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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.
John Feffer, Director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies - Raw Story/Tom Dispatch
Stephan: This essay raises what I think are very important questions that I think should be the focus of discussions now. Even with Trump gone we will still be left with a third of Americans who are so ignorant, or racist, male dominant, or gun-obsessed that they believe in Trumpism as a kind of religious faith. What do we as a country do about that?
Donald Trump
Let’s assume that Donald Trump loses the election in November.
Yes, that’s a mighty big assumption, despite all the polls currently favoring the Democrats. If the economy begins to recover and the first wave of Covid-19 subsides (without a second wave striking), Donald Trump’s reelection prospects could improve greatly. The Republican Party has a huge war chest ready to fund ads galore, massive targeted outreach, and widespread voter suppression. And if all that isn’t enough, the president could borrow a tactic from the dictators he so admires and cancel the election outright out of concern over the coronavirus or some fabricated emergency.
Playing up fears of Trump’s reelection is a useful get-out-the-vote strategy, but for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the election happens and the president loses unambiguously. A majority of Americans will sigh with relief. Still, don’t count on Trump — and more important, Trumpism — evaporating like a nightmare at daybreak.
To begin with, there’s the president’s legendary base of support, the one-third of Americans who’d continue to back him even if he were to
Stephan: It is amazing to me that the Trumpers do not seem to be capable of realizing the contempt in which Trump holds them. How little he is interested in their wellbeing. Consider this the most recent example proving my point.
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a briefing on the administration’s coronavirus response in the press briefing room of the White House on March 2, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty
The Trump administration issued policy guidance this week telling health insurance companies that they are not required by law to cover the Covid-19 tests employers may compel workers to undergo as a condition for returning to their jobs.
The announcement (pdf) Tuesday by the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services alarmed healthcare advocates and lawmakers who warned the move gives profitable insurers a green light to push the costs of potentially expensive coronavirus screenings onto workers.
“Once again, the Trump administration is prioritizing corporate profits over people. I’m deeply concerned that this will disproportionately impact frontline workers.” —Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, a relief bill President Donald Trump signed into law in March, includes a provision (pdf) mandating that insurers and employer-provided plans cover “Covid-19 testing and related services without cost-sharing.”
But the Trump administration says in its guidance that the law only requires insurers to cover […]
Stephan: Covid-19 cases are soaring across the country and Trump's response? Stop testing because if you don't test you won't have any cases. Any person that would say that is mentally ill. Donald Trump through his incompetence and mental illness is killing scores of Americans but no one in government seems able to speak that truth.
Testing Credit: NBC News
COVID-19 testing centers across five states are set to lose federal funding next week after the Trump administration decided not to extend the program that established them.
As a result, 13 testing sites across Colorado (1), Illinois (2), New Jersey (2), Pennsylvania (1) and Texas (7) will likely close if those states are unable to replace the necessary funding.
In a statement to HuffPost, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir confirmed that the program that originally funded 41 such sites across 48 states would end next week.
Giroir said it’s part of a planned transition to “more efficient and effective testing sites,” noting that the original end date had already been postponed once.
“All 13 sites were provided an extra 30 days from the original transition date in May,” Giroir said, “and I personally spoke with Governors from all 5 states involved, and/or their leadership designees, who agreed that it was the appropriate time to transition out of the original 13 sites and into the thousands of new testing options.”
In a follow-up call with the media Wednesday afternoon, Giroir emphasized that the […]
Stephan: I am increasingly concerned that 75 years of geopolitical stability in the West is being destroyed by Trump and the incompetents around him, and I do not think it can be overemphasized how very serious this trend is. It has the potential to affect all of our lives. America is coming apart, and just because few in the media are talking about it, does not mean it isn't happening.
“He hated America very deeply,” John le Carré wrote of his fictional Soviet mole, Bill Haydon, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Haydon had just been unmasked as a double agent at the heart of Britain’s secret service, one whose treachery was motivated by animus, not so much to England but to America. “It’s an aesthetic judgment as much as anything,” Haydon explained, before hastily adding: “Partly a moral one, of course.”
I thought of this as I watched the scenes of protest and violence over the killing of George Floyd spread across the United States and then here in Europe and beyond. The whole thing looked so ugly at first—so full of hate, and violence, and raw, undiluted prejudice against the protesters. The beauty of America seemed to have gone, the optimism and charm and easy informality that entrances so many of us from abroad.
At one level, the ugliness of the moment seems a trite observation to make. And yet it gets to the core of the complicated relationship the rest of the world has with America. In Tinker […]
Stephan: Trump and the Republicans go on and on about Leftists and Antifa demonstrators, and it is all utterly bogus. What is real is that we have a developing fifth column of White supremacists infiltrating the police and the military who are actively trying to provoke a second civil war.
The Boogaloo movement, the civilian-run militia, has now infiltrated the U.S. military, VICE News reported Wednesday. Members of the military take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” but the Boogaloo movement wants to overthrow the American government and start a second “Civil War.”
The word “Boogaloo” is used as a code for “civil war,” which is gaining steam at anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests.
The discovery was made when Facebook groups and online networks used by anti-government militia members started to grow with active-duty military members of all branches and a variety of positions.
“Some of the most active online boogaloo communities are on Discord, a platform popular among gamers,” wrote Vice. “There, members have been discussing ways to co-opt protests against racism and police brutality to advance their own agenda. And current or former military have chimed in with their expertise, from the best gas masks to military-grade firearms,” screen captures show.
“I was not particularly surprised to see current and former military members involved […]
Stephan: I have been telling my readers for decades to not only don't use Roundup, but talk to your immediate neighbors asking them not to use it. This stuff causes cancer. So in the midst of a bad situation, and a lot of suffering and death here is some good news.
Roundup weed killing products are shown May 14, 2019, in Chicago.Scott Olson / Getty
Bayer will pay more than $10 billion to resolve thousands of lawsuits regarding claims that its herbicide Roundup causes cancer, the company announced Wednesday.
Monsanto, which Bayer bought in 2018, lost a lawsuit that same year brought by a school groundskeeper who claimed its weedkiller had caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Since then, thousands of U.S. lawsuits have been filed against the company.
Bayer CEO Werner Baumann called the decision to settle the lawsuits the right one in order to end a long period of uncertainty.
“The decision to resolve the Roundup litigation enables us to focus fully on the critical supply of health care and food,” he said in statement. “It will also return the conversation about the safety and utility of glyphosate-based herbicides to the scientific and regulatory arena and to the full body of science.”
The settlement, however, does not contain any admission of wrongdoing or liability.
Bayer will pay $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to settle existing […]
Stephan: From the 1940s until the 1980s the United States led the world in the quality of its roads, bridges, medical research, water, and on an on. Today we lead in only one major government sector, what we spend on the military; we are the biggest death merchants in the world.
For ordinary Americans, however, we are becoming a basket case. If you look at the developed nations of the world, say the 37 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, you discover from literacy to elder care we are second rate. And nowhere is this clearer than in our water systems, both quality and cost.
As you read this bear in mind it was published in the leading English newspaper, and it comes on top of months of reports about other failures and deficiencies. If you lived in Finland, or Portugal, and you were reading these stories what would you say about America?
It's humiliating, and I am tired of it, and I plan to vote to stop this.
Millions of ordinary Americans are facing rising and unaffordable bills for running water, and risk being disconnected or losing their homes if they cannot pay, a landmark Guardian investigation has found.
Exclusive analysis of 12 US cities shows the combinedprice of water and sewage increased by an average of 80% between 2010 and 2018, with more than two-fifths of residents in some cities living in neighbourhoods with unaffordable bills.
In the first nationwide research of its kind, our findings reveal the painful impact of America’s expanding water poverty crisis as aging infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fuel exponential price hikes in almost every corner of the US.Quick guide
How we did our water poverty investigation
America’s growing water affordability crisis comes as the Covid-19 pandemic underlines the importance of access to clean water. The research shows that rising bills are not just hurting the poorest but also, increasingly, working Americans.
“More people are in trouble, and the poorest of the poor are in big trouble,” said Roger Colton, a leading utilities analyst, who was commissioned by the Guardian […]
Stephan: This is what restructuring the American judiciary looks like. This is the quality of judges we now have. McConnell and Trump have put 200 judges onto the bench; they are overwhelmingly White, male, and young, with a few women like Neomi Rao. They were selected for their ideological bias, and will be with us for decades. This is the real legacy of McConnell and Trump, and it will skew the interpretation of American law to a far right orientation in ways great and small.
On Wednesday, in a 2–1 decision, Judge Neomi Rao forced a district court to dismiss the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Rao’s opinion is an exercise in outcome-driven sophistry that barely pretends to be a judicial opinion. While gutting a vital check of executive misconduct, Rao whitewashed the Justice Department’s flagrantly political decision to drop charges against Flynn—hours before the House Judiciary Committee heard whistleblowers testify about political interference at the DOJ, including in Flynn’s case. Rao accused the district court of “unprecedented intrusions on individual liberty” simply because it dared to “prob[e] the government’s motives” for meddling in the prosecution of the president’s ally.
Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will almost certainly be appealed to the full court and possibly the Supreme Court after that. If upheld, Rao’s ruling will set a terrible legal precedent. But equally devastating are its broader, long-term implications for judicial independence.
