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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: What amazes me is that the Trump community and the Congressional Republicans don't seem to understand, or may it's just that they don't care, that as a result of the incompetence of Trump and the orcs who served him at minimum tens of thousands of men, women, and children died. They seem to have no interest in holding any of them accountable for this mass death, just as they have no interest in holding any of the planners and instigators of the 6th January insurrection accountable. I find it unbelievable.
The US was ranked 94th out of 98 countries according to the Lowry Institute
New Zealand was ranked as the world’s most effective handler, with 25 deaths
The worst performing country was Brazil, with more than 8.9million infections
Donald Trump was criticized for his slow reaction and dismissal of the virus
The US has had the fifth worst response to the Covid pandemic in the world, a think tank has claimed.
The Lowy Institute ranked nearly 100 countries on their management of the global crisis after their hundredth confirmed case.
The US came 94th out of 98, followed only by Iran, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil in last place in the study by the Lowy Institute.
To date, the US has recorded 25.6million cases and 429,125 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Institute.
Both figures are the highest of any country in the world, with India registering the next highest total infections with 10.7million, and Brazil the second most deaths with 220,000. Measured per million, the US has the eighth highest death toll in the world.
New Zealand was ranked as the world’s most effective handler, recording only 25 […]
Stephan: In a way, Trump has done the country a service. His myriad faults just as climate change is altering the earth have brought the country into a confrontation with all its weaknesses. He is no longer in power but the cancers he and his administration revealed challenge us to decide who we are as individuals, who we are as a culture. Trumpism is far from over and it is going to be up to each of us to create the wellbeing that is our only stable future.
Proud Boys members at a pro-Confederate demonstration . Credit: Anthony Crider
The attempted Republican coup against our democracy is not over. It is changing form, now that Joe Biden has been formally sworn in as the nation’s new president, but not abating. State Republican parties, in particular, are continuing to aggressively embrace the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and cult notions justifying the attempted violent insurrection to reinstall Donald Trump as an illegitimate leader. They are also retaliating against those Republicans who refused to abet those efforts.
Long a extremist hub, the Arizona Republican Party has been moving the swiftest to dole out consequences to anti-fascist Republicans. The party voted yesterday to censure Cindy McCain, Gov. Doug Ducey and ex-Sen. Jeff Flake, while reelecting far-right crackpot Kelli Ward as their state party leader. (All three censured Arizonans attended Joe Biden’s inauguration just days before in a show of support for our continuing democracy, which may or may not be coincidental.)
Ducey was condemned for his imposition of pandemic-battling restrictions, as the party continues its obsessions with anti-science, anti-book-learning contrarianism […]
Christian Davenport, Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: You were laid off from your job, and have been out of work for 8 months. You're worried about losing the home you and your wife bought three years ago, and your daughter’s ninth birthday is coming up and she wants a bicycle, and you are trying to figure out where the money to buy it is going to come from. You are in other words a typical American family, one of millions of families in similar circumstances. Meanwhile, the uber-rich are living in another world. What do I mean by that? Read this. This is what wealth inequality looks like, and it pervades American society.
From left, Axiom crew members Eytan Stibbe, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Mark Pathy and Larry Connor. Credit: Axiom Space
Two are grandfathers, the other has three young children. All three are extremely wealthy, with the means to pay the $55 million ticket price for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station. They are the first would-be spaceflight crew comprised entirely of private citizens in a mission to the station.
Sometime early next year, if all goes according to plan, the trio — Larry Connor, the managing partner of the Connor Group, a real estate investment firm based in Ohio; Mark Pathy, the chief executive of Mavrik Corp., a Canadian investment firm; and Eytan Stibbe, a businessman and former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot — will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for what is scheduled to be an eight-day stay on the International Space Station.
Accompanying them will be Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who flew to space four times and is now a vice president […]
Stephan: For the last four years America has been notable for the corruption at the top of the government. But did that lead to a correlation with the fact that American also handled the Coronavirus pandemic worse than any other developed nation? Here is the first research I have seen addressing the corruption and failure to deal with the pandemic correlation.
Virus Outbreak Global Corruption Credit: The Associated Press.
Countries with the least corruption have been best positioned to weather the health and economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic according to a closely-watched annual study released Thursday by an anti-graft organization.
Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perception of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, concluded that countries that performed well invested more in health care, were “better able to provide universal health coverage and are less likely to violate democratic norms.”
“COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis,” said Transparency head Delia Ferreira Rubio. “It is a corruption crisis – and one that we are currently failing to manage.”
This year’s index showed the United States hitting a new low amid a steady decline under the presidency of Donald Trump, with a score of 67 on a scale where 0 is “highly corrupt” and 100 is “very clean.”
That still put the U.S. 25th on the list in a tie with Chile, but behind many other western democracies. It dropped from scores of 69 in 2019, 71 in […]
Neal E. Boudette and Coral Davenport, - The New York Times
Stephan: Here is more excellent good news about the end of the carbon era. In spite of everything Trump and his orcs and their corporate masters tried to do, it is becoming very clear that carbon powered vehicles are doomed in the same way that sailing ships were doomed as steamships came online, and the carbon era began.
General Motors plans an electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in showrooms this fall. Credit: General Motors Company/Associated Press
The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered.
General Motors said Thursday that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.
G.M.’s move is sure to roil the auto industry, which, between car and parts makers, employed about one million people in the United […]
Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, Reporters - Washington Post
Stephan: For the last four years Trump did everything he could to keep the carbon industries alive. Now Biden has the reins and it is a whole new day, as I described in today's lede story. However, that doesn't mean the carbon corporations are going to go easily into history. They will not and the Republican Party which heavily depends on carbon corporate money will try to protect those industries as much as they can. And here is that story.
Joe Biden had long promised to become the climate president, and on Wednesday he detailed far-ranging plans to shift the U.S. away from fossil fuels, create millions of jobs in renewable energy, and conserve vast swaths of public lands and water.
“This is not a time for small measures,” Biden said at the White House, adding that the nation had already wasted precious years as it delayed in dealing with the climate crisis.
But as he detailed his plans, the gas, oil and coal industries were already mobilizing on all fronts. From an oil patch in Alaska to state capitals to the halls of Congress, the industries and their allies are aiming to slow Biden’s unprecedented push for climate action and keep profits from fossil fuels flowing. Republican attorneys general from six states wrote to the new president, warning him not to overstep his authority. GOP lawmakers attacked his executive orders as “job killers.” And the petroleum industry revived television ads promoting drilling on federal lands.
Industry executives expressed dismay at the scope, speed and direction in which Biden is heading, saying he is going much further than President Barack Obama ever did, while environmentalists said the danger that Earth faces […]
Stephan: More good news from the Biden administration. Finally, the vile private prison system encouraged by the Trump administration, corporations profiting from the warehousing of human beings, is going to be dismantled.
Barbed wire at a private prison Credit: FooT Too/Getty
For four years, the Trump administration embraced private prisons, signing contracts with corporations to incarcerate detainees, immigrants, and people serving federal sentences. Now, that era is coming to a close as President Joe Biden signs an executive order Tuesday afternoon instructing the Department of Justice to allow its contracts with for-profit prison companies to expire.
The executive order “will ultimately end the Justice Department’s use of private prisons, an industry that houses pretrial detainees and federal prisoners,” Biden said Tuesday in a speech on his racial equity policy agenda. The decision means the gradual end for a dozen private prisons that currently incarcerate about 14,000 people—about 9 percent of the federal prison population. Most of those are men without US citizenship serving short federal sentences under low security. It could also affect for-profit jails run by private prison companies under contract with US Marshals Service, a DOJ division that holds pretrial detainees.
“Private prisons profiteer off of federal prisoners and are proven to be—or are found to […]
Stephan: I want to start today's edition of SR, with the good news that is pouring out of the Biden administration, and then let you compare that with what is still going on with Trumperism.
The slew of executive actions that President Biden started off his presidency with are popular with the public, according to two recent polls.
In his first week in office, Biden announced at least 33 new policies that he will implement through the executive branch, according to a count from CNN. Polls conducted by Morning Consult and Ipsos since Biden’s first day in office have assessed public opinion on 14 of these policies. In all cases, more of those polled favor the policies than oppose them, and a majority support nearly every policy.
And while polls haven’t been released to specifically ask about Biden’s executive order to reverse the ban on transgender people serving in the military, previous surveys suggest that move will also likely be popular with the public.
The popularity of these policies is notable for a few reasons. First, Biden’s emphasis on trying to unify the country in his inaugural address has created a debate in political circles about exactly what constitutes “unity.” These early executive orders meet one definition — adopting policies that a clear majority of Americans support, which necessitates that at least some […]
