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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.
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.
Location data gleaned from thousands of videos […]
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 […]
Stephan: When a body politic stops being flooded by poison look what happens.
“The findings, from Jan. 9 through Friday,” reports the Washington Post, “highlight how falsehoods flow across social media sites—reinforcing and amplifying each other—and offer an early indication of how concerted actions against misinformation can make a difference.” Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
A new analysis of online misinformation released Saturday showed that false and wildly misleading content regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was reduced by nearly three-fourths overall after President Donald Trump was barred from posting on major social media sites in the wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building by his supporters.
The research firm Zignal Labs, as the Washington Postreports, calculated that conversations based on misinformation “plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week.”
The findings, from Jan. 9 through Friday, highlight how falsehoods flow across social media sites—reinforcing and amplifying each other—and offer an early indication of how concerted actions against misinformation can make a difference.
Twitter’s ban of Trump on Jan. 8, after years in which @realDonaldTrump was a potent online megaphone, […]
Stephan: I think it is time that we acknowledge that there is a large segment of the American population who are ruled by their fears, hates, and emotions and are incapable of rational thought. This story makes the point very clearly.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Thousands of Donald Trump supporters storm the United States Capitol building following a “Stop the Steal” rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty
A new poll has found that a majority of Republican voters still believe anti-fascist activists were responsible for the storming of the Capitol last week, despite clear statements from GOP leaders and law enforcement dispelling the conspiracy theory.
An Economist/YouGov poll published on Wednesday evening shows more than two-thirds of the Republicans surveyed blame anti-fascist activists—colloquially known as antifa—for the violence, which was actually perpetrated by Donald Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists seeking to overturn the result of November’s presidential election. (emphasis added)
The surveys were conducted using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 American adults interviewed online between January 10 and 12, just days after a mob breached the Capitol building. The poll’s margin of error is around 3.6 percent.
Sixty-nine percent of Republicans surveyed said anti-fascist activists were involved in the Capitol takeover. Only nine percent said they were not, with the remaining 22 percent unsure.
Vida Johnson, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University - AlterNet
Stephan: The rise of fascism in a nation is always accompanied by fascists infiltrating law enforcement agencies, the government, and the military. And it is happening right here in America, which should alarm all of us. Remember Dr. Franklin's admonition. When asked by a woman as he came down the steps of Constitution Hall in 1787 what kind of government the Founders had created he answered, "A Republic if you can keep it." The question has never been more relevant. The answer is not so clear, at least not to me.
Stephan: In four years Trump and his Trumper followers have reduced the stature of the United States in the world from a position of unique status to one of contempt. Look at the Gallup Organization's data and that with a few exceptions the stronger a nation's democracy, the greater its disapproval of what we have become. It is a decline that will be noted by historians for centuries. And Trump's place in United State's history will be seen in the same category as Caligula, Nero, or Commodus in the history of Rome. Are you happy with this; I certainly am not.
As data continue to pour in from Gallup’s 2020 surveys across the globe, approval ratings of U.S. leadership before Inauguration Day next week are still tracking lower than they have at most points in the past decade.
Across 60 countries and areas surveyed during the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency, median approval of U.S. leadership stands at 22%. The highest global rating for U.S. leadership during the Trump administration was 33% in 2019.
While generally unpopular across much of the world and particularly among key allies, U.S. leadership did find favor among the majority of the population in seven of the 60 countries: Dominican Republic (66%), Cameroon (62%), Georgia (61%), Zambia (56%), Albania (56%), the Philippines (55%) and Uganda (53%). U.S. leadership garners the lowest approval ratings in Germany (6%), Iran (6%) and Iceland (5%).
Stephan: Trump is a narcissistic psychopath, virtually any psychiatrist or psychologist in the country will tell you that if you ask, indeed dozens, perhaps hundreds of them have already said so publicly in interviews and in print. What is particularly evil about this is that he tries to sabotage what he cannot control and, as this story describes, he will willingly and actively work to destroy the future of humanity to get back at his former opponent, who defeated him. How is it that anyone can still support this man? Today I got a lesson that taught me the answer.
I got an email this morning from a reader who said to me, "Your vitriol against Trump has bothered me for some time. I believe this is a misplaced emotion and the man, an outsider, not part of the corrupt parties, a populist and a very good man deserves better from you." At first, I could hardly take his comment seriously. Trump's corruption is legendary; hundreds of contractors, ordinary people stiffed in their contract with Trump attest to this, as do people grifted into enrolling into Trump University, or... well, I could go on for pages. How could the writer of that email not notice this? Or how could anyone see Trump as a populist. His entire life has been spent exploiting and holding ordinary people in contempt. Look at America's failure with the Covid pandemic that has cost thousands their lives because he didn't care enough to develop the proper national policies. How is it possible that anyone thinks of Trump as a "very good man"? Then I realized this was a Trumper letter, and that Trumpers really do live in a fantasy world, and there is no point reasoning with them because reason has no place in their world.
Smoke rises from a coal-fired power plant on February 01, 2019 in Romeoville, Illinois. The recent polar vortex taxed power systems across the Midwest as demand for electricity climbed as temperatures plunged. Credit: Scott Olson/Getty
In a surprise move, the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday will unveil a climate rule that will effectively prohibit the future regulation of greenhouse gases from any stationary industry other than power plants.
The rule comes just eight days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has pledged a multitrillion-dollar initiative that would combat climate change by making sharp cuts in the United States’ carbon dioxide pollution. The new regulation could hamstring much of that agenda, for example by prohibiting Biden’s EPA from setting carbon limits on oil and gas wells or refineries.
The vehicle for the latest EPA action was also surprising: The agency included it in a long-planned Trump administration regulation that had originally been aimed at a much narrower target — easing greenhouse gas limits for coal plants that might be built in the future. It never sought public comment […]
Stephan: Tuesday, just as I finished Wednesday's SR, the power went out across my entire island. No power, no telephone, no internet, no heat, no hot water, and that is why there was no Thursday SR. Power came back about 11 a.m. Thursday morning. To those who wrote asking if I was all right, thank you for your concern. Ronlyn and I are fine.
