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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.
Stephan: I am sure you have noticed the difference between the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic and how the Biden administration is doing things. Why is that? Well, based on the evidence that is coming out now, the main reason seems to be that the Trump administration basically saw Covid-19 not as a health problem, but as an opportunity for a massive grift. Here is Exhibit A.
A top adviser to former President Donald Trump pressured agency officials to reward politically connected or otherwise untested companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts as part of a chaotic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the early findings of an inquiry led by House Democrats.
Peter Navarro, who served as Trump’s deputy assistant and trade adviser, essentially verbally awarded a $96 million deal for respirators to a company with White House connections. Later, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency were pressured to sign the contract after the fact, according to correspondence obtained by congressional investigators.
Documents obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis after a year of resistance from the Trump administration offer new details about Navarro’s role in a largely secretive buying spree of personal protective equipment and medical supplies.https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20534013/annotations/2025609
But they also show he was among the first Trump officials to sense the urgency of the building crisis, urging the president to push agencies and other officials to “combat the virus swiftly in ‘Trump Time’” and cut through the red tape of […]
Stephan: Exhibit B. When Americans elect scum to public office after this past year do we need any more evidence that scummy behavior is what we will get?
A memo the committee obtained that was sent by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in March 2020 warned that the then-isolated cases of Covid-19 would balloon into “a very serious public health emergency.” | Alex Brandon/AP
A House panel investigating the coronavirus crisis released documents Tuesday detailing how senior White House officials tried to warn then-President Donald Trump of the danger of Covid-19 last March and leaned on federal agencies to offer non-competitive contracts for protective equipment to favored companies.
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis asked HHS, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives to turn over more records on the prior administration’s procurement of protective gear as part of an ongoing investigation.
“We are concerned that the previous administration may not have conducted sufficient diligence prior to awarding multi-million-dollar contracts, and that White House officials may have placed inappropriate pressure on federal agencies to award contracts to particular companies,” Subcommittee chair Jim Clyburn and other panel Democrats wrote in letters obtained by POLITICO.
Stephan: The Republican Party is obsessed with controlling women and keeping them subordinate. They don't give a damn about babies and children, if they did they would be passionate supporters of pregnancy healthcare, childcare funding, and public education. Yet, they are none of those things, and just as every Republican-dominated legislature in the country is trying to gut democracy so they hope that with Amy Coney Barrett they have six Supreme Court justices who will ultimately support their suppression of women.
AssociateJustice Amy Coney Barrett
Every legislative cycle anti-abortion advocates file an excessive number of bills across the country aimed at restricting abortion access with the ultimate goal of ending it altogether. But this legislative cycle is already proving to be far more fraught than in years past.
Enthused by the addition of religious ideologue Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, anti-abortion activists have introduced over 500 bills nationwide this cycle designed to curtail abortion access, according to NBC News. A new report from Planned Parenthood found that represented a marked increase of 200 bills over the some 300 measures introduced around this time in 2019.
“This legislative season is shaping up to be one of the most hostile in recent history for reproductive health and rights,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, told NBC. “These abortion restrictions are about power and control over our bodies.”
Ralph Reed, founder and chair of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, called the effort “very bold and unapologetic,” adding, “The ultimate goal of the pro-life […]
Stephan: In order to get out of the carbon era we have to come up with new technologies that recognize the matrix of life, and its interdependence and interconnectedness. This is an example of what I mean.
Credit: Diane Miller/Getty
Peanut butter and jelly. Hall & Oates. Now there’s a duo that could literally and figuratively be even more powerful: solar panels and canals. What if instead of leaving canals open, letting the sun evaporate the water away, we covered them with panels that would both shade the precious liquid and hoover up solar energy? Maybe humanity cango for that.
Scientists in California just ran the numbers on what would happen if their state slapped solar panels on 4,000 miles of its canals, including the major California Aqueduct, and the results point to a potentially beautiful partnership. Their feasibility study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, finds that if applied statewide, the panels would save 63 billion gallons of water from evaporating each year. At the same time, solar panels across California’s exposed canals would provide 13 gigawatts of renewable power annually, about half of the new capacity the state needs to meet its decarbonization goals by the year 2030.
California’s water conveyance system is the world’s largest, serving 35 million […]
Sarah Kaplan, Climate and Science Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: This is the best article I have read on converting from carbon-energy vehicles to EVs. This trend is growing and picking up speed year-by-year.
Michael Parkin/the Washington Post
Here’s a fun fact: The transportation sector is the biggest source of planet-warming emissions in the United States.
Here’s another: The majority of those emissions come from cars and light-duty trucks — the vehicles people drive to work, school, the grocery store and grandma’s house.
This means one of the most powerful individual actions people can take against climate change is to change the way they get around.
One way to achieve that is to buy an electric vehicle, which produces about a third as much carbon dioxide per mile as a gasoline-powered car. If you’re able to charge your car from completely renewable sources — say, solar panels on the roof of your garage — you can drive as long as you want without generating any emissions at all.
But — fun fact — individual actions alone aren’t sufficient to avert catastrophic warming. If you really want to make a meaningful contribution to the fight against climate change, experts say, you must consider both how you can curb your transportation-related emissions and how you […]
Stephan: Can you actually believe that young boys change gender so that they can play on girl's athletic teams, and that so many of them are trying to do this that it would distort girls' athletics? This is the argument being put forward against trans kids, as this report describes. Really, people actually believe this? It shows how sexually distorted the Republican consciousness is, and I think this dysfunction should be taken seriously, and blocked in every way. A society based on wellbeing does not tell people what to do with their bodies. If you don't control your own body you own nothing, control nothing.
Female high school students bullying classmate Credit: Getty
Despite the rapidly changing times we live in, one truth remains eternal: Whenever conservatives claim they’re “protecting” women, women better be on their guard, because they’re always coming for our freedom.
In the 19th century, chivalrous rhetoric about women being the “angels in the house” was used to ennoble antagonism against women’s suffrage. Anti-feminists in the 1970s attacked the Equal Rights Amendment by falsely insinuating the housewives would be abandoned by their husbands. Reproductive rights opponents still justify onerous obstacles on abortion access by suggesting women can’t be trusted to make important decisions about their own bodies. And, as the current protest movement in Great Britain demonstrates, women’s freedom to socialize or even leave the house is often attacked under the guise of “protecting” them from violent men.
Chivalrous rhetoric is being dusted off once again to abuse some of the most vulnerable people in our society: young trans people, especially those who are still minors. Across the country, the New York Times reports, “Republicans are diving into a culture […]
Stephan: More good news from the Biden administration. For the first time I am becoming optimistic that America is going to take a lead in the conversion out of the carbon era.
Wind turbines of the Block Island Wind Farm tower over the water on October 14, 2016 off the shores of Block Island, Rhode Island. Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty
Climate action groups and ocean defenders issued strong praise Monday after the Biden administration announced its intention to boost the nation’s offshore wind capacity with a number of steps including preparing forfede leases in an area off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
“Today’s announcement marks a revolutionary moment for offshore wind. This powerful renewable resource has been waiting in the wings of our energy system for too long, and now it can finally take center stage,” Hannah Read, an associate with Environment America’s Go Big on Offshore Wind campaign, told Common Dreams.
“This is a down-payment on our national future for our children and their children after them.” —Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.Taken together, the initiatives will create 77,000 jobs, generate enough electricity to power over 10 million homes for a year, and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, according to the administration.
Stephan: I am running this story to make the point that the remnants of the carbon energy era are going to haunt us for decades. The worst, of course, are nuclear installations and waste sites, which may be a problem for centuries. But old oil pumps and coal plants are going to be their own nightmares, and it is going to cost hundreds of millions maybe into billions to clean up this era.
Abandoned oil pumps. Credit: Martina Birnbaum / Getty
When Weatherly Oil and Gas filed for bankruptcy in February 2019, the company was walking away from several hundred Texas wells. Many hadn’t produced a drop of oil in years. Companies are legally required to “plug” wells that they’re no longer using to extract oil and gas by pouring concrete into all their openings and cracks; this prevents them from leaking fossil fuels or harmful pollutants into the air and water sources nearby. But many companies that abandon wells say they no longer have the financial means to do so, leaving government regulators on the hook for the cost. The problem is massive: There are approximately 2.1 million unplugged abandoned wells across the country.
The Texas Railroad Commission, or RRC, which oversees the state’s oil and gas industry, tried to make sure Weatherly would pay up, objecting to the state’s bankruptcy plan because it didn’t include sufficient information about the amount of money that would be set aside for well cleanup and for the company’s various creditors. Ultimately, Weatherly struck […]
