Thursday, January 26th, 2017
Stephan: America is now considered a "flawed" democracy. And it is not Donald Trump because this data was gathered before the election, although he is expected to make things worse. Given our grievously poor social outcomes, our vast corruption, and now this, I think it is undeniable we are a nation in decline.
Democracy Index
Credit: Economist Intelligence Unit
Every year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research arm of the company that publishes the Economist magazine, issues a report assessing the state of democracy in countries around the world. This year’s report, released on Wednesday morning, has a striking finding: The United States has, for the first time, been rated as a “flawed” rather than “full” democracy.
You’d think, given the timing, that the election of Donald Trump is the reason why. But that’s not it. The report is based on a quantitative metric, linked to survey data and policy, that doesn’t incorporate the election results.
“The decline in the US democracy score reflects an erosion of confidence in government and public institutions over many years,” the report states. “[Trump’s] candidacy was not the cause of the deterioration in trust but rather a consequence of it.”
This report isn’t just a bunch of liberals hyperventilating about Trump, then. It’s one piece of evidence that something deeper is going wrong in American democracy.
What the […]
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Thursday, January 26th, 2017
Adam Johnson, - Alternet (U.S.)
Stephan: Fascism always attempts to control the media, because Fascists can't stand the truth; they live in a reality of "alternative facts". We are about to see whether the six corporations that own 90 per cent of the media are prepared to back a healthy free press, or whether greed will lead them to cave. It's not looking terribly promising.
Credit: Shutterstock
During Friday’s inauguration protests, more than 200 people were arrested and charged with felony rioting, a crime that carries up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Among those facing a decade in prison were at least seven journalists covering the protest, rounded up by D.C. metro police due to their proximity to the unrest.
Though Washington D.C. is no stranger to mass arrests–having settled millions in lawsuits after arresting over 400 during 2002 anti-World Bank protests–the shockingly stiff penalties being leveled are, according to multiple reports, with few precedents. According to The Washington Post:
Longtime D.C. defense lawyer Heather Pinckney said that in the 15 years she has practiced, she does not remember seeing demonstrators charged with felonies. Typically, she said, protesters are charged with misdemeanors or given citations and sent home.
The journalists in question include Alex Rubenstein of RT, Evan Engel of Vocativ, independent photojournalist Shay Horse, Story of America producer Jack Keller, livestreamers Matt Hopard and Alexei Wood, […]
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Thursday, January 26th, 2017
Valerie Volcovici, - Reuters
Stephan: I just hate the stories I am posting, but the trends are the trends, and I am afraid the United States is moving into the Fascist world of "alternative facts" and official silence about critically important things occurring in the country. It is going to take massive citizen pushback to stop this, and I'm not convinced we are up to it. I hope so, but we'll see.
Children play amid icebergs on the beach in Nuuk, Greenland, June 5, 2016.
Credit: Reuters/Alister Doyle
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the climate change page from its website, two agency employees told Reuters, the latest move by the newly minted leadership to erase ex-President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives.
The employees were notified by EPA officials on Tuesday that the administration had instructed EPA’s communications team to remove the website’s climate change page, which contains links to scientific global warming research, as well as detailed data on emissions. The page could go down as early as Wednesday, the sources said.
“If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear,” one of the EPA staffers told Reuters, who added some employees were scrambling to save some of the information housed on the website, or convince the Trump administration to preserve parts of it.
The sources asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A Trump […]
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Thursday, January 26th, 2017
Sarah K. Burris, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Over the next four years I think we are going to see a massive assault on women, one effect of which will be to significantly exacerbate the Great Schism Trend. The Blue value states are going to thrive and their social programs will be increasingly wellness oriented, gender neutral and supportive of women's rights. You can see this in California.
In contrast the Red value states are going to become increasingly unpleasant to live in and less prosperous. Frankly, if I were a woman I wouldn't live in Texas. Here is the latest on choice and Texas. Of course Tony Tinderholt the state representative sponsoring this legislation is a Republican.
Texas Republican State Representative
Credit: Facebook
Texas state Representative Tony Tinderholt hoped to put women in jail and take away their voting rights if they had an abortion.
In an interview with the Texas Observer, the Republican lawmaker explained that women need to know there are “repercussions” for their actions.
“Right now, it’s real easy,” Tinderholt said. “Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”
House Bill 948 has been named by Tinderholt as the “Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act” and will likely draw another costly lawsuit for Texas taxpayers to fund in court. Under this bill, there would no longer be any exception for women who are abused, raped or […]
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Wednesday, January 25th, 2017
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - The Schwartzreport
Stephan: Sometime in the Spring of 1989 I was at the Writer's Club in Moscow having lunch with a group of Russian journalists and I asked them. "How the hell do you work out what is real, and what is fake news, just propaganda? How do you know what you can publish, and what will get you in trouble?"
Their answers were a tale of learning self-censorship if you wanted to keep your job and, often, your apartment, and learning how to read between the lines. Often what was missing was as important as what was said, and you had to learn how to read that."
I came away from that lunch thinking, "how would I react if that were to happen in America?" It seemed so improbable it was no more than an evil fantasy. Well, welcome to the USSA. Less than a week into the Trump administration what once seemed unbelievable is now reality, The next three stories give you some sense of the dimension of what is happening
The Republicans in Congress can't get up off their knees long to stop this. For Congressional Republicans having power is more important than the well being of the country, citizens, who cares about them, and nothing is going to stop this but vigorous citizen activism. If you are not involved with something in your community you have become part of the problem. Sorry to be it that baldly, but that's the truth.
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