handouts to Rolls-Royce and other major companies, Hannon wrote, “That doesn’t exactly sound like PPE.”