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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: Unless you read right-wing websites, or watch faux news operations like Fox, NewsMax, and the like you really can't get an accurate sense of how active, organized, and expanding right-wing male dominant White militias have become. Even in my rural community, we are seeing this. This is a very alarming trend because it suggests that we are heading to a period of extensive civil violence.
A man hold his hand to his heart as a Proud Boys organizer recites the Pledge of Allegiance during a Proud Boys rally at Delta Park in Portland, Oregon on September 26, 2020. Credit: Maranie R. Staab/AFP/Getty
The year 2020 has been defined by the coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the US presidential election.
These massive news events also fuelled a growing far-right movement across the United States and the world.
From The Proud Boys to the Boogaloo movement, 20 photos show how far-right groups found the limelight this year.
The far-right movement came out of the shadows in the last year.
The year 2020, defined by a global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, brought white supremacists, right-wing extremists, and other groups promoting social unrest into the limelight.
From the Proud Boys to QAnon, the armed militias, and the Boogaloo Bois, scroll down to find out more about how far-right extremism made its way back into the limelight in 2020.
The year 2020 has been defined by white supremacists’ rapid growth, right-wing […]
Stephan: We have 30 more days of madness and, given what has happened since the election in November, we can expect much evil to be attempted by Trump before he is forced to leave. Just today, Trump is still trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn the election.
As all of this has gone I keep wondering what would have happened if the Senate Republicans had had the spine and integrity to convict Trump of his impeachment and removed both him and Pence from office. Pelosi would have become President. A very different election would have occurred; the Covid-19 Pandemic would have been handled competently, and tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand of our friends and family would still be alive; America would still be respected in the world; and, the economy would not have tanked in the way it has, and millions would not have been reduced to hunger and poverty. History will condemn the Republican senators, but that will be small comfort to those of us who have been forced to live through these months because of the failure of Mitch McConnell and his Republican Senate colleagues.
The Supreme Court
President Donald Trump’s campaign said on Sunday it would again ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn results from the Nov. 3 election, its latest long-shot effort to subvert the electoral process and sow doubt over the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
In a statement issued by the campaign, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the campaign had filed a petition asking the high court to reverse three rulings by a Pennsylvania state court interpreting the state’s rules for mail-in ballots.
“The Campaign’s petition seeks to reverse three decisions which eviscerated the Pennsylvania Legislature’s protections against mail ballot fraud,” Giuliani said in a statement.
Giuliani said the filing sought all “appropriate remedies,” including an order allowing Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature to award the state’s 20 electoral votes to Trump. Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes.
The petition is “frivolous” and is not going to stop Biden from becoming president on Jan. 20, said Joshua Douglas, an election law professor at the University of Kentucky.
“The Court will shut it down quickly,” Douglas said.
The Supreme Court on Dec. 11 rejected a lawsuit filed […]
Stephan: I think historians in the future will be very clear that if Trump was not an active Russian agent, he was what Lenin called "a useful idiot." The facts proving this are clear and undeniable. Here they are.
Putin and Trump his Russian asset
One need not dabble in conspiracy theories to ask a simple question today: What should be done about Donald Trump having served as a Russian asset for the past four years?
Today’s 24/7 news cycles are not suited for this task. They rely upon the instant gratification of breaking news stories as they present themselves, not analysis of how events might fit […]
Daniel Villarreal, - AlterNet/The New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan: Frankly, I don't see how this racist propaganda and anti-science diatribe by Fox's Tucker Carlson is any different from falsely screaming fire in a crowded movie theater. I think Carlson should be arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for spewing deliberate falsehoods that will inevitably result in the deaths of a multitude.
Fox Racist propagandist Tucker Carlson. Credit: Meaghan Ellis
On Friday’s installment of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the Fox News commentator accused the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of suggesting that COVID-19 vaccinations should be distributed based on race rather than need. Carlson’s claims was a deliberate misrepresentation of a CDC presentation on the groups most needing vaccination.
In the presentation, the CDC said that healthcare personnel, adults ages 65 and older, people with high-risk medical conditions, and essential workers would be the first to receive vaccinations.
In explaining why these groups were chosen for vaccinations first, the CDC mentioned that essential workers tend to be poor people and people of color who can’t work from home. People of color also tend to be underrepresented among people ages 65 and older (ie. They don’t typically live as long). As such, inoculating essential workers who are largely poor and people of color will help reduce healthcare inequalities among these communities.
Stephan: Christianity in America today has so little in common with Jesus' teachings that the only thing they share is a vocabulary of religious words.
The Asatru Folk Assembly has morphed from a seemingly romantic celebration of Viking myths to an all-white, explicitly racist religious group. Credit: Renee Jones Schneider / Star Tribune/ AP
In 2015, the Asatru Folk Assembly, a religious group devoted to the worship of the Norse pantheon, opened its first physical house of worship in Brownsville, California, calling it Odinshof — the “Temple of Odin.” In a celebratory post on the AFA’s Facebook page, Odinshof is revealed to be a red building adorned with Nordic runes and flanked by a celebratory, posing crowd — every single one of whom is white, the California sun shining through their sheaves of blond hair.
The vision presented by the Asatru Folk Assembly relies on the notion of a “folk” — a racially pure white body of worshippers.
The triumph is punctuated with a curious imprecation, with a tint of fascism: “Hail the Gods! Hail the Folk! Hail the AFA!” Much like the crowd pictured in the Facebook post, the “folk” being hailed by the AFA are unambiguously white. […]
Stephan: For many weeks after the election, I thought the reason Trump kept contesting the election was that it was all an enormous grift to milk money from his moronic followers. And it has been very successful -- over $200 million has come in -- better than steaks, wine, or his phony university. Over the last week, however, although I think the grift has been a large part of what is going on, the truth is that Trump really is so mentally ill that he doesn't live in reality. He really is a mad wannabe dictator seriously thinking about martial law, and ending American democracy so he can stay in power. This story suggests that is the case.
President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump’s aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn’s more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden — an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn’t clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a […]
Stephan: Let's see, Trump has been a failure at handling the pandemic, he has grossly diminished America's place in the world, and he has trashed the economy, and is actively destroying the protection of the environment. Unless you live in the fantasy realm of Trumperworld by any rational measure Donald Trump is one of the worst, maybe the worst, men to ever hold the office of president. And yet something like 74 million Americans voted for him. We are a very sick country with a very sick president at the helm, representing a party that is silent about what he is doing.
Local residents who have been financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic wait in line at a Thanksgiving meal take home kit food distribution organized by the L.A. Mission, November 20, 2020, outside Compton Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty
When President Donald Trump departs the White House next month, he will leave in his wake a nation devastated by a pandemic he failed to confront and an economic scene characterized by rising poverty, widespread hunger, a looming eviction tsunami, and mass layoffs that have left the U.S. with fewer jobs than when his administration began.
And for that, a scathing new report (pdf) by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) argues, the outgoing president “only has himself to blame.”
Released Friday in response to the 2020 Economic Report of the President (pdf), the assessment of Trump’s economic performance during his four years in office runs directly counter to the rosy depiction frequently offered by the president himself, who seldom missed an opportunity to boast about the state of the stock market even in the midst […]
Stephan: As he prepares to leave office Trump, and the orcs who slavishly serve him, are giving corporations permission to rape and exploit the country's national lands, parks, and forests. And he still has 30 days in office, so many more horrors lie in store, I predict.
The Oak Flat area of the Tonto National Forest, east of Phoenix. Under a Forest Service plan to create a copper mine, much of Oak Flat would be destroyed. Credit: Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times
The outgoing administration is pushing through approval of corporate projects over the opposition of environmental groups and tribal communities.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is rushing to approve a final wave of large-scale mining and energy projects on federal lands, encouraged by investors who want to try to ensure the projects move ahead even after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.
In Arizona, the Forest Service is preparing to sign off on the transfer of federal forest land — considered sacred by a neighboring Native American tribe — to allow construction of one of the nation’s largest copper mines.
In Utah, the Interior Department may grant final approval as soon as next week to a team of energy speculators targeting a remote spot inside an iconic national wilderness area — where […]
