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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 American Gulag in the best of times is a national disgrace, and humiliation of America in the eyes of the rest of the world. We have about 4.25% of the world's population and 25% of the world prisoners. This report tells you in terms that are about as clear and unequivocal as terms can be why a Republican-oriented judiciary is a disaster; a study in callous indifference, and lack of compassion.
Participants behind a banner reading “COVID BEHIND BARS = DEATH” attend a rally at Rikers Island in New York. Rights advocates have urged state, local, and federal officials to release vulnerable inmates during the coronavirus pandemic and ensure that prisons and jails are equipped with safety measures to prevent outbreaks. Credit : Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty
As prisons and jails across the country continue to report Covid-19 outbreaks among inmates and staff, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that a county jail in California does not have to provide its population with basic sanitary and protective equipment or test symptomatic inmates.
Responding to an emergency application by officials at Orange County Jail, the court handed down a 5-4 ruling along partisan lines and issued a temporary stay on an earlier ruling by federal Judge Jesus Bernal.
After the ACLU and several detainees filed a complaint that the jail was not providing safe conditions for its population of 3,000 people, Bernal issued an injunction in May requiring Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes to implement social distancing, test inmates if they showed symptoms, and provide disinfecting supplies—requirements […]
Stephan: Here is Friday's Republic Scum Report. Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, not on the basis of some Democratic charge, but on the assessment of the intelligence community are essentially acting as Russian agents to get Trump re-elected. I am personally unclear why that isn't treason but, in the strange world we live in today, a Black man in Louisiana can be jailed for life for trying to steal a pair of hedge shears, but two millionaire Republican senators can commit treason, in an attempt to sabotage American democracy, and face no consequences.
Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. Have they committed treason? Credit: CNN
The Lugar Center is a fairly recent addition of the sort of traditional institute in Washington that prevailed before Donald Trump. Its mission is to advance an internationalist foreign policy, “bipartisan governance,” and bring together experts to “bridge ideological divides.” It was founded by one of the last of the moderate Republicans, Richard G. Lugar, the late U.S. senator from Indiana, who once seemed to define the mainstream of a now bygone party, in the forefront of legislation to curb nuclear proliferation, but was purged in a brutal primary, losing to a Tea Party candidate who declared rape that resulted in a pregnancy was a “gift from God.”
On May 27, the Lugar Center released its first comprehensive Congressional Oversight Hearing Index, an in-depth study of the due diligence of every committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate in holding the executive branch accountable, concluding with a grade for each committee. “If a House or Senate […]
Stephan: The damage Donald Trump and his orcs have done may take a generation or more to repair, if repair is even possible. Most of this gets little attention in the large corporate media, but that does not mean it is not happening, or that it is not horribly destructive, or that it is not against the best interests of the America, Americans, and the biosphere of the earth.
A rule backed by oil interests tries to keep retirees’ savings locked in climate-threatened assets. Meanwhile, the government says the military must avoid those kind climate-threatened investments.
Drilling rig in Colorado. Credit: David Zalubowski
If you’ve ever seen Tom Cruise force Jack Nicholson to admit that he ordered the code red, then you know that one of the best ways to expose lies and uncover the truth is to spotlight glaring discrepancies between public statements.
If you want to know how companies are misleading regulators, look at the difference between what they tell government officials and what they tell their own shareholders.
If you want to know how corporations swindle tax collectors, look at the difference between their boastful earnings statements to shareholders, and their miserly profit reports to the IRS.
It’s the same thing with the climate crisis — if you want to see how the system of climate denial imperceptibly defrauds the public on a day-to-day basis, look at the difference between what the federal government is saying to retirees and […]
Stephan: In contrast to the previous story demonstrating what Trump and the Republicans are doing consider this being done by the Democrats. As I tell my readers again and again, I don't care about partisan politics except as an anthropological phenomenon. What I care about and support are policies that foster wellbeing, and the people who propose and implement such policies. I couldn't care less what badge they are wearing.
“Our nation’s pesticide laws have not kept up to keep us safe,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said in a statement. Credit: Stephanie Chapman/Flickr
Democrats in the House and Senate on Tuesday introduced sweeping legislation that would ban some of the most toxic pesticides currently in use in the United States and institute stronger protections for farmworkers and communities that have been exposed to damaging chemicals by the agriculture industry.
“It is long past time for the United States Congress to turn attention to this issue and put the health and safety of our families above the profits of large corporations.” —Sen. Tom Udall
The Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticide Act of 2020, sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), was applauded by environmentalists as a “bold and much-needed” step in the right direction.
“The pesticide industry and chemical agriculture have for far too long been able to abuse legal loopholes allowing for the use of toxic pesticides that have not been adequately tested to make sure they are safe for people and the environment,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for […]
Stephan: Recently, Ronlyn and I have been talking about our sense of depression, the sense that we now live in a country we barely recognize. Everything looks the same, trivial daily things go much the same, and yet, like an invisible fog everything has become slightly toxic and tainted.
I read Michelle Obama's statement this morning, in which she expressed her sense of depression, and I went over to the mainland for a medical check-up, and while I was waiting to see the doctor I talked with the nurses. Each of them told me they weren't sleeping well, and could no longer watch the news; it just depressed them. As I drove home I thought about all this and recognized that in three and a half years Trump and the Republicans have done something I would not have thought possible. They have made Americans doubt America. I got home and wondered what the national data was on this, found this study, and realized how widespread this sense of depression has become.
We will make it until 3rd November and, on that day, we have a chance to fundamentally change the course of our country. We can vote the monster out of the presidency, vote 23 Republican senators out of office, as well as several near Republican conservative Democrats and replace the whole lot with progressive thinkers who will restructure America into a country where the fostering of wellbeing is our first priority. It's up to us. Get every single person you know to vote, and vote for the best option available, the one that will do the best to achieve those ends. And do not make the mistake of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Satisfaction down from 20% in early June and 45% in February
Percentage “satisfied” has not been this low since November 2011
Current figure is just six points above all-time low recorded in 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. continues to tumble since it started trending downward at the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Currently, 13% of U.S. adults are satisfied with the state of the nation, down seven percentage points in the past month and 32 points since reaching a 15-year high in February. Satisfaction has not been this low since November 2011.
Line graph. The 13% of Americans who are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. is down from 20% in June and 45% in February.
The latest update is based on a July 1-23 Gallup poll, conducted as the U.S. faced a surge in coronavirus infections and the most challenging economic conditions since the Great Depression. The nation also continues its reckoning with the issue of race relations after the late May death of George Floyd and ensuing nationwide protests about racial injustice.
These events have greatly altered the national mood this year, from […]
Stephan: Here we have Friday's Republican scum report. Whatever Rudy Giuliani was or was not on 9/11 this is what he is today.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Thursday claimed that followers of Black Lives Matter “hate white people.”
Giuliani made the remarks after “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade asked him about President Donald Trump’s obsession over mail-in ballots.
“Whoever wins, this country is going in two dramatically different directions,” Giuliani opined. “We’re either going to remain a free enterprise country or we’re going to become some kind of socialist country that Black Lives Matter wants, antifa, [Sen. Bernie Sanders]. Biden has agreed with it and he’s too weak to oppose it.”
He continued: “So we’re headed for pure socialism, we’re headed for the end of private education, we’re headed for a drastic reduction in churches, the ability to go to church. They are dead opposed to the military. They want to do away with the police. This is no longer America.”
Giuliani claimed that Black Lives Matter and similar groups “are literally trying to overthrow our way of life” with a “phony election.”
According to the former New York mayor, founding documents for Black Lives Matter suggest “Black people get salaries for the rest of their lives, nobody else.”
“They haven’t said a single word about the violence taking place by antifa or Black Lives Matter, […]
Stephan: I am leading with this story today because almost every day for months now I see yet another report, many in the professional research literature, explicitly stating that we are headed for a civilization threatening catastrophe. You rarely hear anything about this on corporate media, whether print, video, or online. But in the professional literature where researchers publish it has become a constant drumbeat. Meanwhile, most of the world, and certainly most Americans, go blithely on with their lives having no idea about any of this.
Credit: Pamela Guest
Two theoretical physicists specializing in complex systems conclude that global deforestation due to human activities is on track to trigger the “irreversible collapse” of human civilization within the next two to four decades.
If we continue destroying and degrading the world’s forests, Earth will no longer be able to sustain a large human population, according to a peer-reviewed paper published this May in Nature Scientific Reports. They say that if the rate of deforestation continues, “all the forests would disappear approximately in 100–200 years.”
“Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” they write.
This trajectory would make the collapse of human civilization take place much earlier due to the escalating impacts of deforestation on the planetary life-support systems necessary for human survival—including carbon storage, oxygen production, soil conservation, water cycle regulation, support for natural and human food systems, and homes for countless species.
In the absence of these critical services, “it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, […]
Stephan: Ask yourself: Why do Inspector Generals of agencies and departments keep getting fired, or resign? Here is the latest one. What is that telling us about the integrity of the Trumpian orcs?
Secretary of State and leading Trumpian orc Mike Pompeo
State Department inspector general Stephen Akard has resigned less than three months after President Donald Trump fired the previous internal watchdog at Foggy Bottom, a department official confirmed Wednesday.
Akard’s deputy, Diana Shaw, told the inspector general’s staff that he is leaving, the official said. Although Akard’s last day on the job is officially Friday, he is not expected to return to the office for the remainder of the week. Shaw will lead the office for the time being.
State Department spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment on Akard’s resignation — which was first reported by The Washington Post and CNN. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo postponed a news conference previously scheduled for Wednesday morning until later in the afternoon.
Akard, a former career Foreign Service officer, was installed as the department’s acting inspector general in May upon the ouster of Steve Linick, a Justice Department veteran appointed to the watchdog role in 2013 by former President Barack Obama.
