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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.
Juliet Eilperin, Senior National Affairs Correspondent - The Washington Post
Stephan: And here, via these formerly secret recordings, we see bragging by coal executives describing the naked corruption of Trump and his administration.
Ronald Thiessen President and Ceo of Northern Dynasty Minerals
A direct line to the White House, but routed through a third party to hide it from public view. Easy access to Alaska’s governor, as well as the state’s two U.S. senators. A successful push to unseat nine Republican state lawmakers who opposed their plan to build a massive gold and copper mine — the biggest in North America — near Bristol Bay in Alaska.
Those were some of the boasts made by two top executives of a company trying to build the Pebble Mine in videotapes secretly recorded by an environmental group and made public Monday. It was a rare glimpse into the private discussions surrounding the company’s heated campaign to win federal permits for the project, which environmentalists say will destroy a pristine part of Alaska and decimate its world-famous sockeye salmon fishery.
The conversations were secretly recorded over the past month and a half by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency. Posing as potential investors in the mine, EIA investigators conducted Zoom calls in which the mine’s sponsors detailed how […]
Stephan: Here, finally, is some good news, augmenting the story I published the other day about California moving out of the carbon era. Even as the Republicans led by Trump try to do everything they can to preserve carbon energy to protect the profits of their friends and supporters, the world is moving away from carbon powered energy.
Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
Gasoline-powered carsmay be going the way of the woolly mammoth, even if it will take decades to replace them and seems hard to fathom today.
The big picture: Internal combustion engines (ICEs) have powered automobiles for more than 100 years. But the shift to electric vehicles, slow to materialize at first, is now accelerating due to tightening government policies, falling costs and a societal reckoning about climate change.
Driving the news: California said this week it plans to phase out sales of conventional new cars by 2035 in favor of zero-emission vehicles that run on electricity.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order no doubt faces a giant legal fight and could depend heavily on the election outcome and the shape of the Supreme Court, Axios’ Ben Geman explains.
The rest of the world is far ahead, with at least 15 countries already banning new gasoline cars and others adopting strict policies to spur EV adoption.
“Europe and China have woken up to the fact that [the combustion engine] is dead,” Arndt Ellinghorst, automotive analyst at Bernstein Research, told
Stephan: The United States is presently undergoing a kind of slow-motion coup that will strangle democracy. Trump and the Republicans in Congress and, certainly, the Department of Justice under Barr are actively supportive and complicit in Trump's effort. The main effort is to call the election into doubt and force the decision into the Supreme Court which will have a new ninth justice who has committed to supporting Trump, and we will see a repeat of Bush-Gore, only worse.
Poll(s) of the week
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened up a rare vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, and Republicans are moving quickly to fill the seat. President Trump says he will nominate a replacement for Ginsburg on Saturday, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has pledged a vote on the nominee this year. (And it looks as if he might have the votes to confirm her.) But polling conducted in the wake of Ginsburg’s death shows that this may be an unpopular decision.
We’ve identified 12 polls so far that have asked some version of the question, “Should Ginsburg’s seat be filled this year by Trump, or next year by the winner of the 2020 presidential election?” And on average, 52 percent of respondents have said to wait, while only 39 percent have said Trump should fill the seat now.
Americans want the election winner to choose a new justice
Polls conducted since Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death asking whether the Supreme Court vacancy should be filled by President Trump now or by the winner of the 2020 election
Stephan: Part of Trump's attempted coup has involved gutting of the U.S Postal Service assisted by his faithful orc Louis DeJoy. There is so much criminality and democracy destruction going on that the demolition of the post office has faded from center stage, but that doesn't mean it is not still going on. Here is the latest, and it is pretty much what you would expect.
Louis De Joy, Trumpian orc Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Bloomberg
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a judge the U.S. Postal Service can’t reassemble the hundreds of high speed mail-sorting machines that were taken apart this year, a project that more than a dozen states allege was intended to undermine the upcoming election.
A nationwide injunction issued last week in Yakima, Washington, should be amended to acknowledge that the machines can’t be put back together, DeJoy and the USPS said in a filing in the case on Wednesday. The machines, dismantled under a DeJoy initiative, were stripped for parts to improve or repair other machines, they said.
“It is therefore not possible to return such machines to service,” the USPS and DeJoy, a major Republican donor, said in the filing.
The Sept. 17 injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Stanley A. Bastian, requires the USPS to reverse disruptive operational changes implemented by DeJoy, including restrictions on overtime and changes to the handling of election mail, such as absentee ballots applications. The order was sought by a group of Democratic state […]
Robert Cardillo, Retired Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - Dever Post
Stephan: There are still brave Americans who are willing to step forward into the light and to speak the truth of the experience of dealing personally with Donald Trump. The other day it was Olivia Troye and, now, Robert Cardillo. Do you notice that they all tell the same story of an egomaniacal psychopath whose only priority is "What's in it for me?" I think this says as much about Trumpers as about Trump himself. If you are a Trump supporter you are by definition not a rational person.
I spent over 300 mornings in the Oval Office briefing the president and his senior staff. I had the privilege to manage, edit and deliver the president’s Daily Brief a summary of the most timely and critical intelligence threats to the U.S. from 2010 to 2014.
As a Deputy on the National Security Council, I spent over 1,000 hours in the White House Situation Room providing the intelligence assessments which informed critical U.S. national security policy decisions — including the raid that rendered justice for the victims of 9/11.
Since I have been eligible to vote, I have never registered with a political party. I remain an independent with a history of voting for candidates I believe in — I focused on their policy and not their party. Before this election, I have never spoken out for or against a candidate for any office.
But I can be silent no longer.
In the summer of 1976, I was 14 years old and new to Colorado, my father took command of the Western Region’s National Guard. I enrolled in the […]
Hannah Beech, Southeast Asia Bureau Chief - The New York Times
Stephan: I got two emails today that so depressed me. One was from Slovenia, the other was from Norway. Both had the same message. As the Slovenian reader put it, "As I read your media, and listen to the international news I can hardly believe what I am hearing. How quickly America has gone from the leading nation in the world to a country so sad I can only pity you. I feel safer in Slovenia than my brother-in-law says he does in Chicago."
Myanmar
BANGKOK — Myanmar is a poor country struggling with open ethnic warfare and a coronavirus outbreak that could overload its broken hospitals. That hasn’t stopped its politicians from commiserating with a country they think has lost its way.
“I feel sorry for Americans,” said U Myint Oo, a member of parliament in Myanmar. “But we can’t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.”
The same sentiment prevails in Canada, one of the most developed countries . Two out of three Canadians live within about 60 miles of the American border.
“Personally, it’s like watching the decline of the Roman Empire,” said Mike Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, an industrial city on the border with Michigan, where locals used to venture for lunch.
Amid the pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential election, much of the world is watching the United States with a mix of shock, chagrin and, most of all, bafflement.
Stephan: I agree with this poll's conclusions. The Electoral College was created to resolve a struggle between the slave and non-slave owning states and should be abolished. The election should be determined by popular vote.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
61% prefer amending Constitution to use popular vote to elect president
89% of Democrats, 23% of Republicans favor popular vote
Democrats’ preference for popular vote highest in two decades
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Heading into the 2020 presidential election, three in five Americans favor amending the U.S. Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote system, marking a six-percentage point uptick since April 2019. This preference for electing the president based on who receives the most votes nationwide is driven by 89% of Democrats and 68% of independents. Far fewer Republicans, 23%, share this view, as 77% of them support keeping the current system in which the candidate with the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election.Americans Favor Using Popular Vote to Elect PresidentThinking for a moment about the way in which the president is elected in this country, which would you prefer — to amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide wins the election, or to keep the current system, in which the candidate who wins the […]
Stephan: California is joining with most of Europe to eliminate petroleum-powered vehicles. States controlled by Republicans, in contrast, like Trump don't buy the reality of climate change, and either promote petroleum or are indifferent to its regulation. This, in essence, is promoting a crime against humanity
Transportation remains California’s largest source of planet-warming emissions, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gases from human activity. Credit: Ben Margot/Associated Press
California plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars statewide by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, in a sweeping move aimed at accelerating the state’s efforts to combat global warming amid a deadly and record-breaking wildfire season.
In an executive order, Governor Newsom directed California’s regulators to develop a plan that would require automakers to sell steadily more zero-emissions passenger vehicles in the state, such as battery-powered or hydrogen-powered cars and pickup trucks, until they make up 100 percent of new auto sales in just 15 years.
The plan would also set a goal for all heavy-duty trucks on the road in California to be zero emissions by 2045 where possible. And the order directs the state’s transportation agencies to look for near-term actions to reduce Californian’s reliance on driving by, for example, expanding access to mass transit and biking.
“This is the next big global industry,” Governor Newsom said at a […]
![The bridge between Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Mich. The border between the United States and Canada is [...]
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