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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: If you have ever wondered, this is what political whoring looks like.
Two of Congress’ most prominent political whores
A new analysis entitled “Bankrolling the Disenfranchisers” calls out the corporate and trade association political action committees that—despite any condemnation of last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol—poured millions in campaign contributions to the 147 Republicans who voted to object to President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump.
Released Wednesday by Public Citizen, the analysis finds that these groups have given roughly $170 million to the slate of anti-democratic lawmakers since the 2016 election cycle.
Nineteen of the 100 PACs gave more than a million dollars over the past four years. Topping the list is the National Association of Realtors, which gave $2,061,307. The $1 million+ givers also include weapons behemoths like Lockheed Martin at $1,410,500 and communications giants like AT&T at $1,617,000.Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
The analysis further notes that 46 of the PACs funded at least 50% of the election certification objectors. The National Association of Home Builders, for example, contributed to 123 out […]
Stephan: This report lays out the last, the biggest, and the nastiest "middle finger" to America from Donald Trump as he slinks away from the White House. Not only was there no national plan for getting vaccines into the arms of Americans, but there were also no stores of vaccines to deliver. I confess there is a part of me that wishes that Trump and the Red States and the MAGAts they have sent to Congress could go off by themselves and sink into the well-deserved cesspit of failure they have so consistently sought. I am ashamed of feeling this way but I am also tired of their incompetence, corruption, debasement of a once-proud religion based on loving one's neighbors and helping those less fortunate, their racism, and their fascistic vision of government.
Democratic Governor of Oregon Kat Brown Credit: State of Oregon
The Governor of the state of Oregon launched an attack on President Donald Trump, after learning, she says, the federal stockpile of coronavirus vaccines does not exist.
Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, says “there is no federal reserve of doses.”
The federal government allegedly had been holding back some COVID-19 vaccine.
“I am demanding answers from the Trump Administration. I am shocked and appalled that they have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences,” Gov. Brown said on Twitter.
“This is a deception on a national scale. Oregon’s seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon’s share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us,” she added.
Brown says the news was confirmed to her “directly by General Perna of Operation Warp Speed: States will not be receiving increased shipments of vaccines from the national stockpile next week, because there is no federal reserve of doses.”
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Daniel T. Blumstein, Paul Ehrlich, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology, Flinders University | Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles | President, Center for Conservation Biology and Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University - The Conversation
Stephan: For the last four years, the United States under Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate has done nothing of consequence to prepare the United States for what is coming with climate change. Worse, they have done everything they could to sabotage or dismantle what had been done previously. Now the piper will have his coin. Here is an article which should make your stomach clench. It proves Schwartz' First and Second Laws of Climate Change more strongly than all previous. reports: First, whatever science predicts will when it happens, be worse than predicted. Second, whatever time frame science predicts will end up occurring more quickly than predicted.
To get the full academic paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.
The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.
The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.
Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.
Stephan: Trump is leaving office having done everything he could to trash environmental protections for animals, birds, fish, and insects, as well as destroying public lands, parks, and monuments. But people more intelligent, with a greater understanding as to how the great Matrix of Consciousness works interdependently, are pushing back. Here is some of that, which will hopefully have a good outcome.
Western Environmental Law Center attorney Kelly Nokes warned that the Trump administation’s elimination of federal protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 threatens “potentially catastrophic ripple effects on ecosystems where wolves have yet to fully recovery.” Credit: Dennis Fast/VWPics/Universal Images Group/Getty
Over a dozen conservation groups on Thursday challenged the Trump administration’s stripping of key protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states.
“This delisting decision is what happens when bad science drives bad policy,” said Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles in a statement.
Earthjustice, on behalf of organizations including the Center for Biologicial Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, is one of the legal groups that filed suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rule—which took effect last week—removing endangered species protections. The Western Environmental Law Center, on behelf of groups including Cascadia Wildlands and WildEarth Guardians, filed a separate legal challenge (pdf) Thursday.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1349757943722303489&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F01%2F14%2Fconservationists-file-lawsuits-stop-death-sentence-wolves-ordered-trump&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Western Environmental Law Center attorney Kelly Nokes said that areas where gray wolves had previously been delisted provide a cautionary tale.
“Allowing people to kill wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana has already stunted recovery in those […]
Stephan: From the ages of 11 to 23 although I had no interest in hunting, which I thought an absurd activity since I had no interest in dressing out the corpses of animals or in eating them, I nonetheless was fascinated with the precision of marksmanship. And I got very good at it. So good the Army wanted me to be a sniper. Happily, I was able to become a medic, and when I came out of the Army, having seen what guns do to peoples' bodies, I put my 37 guns into my family's boat went out into the Chesapeake Bay and threw them into the sea, During what I think of as my "gun years" I was a member of the NRA, then an apolitical organization that sponsored safety training programs. A very different NRA than the corrupt political lobbying operation it has become, and I am glad to report that is now going bankrupt. Hopefully, this may help America recover from its psychotic gun obsession.
Wayne LaPierre head of he NRA
The National Rifle Association filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas on Friday as its current home, New York, pursues a fraud case against the organization.
The NRA was founded in New York in 1871 and has since presented itself as a defender of Second Amendment rights. The NRA attributes the move to Texas to a “corrupt political and regulatory environment” in New York.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit to have the NRA dissolved in August. She accused CEO Wayne LaPierre and other senior staff with diverting millions of the nonprofit group’s dollars to luxury vacations, private jets and more. James called for the funds to be returned and the executives to be prohibited from serving on any not-for-profit in New York ever again.
“This is a transformational moment in the history of the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement. He said the NRA is “dumping New York … at a time when the NRA is in its strongest financial condition in years. “
NPR’s Tim Mak previously reported that legal troubles have cost the organization $100 […]
Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly, - Scientific American
Stephan: Like me, you probably noticed that the Trumper insurrectionists who assaulted the Capitol, while a tiny percentage were women, or people of color, in the mass they were overwhelmingly White and male. Why is that? Here is an approach to an answer based science. I don't think this is the entire answer, but it does provide a partial answer.
Trumper Insurrectionists assault the Capitol. Credit: Lev/Radin/Getty
The scenes that played out at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday will forever live in infamy. As Congress prepared to certify electoral college votes and declare Joe Biden president-elect, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building, vandalizing the halls and occupying the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Photographs and video show a band of insurrectionists that is overwhelmingly White and male. They carried guns, Confederate flags, flags emblazoned with swastikas, QAnon placards, and, according to police, chemical irritants. They scaled exterior walls, climbed scaffolding, smashed windows, hung from balconies, and crashed through the doors of the Senate chamber, one White man charging to the dais and yelling, “Trump won that election!”
Hours later, more than 120 legislators, overwhelmingly White and male, still pledged to fight Biden’s win.
Although it is certainly true that Trump maintains a significant following among White women, his most fervent supporters tend to be White and male. Distributed across a wide swath of socioeconomic status, these men have unwaveringly—and even violently—supported the […]
Dell Cameron and Dhruv Mehrota, Senior Privacy and Security Reporter/ Data Technology Reporter - Gizmodo
Stephan: Here is further confirmation about a trend I have been pointing out for several years now: the growing infestation of law enforcement and the military by MAGAts. This is a very dangerous trend that threatens our democracy and destroys our society's wellbeing.
Parler, founded in Nevada in 2018, bills itself as an alternative to “ideological suppression” at other social networks. Credit: Olivier Douliery Getty
Location data gleaned from thousands of videos posted on the social network Parler and extracted in the days before Amazon restricted access to app this week, reveal its users included police officers around the U.S. and service members stationed on bases at home and abroad.
The presence on Parler of active military and police raises concerns, experts said, about their potential exposure to far-right conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies enabled by the platform’s practically nonexistent moderation and its stated openness to hate speech. Military officials have long considered infiltration and recruitment by white supremacist groups a threat. Groups that endorsed a wide range of racist beliefs appear to have been operating openly on Parler, the experts said, with the de facto permission of its owners. The FBI has likewise raised concerns over law enforcement agents adopting radical views and being recruited—viewing their access to secured buildings, elected officials, and other VIPs as a singular threat.
Stephan: Almost all media coverage about the government focuses on public personalities, the men and women in office. But, in my view of the world, those people are only there because some large group of people, a majority of whoever is voting, chose them. That is why I keep saying that the problem with America is Americans. It is we, the people, who created the Trump government and permitted it to be staffed by MAGAts. And this disgusting Republican Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is today's best proof of this point. What were you thinking people of Georgia's 14th Congressional District?
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
Following Wednesday’s House impeachment vote in which Democrats formally charged President Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” several Republicans in Congress later expressed their condemnation of the decision using inflammatory rhetoric. One of GOP lawmaker, freshman Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, even preemptively announced her plan to impeach Joe Biden immediately after he takes office next week.
“On January 21, 2021,” Greene declared on Twitter, “I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against Joe Biden for abuse of power.” So far, no other members of Congress have rallied behind her.
Greene is a vocal anti-masker, refusing to wear a mask around other members of Congress even after several Democratic House members announced this week that they are COVID-positive. Greene, instead, blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for spreading the virus in the Capitol, saying to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wa., on Twitter, “Before you point fingers at me or anyone else, you need to talk directly to @SpeakerPelosi about exposing ALL of us to covid when she called back POSITIVE covid House members last week for votes for Speaker!” Greene, however, offered no direct evidence of Pelosi’s […]
