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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 rape of the wilderness, and the degradation of America's public lands, forests, and parks during the term of Donald Trump is a desecration that will be long remembered. Here is his latest depredation.
The administration’s decision ignores overwhelming public support for keeping protections in place on the Tongass. Credit: Robert Postma/Getty /Design Pics RF
The Trump administration has announced it will lift protections in Alaska’s Tongass national forest, permitting logging in the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest.
Experts call the Tongass the “lungs of the country” and one of nation’s last remaining bulwarks against climate change. Located on the southern coast of Alaska, it is made up of centuries-old western cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees, and is home to immense biodiversity, including the largest-known concentration of bald eagles.
“It’s ironic that this administration is trying to tout this president’s environmental record when [Trump is] unwinding environmental safeguards all over the place,” said Ken Rait, project director of the Pew Charitable Trust, who two decades ago helped win the protections that Donald Trump is now undoing. “And lifting protections on the Tongass, the nation’s flagship forest, is about the most egregious of all of them.”
The administration’s decision ignores overwhelming public support for keeping protections in place on the Tongass, including resolutions from […]
Stephan: The Dust Bowl of the 1930s changed the course of American history and created a mass internal migration. It is beginning to look like it is going to happen again. Here is the report.
Buried farm machinery in Dallas, South Dakota during the Dust Bowl in 1936. Credit: United States Department of Agriculture)
A new study shows dust storms have become more common and more severe on the Great Plains, leading some to wonder if the United States is headed for another Dust Bowl, reports Roland Pease for Science. With nearly half the country currently in drought and a winter forecast predicting continued dry weather for many of the afflicted regions, dust storms could become an even bigger threat.
In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl was caused by years of severe drought and featured dust storms up to 1,000 miles long. But the other driving force behind the plumes of dust that ravaged the landscape was the conversion of prairie to agricultural fields on a massive scale—between 1925 and the early 1930s, farmers converted 5.2 million acres of grassland over to farming, reported Sarah Zielinski for Smithsonian magazine in 2012.
Hardy prairie grasses would have likely withstood the drought, but crops covering the newly converted tracts swiftly bit […]
Stephan: I find this almost unbelievable. How can men and women who take an oath to "support and defend the Constitution," a document designed to foster wellbeing so callously walk away, doing nothing to alleviate the misery of millions? What kind of person does that? And what does that tell you about the future of America if these people stay in power?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gestures while walking out of the Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 26, 2020. Credit: Xinhua/Ting Shen/ Getty
After installing right-wing judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court just days ahead of the November presidential election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell summarily adjourned his chamber for recess late Monday without approving any additional coronavirus relief, effectively signaling that the prospect of an aid package ahead of next week’s contest is dead.
“The Republican Senate can move incredibly fast when they think something is important. They just didn’t think Covid relief was important.” —Leah Greenberg, Indivisible
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are set to continue negotiating the details of a roughly $2 trillion relief package as economic suffering intensifies nationwide, the Republican-controlled Senate’s departure late Monday appeared to confirm that McConnell—who has been one of the primary obstacles to additional stimulus legislation—has no interest in passing a bill before November 3.
When the Senate returns on November 9, nearly a week after the election, its first scheduled vote is on a procedural […]
Stephan: If you owe a man or a company hundreds of millions of dollars do you think that he or it may have some power over you? Would you find it hard to say no to something he or it asked? We have a president who owes sums so great most people cannot even conceptualize them. How unsuccessful as a business man do you have to be to be that far in debt? Do you think that is a good thing? Is that good for the country?
The 2020 election may be President Donald Trump’s last attempt to dodge the consequences he could face for the staggering amount of debt that will come due over the next four years.
Ever since The New York Times’ bombshell report about Trump’s taxes, there has been heightened speculation about the president’s debt and who he owes. Now, the Financial Times is shedding light on the illusion of Trump’s windfall. The publication reports that Trump has more than $1.1 billion in debt and much of the debt is owed to creditors and banks.
In most cases, the president has used real estate —mostly linked to a small number of buildings and golf courses that form the core of the Trump business empire, according to the publication— as collateral to secure the loans. It has been reported that approximately $900 million of the $1.1 billion debt will come due at some point during Trump’s second term if he wins the election.
According to the publication’s graph, Trump’s debts are broken down into five categories:
Vornado Realty Trust: $447 million owed as part of a […]
Stephan: When one looks at the demographics, it is obvious that Trump's most solid base is resentful angry White men of modest means and education. They are the enduring manifestation of Abrahamic thinking with its conviction that men are superior to women, and humans have dominion over the earth and, to them, Trump is their model of manliness. It is a dying model, but one that is still capable of doing great harm.
Credit: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
This election will test the country’s core.
Who are we? How did we come to this? How did this country elect Donald Trump and does it have the collective constitution to admit the error and reverse it?
At the moment, Joe Biden is leading in the polls, but the fact that Trump is even close — and still has a chance, however slim, to be re-elected — is for a person like me, a Black man, astounding. I assume that there are many women, Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans and people from Haiti and African nations he disparaged who feel the same way.
Trump is the president of the United States because a majority of white people in this country wanted him to be. Perhaps some supported him despite his obvious flaws, but others undoubtedly saw those flaws as laudable attributes. For the latter, Trump’s racism was welcome in the coven.
Still, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, more white people support Trump than Biden. This is primarily a function of white men who prefer […]
Stephan: When you lack ethics and honor, and all you care about is power, and you are in a position of authority, this is the kind of person you put on the bench. This is what the Republican Party has been doing for several decades now to the American judiciary, and unless Biden is elected and clears the various levels of the courts of these incompetents and ideologues America's once-vaunted legal system will become a charade
AssociateJustice Clarence // Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, the radical right has completed its long and painstaking project to seize control of the Supreme Court, and to reshape constitutional law for generations to come. Barrett’s elevation will give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the court and usher in a crisis of legitimacy for the third branch of government not seen since the 1930s.
Enlarging the Supreme Court is entirely within the power of Congress, as the number of justices is not set by the Constitution. The court’s composition has, in fact, varied over time, ranging from six justices when the Constitution was ratified to 10 in 1863. The panel […]
Stephan: The world sees what 40% of Americans apparently cannot, and that is that Trump and the Republicans are fascists. Here are the facts.
“Only very few governing parties in democracies in this millennium (15%) were considered more illiberal than the Republican Party in the U.S.”
The U.S. Republican Party has been moving in an increasingly regressive and autocratic direction for over a decade and now more closely resembles far-right ruling parties in Turkey, Hungary, and India than typical center-right parties in Western European democracies, a Swedish study published Monday has found.
“Only very few governing parties in democracies in this millennium (15%) were considered more illiberal than the Republican Party in the U.S.” —V-Dem
In the largest study of its kind, researchers at the Varities of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg found that since 2004 the Republican Party has “retreated from upholding democratic norms” and is shifting in an increasingly authoritarian direction, especially since the ascension of President Donald Trump.
The study found that the GOP is “now more similar to autocratic ruling parties such as the Turkish AKP and Fidesz in Hungary than to typical center-right governing parties in democracies such as the Conservatives in the U.K. or CDU in […]
Nicole Chavez, Ryan Young and Angela Barajas,, - Nicole Chavez, Ryan Young and Angela Barajas,
Stephan: Black militias. I am not surprised to see this sort of thing emerge in the United States, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. This country is in desperate need of healing through the creation of social fairness in a hundred ways. The alternative is an eruption of civic violence we have not seen in our lifetimes.
LOUISVILLE, KY – SEPTEMBER 05: NFAC members kneel in the street during a march near Churchill Downs on September 5, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. The NFAC provided protection as people marched to the Kentucky Derby to protest the event and call for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro police officers during a no-knock raid at her apartment on March 13, 2020. Credit: by Brandon Bell/Getty
When two loud bangs rang out on the streets of Lafayette, Louisiana, no one knew where the gunshots came from as protesters gathered to demand justice for another Black man killed by police.Among the crowd was a group of armed Black men and women who call themselves the “Not F**king Around Coalition” or NFAC. The group did not run toward the gunshots or break formation. Instead, they kneeled on the ground amid the confusion, and then walked away after their leader shouted, “fall back! fall back!”The all-Black, Atlanta-based group has grown in size out of frustration during a summer of protests against […]
