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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.
Isaac Stanley-Becker, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Lena H. Sun and Josh Dawsey, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: How is it possible that the Trump administration over the months of this pandemic has not designed and put into place a system to get a vaccine out quickly and smoothly? The answer of course is that everything Trump and his orcs do is both criminal and incompetent. As a result yet more Americans will die because of the Trump administration's incompetence and lack of commitment to help ordinary Americans.
Officials in multiple states said they were alerted late Wednesday that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine had been drastically cut for next week, sparking widespread confusion and conflicting statements from Pfizer and federal officials about who was at fault.
Margo Mazzeo, a nurse in the coronavirus testing center, is the first at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass., to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, on Dec. 17, 2020. Credit: Stephanie Zollshan/Berkshire Eagle/AP
The reduction prompted concern in health departments across the country about whether Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine accelerator program, could distribute doses quickly enough to meet the target of delivering first shots to 20 million people by year’s end.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said the revised estimates were the result of states’ requesting an expedited timeline for locking in their allocations for the following week; notification of how many doses they could order each week was consequently advanced from Friday to Tuesday. Since Pfizer is producing doses daily, the official said, fewer doses were available Tuesday […]
Stephan: Law enforcement in the United States is so deeply corrupted and compromised in so many many ways, including racism, an affinity for fascism, and the kleptocracy of civil forfeiture. It is little wonder American justice ranks so poorly in the world, 19th to be exact. Here is the latest proving civil forfeiture, a favorite of police and sheriffs is just theft under the color of authority.
Police officers in Atlanta in June. In a recent civil forfeiture case, a suburban Atlanta sheriff spent $70,000 in forfeiture funds on a muscle car that he uses solely to drive to and from work. Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty
In 2015, New Mexico lawmakers unanimously passed a bill to all but end civil asset forfeiture, the process that lets police keep cash or property they seize, even if they never charge the owner with a crime, so long as they suspect that it’s linked to criminal activity. High-profile lawsuits and press attention had prompted some states to reexamine their forfeiture laws.
Law enforcement officials howled in outrage. In New Mexico, sheriffs and prosecutors implored the governor to veto the legislation. Eliminating civil forfeiture, they argued, would hand the bad guys a win and put public safety at risk. “You’ll get less law enforcement,” predicted the chair of the state sheriffs’ association, Ken Christesen, who noted that police departments use forfeitures to help fund their budgets. (The bill still allowed forfeiture, but only through criminal court, which imposes a much more stringent burden of […]
Stephan: If you feel we are in an existential crisis as a country, you are part of a large majority. The answer as to what to do? I spelled it out in The 8 Laws of Change.
It's up to us to make things better; no one else is going to do it. That's for sure.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — From the pandemic to the presidential election, there’s no question 2020 has been a turning point moment in United States history. Unfortunately, most believe the year’s problems haven’t left them in a good position moving forward. A new survey finds nearly eight in 10 Americans say 2020 caused an existential crisis for the country.
The OnePoll survey asked 2,000 Americans about their experiences throughout this tumultuous year and finds that 77 percent agree 2020 has sent the U.S. into crisis over its identity. Baby boomers are the most likely to agree with this statement (82%), compared to 76 percent of Generation X and 75 percent of millennial respondents.
As America deals with its major issues, it’s no surprise that 65 percent of respondents feel like they’ve had their own personal crisis at some point during 2020. The survey, commissioned by Vejo, finds 68 percent of Americans said the year has left them feeling defeated.
The top event leaving 63 percent of respondents feeling defeated entering 2021 is, […]
Stephan: The Proud Boy thugs are planning to do what they can to disrupt the Biden-Harris inauguration. One again this shows that the biggest domestic terrorist issue in the United States, are White supremacist male dominance Trumper bullies. What I want to know is how they operate with such seeming impunity?
Proud Boy Trumper thugs
President Donald Trump notoriously told members of the far-right organization Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” before the 2020 presidential election. Since Trump lost, the Proud Boys have no longer been standing by.
“Members of the Proud Boys are reportedly plotting to disguise themselves as Joe Biden fans to wreak havoc during the presidential inauguration,” The Sun reported. “The Trojan Horse-style plot was revealed on InfoWars alum Joe Biggs’ YouTube channel — on which the right-wing militants were ordered to ‘kick off this presidency with f*cking fireworks.’”
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio explained the plot during a November 20th […]
Stephan: Over the past 40 years Republican administrations have trashed the nation, and Democratic administrations have tried to get it back on track. Carter after Ford/Nixon, Clinton after Reagan/Bush, Obama after Bush, and now it will be Biden after the disaster of Trump. And this has been the worst of all. While the United States is going through the dark night of our national soul, in the rest of the world all sorts of innovative and interesting things are going on, and countries that have made fostering wellbeing their priority are creating societies far better prepared for the coming world. Here's another example of what I mean.
Nordic airports
The Nordic region’s pace-setting push into green transport is set to extend from cars to the air-travel market.
Iceland this month signaled plans to move toward carbon-free domestic flights by the end of the decade, while Sweden’s Heart Aerospace aims to deliver an electric plane specifically designed to ply routes linking remote Scandinavian settlements within six years.
Coordinating the region’s initiatives is the Nordic Network for Electric Aviation, founded last year and tying together airport authorities and five airlines including Finnair Oyj, Icelandair Group and SAS AB, alongside Heart and other technology innovators. The emphasis on cleaner flights follows Norway’s strides toward banishing the combustion engine, with more than half the cars sold there now electric.
“We have an opportunity here to show the world what’s possible, and also to give the industries in our countries the opportunity to be front-runners and build this market,” said Maria Fiskerud, the NEA’s project manager and former adviser to the Swedish government on aviation biofuels.
The group has received 12 million kronor ($1.4 million) in combined funding from its members and the governments of […]
Stephan: If you voted for Trump you voted to increase the probability that you will die, that you may not be able to get the healthcare you need or choose, and that women do not get to control their own bodies. This is a classic example of Trump petty vindictiveness.
Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump Credit: Salon/Getty
The Trump administration announced plans to cut at least $200 million in health care funding to California — after President Trump leaves office — in protest over a 2014 state regulation requiring insurers to cover abortions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has proclaimed his agency is the “Department of Life,” announced the move against California during a White House event on Wednesday celebrating the administration’s “work to fight abortion.”
“Unless California amends its policies we will seek to withhold an additional $200 million every quarter until it complies,” he threatened.
Roger Severino, the anti-abortion activist who heads the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, declared ahead of January’s anti-abortion March for Life that the state regulation requiring employers and private insurance companies to cover abortion costs violates the Weldon Amendment, which protects medical providers from being forced to cover the procedure — even though the Obama administration already determined that California’s rule does not violate federal law.
On Wednesday, Severino explained that HHS will respond by withholding $200 million in federal […]
Stephan: With 4% of the world population and 19% of the world's deaths from Covid-19, with over 3,000 deaths each day, one every 20 seconds, many perhaps most of these deaths resulting from the grotesque mismanagement by Trump and his gang how can this be anything but mass murder.
Forget about all other Trumpian criminality, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and all the people who aided them, are mass murderers guilty of crimes against humanity. How we, as a country, chose to deal with that will tell us a lot about the consciousness of America, and who we are as people.
President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. | AP /Alex Brandon
A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.
“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.
“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural […]
