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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.
Frank Newport, Senior Scientist - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: The Gallup Organization with this research paper gives us a deeper insight into how White supremacist christofascists are sacrificing all Christian principles in order to support Trump and the Republican Party. It is clear that we are in a real cultural civil war.
The process of analyzing and understanding presidential election dynamics often leads us to look at the American electorate not as a whole, but by segments. Party identification is the most frequently used way to sort voters, but other variables are also meaningfully related to political behavior and help explain how and why people vote.
Of particular interest this election cycle is the religious identity of voters, a factor that appears, at least to me, more important than it has been in recent presidential elections. This is in part because Joe Biden is only the fourth major-party Catholic presidential nominee in U.S. history and in part because Donald Trump continues to make the courting of evangelical voters a major priority of his campaign. Both the Biden and Trump campaigns have appointed coordinators to reach out to faith communities.
Segmenting Americans according to their religious identity is not as straightforward as it might seem. Religious identity is like a Russian nesting doll; opening up one doll reveals more dolls within. Broad religious groups can be divided into smaller religious groups, […]
Julian Borger and Sam Levine, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: If you are old enough you may remember when the United States sent observers to other countries to observe whether or not they were running fair elections. Well, now other countries are sending observers to watch our election, because the United States is no longer seen as a functional democracy. In three and a half years. Trump and the Republican Party have completely changed the way America is seen in the world. This is so shameful I never thought I would see something like this; how about you?
Voting problems ‘may have an impact on the level of trust in election administration, which, in turn, could harm the integrity of election day proceedings’. Credit: Larry Marano/Rex/Shutterstock
An international election-monitoring body has raised concerns about the US vote in November, saying the “integrity of election day proceedings” could be under threat and recommended again sending observers to monitor the election.
It recommended member states send 100 long-term and 400 short-term observers to monitor the poll which it said “will be the most challenging in recent decades”.
A week-long needs assessment mission by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) beginning on 29 May found there was widespread concern that “election officials will face serious challenges prior to and on election day, due to new measures in response to Covid-19 pandemic, and […]
Ellie Kaufman, Marshall Cohen, Jason Hoffman and Nicky Robertson, Reporters - CNN
Stephan: You have probably already heard multiple stories about how Trump and his orcs are gutting the Post Office, to stop Democrats from voting him out of office. Most of these stories are about mail-in ballots. But gutting the post office means a lot more than mail-in ballots. I live on an island and we have limited shopping so my wife and I, like most of the people we know, order meds, supplements, and a host of other things through the mail. And all of that is being sabotaged. Do you know someone, or have a family member in military service aboard or aboard a ship? Are you a mom who sends your son or daughter favorite cookies, or family pictures to them through the mail? Do you depend on the mail to get the checks upon which your income depends? Is that how the VA sends you your meds?
This gutting of the Post Office by Trump and his orcs is perhaps the most blatant authoritarian anti-democratic move he has made. And the silence and lack of action from the Congress I find breath-taking.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he opposes much-needed funding for the United States Postal Service because he doesn’t want to see it used for mail-in voting this November.By directly linking USPS funding to mail-in voting, Trump is fueling allegations that he is trying to manipulate the postal system for political gain. The pandemic has led to record-shattering levels of voting-by-mail, but Trump has tried to restrict the voting method because he says it will hurt his re-election and Republicans across the board.During an interview on Fox News, Trump said that if USPS does not receive the additional $25 billion funding request that Democrats included in the ongoing stimulus negotiations, then he believes the Post Office won’t be able to handle the influx of mail-in ballots in the upcoming election.”They want three and a half billion dollars for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically. They want three and a half billion dollars for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in […]
Stephan: Trump doesn't want you to vote by mail, and he willing to do literally anything to see that you can't, but he and his wife have voted by mail before, and want to do so again in November. You just couldn't make the hypocrisy of Trump any clearer.
The day before publicly opposing funding to accommodate an expected surge in Americans voting by mail in this year’s presidential election, President Donald Trump requested a mail-in ballot to vote in Florida’s upcoming primary.
The elections website for Palm Beach County, Fla., where Trump is registered to vote, shows that mail-in ballots were requested for the president and first lady Melania Trump on Wednesday. The news was first reported by USA Today.
The ballots, according to the county’s supervisor of elections, would have to be picked up in person as the deadline has already passed for them to be mailed. Unlike some states where ballots can be post-marked by election day in order to be counted, the Trumps must return theirs by next Tuesday’s primary date.
Trump railed against voting-by-mail on Thursday, saying he opposes crucial funding for the U.S. Postal Service as part of an effort to discourage Americans from voting by mail in November.
The president has repeatedly demonized mail-in voting as governors across the country have sought to expand it amid the coronavirus pandemic, but has […]
Stephan: Here is the introduction to Michael Cohen's soon to be published book Disloyal. Coupled with his niece's book I think we are seeing the real Donald Trump, and it is going to be uglier than anyone could imagine. It will be interesting to see how Republican voters respond to the truth. Whether any level of corruption, crime, racism, sexism, and incompetence will repel them. That will tell us a lot about America.
The President of the United States wanted me dead.
Michael D. Cohen, second from left, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, with Michael T. Flynn, left, and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas at Trump Tower in December. Mr. Cohen delivered the peace plan to Mr. Flynn a week before Mr. Flynn resigned as national security adviser. Credit: Sam Hodgson/ The New York Times
Or, let me say it the way Donald Trump would: He wouldn’t mind if I was dead. That was how Trump talked. Like a mob boss, using language carefully calibrated to convey his desires and demands, while at the same time employing deliberate indirection to insulate himself and avoid actually ordering a hit on his former personal attorney, confidant, consigliere, and, at least in my heart, adopted son.
Driving south from New York City to Washington, DC on I-95 on the cold, gray winter morning of February 24th, 2019, en route to testify against President Trump before both Houses of Congress, I knew he wanted me gone before I could tell the nation what I know about him. Not the billionaire celebrity […]
Stephan: I was trying to think if there was a precedent for a significant population supporting something blatantly against their own self-interest and wellbeing, as the Trumpers continue to support their hero even as he trashes their lives. It turns out there is: the women who opposed giving women the vote. This excellent piece by Washington Post reporter Samantha Schmidt , describes this almost unknown chapter in American history.
Susan B. Anthony stood on a stage in Upstate New York, asking a crowd to support the suffragist cause, when someone in the audience asked a question: Do women actually want the right to vote?
Her answer was hardly unequivocal.
“They do not oppose it,” Anthony replied vaguely.
She had little reason to believe otherwise, as recounted in Susan Goodier’s book, “No Votes for Women: The New York State Anti-Suffrage Movement.” It was 1893, and suffragists were traveling across New York to build support ahead of a constitutional convention, when lawmakers would decide if the word “male” should be removed from the wording of the state constitution. Until then, most of the opposition to women’s suffrage had been dominated by men.
But as the suffragists would soon learn, women would play a crucial role in attempting to prevent women from gaining the right to vote. As the suffragist movement gained momentum, women mobilized committees, circulated petitions, and created associations to oppose women’s suffrage in New York and Massachusetts. Thousands of women would eventually join […]
Stephan: The EPA has been gutted by Trump and turned into an agency in support of the carbon energy industries. Here is the latest obscenity from EPA. As this article reports, even people in those industries are appalled.
A gas flare in Loving County, Texas. By some estimates, methane has 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide, though it dissipates faster. Credit: Angus Mordant/Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected in the coming days to lift Obama-era controls on the release of methane, a powerful climate-warming gas that is emitted from leaks and flares in oil and gas wells.
The new rule on methane pollution, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, has been expected for months, and will be made public before Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly pre-empting the official announcement.
The rollback of the methane rule is the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental standards, which has continued unabated during the coronavirus pandemic.
In April, the E.P.A. weakened rules on the release of toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants, loosened curbs on climate-warming tailpipe pollution and opted not to strengthen a regulation on industrial soot emissions that have been linked to respiratory diseases, including Covid-19.
JOSIAH BATES (CAMDEN, N.J.),and KARL VICK (MINNEAPOLIS) , - TIME
Stephan: In my opinion, the entire American law enforcement system needs to be taken apart and reconstituted, and the sheriff’s departments should be eliminated altogether. I say this on the basis of objectively verifiable evidence. My views have nothing to do with politics, which I see only as a way of implementation. Like all my views they are based entirely on wellbeing. What does and does not produce it. There is no other developed Western nation that has anything like the American law enforcement social outcome data. We are number one, for sure, on police shootings, deaths, incarceration, racism, and a host of other trends. Here is a good exegetic essay arguing this.
Credit: WIDLINE CADET (CAMDEN, N.J.) and RAHIM FORTUNE (MINNEAPOLIS)/ TIME
In Minneapolis, the first days after George Floyd’s killing exist in memory as kind of a blur. Even so, the burning of the Third Precinct police station on May 28 was a signal event, and not only for residents of the south side, where Floyd was killed and so many buildings went up in flames. Five miles to the north, residents of the city’s other substantially Black area worried the chaos was coming their way. That night, Phillipe Cunningham, a city-council member representing part of North Minneapolis, drove around for 2½ hours without seeing any cops at all. They were hunkered in their stations.
In the void they’d left, a community stepped up. On Emerson Avenue, gang members took pride of place in the phalanx guarding the So Low Grocery Outlet, one of the north side’s only two super-markets. “We locked it down for seven nights,” says the Rev. Jerry McAfee, a Baptist preacher who works with gangs. Members of his patrol were identifiable by green and […]
