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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: There is something seriously wrong with the way law enforcement officers are hired and trained. The rate of thuggery and murder under color of authority in the United States is greater than all the countries of Europe combined. Yet it seems almost impossible to have a rational national conversation about this trend.
Michele Hall at her parents’ house in the Pinecrest neighborhood of Miami. Hall won a settlement from the District of Columbia as the result of a lawsuit against police officers for alleged misconduct. Credit: Angel Valentin/The Washington Post
A Black woman received $150,000 after alleging a police officer yanked her from a public restroom and forced her onto the sidewalk in handcuffs while investigating a reported theft.
A computer engineer, who is also Black, got $192,000 after officers — mistaking him for a robbery suspect — beat him so severely on his front lawn that he was hospitalized.
Five other Black men collecteda total of $116,000 after suing the same officer for assault and violating their civil rights as he cleared sidewalks in a gentrifying neighborhood. In one case, a video showed the officer sitting on a man’s chest and showering him with pepper spray after punching him in the face six times.
Over the past five years, the D.C. government has spent millions of dollars settling dozens of police misconduct lawsuits — settlements that, even as officers acknowledge no wrongdoing, documenta trail of nonfatal encounters […]
Stephan: The European nations, like many Asian nations, are committed to making the transition out of the carbon energy era and are creating policies to make this happen. But it is turning out to be more complicated than many thought. What they are learning is that to make the transition work there must also be a concurrent well-thought out and financed national program to create the charging infrastructure to maintain electric vehicles.
Hopefully, the Biden administration will reverse the Trump bias in support of carbon energy, and will get the United States back on track with the rest of the developed world and, because of our nation's size, it is going to require a nationwide program. What comes to mind for me is something on the order of President Eisenhower's national program to create the interstate highway system.
Electric vehicle sales are soaring in Europe — in November, plug-in vehicles accounted for 16% of the overall auto market in the UK, over 20% in Germany, and an oil-slaying 80% in Norway. However, a lack of charging infrastructure threatens to spoil the party. According to a new report by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the availability of charging infrastructure in the EU still falls far below what is needed and remains unevenly distributed across member states.
The second edition of “Making the Transition to Zero-Emission Mobility,” an annual study of EV adoption in Europe, reports that sales of plug-in vehicles in the EU increased by 110% over the past three years. During the same period, however, the number of charging points grew by just 58% (to under 200,000).
“This is potentially dangerous, as we could soon reach a point where growth of electric vehicle uptake stalls if consumers conclude there are simply not enough charging points where they need to travel, or that they have to queue too […]
Peter Landers and Chieko Tsuneoka, Reporters - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: The conversion to electric vehicles is not going to be painless or easy in any country, as this story from Japan illustrates. Car companies like Toyota are resisting the conversion, at least at the scale and speed the Japanese government wants. In the United States which, thanks to Trump, has no national program for the conversion out of the carbon era and is woefully behind what is already happening in Europe and Asia, the Biden administration is going to have to immediately plan for and set up a nationwide program, or the United States will become a hodgepodge of state programs. California leads the way, but the Red value states seem to have hardly begun to think about this transition.
TOKYO—Japan said it planned to stop the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the mid-2030s, bucking criticism by Toyota Motor Corp.’s chief that a rapid shift to electric vehicles could cripple the car industry.
The plan released Friday followed similar moves by the state of California and major European nations, but it has faced resistance from auto executives in a country that still makes millions of cars annually that run solely on gasoline engines.
Japan would still permit the sale of hybrid gas-electric cars after 2035 under the plan. Many models from Japan’s top car makers—Toyota, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. —come in both traditional and hybrid versions.Power ShiftMost cars sold in Japan still have traditionalgasoline engines.Japan vehicle sales in millions, 2019Source: Japan Automobile ManufacturersAssociationNote: Excludes minicars2.551.420.1650.037GasolineHybridClean dieselElectric car/plug-in hybrid/fuel cell
Earlier this month, Toyota President Akio Toyoda said that if Japan banned gasoline-powered cars and moved to electric vehicles too hastily, “the current business model of the car industry is going to collapse.” He was speaking on behalf of Japanese auto makers in his role as head of […]
Stephan: At one level this is a wonderful story of heartfelt generosity. Good news, no question. At another level, it is a monstrous story because it brings into sharp focus the obscene wealth disparity in the United States. One generous woman in this country can give away $6,000,000,000 and still be a billionaire while 40% of American families could not write a $400 check in a crisis.
MacKenzie Scott
On a Monday evening in November, Dorri McWhorter, the chief executive of the Y.W.C.A. Metropolitan Chicago, got a phone call from a representative of the billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The news was almost too good to be true: Her group would be receiving a $9 million gift.
Between the pandemic and the recession, it had been a difficult year for the Chicago Y.W.C.A., which runs a rape crisis hotline and provides counseling to women on jobs, mortgages and other issues. Money was tight. Ms. McWhorter shed tears of joy on the call.
Similar scenes were playing out at charities nationwide. Ms. Scott’s team recently sent out hundreds of out-of-the-blue emails to charities, notifying them of an incoming gift. Some of the messages were viewed as possible scams or landed in spam filters. Many of the gifts were the largest the charities had ever received. Ms. McWhorter was not the only recipient who cried.
All told, Ms. Scott — whose fortune comes from shares of Amazon that she got after her divorce last year from Jeff Bezos, […]
Stephan: My wife and I have had an isolated Christmas, as I suspect many of you have as well. It has left me with time to think about things and I find myself appalled and disgusted by the Republican Party. I simply cannot understand how ethical compassionate human beings consciously choose to cause serious difficulty and misery for millions of men, women, and children. I don't know how you face your own conscience, how you read the inevitable stories we will all see over the next few days. If this is not resolved by the end of this day America will be seriously damaged making it that much harder for the Biden administration to repair what has been done. I have read in history how a country destroys itself, but never thought I would live in one.
Kevin McCarthy
On the morning of Christmas Eve, the House Republican leadership blocked Democratic legislation that would provide $2,000 relief checks to Americans struggling to stay afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, obstructing direct payments long supported by progressives and endorsed earlier this week by President Donald Trump.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) attempted Thursday morning to request unanimous consent for an amendment that would increase the $600 relief payments in the newly passed coronavirus relief package to $2,000, but the Democratic effort failed because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) refused to approve the request.
“They can keep blocking and expose which side they are on. We will keep fighting.” —Rep. Rashida Tlaib
“The House GOP is spending this holiday season trying to block $2,000 survival payments for families struggling to keep food on the table,” tweeted Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “Unconscionable.”
After Hoyer’s unanimous consent request was rebuffed, House Republicans attempted at the behest of the president to pass an amendment to reexamine foreign aid provisions in […]
Stephan: This has been an awful year, both personally and as a society, for many of us as I have learned from the correspondence I have received from readers. I am sorry to have had to post so many depressing stories this year, but when I started SR back in 1991, I did so making the commitment to myself and my readers, that I would publish only the most accurate and important facts about trends that I could discover, without concern for partisanship or special interest. My standard was to support the fostering of wellbeing at every level for all the beings that make up earth's matrix of consciousness.
I think we stand at a crossroads now, and that in 2021 we have a choice. We can either continue down the path we are on now, or we can take the debacle of the Trump years as a wake-up call, and make the decision to turn from that path which so clearly leads to misery, illness, death, and destruction, and instead rededicate ourselves to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
The choice is ours, and each of us must make it, and express it not just in our attitudes but, also, in the small decisions we make each day. Ask yourself: If not us? Then who? And if not now, then when? Your Christmas gift to yourself, your family, and all the beings on earth can be that your choice from this Christmas day forward is that all your choices will be the option that fosters wellbeing. There is no finer gift we can give ourselves.
Stephan: Christmas is an ancient holiday far predating Christianity, but it is also a spiritual holiday in the modern sense. Here is a bit of history that speaks to this day in a way that might not at first be obvious. Since Jesus was the son of a Jewish carpenter, that is an ordinary working-class person of the time he almost certainly looked something like a Syrian or Palestinian today with a swarthy Caucasian skin tone, black hair, and dark eyes. The fact that most Christians visualize him as a tall light-skinned, light brown-haired European man, Warner Sallman's image, should tell us something about racism in our dominant religion. Maybe one of the things we should think about this Christmas is how we, both individually and collectively, can give American society the gift of racial neutrality and equality.
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
there is no male and female, for you
are all one in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:11 Here there is not Greek
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but
Christ is all, and in all.
The portrayal of Jesus as a white, European man has come under renewed scrutiny during this period of introspection over the legacy of racism in society.
As protesters called for the removal of Confederate statues in the U.S., activist Shaun King went further, suggesting that murals and artwork depicting “white Jesus” should “come down.”
As a European Renaissance art historian, I study the evolving image of Jesus Christ from A.D. 1350 to 1600. Some of the best-known depictions of Christ, from Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” to Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, were produced during this period.
But the all-time most-reproduced image of Jesus comes from another period. It is Warner Sallman’s light-eyed, light-haired “Head of Christ” from 1940. Sallman, a former commercial artist who created art for advertising campaigns, successfully marketed this picture worldwide.
Sallman’s ‘Head of Christ’
Through Sallman’s partnerships with two Christian publishing companies, one Protestant and one Catholic, the Head of Christ came to be included on everything from prayer cards […]
Stephan: Screw you moronic Trumpers who are stupid enough to continue to follow Trump, and screw everyone else but the rich as well. We are a party of the rich, for the rich. Could the Republicans make it any clearer?
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a rally on December 11, 2020 in Columbus, Georgia. Credit: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty
The grassroots organization People for Bernie on Tuesday advised the Democratic Party to take a page from an unlikely source—right-wing Vice President Mike Pence—after Pence told a rally crowd in Florida that progressives and Democrats “want to make rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable.”
“Good message,” tweeted the group, alerting the Democratic National Committee to adopt the vice president’s simple, straightforward description of how the party can prioritize working people over corporations and the rich.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1341476510616547330&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2020%2F12%2F23%2Fyes-exactly-say-progressives-after-pence-warns-democrats-will-make-rich-poorer-and&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Suggesting that a progressive approach to the economy will harm the country—despite the fact that other wealthy nations already invest heavily in making low- and middle-income “more comfortable” by taxing corporations and very high earners—Pence touted the Republicans’ aim to “cut taxes” and “roll back regulations.”
The vice president didn’t mention how the Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited wealthy households and powerful corporations, with corporate income tax rates slashed from 35% to 21%, corporate tax revenues plummeting, and a surge in stock buybacks while […]
