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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: I agree with this poll's conclusions. The Electoral College was created to resolve a struggle between the slave and non-slave owning states and should be abolished. The election should be determined by popular vote.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
61% prefer amending Constitution to use popular vote to elect president
89% of Democrats, 23% of Republicans favor popular vote
Democrats’ preference for popular vote highest in two decades
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Heading into the 2020 presidential election, three in five Americans favor amending the U.S. Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote system, marking a six-percentage point uptick since April 2019. This preference for electing the president based on who receives the most votes nationwide is driven by 89% of Democrats and 68% of independents. Far fewer Republicans, 23%, share this view, as 77% of them support keeping the current system in which the candidate with the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election.Americans Favor Using Popular Vote to Elect PresidentThinking for a moment about the way in which the president is elected in this country, which would you prefer — to amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide wins the election, or to keep the current system, in which the candidate who wins the most […]
Stephan: California is joining with most of Europe to eliminate petroleum-powered vehicles. States controlled by Republicans, in contrast, like Trump don't buy the reality of climate change, and either promote petroleum or are indifferent to its regulation. This, in essence, is promoting a crime against humanity
Transportation remains California’s largest source of planet-warming emissions, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gases from human activity. Credit: Ben Margot/Associated Press
California plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars statewide by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, in a sweeping move aimed at accelerating the state’s efforts to combat global warming amid a deadly and record-breaking wildfire season.
In an executive order, Governor Newsom directed California’s regulators to develop a plan that would require automakers to sell steadily more zero-emissions passenger vehicles in the state, such as battery-powered or hydrogen-powered cars and pickup trucks, until they make up 100 percent of new auto sales in just 15 years.
The plan would also set a goal for all heavy-duty trucks on the road in California to be zero emissions by 2045 where possible. And the order directs the state’s transportation agencies to look for near-term actions to reduce Californian’s reliance on driving by, for example, expanding access to mass transit and biking.
“This is the next big global industry,” Governor Newsom said at a news […]
Stephan: If you are a Jew, or a Black person, or a Hispanic and you have even considered voting for Trump, you need to sit down and talk to your better self because the truth is if you are any of those things you need to admit to yourself that Donald Trump holds you in contempt as a lesser being. He doesn't even want to shake your hand.
Trump loathes Jews
A new report claims that President Donald Trump has privately accused American Jews of being more loyal to one another than to the United States.
Specifically, the Post’s sources say the president “has muttered that Jews ‘are only in it for themselves’ and ‘stick together’ in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties.”
Additionally, these sources say that Trump “has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments,” while also telling aides that he “could never understand” why first lady Melania Trump would ever want to visit Africa.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
A former White House official tells the Post that, when challenged by aides on his comments, Trump would say, “No one loves Black people more than me.”
Another former official said that their best defense of Trump […]
Stephan: Here is Trump's latest racist action. Short of holding a press conference wearing a KKK hood how much clearer does Trump have to make it that he is a racist who considers Black people, Brown people, Jewish people, and Muslim people lesser beings?
President Trump announced late Tuesday that the White House attempt to halt federal agencies’ anti-racism training would be expanded to block federal contractors from “promoting radical ideologies that divide Americans by race or sex.”
Why it matters: The executive order appears to give the government the ability to cancel contracts if anti-racist or diversity trainings focused on sexual identity or gender are organized. The memo applies to executive departments and agencies, the U.S. military, federal contractors and federal grant recipients.
Details: The White House said its order would “prohibit Federal agencies and Federal contractors from conducting training that promotes race stereotyping, for example, by portraying certain races as oppressors by virtue of their birth.”
The memo denounces “blame-focused diversity training” and “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating” while acknowledging that “training employees to create an inclusive workplace is appropriate and beneficial.”
The president tweeted: “Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”
The big picture: Trump signed an order last week to “promote patriotic education” through an effort […]
Stephan: I believe we are witnessing an attempted coup by Trump and the Trumpers. Trump is pursuing three avenues, hoping one of them will let him stay in power. First, a blatant attempt to throw out the election into chaos by claiming the popular vote has been rigged. Second, if that works to move it into the Supreme Court, which is why he is so adamant about getting a justice installed. Third, to subvert the Electoral College by restructuring it at the state level in states where Republicans control the legislature. so that it does not respect the popular vote. The only thing that will stop this evil is a vote so overwhelmingly against Trump that it cannot be challenged. But be very clear, an attempted coup is underway.
Kentucky polling place Credit: kentuckytoday.com
There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.
The danger is not merely that the 2020 election will bring discord. Those who fear something worse take turbulence and controversy for granted. The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery.
Something has to give, and many things will, when the time comes for casting, canvassing, and certifying the ballots. Anything is possible, including a landslide that leaves no doubt on Election […]
Stephan: The thing about Trump is that he telegraphs what he is going to do, and in this instance I don't know how much clearer he could make it that he is planning a coup to keep himself in power.
Trump planning a coup
President Donald Trump was asked Wednesday whether he will commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose this fall to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The president declined to do so.
“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.”
Pressed further, Trump said: “We’ll want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”
When asked by Fox News’ Chris Wallace in June whether he would accept election results, Trump said he would “have to see” and claimed that mail-in voting will “rig the election.”
Trump has repeatedly assailed mail-in voting as widely fraudulent though he and his campaign have released no evidence proving such. Despite the fact that the president and first lady Melania Trump have voted by mail and that his campaign and Republicans have […]
Stephan: When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and 65, I thought America was finally going to get past the cancer of racism. Boy was I wrong. We have a president whose racism puts George Wallace and Orville Faubus to shame, and he is doing everything he can to stimulate racist hatred in his cult.
Trump and Trumpers Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments, according to current and former U.S. officials.
After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.
Trump’s private musings about Hispanics match the vitriol he has displayed in public, and his antipathy to Africa is so ingrained that when first lady Melania Trump planned a 2018 trip to that continent he railed that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.”
When challenged on these views by subordinates, Trump has invariably responded with indignation. “He would say, ‘No one loves Black people more than me,’ ” a former senior White House official said. The protests rang hollow because if the president were truly guided by such sentiments he “wouldn’t need to say it,” the official said. “You […]
Stephan: Two hundred thousand of us are dead of the coronavirus. Here is the story of the Trump Covid-19 effort told from the inside. It is, of course, yet another account of criminality, incompetence, and self-advancement.
Max Kennedy Illustration by Joao Fazenda
Months before Bob Woodward’s book “Rage” documented President Trump’s efforts to deceive Americans about the peril posed by covid-19, Robert F. Kennedy’s twenty-six-year-old grandson tried to blow the whistle on the President’s malfeasance from an improbable perch—inside Trump’s coronavirus task force.
In April, Max Kennedy, Jr., despite having signed a nondisclosure agreement, sent an anonymous complaint to Congress detailing dangerous incompetence in the Administration’s response to the pandemic. On the phone recently from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Kennedy explained why he’d alerted Congress. “I just couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I was so distressed and disturbed by what I’d seen.”
How did a Kennedy end up in a sensitive role in the Trump Administration? After graduating from Harvard, in 2016, Kennedy did some time at consulting and investment firms; he planned to take the LSAT in March, but the pandemic cancelled it. At loose ends, he responded to a friend’s suggestion that he join a volunteer task force that Jared Kushner was forming, to get vital personal protective equipment, such as […]
