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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.
Hiroko Tabuchi, Investigative Reporter - The New York Times
Stephan: Just as Bob Woodward's Trump tapes revealed the truth, so this article does the same about the Carbon energy industry. Just as Trump knew the facts but lied so these corporate executives know the truth but lie
“We’re just flaring a tremendous amount of gas,” one executive said at the meeting. Credit: Jessica Lutz/The New York Times
Last summer, oil and gas-industry groups were lobbying to overturn federal rules on leaks of natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Their message: The companies had emissions under control.
In private, the lobbyists were saying something very different.
At a discussion convened last year by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a group that represents energy companies, participants worried that producers were intentionally flaring, or burning off, far too much natural gas, threatening the industry’s image, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times.
“We’re just flaring a tremendous amount of gas,” said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, at the June 2019 gathering, held in Colorado Springs. “This pesky natural gas,” he said. “The value of it is very minimal,” particularly to companies drilling mainly for oil.
A well can produce both oil and natural gas, but oil commands far higher prices. Flaring it is an inexpensive way of […]
Stephan: When you hear people say Trump would like a third term, the Constitution be damned, don't laugh or dismiss it. He does, and is doing everything he can to rig the election in 2020. The only thing that is going to stop this is you.
President Donald Trump looks at the crowd during a campaign rally at the Minden-Tahoe airport in Minden, Nevada on Sept. 12, 2020. Brendan Smialowski/Getty
Speaking to a packed, largely mask-less crowd in Nevada on Saturday night, President Donald Trump once again said he wanted to serve three terms in office. Trump said he is “probably entitled” to an additional four years in the White House. “Fifty-two days from now we’re going to win Nevada, and we’re going to win four more years in the White House,” Trump told a crowd of at least 5,000 people in Minden, Nevada that was standing shoulder-to-shoulder. “And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably—based on the way we were treated—we are probably entitled to another four after that.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1304971015647301632&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Fnews-and-politics%2F2020%2F09%2Ftrump-negotiate-third-term-democrats-rig-election.html&siteScreenName=slate&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
Even though he is behind Joe Biden in all the major polls, by Trump’s telling the only way he can lose in November is if Democrats “rig” the election. During the rally, Trump once again raised doubts about the reliability of mail-in voting, and without citing any evidence said that Democrats will use it […]
Stephan: The Republicans for a generation have made the deficit one of their central issues. What they don't tell you is that when Republicans are in. power the deficit goes up, when Democrats are in power it goes down. But we have never before seen anything even remotely like what has happened during the Trump years. Read and weep.
Credit: Getty
The federal budget deficit surpassed $3 trillion through August, according to official Treasury data released Friday, and is expected to hit $3.3 trillion when the fiscal year wraps up at the end of this month.
The figures, which confirm earlier estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), show that the deficit is on track to be the largest in the country’s financial history. The $3.3 trillion figure is well over double the largest previous record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, during the financial crisis.
The data released Friday showed that the government has spent more than $6 trillion so far this year, a monumental leap over the $4.4 trillion it spent in the entirety of 2019. That increase was largely due to emergency relief efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn it caused.
Revenues, in the meantime, remained largely unchanged but could only account for about half of the spending, leaving the Treasury to borrow the rest.
The CBO estimates that the accumulating debt will surpass the size of the entire economy next year and break its World […]
Stephan: Beginning with the Bush-Cheney phony Iraq war and continuing down to the present day, the United States has been the principal terrorist nation in the world. That may be hard to accept but the facts will have it no other way. Because we don't have a conscription armed forces only 1 percent of Americans are actively involved with the military so what we are doing doesn't register as it would with a conscription miitary, where many more families from a much larger demographic would be involved.
The ongoing U.S. “war on terror” has forcibly displaced as many as 59 million people from just eight countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia since 2001, according to a new report published Tuesday by Brown University’s Costs of War Project.
The latest figure represents a dramatic increase from the Costs of War Project’s 2019 report, which estimated that 21 million people had been displaced internally or forced to flee their home countries due to violence inflicted or unleashed by U.S.-led wars over the past two decades. That report also put the death toll of the so-called war on terror at 801,000 and the price tag at $6.4 trillion.
The new report argues that “wartime displacement (alongside war deaths and injuries) must be central to any analysis of the post-9/11 wars and their short- and […]
Stephan: Christianity in the United States, on the basis of the data, is less a religion and more a White supremacist, male dominance, christofascist political movement. This is a familiar path trod by the Communists on the left and the Nazis on the right. And now we see it in the U.S.
Right wing Christians
Religious right activists are inserting themselves into the election process by gearing up to challenge votes cast by mail and watch for suspected fraud at polling stations.
Right-wing Christians and conservatives are training thousands of volunteers to challenge the validity of some votes cast in key battlegrounds states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, reported The Guardian.
“I’m particularly concerned about mail-in voting fraud,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, co-founder of the Texas-based group True the Vote.
There’s no evidence that mail-in voting has caused widespread problems in U.S. elections, but Engelbrecht’s group has already trained about 10,000 volunteers to sniff out alleged fraud in targeted counties through handwriting analysis and other methods.
Engelbrecht became especially concerned about the potential for fraud after some NBA teams offered their arenas for in-person voting to ensure Black Americans had access to the polls as the Trump administration imposed new limits on the U.S. Postal Service.
True the Vote, which has roots in the Tea Party movement, has offered training sessions with religious and conservative groups such as Intercessors for […]
Stephan: I'm just going to let this report speak for itself. The Trump administration and Trump himself have reached a level of vileness beyond anything I have ever seen.
Firefighters work beneath the destroyed mullions, the vertical struts which once faced the soaring. Credit: AP/MARK LENNIHAN
A New York Daily News scoop published Thursday revealed that the Trump administration has siphoned around $4 million from the New York City Fire Department’s fund for its September 11 first responders, drawing outrage on the 19th anniversary of the attacks, but the U.S. Treasury says the money was diverted because of “delinquent debt” owed by New York City to the federal government.
The funds are part of the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, which was established by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, a bill passed by Congress that provides healthcare to first responders who have suffered a range of illnesses from exposure to dust and smoke at Ground Zero.
“TRUMP DOESN’T ONLY HATE VETERANS, HE HATES FIRST RESPONDER HEROES,” tweeted actress Debra Messing in reaction to the Daily News report.
Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland school shooting victim Jamie Guttenberg, said he was “F—KING P—-ED” about the report, because his brother […]
Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman, Reporters - MSN News/Reuters
Stephan: Here we go again. The amazing thing is Russia has this dinky little economy, about the size of New York state, it's economy is almost entirely dependent on oil and gas, dying industries, and except for its nuclear weapons Russia really shouldn't be considered a major geopolitical power. What makes them one is not Russia, but Trump. The way he defers to Putin, Trump's failure to protect allies, to impose sanctions; his attempts to degrade NATO. Trump functionally is a Russian agent, and they will do anything to keep him in power,
Trump’s Controller
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Microsoft identified a suspected hacking group that targeted a firm working with Democrat Joe Biden as the same Russian-backed unit blamed by the U.S. government for breaking into the campaign of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to two sources briefed on Microsoft’s analysis.
The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with 2020 presidential election hopeful Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said.
SKDK Vice Chair Hilary Rosen declined to comment. The Biden campaign said it was aware Microsoft said a foreign actor had tried and failed to access “non-campaign email accounts of individuals affiliated with the campaign.” Microsoft, which has shared with SKDK its assessment that Russian state-backer hackers targeted the firm, declined to comment.Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Biden visits Detroit. Credit: Reuters/LEAH MILLIS
The Russian hacking group, which many cyber researchers refer to as “Fancy […]
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Biden visits Detroit. Credit: Reuters/LEAH MILLIS 
