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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: Here we have exhibit A of what the Republicans are seeking to do. What is needed is a massive outcry, people in the streets, demanding a fair election. Can you help?
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds at a rally with President Donald Trump. Credit: Tom Brenner/Getty
Just over a week after a surge in mail-in voting fueled record-breaking turnout in Iowa’s June 2 primaries, the Hawkeye State’s GOP-controlled Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would bar the Republican secretary of state from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters for the general election without first receiving a written request.
“The goal is voter suppression. Participation by more people in our democracy is a success. But that’s not how legislative Republicans see it. Unfortunately, that should come as no surprise by now.” —Des Moines Register Editorial Board
Iowa Democrats immediately cried foul, characterizing the legislation as a blatant attempt to rig the Nov. 3 elections in favor of President Donald Trump and other Republicans by suppressing voter turnout. The bill passed the Iowa Senate by a largely party-line vote of 30-19 and now heads to the House, which is also controlled by Republicans.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, hasn’t said whether she supports the legislation.
Stephan: This piece by Jesse Jackson and David Daley raises what I think are the essential points. This is what is wrong with our democracy and why we must get rid of the electoral college, and change the way the Senate is apportioned. What worked in the 19th century is not working in the 21st.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by ERIK S LESSER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10674599q) Voters wait in an hours long line to vote at Fulton County’s Park Tavern precinct in the coronavirus-delayed Georgia presidential preference primary election in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 09 June 2020. The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has forced election officials to institute social distancing and sanitizing practices to protect both poll workers and voters. Primary election day in Atlanta, Georgia., USA – 09 Jun 2020
America’s streets are filled with protesters because we no longer believe that our voices are being heard.
When our system is working, Americans mainly express themselves at the polls. There is no right more fundamental than the right to vote, if our government and our leaders are to have legitimacy.
But today, voting itself is broken. Our system has buckled under the weight of repressive voter ID laws, toxic partisan and racial gerrymandering, voter roll purges and precinct closures that disproportionately target minority voters. The intentional elimination of Sunday early voting days when black voters are most likely to head […]
Stephan: The United States has the worst record for dealing with coronavirus in the world. We have no national policy. The CDC has been suppressed. Because of the incompetence, self-involvement, and nastiness of Trump we have none of the things that we should have, or that we did have, for instance, in the H1N1 crisis. Blue states, in general, have done their best, while Red states have tried to act like its all in the past. I predict that by this fall we are going to see states turning against states. Why should a state that has handled the crisis as best it can, have tourists from states that have not managed the Covid19 crisis well, come into their states, and cause a new infection crisis? This will be coming on top of what I see as a Trump generated racial crisis. America is coming apart under Trump. And, as the rest of the world looks on, they see an enfeebled U.S. with a psychopath at its helm, bumbling like a drunk in an alleyway.
Every Republican Senator who voted not to impeach Trump should be voted out of office.
Covid-19 patients arrive at the Montefiore medical center in the Bronx, New York City. Credit: John Moore/Getty
For Americans, coronavirus went from being a mysterious affliction that occurred in far-off lands to 1m confirmed cases on US soil within 14 weeks. Now, just six weeks later, the US has broken through the grim milestone of 2m positive tests for Covid-19, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
The anguish of life lost, of a severely wounded economy and wrenching political turmoil have taken a harrowing toll upon a fatigued American public. But further, perhaps far greater pain is yet to come, pandemic experts have warned, even as authorities wave people back into reopened shops and offices and the US president’s political rhetoric on an epochal crisis dwindles away to near silence.
“Everyone has just looked at the first 100 yards of this marathon,” said Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Everyone has just looked at the first 100 yards of this marathonMichael Osterholm
Osterholm said a society usually becomes resilient to a […]
Stephan: Here is what I predicted was coming when this pandemic first began, a massive increase in bankruptcies, and a resultant devastating increase in American families in financial distress. We are a long long way from getting over the effects of the Covid-19 and its impact on every aspect of our society.
All of this should have been anticipated, planned for, and to the degree possible ameliorated. None of it was, of course. One can only wonder what would have happened under President Pelosi, if Trump and Pence had been removed from office as they should have been, before the pandemic became an issue.
Art Van Furniture, Bar Louie and True Religion all sell different products, but they all have one thing in common: Each has gone bankrupt this year, as the coronavirus-induced recession that started in February flattens businesses large and small.
Recent data show 722 companies sought bankruptcy protection around the U.S. last month, a 48% increase from the year-ago period. Chapter 11 filings also jumped in April and March, as states started imposing business restrictions amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“This is a sign that already weak companies are succumbing to the lockdown recession,” Chris Kuehl, an economist with the National Association of Credit Management, which tracks bankruptcies, said in a research note. Businesses that were struggling before the pandemic “are starting to get in some real trouble,” he added.
Stephan: I don't know about you, but for me, one of the most notable things about this pandemic is the utter nastiness of the Republicans, from Trump down. Here is a good essay that addresses this.
Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump
Characterizing entire groups of people is the basis of prejudice. Sweeping generalizations are the foundation of racism, sexism, antisemitism, and every form of discriminatory ideology. Offensive stereotypes appear often in crudely written op-eds, where selected evidence about individuals is applied to whole categories of people.
I have worked hard to avoid the easy tendency to overgeneralize. But this question persists in my mind: are today’s Republicans nasty?
Certainly there are nasty Republicans, as there are nasty people of every political persuasion. Perhaps it is too easy to make a long list of nasty Republicans. I think it’s enough to refer to the collective televised behavior of Republican Senators and Representatives during the impeachment hearings, where argument and nastiness were blended into a toxic brew designed to distract attention from what Trump had actually done.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
What provokes my bigger question is the possibility that nastiness has become the essence of Republicanism. This process did not begin with Trump. Rush Limbaugh has personified the
The activity by a senior Trump campaign adviser, and former White House aide, reflects a broader movement by some Republicans to attack the protests against police brutality.
President Donald Trump and his allies for years have amplified racist messages on Twitter while simultaneously reaching out to black and Hispanic voters, a dissonant balancing act that’s now rocking the GOP amid nationwide racial justice protests.
The two competing forces collided Saturday on the Twitter feed of Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp, when she boosted a tweet that lauded a man in Texas in a viral video as he yelled a racial slur and wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstrators.
After POLITICO reached out to her and the campaign Saturday morning, Schlapp then retweeted another account that posted a version of the video that muted the slur. After this story published, she removed both her retweets and issued a written apology Saturday evening.
“I deeply apologize and I retweeted without watching the full video. I deleted the tweet,” […]
Stephan: Republican Nastiiness - Exhibit B
I could add a dozen more exhibits as bad or worse than these two, but you get the point, I hope.
Ohio State Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City
COLUMBUS, OHIO — During a hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis, state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, asked if “the colored population” is hit harder by the coronavirus because perhaps they don’t wash their hands as well as other groups.
Huffman, an emergency room physician, asked a witness before the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday why COVID-19 is hitting African Americans harder than white people.
“My point is I understand African Americans have a higher incidence of chronic conditions and it makes them more susceptible to death from COVID. But why it doesn’t make them more susceptible to just get COVID. Could it just be that African Americans or the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups or wear a mask or do not socially distance themselves? That could be the explanation of the higher incidence?” he said.
Ohio Commission on Minority Health Director Angela Dawson responded to Huffman: “That is not the opinion of leading medical experts in this country.” COVID-19 impacts the respiratory system so those […]
Stephan: When I went into government as the Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, I had to fill out a mass of security papers listing things going back to my childhood. After I passed that I next had to meet with a Marine lieutenant colonel, who very sternly explained to me what I could and could not say to people about my work, and what treason was. By any measure I know, General Michael Flynn is a traitor to his country, and an unwitting, perhaps, agent of the Russians, all done at the bequest of his master Donald Trump.
His case has dragged on for years now, with Trump and his minions throwing every roadblock they could to keep him out of prison. Once William Barr became attorney general this all got much more corrupt because Barr, in my opinion, does not serve the United States and its people. Like John Mitchell before him, he is completely corrupt and works only for the interests of only one person Donald Trump, as Mitchell served Nixon.
Now we have this, and the corruption, inappropriate behavior, open dishonesty of Trump and Barr has been brought out into the open. Trump, of course, should have been impeached and removed from office months ago and Barr, in my opinion, should be dismissed and disbarred, and like Mitchell go to prison.
But, of course, none of that will happen as long as Trump is president and, I predict, on the last day of his presidency, hours before he leaves office, Trump will pardon Flynn, and Roger Stone.
Read this piece and you will understand why I think as I do.
Michael Flynn
A former judge selected to advise on a path forward in the criminal case against Michael Flynn is accusing the Justice Department of exercising a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” to protect an ally of President Donald Trump, distorting known facts and legal principles to shield Flynn from a jail sentence.
The former federal judge, John Gleeson, skewered Attorney General Bill Barr’s handling of the case, describing it as an “irregular” effort that courts would “scoff” at were the subject anyone other than an ally of Trump. The 82-page excoriation featured a painstaking reconstruction of the Flynn case and accused DOJ of contradicting its own arguments and precedents to justify dropping the case against Flynn.
“Even recognizing that the Government is entitled to deference in assessing the strength of its case, these claims are not credible,” Gleeson wrote. “Indeed, they are preposterous.”
Gleeson is recommending that the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, instead proceed to sentence the former Trump national security adviser on the false-statement charge he admitted to […]
