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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 am leading with this story today because almost every day for months now I see yet another report, many in the professional research literature, explicitly stating that we are headed for a civilization threatening catastrophe. You rarely hear anything about this on corporate media, whether print, video, or online. But in the professional literature where researchers publish it has become a constant drumbeat. Meanwhile, most of the world, and certainly most Americans, go blithely on with their lives having no idea about any of this.
Credit: Pamela Guest
Two theoretical physicists specializing in complex systems conclude that global deforestation due to human activities is on track to trigger the “irreversible collapse” of human civilization within the next two to four decades.
If we continue destroying and degrading the world’s forests, Earth will no longer be able to sustain a large human population, according to a peer-reviewed paper published this May in Nature Scientific Reports. They say that if the rate of deforestation continues, “all the forests would disappear approximately in 100–200 years.”
“Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” they write.
This trajectory would make the collapse of human civilization take place much earlier due to the escalating impacts of deforestation on the planetary life-support systems necessary for human survival—including carbon storage, oxygen production, soil conservation, water cycle regulation, support for natural and human food systems, and homes for countless species.
In the absence of these critical services, “it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on […]
Stephan: Ask yourself: Why do Inspector Generals of agencies and departments keep getting fired, or resign? Here is the latest one. What is that telling us about the integrity of the Trumpian orcs?
Secretary of State and leading Trumpian orc Mike Pompeo
State Department inspector general Stephen Akard has resigned less than three months after President Donald Trump fired the previous internal watchdog at Foggy Bottom, a department official confirmed Wednesday.
Akard’s deputy, Diana Shaw, told the inspector general’s staff that he is leaving, the official said. Although Akard’s last day on the job is officially Friday, he is not expected to return to the office for the remainder of the week. Shaw will lead the office for the time being.
State Department spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment on Akard’s resignation — which was first reported by The Washington Post and CNN. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo postponed a news conference previously scheduled for Wednesday morning until later in the afternoon.
Akard, a former career Foreign Service officer, was installed as the department’s acting inspector general in May upon the ouster of Steve Linick, a Justice Department veteran appointed to the watchdog role in 2013 by former President Barack Obama.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. 
