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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.
Andreas Germanos, Staff Writer - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: If you read me regularly you know my strong belief that humanity must transition from the corporate industrial chemical monoculture agriculture system that currently dominates food production, changing it to an organic multiculture system that respects the earth and the planet's biosystem.
It turns out that is only part of the problem. Here is another aspect. Food production is already in crisis in this country and, as this report explains, unless we change our whole attitude about food production we are headed into real trouble.
A new report released Tuesday details the “shocking” state of global land equality, saying the problem is worse than thought, rising, and “cannot be ignored.”
“What we’re seeing is that land inequality is fundamentally a product of elite control, corporate interests, and political choices,” said Giulia Baldinelli of International Land Coalition and co-author of a new report. Credit: Wendy Stone/Corbis/Getty
Among the key findings is that the largest 1% of the world’s farms operate 70% of farmland and “form the core of production for the corporate food system.” What’s more, “given the trends in the agriculture and food systems, land consolidation will inevitably increase further.”
The warning is laid out in “Uneven Ground: land inequality at the heart of unequal societies.” Released by the International Land Coalition in collaboration with Oxfam, the publication synthesizes new research and existing data and shows how land inequality is linked with other issues including poverty, intergenerational justice and migration, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis.
“These findings radically alter our understanding of the extent and far reaching consequences land inequality has, proving that not only is it a […]
Stephan: Norway is a country that like New Zealand operates on a radically different basis than the United States. Here we have only one societal priority and that is profit. In Norway and New Zealand, and a few other countries in contrast fostering wellbeing is the first societal purpose. Here is an example of what happens when wellbeing is the social goal.
Norwegian entrepreneur Karl Alveng Munthe-Kaas will face a hefty tax bill when the grocery company he co-founded in 2013 goes public. But the 37-year-old isn’t bitter; he welcomes it.
For Munthe-Kaas, a system that raises revenue by targeting those with the greatest capacity to pay makes sense. “I think it’s a simple, and also fair, principle,” said Munthe-Kaas. No one in Norway would have become very wealthy, he said, “if it hadn’t been for the public services the government provides.”
Norway’s tax — levied on an individual or couple’s net wealth, above a threshold — is one of only a handful worldwide. But in the U.S., the once-fringe proposal is now getting mainstream attention.
The idea has been championed by high-profile progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who argue the policy could be a powerful tool to narrow America’s sobering wealth gap, including the enduring racial divide. A tax on the small group of individuals and families who control disproportionate riches could generate much-needed revenue, wealth tax supporters argue, to fund services like health care, child care and education; […]
Stephan: In the United States where a christofascist cult dominates both religion and one of the two political parties, there is an obsession that sexuality must be male dominant and heterosexual and that the persecution and degradation of individuals who do not conform to that form is acceptable. Other wiser countries take a different view. Here is another report from Norway that demonstrates this inclusive attitude.
LONDON — Norway’s parliament outlawed hate speech against transgender people on Tuesday, expanding its penal code which has protected gay and lesbian people since 1981.
People found guilty of hate speech face a fine or up to a year in jail for private remarks, and a maximum of three years in jail for public comments, according to the penal code.
“I’m very relieved actually, because (the lack of legal protection) has been an eyesore for trans people for many, many years,” said Birna Rorslett, vice president of the Association of Transgender People in Norway.
Norway is one of the most liberal countries in Europe for LGBT+ people, allowing trans people to legally change gender without a medical diagnosis in 2016. But reported homophobic crimes have risen, according to advocacy group, ILGA-Europe.
The bill was approved on its second reading without a vote, a parliamentary spokeswoman said, after it was backed by lawmakers on its first reading last week.
Trans people are “an exposed group when it comes to discrimination, harassment and violence”, Minister of Justice and Public Security Monica Maeland said.
“It is imperative that the protection against discrimination offered by the criminal legislation is adapted to the practical situations that arise,” she told the […]
Stephan: Reagan styled America "a shining city on a hill." Trump, as this report lays out, has reduced us to a squat in a trash heap. Seventy five years of American leadership have been pissed away by a psychotic narcissist, with the collaboration of the orcs of the Republican Senate. The rest of today's edition provides the factual proof of why the rest of the world has so radically changed their perception of the United States.
(orc /ôrk/noun plural noun: orcs
A member of a race of humanlike creatures, characterized as ugly, warlike, and malevolent.
Nearly three weeks after a presidential election plagued by long lines and even longer ballot-counting delays, President Donald Trump still hasn’t conceded the race to Joe Biden, his administration is refusing to help with an orderly transition and his supporters are pulling every lever they can to drag out, block or even overturn the results.
illustration by Doug Chayka
Never before has the basic machinery of U.S. democracy looked so dysfunctional. And the rest of the world has been watching almost as closely as Americans themselves.
The United States has set itself up as a global model for democratic elections, impressing many people with the longstanding stability of its system, but also fostering some annoyance with its high-handed efforts to promote its own style of democracy worldwide.
Now, with its system in a public meltdown under the stress of its own presidential election, how do people overseas see what’s happening here? And how will it affect America’s standing going forward? We asked writers from a range of countries, either watching from overseas or from their jobs in the US, what […]
Stephan: On his way out of the White House and governmental power Donald Trump is doing everything he can to damage the country, starting with the pardons, but also doing things like encouraging destruction of the Arctic to support the carbon industry.
Under a new proposal from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, banks will no longer be able to deny loans to the fossil fuel and other controversial yet legal industries unless it is proven they are at risk of default. Credit: vitstudio/Shutterstock
Responding to grassroots pressure and shareholder activism, five of the six largest U.S. banks have decided they want no part of financing fossil fuel drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—but that isn’t stopping the Trump administration from what critics on Friday called bullying banks into funding oil and gas extraction.
“No amount of saber-rattling in the final days of the Trump administration is going to change the fact that Arctic drilling is a risky investment that any savvy financial institution would stay far away from.” —Ben Cushing, Sierra Club
The Wall Street Journalreports the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday proposed a new rule that would bar financial institutions from refusing to lend to entire categories of lawful businesses. In the name of “fair access,” the proposed rule would force banks to finance not […]
Jake Johnson, Staff Writer - Common Dreams/Raw Story
Stephan: Here is another example of what Trump is doing to turn America into an authoritarian fascist state. It is going to take Biden as much as his entire first year in office to sort out and repair the damage being done by Trump whom, I believe, history will record as the worst and most despiccable president in our history.
Trump and his legal orc Bill Barr Credit: AFP
Among the slew of potentially destructive policy changes the Trump administration is rushing to implement on its way out of power is a rule that would authorize the return of electrocutions and firing squads for federal executions, an effort critics slammed as a twisted priority amid deadly public health and economic crises.
ProPublica reported Wednesday that the rule, first published in the Federal Register by the U.S. Justice Department in August, “has raced through the process with little notice but unusual speed—and deadly consequences.”
“This rule could reintroduce firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions, giving the government more options for administering capital punishment as drugs used in lethal injections become unavailable,” ProPublica noted. “The Justice Department surfaced the proposal in August and accepted public comments for only 30 days, instead of the usual 60. The rule cleared White House review on Nov. 6, meaning it could be finalized any day.”TAKE THE POLL: Will you take a coronavirus vaccine when it’s available?
After carrying out the first federal execution in […]
Stephan: All those suffering the mental illness of Trumpism, don't seem capable of understanding that Trump, with utter contempt for their wellbeing, is trying to screw them right and left. Here is yet another example of what he is doing as he walks off history's stage.
Six days after President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified food safety groups that it was proposing a regulatory change to speed up chicken factory processing lines, a change that would allow companies to sell more birds. An earlier USDA effort had broken down on concerns that it could lead to more worker injuries and make it harder to stop germs like salmonella.
Ordinarily, a change like this would take about two years to go through the cumbersome legal process of making new federal regulations. But the timing has alarmed food and worker safety advocates, who suspect the Trump administration wants to rush through this rule in its waning days.
Even as Trump and his allies officially refuse to concede the Nov. 3 election, the White House and federal agencies are hurrying to finish dozens of regulatory changes before Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20. The rules range from long-simmering administration priorities to last-minute scrambles and affect everything from creature comforts like showerheads and clothes washers to life-or-death issues like […]
Stephan: The American tax system is grotesquely skewed to favor the rich in every way. Middle class and poor people are much more likely to be audited. The tax code is written in such a way that there are numerous loopholes and off-ramps that allow the rich to go untaxed. As this report lays out, the system is so out of whack that it saves hundreds of billions of dollars for the rich. Hopefully, we are going to see change in this bias during the Biden administration -- providing all you people in Georgia make sure two democrats go to the Senate as a result of the run-off.
Elon Musk and companion
A first-of-its-kind international report released Friday shows how wealthy countries are the primary drivers of tax revenue loss each year—contributing to $427 billion in losses to public funding annually and affecting the ability of countries all over the world, including developing nations, to provide services to the public.
The Tax Justice Network’s inaugural State of Tax Justice report is the first study to thoroughly measure how much money each country loses each year to corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion, using data that was self-reported by corporations to tax authorities.
The report notes that in light of the global coronavirus pandemic, the loss of revenue to tax abuse and evasion has major implications for public health efforts. One nurse’s annual salary is lost every second to tax havens—the equivalent of 34 million nurses’ salaries each year.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1329665779177041920&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2F2020%2F11%2Fbillionaire-tax%2F&partner=rebelmouse&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
“A global tax system that loses over $427 billion a year is not a broken system, it’s a system programmed to fail,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.
