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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: If Biden wins I think it will take him a year, maybe two, depending on whether the Senate flips, to clean up the mess that Trump will leave. I believe that history is going to condemn Trump as the worst president in American history.
The Trump administration has weakened fuel-efficiency requirements for the nation’s cars and trucks. Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty
As the days tick down to next month’s presidential election, debate rages over the U.S. government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic with critics of President Donald Trump calling for his ouster due to his failure to protect the American public.
And yet as mass media runs daily tallies of COVID-related cases and deaths, a more sinister threat to public health looms as the Trump administration rolls back regulations that govern the quality of our air, land and water. And though these actions are garnering little public outcry now, they pose grave danger to our children and their children for decades to come. It’s a simple truth — a poisoned environment means poisoned people.
In recent months the Trump administration has stripped protections from wetlands in ways that allow for the dumping of pesticides and other pollutants directly into millions of miles of streams and other waterways; relaxed rules on power plants designed to curb air emissions containing brain-damaging heavy metals
Stephan: Rex Wyler, a friend of some years now, is one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, and he has been studying the interconnection and interdependence of the systems of earth's matrix of life for a long time. This thoughtful essay lays out some of his thinking. It is s shame so few of our politicians seem to be capable of such insights.
Stephan: Over the last several days several Republican readers -- yes I have Republican readers -- who saw my piece on the Inferiority of Republican governance wrote to challenge me to prove my assertions at the individual level. I thought it was interesting that they did not dispute the earlier piece but just asked for more granular proof. Well, I am happy to provide it, so today's edition provides that proof. I could have added an additional 20 stories or more, but these four represent the reality.
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Stephan: I got emails this morning from two readers, each of whom said they were in their 60s and, for the first time in their lives living on food programs, spending up to five hours a day once a week getting food packages "that are mostly starches so I am gaining weight, and not getting the vegetables I need for my heart." One said she was going to have her car repossessed because she lost her job when the shop she worked for went out of business, and wasn't sure how she would get to the food bank which was miles away.
There are millions of Americans in just this kind of situation, and yet the Senate under Mitch McConnell is blocking food programs and relief bills, but willing to stand Senate rules on their head to get an utterly inappropriate woman appointed to the Supreme Court.
The immorality and corruption of the Republican Party just makes your heart hurt. Come on Kentucky; do the country a favor and vote for Amy McGrath and get this nasty man out of office.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to members of the media as Senate Majority Whip Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) listens after the weekly Senate Republican Policy Luncheon at Hart Senate Office Building September 9, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty
Republicans on Saturday blocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s attempt during a rare weekend session to force consideration of a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill as the GOP rushed ahead with its effort to confirm right-wing judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court just before the November election.
After a speech decrying the Barrett confirmation process as “a very dark moment for the Senate,” Schumer requested unanimous consent for the chamber to take up a revised version of the HEROES Act that the Democrat-controlled House passed earlier this month. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to allow a Senate vote on the bill despite growing suffering across the nation and warnings that failure to approve additional spending could cause lasting damage to the economy.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) objected to Schumer’s request for […]
Stephan: Florida is a classic example of the inferior governance of Republicans, if by good governance you mean fostering societal wellbeing. And yet, Floridians vote against their own self-interest again and again. Rick Scott is perhaps the archetypal example of what I mean. A grifter who should have gone to prison for the largest Medicare fraud in history, yet he became governor for not one but two terms, where he specialized in voter suppression and then moved on to become senator. Every time he won I wondered what were the people of Florida thinking? Then the people of Florida voted for a racist, Ron De Santis, who has handled the coronavirus pandemic about as badly as Trump. It will be interesting to see how Florida votes on 3 November. Will they continue to vote to destroy the quality of their own lives or finally awaken to what they have done.
Despite being a poster child for high-level corruption and incompetence, Rick Scott, a former governor who is now a U.S. senator, can’t stop winning elections in Florida.Credit: Jeff Mitchell/Getty
BESIDE A TRUMP-FLAGGED BOAT AT A DOCK IN FORT LAUDERDALE — It looms ever closer, like a poorly conceived sequel to a decades-old movie even most of its fans would like to forget. There’s a mostly new cast, many of them as old as the original players; a ton of money being invested in the production; and a lot of media effects that couldn’t be dreamed of when the first one came out. It’s a slow-moving catastrophe. It’s entirely predictable. It’s Bush v. Gore 2: The Actual Boogaloo. It’s going to suck. And of course, it’s set in Florida again.
Two decades after the 2000 election, which history may remember as the real beginning of the end of American election legitimacy, the fate of billions of sentient beings on earth may again turn on what happens here. The stakes are familiar: Florida’s considerable bucket of electoral votes has gone to the […]
Stephan: And here we have another example of incompetent Republican governance., this time former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. You have to wonder, how could anyone vote for a grifter like Walker, and yet seemingly intelligent people do so.
Former WI governor Scott Walker
From the beginning, the Republican-promoted, Trump-boasting, former Gov. Scott Walker-lying Foxconn deal with Wisconsin sounded like a mega-scam. It was clear to anyone with a reading level above elementary school that the “incentives” used to bring the Taiwanese electronics giant into the Badger State were so much more lucrative than anything Foxconn could provide in economic stimulus. The math didn’t add up. In fact, some estimates put the timeframe it would take Wisconsin to get out of the red on the deal at … 25 years.
Then, over the course of the next few weeks and months and years, it became clear that Foxconn wasn’t going to do any of the things it said it might do, because frankly, it didn’t have to do them to get that sweet Wisconsin taxpayer money. Invisible hand of the market and all that. This left lots of vacant space where Trump and then Gov.-Scott Walker took gold-shoveled photos at. Most of 2019 was spent with Wisconsin […]
Stephan: Louis De Joy is a real piece of work; a classic Republican grifter businessman. He donated $700,000 to Trump, got this appointment in return, and has done his best to destroy the integrity of the US. Postal Service to benefit Trump and his fellow Republicans and now, completely predictably, the grift has started, as he enriches himself. If Biden wins I think DeJoy should be indicted tried, and sent to prison.
U.S. Postmaster General Louis Dejoy
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service.
DeJoy continues to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October. The $5 million deal is the first regular contract for a postal route that XPO Logistics has signed with the USPS in more than a year. XPO’s last highway contract with the USPS was in December and was temporary. The one before that was signed in July 2019.
XPO’s contract — to move mail for the next 18 months between Norfolk, Virginia, and Evansville, Indiana — has not been previously reported. The contract was negotiated in August and disclosed in mid-October as part of a quarterly update to a database of USPS suppliers.
The Postal Service will pay XPO $3.3 million annually to manage its route between the two cities, which are roughly 700 miles apart. The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its […]
Stephan: In my view, the most dangerous time in modern American history will be election day to 20 January, when I hope Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in, Apparently, I am not the only one thinking this way. Here is the police view.
s millions of Americans converge to vote in one of the most contentious elections in U.S. history, police forces across the nation are taking unprecedented steps to brace for potential disruption at the polls and post-election violence.
“It’s fair to say the police are preparing in ways they never would have had to for Election Day,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank. “This year is unlike any other year.”
With longer lines at poll sites due to social-distancing restrictions and short tempers after months of dealing with multiple national crises, from the pandemic to the economy, it wouldn’t take much to ignite a conflict. Wexler says he can see clashes erupting if someone is not wearing a mask inside a poll site or if a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot is called into question. “Because this election is more important than it has been in years, you’re going to have people that are going to have frayed nerves,” Wexler says. “You can easily have some kind of confrontation.”
In New York City, police officers will be stationed in more than 1,200 […]
