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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: The Republican Party does not like democracy. The party leaders recognize that they are a permanent minority. Less a party than a White Supremacist christofascist cult. The only way they can win is by voter suppression, cheating, and degrading the entire structure of the electoral process. This is not political partisanship, just objectively verifiable facts. And here they are.
Nationwide, nearly 21,000 polling stations have closed since 2016, a VICE News investigation has found. Of the 45 states that have in-person voting, 40 eliminated polling stations — many in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This could mean long drives and long lines for voters on Election Day—and it might keep some people from voting at all.
Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression.
VICE News obtained data from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., on the number of physical polling locations they will have in place on November 3, and compared their numbers to how many sites they had in 2016 and 2012.
What emerged was a patchwork of cuts large and small across the country. Many states made these cuts as they were expanding mail voting — 23 states made it easier to vote by mail this year because of COVID. But the overall trend is clear: Most states are eliminating polling locations, a trend that could disproportionately impact poor, young and non-white voters.
Of the 45 states that weren’t using mail voting […]
Stephan: Trump's wall is, and should certainly be seen as, a national disgrace; an expression of Trumpian lies, business incompetence, and dishonest finances. Like most things he says he will do it was never built as he claimed it would be, it cost you and me billions more than it was supposed to, and Mexico didn't pay a dime to build even the small part that was constructed. Here are the facts.
A border wall construction site near Donna, Texas, on Dec. 8, 2019. Credit: Veronica G. Cardenas/Reuters
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.
On the same day in May 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a pair of contracts worth $788 million to replace 83 miles of fence along the southwest border.
The projects were slated to be completed in January 2020, the Corps said then. Four months into this year, however, the government increased the value of the contracts by more than $1 billion, without the benefit of competitive bidding designed to keep costs low to taxpayers.
Within a year of the initial award, the value of the two contracts had more than tripled, to over $3 billion, even though the length of the fence the companies were building had only grown by 62%, to 135 miles. The money is coming from military counter-narcotics funding.
Stephan: At one level this is a story about Trump's deliberate incompetence in handling the pandemic. At a more important level, it is about the willful ignorance and stupidity of the people who support him.
Photo Donald Trump posted to Twitter of him speaking to a largely maskless crowd refusing to socially distance at a Florida rally.
According to a new study from Stanford University, President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies have resulted in 30,000 COVID-19 infections that would not have happened otherwise — and 700 of the infected people died.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1322527556126605313&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2020%2F10%2Ftrump-rallies-responsible-for-30000-infections-and-700-s-stanford-study%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550pxLISTEN: Mark Cuban Joins The New Raw Story Podcast!
The president has come under sharp criticism for hosting large campaign rallies in the middle of a pandemic. Many of these rallies have been followed by localized outbreaks, and conservative businessman Herman Cain died after attending an indoor Trump event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, although it is not clear whether the rally was his point of infection.
At Trump’s rallies, masks are typically provided but not required, and the president has frequently made fun of masks, leading to low mask use at the events and little or no social distancing. While the rallies typically require temperature checks at the gate, this alone is […]
Stephan: Perhaps because a majority of Americans have never been outside the United States, there is an extraordinary ignorance and lack of interest in our society about the importance of geopolitical relationships, and Trump and his administration feed on this to the detriment of the country. It is going to take years to repair what was done by Trump and his incompetent orcs.
United Nations
The United States once again became the largest member state of the United Nations (UN) that has yet to pay their regular budget assessments, a UN regular budget statement shows, disclosing the international organization is undergoing tight expenditure controls.
The statement was released by the UN at the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly at the 75th session of the United Nations, during which member states showed concern over the UN’s financial situation and called for timely payment for the UN’s regular budget assessments.
The report warned that the 75-year-old organization is undergoing a cash crisis as the deficit reached $106 million. Among the 69 member states with unpaid budget assessments, the U.S. remains the largest overdue member state.
According to the report, as of September 30, the U.S. accounts for 73 percent or $1.09 billion and 54.3 percent or $1.38 billion of the unpaid assessment in both regular budget and peacekeeping operations assessments respectively.
Sound financial situation is the guarantee for the UN to fulfill its mandates and to implement program activities. Without enough financial support, many UN […]
Stephan: You cannot be a Republican and an ethical person, and that is not a politically partisan statement. The factual evidence of this truth is overwhelming.
An election worker guides voters in cars at a mail ballot drop-off site at NRG Stadium in Houston on Oct. 7. Voters can also cast their ballots at a drive-thru voting site. Credit: Go Nakamura/Getty
Texas Republicans have asked a federal judge to throw out at least 117,000 ballots cast in Harris County, a heavily Democratic area that has experienced an unprecedented surge in early voting this month. The brazen effort to undo legally cast ballots in a diverse, populous county is an eleventh-hour attempt to diminish Joe Biden’s chances of carrying the swing state on Nov. 3. Republicans claim that Harris County’s use of drive-thru voting violates the U.S. Constitution, requiring the judge to throw out every ballot cast this way—more than 117,000 as of Friday. This argument is outrageous and absurd. But the case landed in front of U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, one of the most notoriously partisan conservatives in the federal judiciary. Democrats have good reason to fear that Hanen will order the mass nullification of ballots as early as Nov. 2, when he […]
Eric Lipton and Benjamin Weiser, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: As the election is upon us, I decided to take one last look for my readers at the astonishing criminality and corruption of Donald Trump and the people he chooses to have around him. It is absolutely gobsmacking, unlike anything in American history. Really. There is nothing even close. We'll start with this which in my opinion, by itself, ought to be impeachable.
The Justice Department eventually charged Halkbank, a state-owned Turkish bank, with money laundering, fraud and conspiracy to violate sanctions against Iran. Credit: The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Geoffrey S. Berman was outraged.
The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Mr. Berman had traveled to Washington in June 2019 to discuss a particularly delicate case with Attorney General William P. Barr and some of his top aides: a criminal investigation into Halkbank, a state-owned Turkish bank suspected of violating U.S. sanctions law by funneling billions of dollars of gold and cash to Iran.
For months, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had been pressing President Trump to quash the investigation, which threatened not only the bank but potentially members of Mr. Erdogan’s family and political party. When Mr. Berman sat down with Mr. Barr, he was stunned to be presented with a settlement proposal that would give Mr. Erdogan a key concession.
Mr. Barr pressed Mr. Berman to allow the bank to avoid an indictment by paying a fine and acknowledging some wrongdoing. In addition, the Justice […]
Stephan: The civilian nuclear power industry was created back in the 1950s so that General Electric and Westinghouse could have a steady supply of men and women who could build such reactors for the nuclear powered naval vessels and submarines which were part of what was called the Trident Strategy to defend America in the Cold War. Civilian reactor construction gave the corporations involved with nuclear power enough profit to stay in the game. As a power source nuclear power is, and always has been a financial disaster. It will cost countless billions, for instance, to deal with the lethal waste created by this technology. Remember Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Yet Trump, to help his corporate backers is going to give this dying industry over a billion dollars of your money. Here is the story.
A new study raises serious doubts about the low carbon emissions claimed by proponents of nuclear power. Credit: Zhongguo/E+/Getty
The nuclear power industry may be getting a new lease on life, thanks to a $1.4 billion taxpayer subsidy from the Trump administration.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in August approved the design of a new kind of nuclear power reactor invented by NuScale Power, a startup company with offices in Corvallis and Portland, Oregon.
The new design is called a “small modular reactor” (SMR). The approval of the SMR design does not mean construction can begin; nevertheless, it is a significant step toward NuScale’s goal: to deploy up to 1,682 small (60-megawatt) reactors across the U.S. and beyond starting in 2023, essentially reviving the moribund nuclear power industry.
Successful deployment of 1,682 60-megawatt SMRs in the U.S. would more than double domestic nuclear power capacity, which currently stands at about 98,000 megawatts. Globally, nuclear power is in decline; in 1996, it produced 17.5 percent of global electricity, but today only 10 percent. In the U.S., only one new nuclear plant has started […]
Stephan: This is the corruption that has now infected the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is less a supreme court associate justice and more a political operative, and his wife... well, read and weep for your country's corrupted judiciary, and understand why we rank 19th in the world for a fair and honorable justice system.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas Credit: Medium
When President George H.W. Bush, with the help of the U.S. Senate, replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall with Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court in 1991, a common talking point among Republicans was that Bush showed his social conscience by picking another African-American. But Bush 41 replaced a liberal justice with one of the most far-right social conservatives the High Court has had in the last 30 years — and Justice Thomas’ wife, Republican activist Ginni Thomas, is equally far to the right. Recently, Ginny Thomas has been going out of her way to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, but according to the Associated Press, she hasn’t bothered to vet her information.
The AP’s Mark Sherman explains, “The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden. Ginni Thomas, a long-time conservative activist, asked her more than 10,000 followers Monday to consider sharing a link focused on alleged corruption by the Democratic nominee for […]
