Stephan: Recently, Ronlyn and I have been talking about our sense of depression, the sense that we now live in a country we barely recognize. Everything looks the same, trivial daily things go much the same, and yet, like an invisible fog everything has become slightly toxic and tainted.
I read Michelle Obama's statement this morning, in which she expressed her sense of depression, and I went over to the mainland for a medical check-up, and while I was waiting to see the doctor I talked with the nurses. Each of them told me they weren't sleeping well, and could no longer watch the news; it just depressed them. As I drove home I thought about all this and recognized that in three and a half years Trump and the Republicans have done something I would not have thought possible. They have made Americans doubt America. I got home and wondered what the national data was on this, found this study, and realized how widespread this sense of depression has become.
We will make it until 3rd November and, on that day, we have a chance to fundamentally change the course of our country. We can vote the monster out of the presidency, vote 23 Republican senators out of office, as well as several near Republican conservative Democrats and replace the whole lot with progressive thinkers who will restructure America into a country where the fostering of wellbeing is our first priority. It's up to us. Get every single person you know to vote, and vote for the best option available, the one that will do the best to achieve those ends. And do not make the mistake of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Satisfaction down from 20% in early June and 45% in February
Percentage “satisfied” has not been this low since November 2011
Current figure is just six points above all-time low recorded in 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. continues to tumble since it started trending downward at the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Currently, 13% of U.S. adults are satisfied with the state of the nation, down seven percentage points in the past month and 32 points since reaching a 15-year high in February. Satisfaction has not been this low since November 2011.
Line graph. The 13% of Americans who are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. is down from 20% in June and 45% in February.
The latest update is based on a July 1-23 Gallup poll, conducted as the U.S. faced a surge in coronavirus infections and the most challenging economic conditions since the Great Depression. The nation also continues its reckoning with the issue of race relations after the late May death of George Floyd and ensuing nationwide protests about racial injustice.
These events have greatly altered the national mood this year, from […]
Stephan: Here we have Friday's Republican scum report. Whatever Rudy Giuliani was or was not on 9/11 this is what he is today.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Thursday claimed that followers of Black Lives Matter “hate white people.”
Giuliani made the remarks after “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade asked him about President Donald Trump’s obsession over mail-in ballots.
“Whoever wins, this country is going in two dramatically different directions,” Giuliani opined. “We’re either going to remain a free enterprise country or we’re going to become some kind of socialist country that Black Lives Matter wants, antifa, [Sen. Bernie Sanders]. Biden has agreed with it and he’s too weak to oppose it.”
He continued: “So we’re headed for pure socialism, we’re headed for the end of private education, we’re headed for a drastic reduction in churches, the ability to go to church. They are dead opposed to the military. They want to do away with the police. This is no longer America.”
Giuliani claimed that Black Lives Matter and similar groups “are literally trying to overthrow our way of life” with a “phony election.”
According to the former New York mayor, founding documents for Black Lives Matter suggest “Black people get salaries for the rest of their lives, nobody else.”
“They haven’t said a single word about the violence taking place by antifa or Black Lives Matter, […]
Stephan: I am leading with this story today because almost every day for months now I see yet another report, many in the professional research literature, explicitly stating that we are headed for a civilization threatening catastrophe. You rarely hear anything about this on corporate media, whether print, video, or online. But in the professional literature where researchers publish it has become a constant drumbeat. Meanwhile, most of the world, and certainly most Americans, go blithely on with their lives having no idea about any of this.
Credit: Pamela Guest
Two theoretical physicists specializing in complex systems conclude that global deforestation due to human activities is on track to trigger the “irreversible collapse” of human civilization within the next two to four decades.
If we continue destroying and degrading the world’s forests, Earth will no longer be able to sustain a large human population, according to a peer-reviewed paper published this May in Nature Scientific Reports. They say that if the rate of deforestation continues, “all the forests would disappear approximately in 100–200 years.”
“Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” they write.
This trajectory would make the collapse of human civilization take place much earlier due to the escalating impacts of deforestation on the planetary life-support systems necessary for human survival—including carbon storage, oxygen production, soil conservation, water cycle regulation, support for natural and human food systems, and homes for countless species.
In the absence of these critical services, “it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on […]
Stephan: Ask yourself: Why do Inspector Generals of agencies and departments keep getting fired, or resign? Here is the latest one. What is that telling us about the integrity of the Trumpian orcs?
Secretary of State and leading Trumpian orc Mike Pompeo
State Department inspector general Stephen Akard has resigned less than three months after President Donald Trump fired the previous internal watchdog at Foggy Bottom, a department official confirmed Wednesday.
Akard’s deputy, Diana Shaw, told the inspector general’s staff that he is leaving, the official said. Although Akard’s last day on the job is officially Friday, he is not expected to return to the office for the remainder of the week. Shaw will lead the office for the time being.
State Department spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment on Akard’s resignation — which was first reported by The Washington Post and CNN. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo postponed a news conference previously scheduled for Wednesday morning until later in the afternoon.
Akard, a former career Foreign Service officer, was installed as the department’s acting inspector general in May upon the ouster of Steve Linick, a Justice Department veteran appointed to the watchdog role in 2013 by former President Barack Obama.
Stephan: The first thing to note about this report is that it was published in The Guardian, the leading English language newspaper in Great Britain, and arguably the world. This is how America is now being portrayed, even by people who are our allies.
The second thing to note, is that this is yet another story about the gangland bullies who make up much of American law enforcement. These stories appear almost daily, I just don't have room to cover them every day in SR.
And, finally, let me say that it is my view that the entire Sheriff system in the U.S. should be eliminated. It is the only elected law enforcement office in the country, and a significant percentage of sheriffs are notable mostly for their corruption and bullying -- remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona? Now there was an upstanding example of the type.
Sheriff's have always been bullies, in fact, the post was designed for that purpose. The office was created by the Normans when they conquered England in the 10th century and appointed thugs as sheriffs to keep the peasants controlled. Remember the story of Robin Hood?
Between 10 and 20 L.A. Sheriff’s deputies at the Compton station had tattoos like Samuel Aldama’s Credit: John Sweeney
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — John Sweeney knew from his four decades as a civil rights lawyer that something about the police shooting of Donta Taylor was off.
Taylor, a 31-year-old African American, had been walking from a friend’s house in Compton to a nearby grocery store one summer night when members of the county sheriff’s department challenged him, gave chase and ended up firing more than a dozen shots at him along a lonely concrete pathway alongside a canal.‘This is huge’: black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prisonRead more
To Sweeney, who had cut his teeth as an associate of the legendary civil rights lawyer Johnnie Cochran, the 2016 killing smacked of an execution, the work of renegade police officers reveling in violence for the sake of it. It was no more than a hunch, at first.
The police claimed that Taylor had been wearing gang colors – Compton is the birthplace of the notorious […]
