IF YOU ENJOY SR AND FIND IT USEFUL WOULD YOU PLEASE DONATE
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: This issue is only getting attention in the industry press but could cripple solar power in the United States, particularly since Trump has stacked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. I will be watching this very carefully.
Under a recent utility deal, solar power sold for under three cents per kilowatt hour, the lowest level on record in the U.S. Credit: Getty
While a regulatory battle over energy policy rages in Washington, D.C., the solar industry is raising alarms that the outcome has the potential to cripple rooftop solar in California and around the country.
A secretive, New Hampshire-based nonprofit called the New England Ratepayers Association petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in April to reevaluate the core tenets of net metering, a billing method that’s foundational to rooftop solar. While NERA argues the policy that many states have adopted unfairly benefits people who can afford solar panels, the solar industry claims NERA is simply hell-bent on wiping out competition to utilities.
“It feels very simple to me. This is just a complete, existential attack on solar,” said Dave Rosenfeld, executive director of the Solar Rights Alliance, which advocates for solar users in California. “And in just one fell swoop, it would devastate solar.”
For years, FERC has maintained that states have jurisdiction over net metering and that it would not take […]
Stephan: The carbon energy extraction industries are facing greater and greater challenges, and I believe, this is a dying industry. In about 18 months I would start thinking about "shorting" oil.
Oil tanker off coast of California Credit: National Geographic
Giant Ships lurked off the California coast for weeks in April and May, their bellies full of up to 20 million barrels of oil. This floating cache, enough to support the energy needs of the entire U.S. for a day, sat aboard an idling fleet that pumped out tons of pollutants, according to a new analysis performed by the University of College London and shared with National Geographic. These emissions could ultimately affect the long-term health of coastal communities—many of them already at risk and underserved—and they added tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Despite U.S. energy demand plummeting to record lows due to the coronavirus crisis, oil kept getting pumped out of the ground. The resulting oversupply taxed the limits of U.S. storage capacity. Oil trade groups spoke of a scramble to fill up empty pipelines or rail cars, but the most popular option was to charter and fill giant oil tankers. These tankers and their sea-size loads of oil began idling a few miles offshore from major […]
Ruth Marcus, Deputy Editorial Page Editor - The Washington Post
Stephan: Trump and the militarized and apparently frightened -- I fired in fear of my life -- law enforcement system in the United States have finally reached such a dysfunctional and blatantly racist state that demonstrations are occurring all over the world. Well, let's look at some actual data instead of partisan bloviation.
Protesters march in Washington on June 6. Credit: Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post
Again with the apples. Now comes President Trump, not only blaming “bad apples” for police brutality but asserting that “there are not too many of them.” The problem, in his view, is just “a few” bad cops — and that’s to be expected. “You always have a bad apple, no matter where you go,” Trump offered at a roundtable in Dallas.
No surprise there. A procession of senior Trump officials — among them his attorney general, acting homeland security secretary and national security adviser — have dismissed the notion that systemic racism infects police departments or the criminal justice system more broadly.
Trump might have heard a different perspective in Dallas had he bothered to include the local police chief, sheriff or district attorney, all African Americans. The district attorney, John Creuzot, would have been enlightening. “Well, that’s not reality,” Creuzot told CNN’s Chris Cuomo about Trump’s bad-apples assessment. “I think any serious person who wants to be honest about these issues understands that there is systemic racism not only in police […]
Stephan: It is a measure of how strong a social influence the militarized law enforcement system has become in the United States that they have been able through four presidents, Democrat and Republican both, to hold at bay any statistics on their killings. For that reason alone this system must be completely restructured.
Phoenix, 1 June 2020 Credit: USA Today
The brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has been condemned by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. However, police violence spiraled out of control in part because each of those presidents failed to obey a law compelling the feds to track police killings around the nation.
In 1994, Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which boosted subsidies for local and state law enforcement. The bill also required the attorney general to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers” across the nation and to “publish an annual summary of the data acquired.” Congress effectively ordered the Justice Department to document how often police kill unarmed private citizens.
Two years later, a Justice Department report raised the white flag: “Systematically collecting information on use of force from the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies is difficult given … the sensitivity of the issue.”
Instead of requiring local and state law enforcement agencies to comply […]
Stephan: As I watched the news on what appears to be the murder of Rayshard Brooks by two police officers I thought, even if you are a racist how dumb do you have to be to shoot another Black man in the back on the 19th day of international demonstrations arising because of the murder of George Floyd, another Black man? There is something really really wrong with the way police are trained and the individuals that are selected for the job.
Rayshard Brooks murder by police Credit: 11 Alive.com
Investigators were looking into reports that an Atlanta police officer fatally shot a Black man in a fast-food drive-thru late Friday night.
Atlanta resident Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot by an officer during a struggle and died after surgery at a local hospital, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. One officer was treated for an injury and discharged.
Brooks had been asleep in his car in a Wendy’s drive-thru, causing other customers to drive around the car, the Bureau of Investigation said. Police were dispatched to the Wendy’s around 10:30 p.m. and conducted a sobriety test on Brooks, who failed the test, according to the officials.
“During the arrest, the male subject resisted and a struggle ensued,” the Bureau of Investigation said. “The officer deployed a Taser. Witnesses report that during the struggle the male subject grabbed and was in possession of the Taser. It has also been reported that the male subject was shot by an officer in the struggle over the Taser.”
Stephan: I think you have to conclude there are a certain number of law enforcement officers who just can't help themselves. When the chance comes to kill a Black man they have to take it.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
A Los Angeles man was fatally shot in his home by deputies Thursday morning in a tragic domestic dispute call gone wrong. His family, however, insists the tragic incident could have been avoided if authorities didn’t prematurely pull the trigger.
Michael “Blue” Thomas, 62, was killed in his living room in the early hours on Thursday after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to a domestic dispute call, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. But while authorities claim Thomas was shot after reaching for one of the deputy’s guns, his fiancée and attorney insist the opposite—that he was turning away.
“They broke the front down and they grabbed Mr. Thomas immediately,” Bradley Gage, the family’s attorney, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “As they were holding him, they hurt him by twisting his arm. At that point, because he was uncomfortable, Mr. Thomas tried to move and one deputy just stepped back and shot him.”
“He was murdered without justification,” he added. “It was 100 percent avoidable.”
Stephan: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, just another slimy corrupt (take a look sometime at his background) Trumper feeding off the people, is the perfect man to announce this latest Trump move. We took billions of your tax dollars, peasants, and we're not going to tell you what we did with any of it (basically split it up amongst ourselves). Oh, your small business didn't get any of it. Did you vote for Trump in 2016? You did? well you have only yourself to blame.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Trump administration says it won’t ever reveal the firms after public companies raided small business relief funds.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration will never reveal the companies which received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, told Politico that the Small Business Administration was withholding data on the loan recipients that the agency requested as part of its oversight efforts.
“We believe that that’s proprietary information, and in many cases, for sole proprietors and small businesses, it is confidential information,” Mnuchin testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The decision breaks with standard protocol since the Small Business Administration (SBA) typically discloses the companies that borrowed through the program on which the PPP is based, according to The Washington Post.
“4.5 MILLION businesses received government funds. Zero transparency,” a spokesperson for the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted. “Unconscionable, jaw-dropping corruption.”
The PPP has received nearly $700 billion in funding from Congress, more than $500 billion of which has already been doled out.
Mnuchin’s statement came after the PPP, a coronavirus relief package aimed at helping […]
Stephan: We are in the middle of a kind of slow-motion coup. The Senate and House Republicans have realized that in a fair election Trump will lose, as would many of them. So what to do? Why rig the election of course. Suppress the vote, make it hard to vote, stop mail-in voting where possible. American democracy is reeling. I'd say it is a toss-up now as to whether the Republicans will succeed in what they are attempting.
Voters in Georgia’s primary election this week struggled with long lines, new equipment and social distancing. Credit: MohammadJavad Jahangir/Rex/Shutterstock
The alarm bells have been going off for months, but the election fiasco in Georgia on Tuesday made it clear: America is ill-prepared to hold a fair presidential vote in November, and is dangerously close to having an election disaster.
The Georgia contest offered the most alarming preview to date of what could happen in November without major overhauls, training and planning. Voters stood in line to vote for upwards of four hours, saying they never received mail-in ballots requested weeks ago. Local officials, forced to consolidate polling locations because of Covid-19, were unable to manage the influx of voters and struggled to operate new voting equipment.
Experts worry that poll worker shortages, long lines and other delays in processing requests for absentee ballots will only get worse in November, when there will be more voters. Since March, voting advocates have been calling on states to prepare for an election like no other, and quickly implement plans that accommodate a surge in […]
