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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: Trump and his administration have done more damage to America's public lands than any president in history. Biden and Harris have made it a priority to repair this damage. That's good news.
Trees line a low-lying gulch about the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument outside of Escalante, Utah.L.E. Baskow/Zuma
President Donald Trump‘s legacy on public lands is a four-year war against protected wild places, which has included dismantling Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
That legacy will follow him long after he’s out of the White House. But many of the rollbacks are unlikely to survive the incoming Democratic administration.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris have vowed to not only restore the Utah monuments, but designate new protected sites to safeguard ecologically important landscapes and combat the global climate crisis.
“As President, Biden will take immediate steps to reverse the Trump administration’s assaults on America’s natural treasures, including by reversing Trump’s attacks on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante,” reads their comprehensive plan for tribal nations, which the campaign released in October.
The incoming administration’s plan for combating the climate crisis similarly notes that Biden will protect “areas impacted by President Trump’s attack on federal lands and waters,” as well as establish national monuments and parks “that reflect America’s natural heritage.”
Douglas Belkin, Nov. 13, 2020 12:01 pm ET - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: Better late than never.
Charles Koch, photographed in his Wichita, Kan., home Credit: WSJ
Four days before this year’s presidential election, Charles Koch—the voluble Kansas billionaire who has spent a fortune injecting his particular brand of prairie libertarianism into the American political debate—pauses at the other end of the line when asked if he will vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
“That’s a very divisive question, because however I answer, that’s going to upset a bunch of people,” he says. “That’s why there’s a secret ballot.”
Mr. Koch, whom Forbes calls the 15th-wealthiest man in the U.S., says he isn’t interested in more division. At age 85, he says, he is turning his attention to building bridges across partisan divides to find answers to sprawling social problems such as poverty, addiction, recidivism, gang violence and homelessness. His critics are skeptical, noting that his fierce Republican partisanship over the years blew up a lot of bridges.
Mr. Koch has written (with Brian Hooks) a new book, “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,” which will be published on Nov. 17. It is part mea culpa, […]
MEGAN CASSELLA and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN, - Politico
Stephan: Trump has so much damage to the federal infrastructure that it is going to take months if not years to recreate a government that fosters wellbeing. Here is one of the first stories I have seen on this aspect, this challenge for the new administration; I am sure there will be many more. I don't think most people even understand or think about this.
Since the election, transition team officials have referenced the need to rebuild as well. In an email sent this week to Democratic chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill, transition aide Louisa Terrell noted that Biden “will inherit a hollowed out federal workforce” and as a result will need to “identify an unprecedented number of highly-qualified public servants ready to begin their service in the early days of the administration.” The memo asked members of Congress to send them suggestions of who out of “America’s best talent” they should nominate to key agency posts.
President-elect Biden
One person who has been in touch with the transition said the Biden team is working to get potentially thousands more people than usual ready to head into government jobs by Inauguration Day.
“There’s an understanding that they just have to get in quickly and put people in these seats and support the workforce and start rebuilding right away,” this person said. “It’s going to be frenetic.”
Some agencies have shown greater signs of strain than others — reflecting, in many cases, the level of rancor between the […]
Stephan: I am sure you have probably seen this story; it's probably not news to you. I chose it for another reason because it illustrates something important. This act of petty nastiness makes it clear that neither the Republican Congress nor Trump nor his cabinet has the slightest interest in the wellbeing of the country they are sworn to serve and protect. If they did they would be doing everything they could to see the most efficient and secure transition from one administration to the next. I don't understand why people voted for these people, or don't seem to understand their own wellbeing is put at risk, but they don't. Look at the thousands of Trumpers who gathered in Washington today.
Part of the problem, I think, traces back to American schools, where what used to be called "Civics" was once a major subject. I went through the course in ninth grade, and have never forgotten what I learned. If you are old enough to have taken a civics course you probably feel the same. But today, to give one example, though 91 percent of Americans say the high court has an impact on their lives, surveys show 57 percent of those under 35 could not name a single Supreme Court justice. According to the Brookings Institute, "For example, every state mentions discussion of current events in its standards or curriculum frameworks, and 42 states and Washington, D.C., require at least one course related to civics education. In contrast, just over half of states (26, plus Washington, D.C.) mention simulations of democratic processes or procedures, while only 11 states include service learning (a less strict definition of service learning brings this total to 20). The lack of participatory elements of learning in state accountability frameworks highlights a void in civics education, as experts indicate that a high-quality civics education is incomplete without teaching students what civic participation looks like in practice, and how citizens can engage in their communities."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / Pool / AFP/Getty
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because President Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden’s victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received.Biden’s team is in touch with foreign governments without State Department involvement, and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides.
Stephan: This is the unvarnished reality of Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Here, he literally speaks for himself. This is the kind of man Republicans place on the Supreme Court.
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito prompted stark warnings from legal scholars about the politicization of the nation’s highest court after he aired a laundry list of conservative grievances during a Thursday speech before the Federalist Society.
Alito, who was appointed to the bench by former George W. Bush, addressed the annual conference held by the Federalist Society, the shadowy dark-money conservative group which has bankrolled and guided President Donald Trump’s deeply conservative judicial picks, via Zoom.
The justice made unusually incendiary remarks about contraception, coronavirus restrictions and the threat he believes religious freedom faces from advocates of same-sex marriage. Alito claimed that the court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, bred intolerance for those who believe marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
“Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought,” he said. “Now, it’s considered bigotry.”
RYAN HEATH , Author of Global Translations, POLITICO’s global newsletter and podcast - Politico
Stephan: Biden like Obama before him is going to inherit a painfully diminished country. Only this time it is much worse. Trump's financial policies, foreign policies, personal integrity, and policy decisions have all failed and wounded us grievously in the process, but advanced and enriched him personally. It is the path of Moussolini as Ruth Ben Ghiat points out in her book, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present. And it is going to take years to repair was has happened over the past four years. Even if Biden is a wonderful success, international leaders will always think they can no longer rely on America's reliable consistency, because they have just witnessed one narcissistic Republican grifter come to power and with the support of his party completely change America, making her a kind of national grifter, non longer reliable. How can they ever be sure it won't happen again? Don't you think that is what you would think about?
Christopher Ingraham, Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: Anyone who does not live in the fact-free Trumper bubble can see the explicit and unashamed activities by Republicans all geared to sabotaging American democracy. As this article describes the United States is now a nation with an authoritarian government on the level of Turkey or Hungary. But the scariest aspect of this is that millions of Americans voted for thugs, QAnon supporters, and open racists. I want to be optimistic about the future but it is getting harder and harder. We are so close to the end of the dream of the Founders. I am no longer clear that we will get through the next 70 days as a democracy.
Mitch McConnell
In Georgia, two GOP senators called on the state’s Republican secretary of state to resign, alleging irregularities and mismanagement without offering evidence. Only four of 53 Senate Republicans have congratulated Biden on his projected victory. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin recently told reporters “there’s nothing to congratulate [Biden] about,” while Missouri’s Roy Blunt said the president “may not have been defeated at all.”
It’s the latest sign of the party’s lurch away from democratic ideals and practices, a shift that predates Trump but one that has accelerated precipitously since. Now, according to data released by an international team of political scientists just before the Nov. 3 election, it’s possible to quantify the extent to which the Republican Party no longer adheres to such principles as the commitment to free and fair elections with multiple parties, the respectful treatment of political opponents and the avoidance of violent rhetoric.
“The Republican Party in the U.S. has retreated from upholding democratic norms in recent years,” said Anna Lührmann, a political scientist at the University of […]
