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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Social Security and Medicaid are about to be gutted. Millions will be affected by the loss of financial support and healthcare. I have told you over and over we are in the midst of a coup and one party — the Republicans — has collapsed and like docile hamsters are doing what they are told. The only thing that is going to stop the coup is millions of people out in the streets protesting every day. What are you doing?
This was the image released from the White House. The don’t even try to hide the coup anymore. Credit: White House
U.S. President Donald Trump launched his latest threat against Social Security on Tuesday under the guise of combating fraud, floating the possibility of stripping benefits from “millions of people” as Elon Musk’s lieutenants infiltrate the agency that administers the nation’s most effective anti-poverty program.
“The good thing about Social Security and what I read is if you take all of those numbers off because they’re obviously fraudulent or incompetent… all of a sudden we have a very powerful Social Security with people 80 and 70 and 90 but not 200 [years old].”
“We have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” who are receiving Social Security payments, Trump continued.
The Republican president did not provide any evidence for his claim of substantial fraud in the Social Security program, which provides benefits to roughly 70 million Americans. Musk has similarly claimed, without evidence, that “tens of millions of people [are] marked in Social […]
Harold Meyerson, Editor-at-Large - The American Prospect
Stephan:
I have spent some time watching and reading “king” Trump’s propaganda media, as well as CNN’s weird Abby Philips show. Not surprisingly they are all tying themselves into knots trying to normalize the Trumpian/Musk coup. I think Harold Meyerson gets it right. Criminal Trump, his Frankenstein Musk, and his other servile lackeys working to implement the coup are exactly what the Founder James Madison feared and wrote about, and Franklin warned against: “a Republic if you can keep it.” What is particularly alarming is how many Americans are buying into the end of democracy.
“king” Trump Credit: Ben Curtis / AP Photo
One of the themes recurring in conservative media these days is the normalization of Donald Trump by historical analogy. This kind of sweeping arrogation of power, we’re told by Wall Street Journal editorialists, columnist George Will, and other conservative commentators, has ample precedents in the records of progressive presidents particularly: Woodrow Wilson, both Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. So why this harping on poor Donald Trump?
Trump’s overreaching claims to power, Will tells us, “is an institutional consequence of progressivism.” Journal editorialists note that “Mr. Trump is stretching laws to see what he can get away with, but so have other recent Presidents,” including both Obama and Biden.
As historical analysis, this is malicious piffle. No previous president has told the nation’s many thousands of autonomous school boards what their schools should teach; required his cabinet secretaries to affirm his Big Lie that he actually won a presidential election he actually lost; dictated which shows are suitable, and which not, for the Kennedy Center; told the NCAA which athletes to […]
This, I think, encapsulates where American voters stand in both parties. I think much of this is driven by the research paper on Humanity’s Precognition that I posted to SR a short while ago. If you haven;t read it I suggest you do (go to the SR archive). WHat I don’t understand is why the Democractic Party cannot seem to comprehend that putting forward a leader and a policy platform that makes fostering wellbeing for everyone is the way they should go. But even before that I think we have to see millions non-violently in the street each day demanding that the country make fostering wellbeing our first priority. That is the only thing that is going to end the coup and preserve American democracy. If you want to become an agent for such change get a copy of The 8 Laws of Change.
The broad dissatisfaction with American politics inside the focus group was a reminder that some of the voters who helped tip the last election inTrump’s favor didn’t feel fully represented by either candidate. Credit: Jeff Swensen / Getty
NAZARETH, PENNSYLVANIA — President Donald Trump declared upon taking office that the U.S. had entered a “new golden age,” but it doesn’t feel that way to a select group of voters from a state that helped deliver his victory.
The voters — men and women, young and old — were part of a 15-person focus group that came together on a frigid mid-January night in the battleground town of Nazareth, to dissect the state of the country’s democracy following one of the most divisive elections in American history.
Their outlook would prove to be a far cry from Trump’s triumphalism. Members of the focus group instead spelled out their anxieties about the fragile nature of the country’s increasingly polarized, anger-riddled and online experiment in self-governance.
“There’s too much hate in politics right now, and it […]
Trump and those who serve his coup has just destroyed the 80 year NATO alliance which has kept the developed world at peace. But his geopolitical ignorance is even worse than that. Trump has set it up for China to become the most important nation in the world. Trump has cut off all kinds of aid and support across the globe, and in the influence vacuums he has created China is happily stepping up to replace the U.S. In less than a month Trump has destroyed the functioning of America, and the status and role of the United States internationally.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017. Credit: Thomas Peter / AFP / Getty
China hawks in the United States have made what amounted to a Faustian pact with President Donald Trump. Anxious that Beijing’s power was surpassing Washington’s and critical of Democrats such as former President Joe Biden for failing to turn it back, Trump seemed to be the best option for a more robust approach to China. But after the whirlwind start of the new administration, that bargain already looks shaky, raising questions about whether Trump’s much-anticipated pivot to a tougher China policy will instead turn out to be a geopolitical win for Beijing.
Trump’s approach presents a conundrum. On the one hand, he has appointed serious China hawks to important positions, including at the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Defense Department. This team has been crafting the elements of a more competitive approach—albeit with some degree of continuity with Biden’s team.
I keep trying to find some positive trends shaping the United States. Sadly, I don’t find them. Instead, here is another report on the further trashing of the American government by “king” Trump and co-president Musk and his lackeys. The result will be that you will no longer get the same level of timely accurate weather warnings. The oligarchs who bought “king” Trump his throne don’t like to talk about climate change lest it hurt their profits, and Trump himself doesn’t seem to be smart enough to understand what climate change is going to mean to your life and wellbeing.
The National Hurricane Center’s Acting Director Dr. Ed Rappaport gives a televised interview concerning Hurricane Irma’s advance, at the National Weather Service’s facility in Miami, Florida on Sept. 7, 2017. Credit: Andrew Innerarity / The Washington Post / Getty
Current and former high-level scientists with the federal agency said the new rules have created unease and caused alarm with partners at European agencies, reported The Guardian.
“My expectation is that it’s going to be a crackdown on climate,” said a senior NOAA scientist who wished to remain anonymous. “People are just somewhere between disturbed and terrified.”
In October, I reported on Project 2025’s plan to gut NOAA, the National Weather Service, & climate research Today The Guardian is reporting “DOGE staffers enter NOAA headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats” www.nbcnewyork.com/news/nationa…
The new NOAA restrictions, as communicated in a staff-wide message last week, said agency headquarters would implement further oversight over […]
Do not expect the United States to be prepared for the climate change disasters that are occurring with increasing frequency. Everything that “king” Trump and his administration can do to sabotage the preparation for what I think is going to be a civilization-threatening crisis within 15 years is being done. They are undercutting the conversion to renewable energy, increasing the dependence on carbon energy, undercutting healthcare, and damaging weather reporting. It goes on and on, with new horrifying details being reported every day.
Solar panels in Goshen, Indiana. Credit: Wirestock / Getty
Mike Mullett strains to see through sheets of misty rain while driving through working-class neighborhoods of Columbus, a quaint town in southern Indiana.
He’s trying to find the senior center, multi-family homes and rent-assisted properties – more than 530 in total – that he and many other locals hope will receive $4.42m in federal funding for solar electricity projects.
But now that money is at risk.
On 20 January, Donald Trump paused billions of dollars of federal grant funding for clean energy and other projects around the country initiated by the Biden administration’s Green New Deal.
“We’ve been slavishly working on a plan since April 2023 that would provide solar energy to hundreds of households in two low- and moderate-income Columbus neighborhoods,” says Mullett. The project was expected to be rolled out in April, with previously approved funding thought to have been made available by 14 February.
“Unless the Trump administration makes a 180-degree turn on funding, that expectation will obviously not be met.”
The funding is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s $7bn Solar for […]
It is becoming clear to the leaders of the NATO alliance that the United States is no longer a democracy or a reliable ally. It has become a christofascist, White supremacy, male-dominant, oligarchy-owned, kingdom ruled by a multiple felon. As I have been predicting not only is American democracy being destroyed, the geopolitical international alliance structure that has kept NATO Europe and the U.S. out of war is unravelling.
France President Emmanuel Macron Credit: Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP / Getty Images
French president says yielding to Vladimir Putin would be ‘bad news for everyone’ amid fears of US and Russia deciding continent’s future security.
Emmanuel Macron has warned against a peace deal over the Ukraine war that would amount to “capitulation” as Donald Trump suggested Russia might not make any concessions in negotiations.
The French president said only the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, could negotiate on behalf of his country with Russia to end the war, warning in an interview with the Financial Times that a “peace that is a capitulation” would be “bad news for everyone”, including the US.
The comments come amid fears in Europe that Trump and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, are trying to negotiate the future of the continent’s security over the heads of European leaders themselves, with the US president already making a raft of concessions.
“The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis. After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians […]
Allan Smith, Melanie Zanona and Laura Strickler, Reporters - NBC News
Stephan:
If you read me regularly you will remember the story I ran the other day describing how “king” Trump and his prime minister Musk and his lackeys accidentally fired the men and women with the expertise to keep everything nuclear safe, then realized the stupidity of their actions but couldn’t find all the people to rehire them. Well, it is happening again. All of this sabotage of American democracy and the structure of our federal government is like something out of a satire novel. Do you remember Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451? That’s what I was thinking about today as I searched for some good news trends in the U.S. and couldn’t find any.
Avian flu warning Credit: YouTube
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that, over the weekend, it accidentally fired “several” agency employees who are working on the federal government’s response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak.
The agency said it is now trying to quickly reverse the firings.
“Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. “USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission.”
We’re looking to hear from federal government workers who have been laid off. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us at tips@nbcuni.com or contact us through one of these methods.
The spokesperson noted that several agency positions were already exempted from the sweeping cuts President Donald Trump’s administration is making across the federal government, adding that the […]
