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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 first thing to note about this report is that it was published in The Guardian, the leading English language newspaper in Great Britain, and arguably the world. This is how America is now being portrayed, even by people who are our allies.
The second thing to note, is that this is yet another story about the gangland bullies who make up much of American law enforcement. These stories appear almost daily, I just don't have room to cover them every day in SR.
And, finally, let me say that it is my view that the entire Sheriff system in the U.S. should be eliminated. It is the only elected law enforcement office in the country, and a significant percentage of sheriffs are notable mostly for their corruption and bullying -- remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona? Now there was an upstanding example of the type.
Sheriff's have always been bullies, in fact, the post was designed for that purpose. The office was created by the Normans when they conquered England in the 10th century and appointed thugs as sheriffs to keep the peasants controlled. Remember the story of Robin Hood?
Between 10 and 20 L.A. Sheriff’s deputies at the Compton station had tattoos like Samuel Aldama’s Credit: John Sweeney
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — John Sweeney knew from his four decades as a civil rights lawyer that something about the police shooting of Donta Taylor was off.
Taylor, a 31-year-old African American, had been walking from a friend’s house in Compton to a nearby grocery store one summer night when members of the county sheriff’s department challenged him, gave chase and ended up firing more than a dozen shots at him along a lonely concrete pathway alongside a canal.‘This is huge’: black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prisonRead more
To Sweeney, who had cut his teeth as an associate of the legendary civil rights lawyer Johnnie Cochran, the 2016 killing smacked of an execution, the work of renegade police officers reveling in violence for the sake of it. It was no more than a hunch, at first.
The police claimed that Taylor had been wearing gang colors – Compton is the birthplace of the notorious Crips and […]
Stephan: And here we have Thursday's Republican scum report. Johnson represents Wisconsin where there are 60,334 Covid cases and 970 deaths. What were you thinking voters in Wisconsin when you sent this moron to the Senate to represent you? How could anyone still be recommending hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Coronavirus?
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
Claiming that the novel coronavirus that’s killed roughly 157,000 Americans isn’t “that much worse” than the flu, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) blasted the media on Monday for supposedly peddling COVID-19 “panic porn” and downplaying the so-called effectiveness of unproven anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.
Johnson, who last month insisted that the nation “overreacted” to the coronavirus pandemic,” appeared on far-right podcast War Room: Pandemic to push back against the overwhelming scientific evidence that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective coronavirus treatment or preventative.
Host Steve Bannon, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist and has now become one of the controversial drug’s loudest proponents, asked Johnson what it was going to take to reverse the FDA’s revocation of hydroxychloroquine’s emergency use for coronavirus.
Pointing to the early “anecdotal evidence” of its success as a prophylactic and therapeutic, the Wisconsin senator claimed it was “baffling” that the drug has become so politicized while insisting “the risk is minuscule where the reward is huge.”
Stephan: As the economy tanks, unemployment soars, support to help poor families and to feed children disappears -- 40% of American families are food insecure -- evictions and foreclosures are going up, and 155,000 people have died due to the catastrophically bad Covid-19 management, while untold millions have contracted the coronavirus, how is it possible that Donald Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight still enjoys 42.1% support?
That question has been haunting my mind for several weeks now, and so I began to do research that would provide a fact-based answer. Today's SR is dedicated to what I discovered. One point to remember: The uber-rich who support Trump do so for quite different reasons than the Trumpers, whom they see as peasants, necessary only because even with what little democracy we have left, the number of voters still makes a difference. Trump and his cronies, as Trump's "It is what it is" comment about the pandemic makes clear, don't care about the peasants, but do recognize they have this one importance.
Stephan: Why are Evangelicals so identified with the Republican Party? You wouldn't think that was the case, given that the Republican focus on corporate interests and profit above all is hardly compatible with Jesus' teachings. This article helps explain this unnatural linkage.
A vendor displays a Confederate flag next to a Trump 2020 “Make America Great Again!” flag outside the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee before the NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race on July 15. Credit: Patrick Smith/Getty
Robert P. Jones, chief executive and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), is fast becoming the leading expert in the values, votes and mind-set of White Christians. His work has explained how loss of primacy in American society fueled a white-grievance mentality — the same mind-set President Trump so effectively read and manipulated.
His latest book, “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” is a masterful study documenting how white supremacy came to dominate not just Southern culture, but White Christianity. In it, he argues that “most white Christian churches have protected white supremacy by dressing it in theological garb, giving it a home in a respected institution, and calibrating it to local cultural sensibilities.” He also recounts ways in which White churches are moving to account for their past and explore […]
Stephan: I chose this essay because I think it presents the thinking of a party that in essence has become more a White supremacy christofascist cult than a traditional political party.
Credit: Goldhafen/Getty/The Atlantic
With Donald Trump sagging in the polls against Joe Biden, the internal Republican debate about what a post-Trump GOP might look like is growing louder. And that dialogue is underscoring how hard it may be for Republicans to abandon the confrontational and divisive direction he has set for the party, no matter what happens in November.
The debate obviously will be shaped by whether he wins or loses—and if he loses, whether by a narrow margin or resounding one that costs Republicans control of the Senate. But there’s no guarantee that even a substantial Trump defeat, which more Republicans are now bracing for, will persuade the GOP to change course.
Almost all observers in both parties that I’ve spoken with agree that a Trump loss will embolden the Republicans who have been most skeptical about his message and agenda to more loudly press their case. Yet many remain dubious that whatever happens in November, those critics can assemble a majority inside the party by 2024—one that’s eager to reconsider the racial nationalism and anti-elite populism that has electrified […]
PAUL ROSENBERG, AUGUST 1, 2020 4:00PM (UTC) - Salon
Stephan: I believe that the de-Trumpification of the United States is going to be an essential part of the path to a healthy American future. The Republican party, like the Whigs they replaced, has to go. If America is going to survive as a country we would even recognize it must become a society that makes the fostering of wellbeing its first priority. This essay lays out the case.
Donald Trump Credit: illustration by Salon/Getty
Despite the deep hole he’s in, Donald Trump could still win re-election, as we are constantlyreminded. If he loses, some observers warn, there could be considerable trouble, even violent resistance. But perhaps the biggest problem facing us in the medium-to-long term is what happens if Trump loses. In particular, what do we do to undo Trumpism? Not just to counter the destruction Trump has wrought, but the decades-long preconditions that made his election possible, if not almost inevitable.
This question was raised recently by Foreign Policy in Focus editor John Feffer, whose 2017 book, “Aftershock: A Journey Into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams” I reviewed here. That book was deeply steeped in the difficult challenges of rebuilding democratic culture and, unsurprisingly, Feffer’s recent column cited several historical signposts to illuminate the challenge we face — the end of the Confederacy, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. All those efforts to rebuild were “flawed in various ways” he wrote — the first and last most dramatically. But learning from them “might help us […]
William Trollinger and Susan L Trollinger , Professor of History, University of Dayton | Professor of English, University of Dayton - Alter Net
Stephan: I don't think it is possible to really understand Trumpers without understanding that a large number of them do not live in a fact-based world, and you cannot reason with them. They don't believe in evolution, but they do believe the world is only 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs and humans once co-existed together on the earth, and that the Bible is inerrant. That, I think, is why they believe Trump and not the world's entire scientific establishment. It makes no sense, but good sense is not the operative factor.
Among those destinations that have recently reopened is, as of June 8, is the Creation Museum, a museum dedicated to promoting the Biblical story of Genesis as historic and scientific fact.
More than this, the Creation Museum offers a window into the ideas and workings of the American religious right.
The Creation Museum, about which we wrote a book in 2016, promotes a very specific version of this belief, which holds that God made the universe in six 24-hour days about 6,000 years ago.
The first four chapters of the book of Genesis tell the story of Adam and Eve, who were created on the sixth day and given two jobs: to obey God and populate the Earth. When […]
Steve Waldman, Editor-in-Chief - Beliefnet - PBS - Frontline
Stephan: I am running this piece because my experience has been that many people do not know the difference between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. So here is an explanation that does a good job laying out the differences.
Evangelical church service
People often get confused between the terms evangelical and fundamentalist. They mean two different things. Evangelicals are a very broad group. It’s probably a third or 40 percent of the population of the United States. Fundamentalists are a subset of that. They are very conservative politically. Have a literalist view of the Bible.
Evangelicals have a much wider range of political views. A lot of them are conservatives, but not all of them. About a third of evangelicals voted for Al Gore. So it’s a pretty broad range.
And you tend to think of evangelicals as being fundamentalists because the most well known evangelicals are people like Jerry Falwell who are fundamentalists and are very conservative. But in fact, the evangelicals who are part of Bush’s inner circle are not all fundamentalists. They are often very devout evangelicals. But their approach to politics is much more nuanced than the fundamentalist approach. …
photo of green john c. green Author, Religion and the Culture Wars
read the full interview
The differences between fundamentalism and evangelicalism are a bit subtle, and oftentimes difficult to […]
As the economy tanks, unemployment soars, support to help poor families and to feed children disappears -- 40% of American families are food insecure -- evictions and foreclosures are going up, and 155,000 people have died due to the catastrophically bad Covid-19 management, while untold millions have contracted the coronavirus, how is it possible that Donald Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight still enjoys 42.1% support?
That question has been haunting my mind for several weeks now, and so I began to do research that would provide a fact-based answer. Today's SR is dedicated to what I discovered. One point to remember: The uber-rich who support Trump do so for quite different reasons than the Trumpers, whom they see as peasants, necessary only because even with what little democracy we have left, the number of voters still makes a difference. Trump and his cronies, as Trump's "It is what it is" comment about the pandemic makes clear, don't care about the peasants, but do recognize they have this one importance. 
