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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.
JOSH SIEGEL and ALEX GUILLÉN, Staff Writers - Politico
Stephan:
All those Trump voters are about to discover their lives are going to become more miserable because Trump has appointed Lee Zeldin to head the EPA, and through Zeldin Trump has made it clear that he is going to promote petroleum and carbon energy, and gut regulations to protect Americans from pollution, even as his administration does little or nothing about climate change. This has planet-wide implications.
President-elect Donald Trump greets Lee Zeldin as he arrives to speak at a campaign event at a farm on Sept. 23, 2024, in Smithton, Pennsylvania. Credit: Alex Brandon/AP
President-elect Donald Trump on Monday announced he has picked former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) to helm the Environmental Protection Agency, the first step in what Trump’s supporters have said could be a thorough shakeup of the regulatory body.
Strikingly, Trump made his EPA nominee one of the very first personnel decisions of his incoming administration — an unusually prominent placement that appeared to reflect the prime role that energy deregulation played in his campaign messaging.
The selection of Zeldin, a vocal Trump ally in Congress during his first term, was a surprise after Andrew Wheeler, who served as the second EPA chief during Trump’s first term, was widely thought to be the frontrunner for the post.
At EPA, Zeldin will carry out Trump’s energy and environmental agenda, which includes pulling back Biden-era rules on climate and air pollution and potentially rescinding millions of dollars in funding for clean energy under […]
Once again Trump voters are going to experience exactly what they thought Trump would protect them from. Trump’s deportation schemes are not only going to create massive social disruption in communities all over the country; it is also going to be very costly. It is time for thinking Americans to realize that a large percentage, maybe even a majority of us, don’t understand what a democracy is supposed to be and, therefore, have little interest in preserving it. There is going to be a lot of misery and pain as a result for all but the rich, and even they will be impacted by climate change.
A girl wearing a “Build the wall, deport them all” t-shirt attends Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again Rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 19, 2024. Credit: Brian Snyder/ Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump ran on deporting millions of undocumented immigrants if he won a second term. And now that he prepares to enter the White House in January, his incoming administration has promised that mass deportations will be at the top of his mind from day one.
Reuters reported earlier this week that Trump’s plan to deport a significant portion of the 13 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States would cost roughly $968 billion over a 10-year period. This includes the cost of hiring untold thousands of additional Department of Homeland Security personnel to round up, detain and process targets of Trump’s mass deportations, in addition to the construction cost of detention camps, immigration judges and other related costs.
However, as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston told MSNBC host Joy Ann-Reid on Friday, there is
One of the reasons we moved to a Blue state 15 years ago was what I saw happening with climate change. The other reason was I could see the rise of fascism in the United States; it was one of the reasons I walked away from a career in government, even though I had been approached to work for the President after being a Special Assistant for two Chiefs of Naval Operations. And I am so glad we did. Blue states are preparing for climate change as Red states are not, and now Blue state governors and legislatures are doing everything they can to Trump-proof themselves. Yesterday two people, one of whom I knew but the other I did not, and today a third person I didn’t know, all SR readers, wrote to tell me they were living in Red States and wanted to move, and what did I suggest? I told them all to look at the Pacific Northwest.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center left, stands during the roll call at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Credit: AP
Democratic governors and attorneys general are working to Trump-proof their states ahead of his inauguration, gearing up to ensure their residents have access to medication abortion and the resources in place to fight Donald Trump’s actions in court.
On Thursday morning, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he is taking the first step to safeguard his state from some of Trump’s worst policies by calling a special legislative session. Newsom wants the legislature to pass more funding for the California Department of Justice so that it can file lawsuits against Trump’s actions if need be.
“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack—and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a release. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”
Newsom thinks California will have to fight Trump on […]
Tom Homan, if you have ever seen him on television, you know is a vulgar thug who ought to be in prison for what he did to immigrants when he was in office in the previous Trump administration. But he was protected by Trump and now he will be back in office. He is one of about nine former Trump villains who avoided persectution and are now coming back into government. It is already clear that this is going to be an administration of villains and thugs.
Tom Homan speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. Trump announced on Sunday that the former acting ICE director will oversee border control in his second administration. Credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty
President-elect Trump announced Sunday night that Tom Homan, his former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will join his second administration to oversee border control.
In his role as “border czar” — which does not require Senate confirmation — Homan will be in charge of the southern and northern U.S. borders, as well as “all Maritime and Aviation Security,” Trump said in his post on Truth Social.
“Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” Trump wrote, adding that “there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders.”
It is unclear what role Homan will take, since managing immigration requires coordination between several agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.
Homan, a former police officer and Border Patrol agent, has worked under six presidents during his three decades in law enforcement. He […]
And so it begins. American voters are going to see their legal system restructured to favor the fascist rich. It is all straight out of the fascist playbook of which Project 2025 is just the latest iteration. By the time Trump’s administration ends in four years, if it does end, the legal system that has governed this nation since the Civil War ended will have been transformed into something the people who voted for Trump and the Republicans will not recognize, and no one will be more damaged by this than the people who voted for him.
President-elect Donald Trump moved to seize a measure of power months before being sworn in by demanding that the U.S. Senate not allow President Joe Biden to appoint any judges during his remaining time in office.
In a social media post on Sunday, Trump avoided endorsing a Republican majority leader for the next Senate but put some conditions on his support for the position.
“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” he wrote.
The former president complained that it took up to two years for some appointments to be approved during his previous administration.
“We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!” he exclaimed.
Trump also had some demands that would limit Biden’s ability to do his job in the remaining months of his presidency.
“No Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership,” he said. “THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. THANK YOU!”
JASPER GOODMAN and MERIDITH MCGRAW, Staff Writers - Politico
Stephan:
Trump and those he serves are shaping an administration unlike anything ever seen before in the United States. The national wealth inequality has become so great that a government is being structured that is first of all loyal to Trump and second of all, committed to creating the government outlined in Project 2025. As I have said many times before oligarchic fascism is never imposed on a country, it is always voted into office by an electorate no longer interested in preserving democracy. Read your history. This is how Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Orban all came into power.
The billionaires shaping Trump’s new administration, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon. Credit: Politico
In a break from his approach in 2016, Donald Trump has turned to a pair of staunch allies from the private sector — Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon — to lead his transition effort. Lutnick is in charge of personnel, while McMahon is overseeing policy.
Lutnick, the longtime CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was Trump’s leading conduit to Wall Street during this year’s campaign. He personally gave more than $10 million to the former president’s campaign and raised more than $75 million. Trump is close with Lutnick, who once appeared on “The Apprentice.”
But Lutnick’s approach to leading the transition has been controversial among some in Trump’s orbit. He has faced accusations from some Trump insiders that he has improperly mixed his business interests with his duties standing up a potential administration. Concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Lutnick include Cantor Fitzgerald and its relationship with one of the most controversial cryptocurrency […]
The United States has for years had the largest incarcerated population of men and women in the world. Beginning in the 1980s because of the ability to legally bribe politicians a system of privately owned prisons was legalized. In 1983, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was founded, becoming the first private prison company. CCA’s first contract was to design, build, and manage a detention facility in Houston for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Treating people like caged animals quickly became a very profitable private enterprise business and a whole network of such cage operations has arisen. There are now 158 private prisons in the U.S.. In 2022 8% of those incarcerated were in private prisons, 90,873 men and women. Now, under Trump, the millionaires and billionaires who own these disgusting morally repugnant corporations are going to get much richer. We are soon going to be a nation with concentration camps where millions of people will be stored, and families separated. It will be interesting to see whether any of these camps are privately owned and run. What is even more disgusting, it is already clear that none of these people are currently getting proper health care, particularly women, and I predict whether privately owned or publicly owned the same will be true in these camps. We are on the road to becoming a country the Founders would neither recognize nor support.
The chairperson of a leading U.S. private prison corporation on Thursday gushed over the “unprecedented opportunity” presented by the prospect of Republican President-elect Donald Trump delivering on his campaign promise to begin the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants on his first day in office.
As Common Dreamsreported Thursday, Trump’s campaign confirmed that “the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants” ever is set to start immediately after the former president returns to the White House on January 20.
GEO Group stock surged more than 56% from the close of trading on Tuesday, Election Day, to Friday’s closing bell. Competitor CoreCivic shares skyrocketed 57% over the same period. By contrast, GEO Group stock saw just a 21% rise in the three months preceding Election Day. CoreCivic inched up just 11% over the same period.
“The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company’s [and] country’s history, and the opportunity that it will bring,” GEO Group founder and chairperson George Zoley said during a Thursday earnings call call in which he hailed the […]
Julia Shuford and Mark Spencer, MD, Medical Student | Spencer is an Assistant Professor of Medicine. - MedPage Today
Stephan:
Here is the proof of what I said in the previous article. We have the largest incarcerated population in the world, and they get even worse medical care than is common in the rest of the population, particularly women, and women of color. This morally reprehensible reality is almost never discussed in corporate media. I found this in a medical publication. But it is the reality of the United States. We are a very sick country.
Womens’ prison
As a physician and medical student, we have bore witness to much preventable suffering. A recent patient diagnosed with stage IV cervical cancer exemplified this. Widely considered a preventable cancer, this woman had an abnormal pap smear 10 years prior. She was subsequently incarcerated, where her cancer screening and follow up was long neglected, eventually becoming so ill she required transfer to a hospital.
The incarceration of women has risen astronomically, increasing by nearly 600% in the past few decades. As reproductive health faces a new wave of criminalization, we must include the criminal legal system in our analysis and discussion of women’s health disparities. Incarcerated individuals experienc higher rates of chronic disease, infectious diseases, and mental health concerns. In particular, Black womenopens in a new tab or window are disproportionately criminalized and incarcerated, and likewise more affected by numerous diseases. Social determinants of health drive these disparities as poverty, racism, lack of economic opportunity, and governmental neglect intersect to drive legal involvement, preventable suffering, and […]
