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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: One of the least noticed outcomes of this election is that the insanity over the criminalization of drugs (as opposed to therapy as needed) has been significantly eliminated. I live in a state where marijuana has been legal for some years and the answer as to what happens when it is legalized, is nothing happens, except, there seem to be less illegal drug transactions and less police thuggery. Those who use marijuana use it, those who don't don't. It is revealed to be a non-issue. So I take this as good news.
San Francisco (CNN Business)Plenty of uncertainty remains with the 2020 election, but one thing is clear: Recreational cannabis had a big night at the ballot box.Voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota cleared cannabis for adult use, bringing the total number of states that have approved it for that purpose to 15.”They passed overwhelmingly; they were not close races,” said John Hudak, a cannabis policy expert and deputy director at the Brookings Institution. “This is a resounding win for cannabis.”Most industry estimates peg Arizona and New Jersey as billion-dollar markets in a few years, and companies like Curaleaf Holdings (CURLF) and Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG) have been making chess moves well in advance of Tuesday’s election to ensure they capitalize.Curaleaf, which operates cannabis businesses in 23 states, has been investing heavily to increase production and its retail footprint in both states, said Joe Bayern, the company’s president.
Larry Dossey, MD, Executive Editor - Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing - Explore
Stephan: Larry Dossey is one of the founders of modern holistic medicine, and someone who thinks and writes about wellbeing and makes profoundly sound observations and recommendations. Here he addresses what I think is one of the most important social implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. Isolation. You may have experienced this yourself.
Credit: Medium
Isolation: aloneness, privacy, seclusion, separateness, solitariness….1 solitude: the quality or state of being alone or remote from society.2 We humans are gregarious creatures. It is our nature to gather in groups. So, it’s not surprising that isolation and solitude have long been associated with those who don’t fit in — cranks, misfits, hermits, religious zealots. However, in our pandemic era, isolation and solitude have taken on global importance as a means of avoiding or spreading the lethal Covid-19 virus. As a consequence, it is likely that more people are isolated now than ever before.
Isolation is a concept that has long been connected with healthcare. When a patient with an infectious disease is separated from others, he or she is less likely to spread the illness to others. Solitude, a related term, describes those who choose aloneness in order to facilitate some personal pursuit — e.g., writers, poets, thinkers, philosophers, and scientists who need to shut out interference from the outside world in order to focus on their work.
Juliet Eilperin, Dino Grandoni and Darryl Fears, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: This, in my view, is ultimately the most important change Biden and Harris will make. Finally, we have a President, and a Vice President, who grasp the implications of climate change. It will produce a historic redirection, and that is very good news.
President-elect Joe Biden exits his car for a flight at the New Castle Airport in New Castle, Del., on Sept. 21. Credit: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post
Joe Biden, the projected winner of the presidency, will move to restore dozens of environmental safeguards President Trump abolished and launch the boldest climate change plan of any president in history. While some of Biden’s most sweeping programs will encounter stiff resistance from Senate Republicans and conservative attorneys general, the United States is poised to make a 180-degree turn on climate change and conservation policy.Follow the latest on Election 2020
Biden’s team already has plans on how it will restrict oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters; ratchet up federal mileage standards for cars and SUVs; block pipelines that transport fossil fuels across the country; provide federal incentives to develop renewable power; and mobilize other nations to make deeper cuts in their own carbon emissions.
“Joe Biden ran on climate. How great is this?” said Gina McCarthy, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during President Barack Obama’s second […]
Stephan: Here is some very good news. One of the things I have noticed and applaud is the number of civically engaged groups that have come forward with a deep commitment to support democracy. Here is one of the few articles I have seen that has taken note of this.
Four years ago, after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump, one of the most brutal conversations I had was with my then-11-year-old son, who had grown up imagining that the world looked a certain way and discovered overnight that it did not. He was worried that he might someday have to defend children at his school from racists and bigots in the schoolyard, and he feared he wasn’t up to the task. His words at the time broke my heart. He said something like, “I know myself. I’m never gonna be the No. 1 guy to step in. If someone else steps up, I could be the No. 2 guy. But I don’t think I could stop it myself.” We talked a lot in the weeks after about bystander intervention, about being the chip guy on the subway (he just ate chips until a violent situation was defused), and about the beautiful words Mary Beth Tinker once shared with me, about how terrified she was when she wore a black armband to school to […]
Stephan: The Republican Party, knowing that they are becoming a permanent minority party, are not interested in democracy. Democracy does not serve their interests. What they care about is how, as a minority party, they can stay in power. They make this clear almost every day by act and statement.
Trump and his orcs
The story started with little more than a vague rumor. “They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can,” President Donald Trump told a Fox News radio show on Sept. 24. “They were Trump ballots. Eight ballots in an office yesterday in a certain state.” Four hours later, the White House hinted to reporters that state was Pennsylvania. And by that afternoon, the rumor had become official in the form of an announcement by the U.S. Justice Department. In a press release, federal prosecutors declared that nine discarded ballots had been found in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and that seven of them were votes for Trump.
It is exceedingly rare for federal prosecutors to publicize an investigation that has barely started and rarer still for them to reveal politically sensitive details in the process. The case exploded on national news and social media, with Republicans touting it as evidence of a plot to rig the election and Trump arguing the same thing during a national debate watched by 73 million viewers. By the time […]
Stephan: Because of the difference between the down ballet and presidential ballot results, that is a repudiation of Trump, but continued support for Trumpian orcs like Lyndsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Mitch McConnell in the Senate and House, I conclude that the Democrats must make major changes in their party.
It is obvious that Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican Senators are going to do everything in their power from day 1 to sabotage everything Biden and Harris try to do. So what is the response? I strongly suggest that what Biden needs to do is reproduce the approach of Franklin Roosevelt who inherited a nation in collapse and, instead of talking partisan politics he came out and said, in my terms, my administration is going to focus on fostering wellbeing, and began immediately to set in motion by Executive order programs to do just that.
Trump and McConnell
Joe Biden just won more votes than anyone else in American history, but the next four years may go down in history as the stymied presidency. That’s because it looks highly unlikely that the Democrats will get a majority in the Senate, leaving the chamber under the ironfisted control of Mitch McConnell, patron saint of polluters and profiteers.
Even before noon on January 20, 2021, Donald Trump will be in a position to do enormous harm that will complicate the Biden presidency. Indeed, we should expect Trump is already looking for ways to use his last eight weeks in office to punish our nation — or at least the states that voted for Biden.
That assessment comes not from me, but from Trump himself. His life philosophy is a single word: revenge.
Trump wrote that in his book Think Big. Then he went on for 16 pages about how what gives him pleasure is ruining the lives of anyone who does not do as he asks. His long diatribe was intermingled with observations about his […]
Stephan: Again, I note that we need to be clear that the disparity between the presidential outcome and the down ballot outcomes is telling us something very important. The Democratic Party did not win. As a party they lost, and that holds many implications. For instance, almost immediately when the census comes in redistricting will begin, and the Republicans will dominate this in many states. This article explains what I mean.
Here’s something else Republicans can be happy about after Tuesday.
Protestors march in front of the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday to demand all votes in the general election be counted. Texas Republicans will have total authority over the drawing of as many as 39 congressional districts in the state. Credit: Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/AP
An abysmal showing by Democrats in state legislative races on Tuesday not only denied them victories in Sun Belt and Rust Belt states that would have positioned them to advance their policy agenda — it also put the party at a disadvantage ahead of the redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade.
The results could domino through politics in America, helping the GOP draw favorable congressional and state legislative maps by ensuring Democrats remain the minority party in key state legislatures. Ultimately, it could mean more Republicans in Washington — and in state capitals.
By Wednesday night, Democrats had not flipped a single statehouse chamber in its favor. And it remained completely blocked from the map-making process in […]
Stephan: As I said yesterday, my big takeaway from this election is the support that a man who is an irrefutable racist, criminally corrupt, and incompetent businessman and president continues to command. Trumpism is clearly going to continue no matter how the election turns out. In fact, it is likely to get worse because the Trumpers are going to be angry and resentful if Biden wins. I think we can also say that the Democratic Party grievously miscalculated. They may get the presidency, but it seems unlikely they will flip the Senate, and they lost seats in the House. I spent much of the afternoon thinking about what would have happened, for instance, if Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic candidate?
I think the Democrats need to sit down and rethink what their party is about. They clearly did not convert many Republicans nor, as much as I liked their ads, did the Lincoln Project. The hard and uncomfortable truth is that a large percentage of the American population is virulently racist against non-Whites, and indifferent to both corruption and incompetence because they don't like or trust democracy. I think we are a country on a knife-edge.
President Donald Trump’s last rally before the 2020 Election on November 3, 2020. Grand Rapids was also the site of his final rally in the 2016 election.Credit: Peter van Agtmael—Magnum/TIME
The car horns blared as Joe Biden took the stage just before 1 a.m.—not to proclaim victory, but to urge his supporters not to lose hope, no matter what President Donald Trump might say. “We believe we are on track to win this election,” the former Vice President told the crowd in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 4. “It ain’t over until every vote is counted. Keep the faith, guys.”
As the new day dawned and dragged on, it increasingly looked as though Biden was right. Having flipped Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin, Biden appeared to be inching toward victory. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina remained too close to call as of the evening of Nov. 4. Independent forecasters believed Biden was likely to eke out the requisite 270 electoral votes when all the votes were counted, over the President’s noisy objections.
