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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.
NICHOLAS RICCARDI and MIKE SCHNEIDER, - Associated Press
Stephan: Population movement is an important but little-noticed trend. One which is only going to become a bigger issue as the effects of climate change and sea rise become more apparent. Anf it is going to have tremendous political overtones.
Garima Vyas
Garima Vyas always wanted to live in a big city. She thought about New York, long the destination for 20-something strivers, but was wary of the cost and complicated subway lines.
So Vyas picked another metropolis that’s increasingly become young people’s next-best option — Houston.
Now 34, Vyas, a tech worker, has lived in Houston since 2013. “I knew I didn’t like New York, so this was the next best thing,” Vyas said. “There are a lot of things you want to try when you are younger — you want to try new things. Houston gives you that, whether it’s food, people or dating. And it’s cheap to live in.”
The choices by Vyas and other members of the millennial generation of where to live have reshaped the country’s political geography over the past decade. They’ve left New York and California and settled in places less likely to be settings for TV sitcoms about 20-something urbanites, including Denver, Houston and Orlando, Florida. Drawn by jobs and overlooked cultural amenities, they’ve helped add new craft breweries, condominiums and liberal voters to […]
Stephan: How strong is White supremacy in the United States? I think this poll gives us a fact-based sense of the answer. White supremacy has been baked into American culture starting in colonial times and healing that, starts with recognizing what this poll is telling us.
Derek Chauvin listens to the court’s ruling on his guilt Credit: MPR News
Three-quarters of Americans overall said they agree with the guilty jury verdict found for each of the three charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd. But among Republican voters, about half said the outcome was the “wrong verdict,” according to a new survey.
A CBS News/YouGov poll of more than 2,500 U.S. adults released Sunday found that white Americans’ reactions to the Chauvin verdict were “largely related to partisanship.”
About 9 in 10 Democrats surveyed said Chauvin’s conviction on all three counts—second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter—was the “right” decision. The 75 percent of independent voters who agreed it was the right verdict directly corresponded to the overall response from Americans. Eighty-two percent of people who identify as political moderates said they agree the guilty verdict was the right decision.
But among Republican Party voters, 46 percent said it was the “wrong verdict,” about five times the amount of disagreeing Democrats.
Stephan: How weird has America's gun psychosis and its marriage with grievance authoritarianism become? This article will give you a hint. And, of course, notice the "sport" characterization.
White militia men Credit: Anthony Crider
Efforts to form militias are being hampered by the firearm ammo crisis gripping America.
“If you don’t own guns or particularly care about guns, you probably had no idea that the United States is currently in the throes of the Great Ammunition Shortage of 2021. But in the gun world, it’s all anyone can talk about,” Tess Owen reported for Vice News on Monday.
“A perfect storm of factors led to the national ammo drought, which is forecast to drag out for at least another year,” Owen explained. “Americans began buying guns at a record pace in 2020 after COVID-19 hit the U.S. Between March and September 2020, gun sales jumped by 91 percent over the same period the previous year. And the approximately 15.1 million new guns needed ammo. But there were manufacturing issues. International shipments of materials used in ammunition were delayed amid restrictions. Ammo and firearm manufacturers were required to temporarily halt operations in certain states where they weren’t deemed essential business.”Raw […]
Stephan: I have just finished listening to President Biden's "State of the Union" address. I agreed with every word, and was heartened that someone with real vision has laid out a path into the future that will foster wellbeing. There is hope.
Stephan: More good news. The rest of the world has a dramatically better view of the United States under Biden than under Trump. I feel like the nation is recovering from an almost catastrophic episode of mental illness, and those who know us are relieved and excited that the America they once liked and respected is returning to good health.
46% of Germans view the United States favorably, up 22 percentage points since Biden’s inauguration.
The American brand has gotten worse in China, where 74% hold unfavorable views.
Favorable opinions about the United States remain underwater in Canada, but they have improved both there and in Mexico over more than three months.
President Joe Biden inherited a tarnished American image abroad when he took office on Jan. 20 following four years of President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policies and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that called into question the status of the world’s oldest continuous democracy.
Nearly 100 days later as the United States and the world meets a symbolic milestone of Biden’s presidency, the Oval Office’s current occupant is overseeing a sizable improvement to the American brand across many allied countries, according to Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking of global sentiment.
The latest surveys of adults in 14 other nations found that favorable views rose by an average of 9 points since Biden’s inauguration, with the largest improvement in international sentiment about the United States over the past three months […]
Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: More good news from the Biden administration. Biden is trying to stop what is estimated to be billions upon billions -- no one is really sure -- of under-reporting or false tax reporting each year by the uber-rich and corporations. Under Trump, as you will read, the richer you were the less likely you would be audited. Now this will change and that is excellent news.
WASHINGTON — President Biden, looking to pay for his ambitious economic agenda and shift more of the nation’s tax burden to the wealthy, will propose giving the Internal Revenue Service an extra $80 billion and more authority over the next 10 years to help crack down on tax evasion by high-earners and large corporations.
The additional money and enforcement power will accompany new disclosure requirements for people who own businesses that are not organized as corporations — like many law firms and real estate partnerships — and for other high-earners who could be hiding income from the government. Mr. Biden’s goal is to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for child care, education and other programs while making it harder for high-earning Americans to evade or avoid taxes.
If the president is successful, individuals who earn more than $400,000 a year would face a higher likelihood of a tax audit, regardless of how much income they report on their tax forms, a person familiar with the plan said.
Empowering the I.R.S. is one of several proposals that […]
Stephan: On the basis of the social outcome data, it is irrefutable that American law enforcement agencies are a humiliating failure compared to the other developed democracies of the world. This article addresses what I believe to be one half of the problem, they are inadequately trained. The other half of the problem is the quality of the people who are hired in the first place. Both halves of this problem need to be solved and solved now. Thankfully, the Biden administration seems to recognize this, and has stopped lying to itself, which is the first step to acting to make a difference.
In response to the high rate at which American police kill civilians, many on the left have taken up the call for defunding the police, or abolishing the police entirely. But some policing experts are instead emphasizing a different approach that they say could reduce police killings: training officers better, longer, and on different subjects. “We have one of the worst police-training academies in comparison to other democratic countries,” Maria Haberfeld, a police-science professor at John Jay College, told me.
Police in the United States receive less initial training than their counterparts in other rich countries—about five months in a classroom and another three or so months in the field, on average. Many European nations, meanwhile, have something more akin to police universities, which can take three or four years to complete. European countries also have national standards for various elements of a police officer’s job—such as how to search a car and when to use a baton. The U.S. does not.
The 18,000 police departments in the U.S. each have their own rules and requirements. But although police reform […]
Stephan: If you read SR regularly you know I have been urging that the American illness profit system be turned into a universal birthright healthcare system, and pharmaceuticals should be part of that. We need to create a system that fosters wellbeing, replacing the system we have now whose only purpose is to create profit.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks with reporters in the Senate Subway on Tuesday, April 13, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty
A new government study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders shows that the U.S. pays two to four times more for prescription drugs than other rich countries, a finding that came as President Joe Biden rolled out a social safety-net plan on Wednesday that excludes progressive proposals to tackle sky-high medicine costs.
According to an analysis (pdf) by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), retail prices that U.S. consumers and insurers paid for 20 brand-name prescription drugs in 2020 were 2.82 times higher than in Canada, 4.25 times higher than in Australia, and 4.36 times higher than in France.
“We can no longer tolerate the American people paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.” —Sen. Bernie Sanders
The drugs GAO examined were a sampling of 41 brand-name medicines with the highest expenditures and use in the Medicare Part D program, which under current federal law is prohibited from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.
