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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: The civilian nuclear power industry was created back in the 1950s so that General Electric and Westinghouse could have a steady supply of men and women who could build such reactors for the nuclear powered naval vessels and submarines which were part of what was called the Trident Strategy to defend America in the Cold War. Civilian reactor construction gave the corporations involved with nuclear power enough profit to stay in the game. As a power source nuclear power is, and always has been a financial disaster. It will cost countless billions, for instance, to deal with the lethal waste created by this technology. Remember Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Yet Trump, to help his corporate backers is going to give this dying industry over a billion dollars of your money. Here is the story.
A new study raises serious doubts about the low carbon emissions claimed by proponents of nuclear power. Credit: Zhongguo/E+/Getty
The nuclear power industry may be getting a new lease on life, thanks to a $1.4 billion taxpayer subsidy from the Trump administration.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in August approved the design of a new kind of nuclear power reactor invented by NuScale Power, a startup company with offices in Corvallis and Portland, Oregon.
The new design is called a “small modular reactor” (SMR). The approval of the SMR design does not mean construction can begin; nevertheless, it is a significant step toward NuScale’s goal: to deploy up to 1,682 small (60-megawatt) reactors across the U.S. and beyond starting in 2023, essentially reviving the moribund nuclear power industry.
Successful deployment of 1,682 60-megawatt SMRs in the U.S. would more than double domestic nuclear power capacity, which currently stands at about 98,000 megawatts. Globally, nuclear power is in decline; in 1996, it produced 17.5 percent of global electricity, but today only 10 percent. In the U.S., only one new nuclear plant has started operating since […]
Stephan: This is the corruption that has now infected the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is less a supreme court associate justice and more a political operative, and his wife... well, read and weep for your country's corrupted judiciary, and understand why we rank 19th in the world for a fair and honorable justice system.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas Credit: Medium
When President George H.W. Bush, with the help of the U.S. Senate, replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall with Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court in 1991, a common talking point among Republicans was that Bush showed his social conscience by picking another African-American. But Bush 41 replaced a liberal justice with one of the most far-right social conservatives the High Court has had in the last 30 years — and Justice Thomas’ wife, Republican activist Ginni Thomas, is equally far to the right. Recently, Ginny Thomas has been going out of her way to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, but according to the Associated Press, she hasn’t bothered to vet her information.
The AP’s Mark Sherman explains, “The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden. Ginni Thomas, a long-time conservative activist, asked her more than 10,000 followers Monday to consider sharing a link focused on alleged corruption by the Democratic nominee for president […]
Stephan: For years now I have been tracking a horrible trend: Donald Trump's blatant degradation of the environment and the destruction of America's system of national parks, and forests. Here is the latest depredation. A whole range of studies, particularly in Yellowstone have proven that wolves are essential to the land's ecosystem. Yet to garner the support of cattle ranchers, hunters, and the timber industry, Trump has removed the protection of the wolves.
A female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 were captured by a remote camera in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in Northern California. Credit: U.S. Forest Service/AP
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is stripping gray wolves of their Endangered Species Act protections in the Lower 48 states, ignoring an outcry from conservation groups and scientists who say the animals will be slaughtered as a result and might not survive.
Under a final rule expected to go into effect early next week, Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt said state wildlife agencies will assume control of managing an estimated 6,000 wolves, mostly in three Midwestern states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. About 1,800 gray wolves are present in other states such as Oregon, California and Washington.
“Today’s action reflects the Trump Administration’s continued commitment to species conservation based on the parameters of the law and the best scientific and commercial data available,” Bernhardt said in a statement. “After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded […]
Stephan: It is the blatant criminality and corruption of the Trump administration that is so breathtaking. They don't even bother the hide it. It is my personal view that in the first week after Biden is elected Louis DeJoy should be arrested, indicted, convicted and sent to prison for what he has done to the postal service and American democracy.
Meanwhile do not trust USPS to get your ballot in on time. Take it personally to an official ballot box, or to the clerk overseeing the election in your county or city. Make sure your vote counts, and vote.
Stacks of boxes mail are seen at the U.S. Post Office (Justin Sullivan/Getty
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) argued that there is no “constitutional right” to timely mail delivery after its own data showed that on-time delivery times had plummeted ahead of Election Day.
The Department of Justice, which is defending the USPS in a lawsuit brought by New York and other states over changes ordered by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top donor to President Donald Trump, argued that the mail slowdown cannot be unlawful because there is no guarantee in the Constitution of timely mail delivery, Bloomberg News reported.
The states’ argument “assumes that because the plaintiff states crafted their election laws with the expectation that USPS will provide a certain level of service, they now have a constitutional right to expect that level of service,” the DOJ said in a court filing, adding that the Elections Clause of the Constitution “does not shield states from any and all external circumstances that may impact state elections.”
The filing came after New York Attorney General Letitia James warned that the USPS […]
Stephan: I published a piece a few days ago showing a comparison of the criminality of the Trump administration, the Reagan administration, and the Nixon administration compared with the administrations of Carter, Clinton, and Obama. It is clear that in the last 50 years Republican administrations have been far more criminal, based on objective facts, than Democratic administrations. But Trump's is a criminal world unlike anything ever seen in American history.
The interesting question is why does that not matter to about a third of the country? Are those people so dim, so willfully ignorant, that they just don't care?
Trump, Pompeo, and Kudlow
At least six Trump Cabinet secretaries are under investigation for violating federal law or are accused of violating federal law, as are an additional eight or more administration officials.The Cabinet secretaries include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. In recent days White House officials have been assisting President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts so intensely that at least one has been officially named a campaign advisor – in addition to being paid by the taxpayers for their day job inside the executive branch.
It’s causing a great deal of outrage in some quarters.
An NCRM investigation finds more than a dozen White House officials are either under investigation or according to a government ethics watchdog or others, should be under investigation for appearing to be in violation of the federal law known as the Hatch Act.
Take White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who is now traveling with the president and appearing on Fox News as a Trump […]
Stephan: Under Trump the thuggery of the police has been greatly exacerbated because his words prompt bullies to bully. It is my view that the entire sheriff structure in the U.S. should be eliminated, ICE and the Border Patrol similarly should be disbanded. And the hiring and training of police should be completely restructured. Other developed nations don't have these problems that we see as routine, and we need to quit lying to ourselves about the fairness of our legal system and admit that it is notably inferior to the rest of the developed world.
An Oregon State Trooper arrests a journalist during a crowd dispersal near the Portland east police precinct on August 30 in Portland, Oregon. Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty
The United States is currently experiencing one of the longest continued periods of civil unrest in generations, after demonstrations sparked by George Floyd’s death expanded to protests against black Americans killed by police and systemic racism in the country.
Retaliation by police against civilians and the press was widely documented in the first wave of protests, but as the protests have continued, so too has the violence. There has not been a single week without an incidence of police brutality against a civilian or a journalist at a protest in the US since the end of May.
Journalist flee Minnesota State Patrol officers as they spray journalists with pepper spray and fire rubber bullets at […]
Stephan: This is an example of what the Republicans have done to America's judiciary, up to and including the Supreme Court. The idea that the United States is the world's leading system of legal justice if it was ever true is certainly not true today. Denmark and Ghana ranks as the best judicial systems in the world according to the World Justice Project. The United States ranks 19th, below virtually every nation in Europe. The truth is unpleasant but to change things, it must be faced.
Late Monday night, the Supreme Court issued a ruling blocking a lower court’s decision to force Wisconsin election officials to extend the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots, as long as they were post-marked by Election Day. This decision to limit ballot access was unsurprising given the conservative majority on the court, but as I noted, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion disturbed many readers because of the views it seemed to express about voting and elections.
But there’s a related aspect of Kavanaugh’s opinion that has attracted significant attention in addition to its ideological bent. It was, many commentators noted, extraordinarily sloppy for a Supreme Court ruling. The opinion was riddled with errors, embarrassingly so, and some of which even relate to the substance of his argument.
For instance, Kavanaugh wrote:
To be sure, in light of the pandemic, some state legislatures have exercised their Article I, §4, authority over elections and have changed their election rules for the November 2020 election. Of particular relevance here, a few States such as Mississippi no longer require that absentee ballots be received […]
Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: While a surprising number of American politicians, particularly Republicans, have a bizarrely relaxed attitude towards climate change, with a few notable exceptions like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren, other countries, having more intelligent governments, are taking climate change very seriously. Here is some good news from Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attends an extraordinary session to deliver his policy speech in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo on Oct. 26. Credit: Koji Sasahara/AP
TOKYO — Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, committed his country on Monday to reaching a target of zero emissions of greenhouse gases and achieving a carbon-neutral society by 2050, with a “fundamental shift” in policy on coal use.
Suga outlined the major move in his country’s attitude toward climate change in his first policy speech to Japan’s parliament since taking office last month.
“Responding to climate change is no longer a constraint on economic growth,” he said. “We need to change our thinking to the view that taking assertive measures against climate change will lead to changes in industrial structure and the economy that will bring about great growth.”
Suga said innovation was key to achieving the goal, including next-generation solar cells and carbon recycling, and he promised investment in research and development, as well as deregulation and “green investment.”
