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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.
Missy Ryan, Pentagon Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: The United States spends more on the military-industrial complex than the next highest-spending SEVEN nations in the world COMBINED. You would think that such expenditures would guarantee that we had the most technologically advanced military, one so powerful it could not be challenged. You might think that, but you would be wrong. The American military-industrial complex, as Dwight Eisenhower warned us, has become one of the world's greatest grifts.
A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a Swiss air force F-18 Hornet. Credit: Senior Airman Justine Rho/100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
EVERETT, WASHINGTON — As they conduct bombing and surveillance missions around the globe, today’s U.S. military pilots rely on aerial refueling aircraft built as early as 1957, when the Soviet Union dominated American security fears, the average home cost $12,000 and “I Love Lucy” was debuting new episodes.
The cost of keeping those aging jets in the air has grown sharply while the military awaits a next-generation refueling plane whose rollout has been repeatedly delayed by design and production issues.
The Air Force’s two-decade effort to field a 21st-century tanker, one of several premier air systems whose development has been beset with problems, is emblematic of the challenges Pentagon leaders face in seeking to maintain the U.S. military’s shrinking edge over its chief competitor, China.
The United States, once the world’s undisputed military superpower, has been struggling for years to efficiently update its arsenal and field new technology in cutting-edge areas such as hypersonics and artificial intelligence, at a time when […]
Stephan: Plastics have become the Gollem of the age. I understand the use of plastics, but new bio-sensitive technologies not based on petroleum must be developed or we are literally going to pollute ourselves to death.
Credit: Mike Kemp/Getty
If you find yourself in some secluded spot in the American West—maybe Yellowstone, or the deserts of Utah, or the forests of Oregon—take a deep breath and get some fresh air along with some microplastic. According to new modeling, 1,100 tons of it is currently floating above the western US. The stuff is falling out of the sky, tainting the most remote corners of North America—and the world. As I’ve said before, plastic rain is the new acid rain.
But where is it all coming from? You’d think it’d be arising from nearby cities—western metropolises like Denver and Salt Lake City. But new modeling published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that 84 percent of airborne microplastics in the American West actually comes from the roads outside of major cities. Another 11 percent could be blowing all the way in from the ocean. (The researchers who built the model reckon that microplastic particles stay airborne for nearly a week, and that’s more than enough time for them to cross continents and oceans.)
Stephan: Here is an aspect of America's wealth inequality crisis -- yes, it is a major crisis, see SR archives -- that I had not considered or seen asserted based on data. But now we have that data, and I take it as yet another reason why U.S. wealth inequality needs to be addressed through the restructuring of our tax code.
A woman enjoys her choice of Krug or Dom Perignon champagne while relaxing in the first class cabin on a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 flight. Credit: s.yume/Flickr
As world leaders prepare for this November’s United Nations Climate Conference in Scotland, a new report from the Cambridge Sustainability Commission reveals that the world’s wealthiest 5% were responsible for well over a third of all global emissions growth between 1990 and 2015.
“Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air. But these schemes are highly contentious and they’re not proven over time.” —Peter Newell, Sussex University
The report (pdf), entitled Changing Our Ways: Behavior Change and the Climate Crisis, found that nearly half the growth in absolute global emissions were cause by the world’s richest 10%, with the most affluent 5% alone contributing 37%.
“In the year when the U.K. hosts COP26, and while the government continues to reward some of Britain’s biggest polluters through tax credits, the commission report shows why this is precisely the wrong way to meet the […]
Stephan: The activities described in this report completes the transformation of the Republican Party into what it has become today.. This devolution, I think, will be seen by historians in the future, as a historically significant event. What these people are trying to do would condemn several billion people to misery, and cause countless deaths. The way to defuse these movements is to foster wellbeing.
Republican efforts to stall President Joe Biden’s climate agenda are slowly beginning to take shape. In March, a coalition of 12 Republican state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging Biden’s executive order creating a working group to establish a metric for the “social cost of carbon.” Led by Missouri’s attorney general, Eric Schmitt, the lawsuit charges that the order is an “enormous expansion of federal regulatory power” and that such cost calculations are “inherently speculative, policy-laden, and indeterminate” and should instead be undertaken by Congress.
In a similar vein, 21 Republican-controlled states, led by Texas and Montana, have sued the Biden administration over its decision to revoke a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, calling it an unconstitutional overuse of executive power that would diminish the states’ economies and tax revenue. Both lawsuits are pending in federal courts. Separately, in response to Biden’s alleged “hostility to the energy industry,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order in January directing state agencies to “use all lawful powers” to challenge […]
Stephan: This is what a country centered on fostering wellbeing looks and acts like. I think New Zealand is one of the most interesting nations in the world. These are people who are taking climate change seriously. This is good news.
LONDON – New Zealand is set to consider legislation that would require banks, insurers and asset managers to disclose the impacts of climate change on their businesses as the country tries to slash its carbon emissions.The government said in a statement Tuesday that the bill is the first of its kind to be proposed anywhere in the world. It will receive its first reading in parliament this week, and it would make climate-related disclosures mandatory for around 200 organizations.”We simply cannot get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 unless the financial sector knows what impact their investments are having on the climate,” Climate Change Minister James Shaw said in a statement. “This law will bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial and business decision making.”The legislation would require financial firms to disclose how climate change affects their business, and explain how they will manage climate-related risks and opportunities. If the bill is passed, the first disclosure reports would be published by companies as soon as 2023.”Requiring the financial […]
Stephan: The judicial legacy left by Trump is going to haunt America for decades. Here's an example.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivers remarks during her swearing-in ceremony as Supreme Court Associate Justice Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, on the South Lawn of the White House. Credit: Official White House/Andrea Hanks)
A perfect example of how much Justice Amy Coney Barrett has moved the U.S. Supreme Court even more to the right came late Friday night, when the High Court blocked California’s pandemic-related ban on religious gatherings in private homes. The decision in Tandon v. Newsom was a 5-4 ruling, and Barrett was part of the majority in a case that might have had a different outcome if the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were still alive.
After Ginsburg’s death in 2020, then-President Donald Trump nominated Barrett — and when the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed her, a liberal was replaced by a far-right social conservative along the lines of Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Barrett was expected to make socially conservative rulings, and she did that with her decision in Tandon v. Newsom.
Journalist Mark Joseph Stern, analyzing the ruling in Slate, […]
Robert O'Harrow Jr., Andrew Ba Tran and Derek Hawkins, - The Washington Post
Stephan: The linkage of White supremacy and America's gun psychosis constitutes the most threatening enemy we face. A much bigger problem than Russia.
Credit: Washington Post
Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left and causing more deaths, the analysis shows.
The number of all domestic terrorism incidents in the data peaked in 2020.
Since 2015, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots or attacks and 91 fatalities, the data shows. At the same time, attacks and plots ascribed to far-left views accounted for 66 incidents leading to 19 deaths.
“What is most concerning is that the number of domestic terror plots and attacks are at the highest they have been in decades,” said Seth Jones, director of the database project at CSIS, a nonpartisan Washington-based nonprofit that specializes in national security issues. “It’s so important for Americans to understand the gravity of the threat before it gets worse.”
Stephan: The Minority-rule-doom-loop. Now that's turning a phrase, and it is a very real threat to American democracy.
Republican Senator Mitch Connell
Knowing that they are a shrinking party and that changing demographics do not work in their favor, Republicans all over the United States are aggressively pushing voter suppression bills in state legislatures. Journalist/author Adam Jentleson, in an article published by The Atlantic on April 12, stresses that Republicans enjoy great “structural” advantages despite becoming more and more of a “minority” party.
“President Joe Biden came into office facing four ‘converging crises’: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice and the economy,” Jentleson explains. “But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly White conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.”
The GOP has lost the popular vote in seven of the United States’ last eight presidential elections, and Republicans are coping with that reality by making it more difficult to vote. Another GOP tactic is […]
