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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: And this is who Trump has chosen to replace Kuperberg. Who is he? Why a climate change denier of course. Trump is making a conscious effort to screw the American public for not re-electing him.
Ryan Maue Credit: Cato Institute
A scientist who has questioned the link between climate change and extreme weather events has reportedly been detailed to the White House to oversee a program that’s in charge of compiling a major climate change report.
The Washington Post reported late Friday that Ryan Maue has been detailed to the White House to oversee the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is in charge of putting together the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Two unnamed officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told the Post of Maue’s move.
The National Climate Assessment involves drafting hundreds of top scientists to weigh in on climate change. It often produces serious warnings about the limited time the U.S. has to act in order to prevent the most significant consequences of climate change.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment. Spokespeople for NOAA […]
RYAN HEATH, KARL MATHIESEN, ZACK COLMAN and KALINA, - Politico
Stephan: The United States under Trump by his explicit design has become a world leader... in climate change denial, and lack of preparation, and the world condemns us for our stupidity.
Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the launch of COP26 UN Climate Summit in London in February. Credit: Chris J. Ratcliffe/AP
The United States government will be missing from a global climate summit for the first time next month, and the timing couldn’t be more inconvenient for other world leaders.
They are desperate to commence work with the incoming Biden administration, which is promising the most ambitious climate change policies of any incoming American administration, including a “100 percent clean energy economy” and “net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
But when dozens of national leaders gather online Dec. 12,at a summit organized by the U.K. government to press ahead with a new and more onerous stage of theParis climate agreement, the U.S. won’t be at the table: The Trump administration hasleft the agreement, while President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team can’t attend.
That dynamic left British Prime Minister Boris Johnson bragging to the House of Commons about Biden’s enthusiasm for a climate summit more than a year away — “it was extremely exciting to talk […]
Stephan: Finally, here is some good news. When we get the orange monster out of the White House America will have a leader who understands climate change is an issue that cannot be ignored. It will be up to us to encourage him to make it a high priority. This is important because I believe the Republicans in Congress will do what they can to sabotage Biden in every way they can. We won't be the world leader anymore but at least we will be back in the game to save the earth's ecosystem and ourselves.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris greet supporters in Wilmington, Delaware on August 20, 2020. Credit: Olivier Douliery / AFP / Getty
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who took the lead Friday morning in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania according to The Associated Press, has reaffirmed his commitment to immediately rejoining the accord if he wins the 2020 presidential election against incumbent Donald Trump.
“Today, the Trump Administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it,” Biden tweeted late Wednesday.
Stephan: The most powerful nation in the world brought to its knees because of one narcissistic psychopath, and the unwillingness of the overwhelming majority -- over 6 million voters -- to demand that its laws and traditions be honored. Millions should be out in the streets, every Republican Congressperson should be under nonviolent siege. If American citizens don't or won't protect their country who will? Sixty more days of this and we may no longer be the country any of us recognize.
President Trump is settling scores and taking steps to cement his agenda in his final 60-plus days in the White House, even as he refuses to concede an electoral loss to Democrat Joe Biden and his legal team flails at the results in nearly a half-dozen states.
Trump fired the administration’s top cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs on Tuesday evening, the latest example of Trump settling a score. He expressed displeasure that Krebs issued a statement that the 2020 election had been the most secure in history, a message that undercut Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about voting machine vulnerabilities and a “rigged” election.
The removal of Krebs followed the firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and raises the prospect that Trump will remove more officials, such as CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray, while at the same time signaling that anything regarded as disloyalty to Trump will result in punishment.
President-elect Biden has warned that Trump’s refusal to share information on national security and the coronavirus as part of a peaceful transition is threatening lives, while others have warned it […]
Dan Balz, Chief Correspondent - The Washington Post
Stephan: There is something seriously wrong with America as a culture and as a society. The Republican Party needs to be disbanded, and Trump and many in his administration should be taken to the Hague and tried for crimes against humanity. It isn't just that Trump will not concede, it is that he is actively and openly sabotaging the country's future and its wellbeing. There is no precedent for this behavior in the last 240 years. Trump makes Benedict Arnold's betrayal look petty.
It has been almost three weeks since President Trump stepped to a lectern in the White House in the early hours of Nov. 4 to declare that the election was being stolen from him. It was a fabrication designed to turn President-elect Joe Biden into an illegitimate president and has continued apace ever since. It will not stop with Biden’s swearing-in on Jan. 20.
Any thoughts Trump might have had of overturning the election were a failed enterprise from the start. On Friday, those hopes were dealt twin blows when Georgia’s secretary of state certified Biden as the winner there and Republican legislative leaders from Michigan, after meeting with the president, signaled they would do nothing to try to undermine the results. Biden has an electoral college majority, and the certification process continues to gather steam.
Through these weeks, the president and his legal team have failed to produce credible evidence of systematic or widespread fraud. Now they are resorting to wild allegations of a grand conspiracy on the part of Biden and the Democrats — charges repeatedly debunked. This effort is being led […]
Stephan: The docileness of Americans as their country is taken apart due to the incompetence, corruption, and criminality of the Trump Administration, I believe, is how history will explain what is going on in the United States.
Volunteers help load food as vehicles arrive to pick up food supplies and essential items during a Feeding South Florida drive-through food distribution at Miramar Regional Park on November 19, 2020, in Miramar, Florida. Johnny Louis / Getty
More than half of households in the United States are not “very confident” that they can afford to put food on the table as the holidays approach, according to federal Census data. Meanwhile, what remains of federal pandemic relief programs is set to expire before the end of year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has so far refused to take up a $2.2 trillion economic relief package passed by Democrats months ago, even after Democrats attempted to compromise with Republicans and lowered the price tag by $1.2 trillion. If Congress fails to act, an estimated 12 million workers will lose federal emergency unemployment benefits when they expire on December 26 — on top of the 4.6 million who will have exhausted their benefits before then, according to the Century Foundation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has entered a terrifying phase in recent weeks, forcing some state and […]
Stephan: At the end of this dark period I think it is necessary to study not so much Trump, but the population of America. This four-year period has revealed who we are, and what we care about. What values matter to us. It is not a pretty picture but I hope, it is an instructive one. Here is a first take.
Illustration by Eiko Ojala
The world has spent the past four years obsessing over President Donald Trump: his biography, his ideology, his speech, his tweets, his moods, his health, his hair. But what did the Trump era teach us about ourselves, and the country he was elected to lead?
Trump’s presidency has been a four-year war on many people’s assumptions about what was and wasn’t “American”—what a leader can call people in public, which institutions really matter, whether power lies with elites or masses. And it has forced serious arguments about what information, and what version of our history, we can even agree on.
With four years of Trump nearly behind us, Politico Magazine asked a group of smart political and cultural observers to tell us what big, new insight this era has given them about America—and what that insight means for the country’s future.
Many were alarmed to discover that our political institutions and norms are more fragile than they thought. Others pointed out the blind spots that members of the political and cultural elite have for the deep sense […]
Stephan: What amazes me about the Trumpers is that they seem incapable of recognizing that the misery the nation is currently experiencing is entirely the result of Trump and his orcs. Yes, Covid-19 was not created by Trump, but the country's reaction to it, from the lack of national planning, the politicization over wearing masks, the economic policies, such as described in this article, the employment crisis, the destruction of our democracy and on and on are all the result of the incompetence, corruption, and criminality of Trump and those who serve him. And yet it has no effect on the worldview of the Trumpers.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Credit: Gustavo Garello / AP
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that key pandemic lending programs at the Federal Reserve would expire on Dec. 31, putting the outgoing Trump administration at odds with the central bank and potentially adding stress to the economy as President-elect Joe Biden organizes his administration.
In a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Mnuchin said the $455 billion allocated to Treasury under the CARES Act last spring, much of it set aside to support Fed lending to businesses, nonprofits and local governments, should be instead available for Congress to reallocate.
The decision comes as data shows the early fast recovery from a historic plunge in the economy is fading, with more than 10 million who had jobs in January still out of work
“I am requesting that the Federal Reserve return the unused funds to the Treasury,” Mnuchin said in a letter to Powell, declining to extend programs the central bank has said were critical to assuring credit flowed to all parts of the […]
