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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.
Linda Greenhouse, Contributing Writer - The New York Times
Stephan: I don't think most Americans, and certainly not the Trumpers, realize just how badly the American legal system has been damaged by Trump, Barr, Mitch McConnell, and the other Republicans senators. For the entire time of his presidency, Trump and McConnell have been stacking the courts with incompetent unqualified, according to the American Bar Association, ideologues. Even if Trump is defeated, as I hope will be the case, and the Senate becomes a veto proof majority Democratic body, it is still going to take years to repair what Trump and the Republicans have done.
The Supreme Court of the United States. Credit:Christopher Lee / The New York Times
The Supreme Court made the indisputably right call last week when it refused to block California from limiting attendance at religious services in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19.
A Southern California church, represented by a Chicago-based organization, the Thomas More Society, which most often defends anti-abortion activists, had sought the justices’ intervention with the argument that by limiting worshipers to the lesser of 25 percent of building capacity or 100 people, while setting a 50 percent occupancy cap on retail stores, California was discriminating against religion in violation of the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause.
Given the obvious difference between walking through a store and sitting among fellow worshipers for an hour or more, as well as the documented spread of the virus through church attendance in such places as Sacramento (71 cases), Seattle (32 cases) and South Korea (over 5,000 cases traced to one person at a religious service), California’s limits are both sensitive and sensible, hardly the basis for constitutional […]
Stephan: Remember the Mueller Report? It seems so long ago as to be ancient history but, of course, it is not. It is just that there is so much corruption, dishonesty, and incompetence in the Trump administration that it is hard to keep it all straight. But to U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, who was tasked with looking into Mueller and his staff, and their report, it is very present-day and his decision like the judge's decision about Michael Flynn is an utter condemnation of William Barr.
It won't matter to the Trumpers, of course, and I think this and the Flynn report are both telling us something very important: It is a waste of time to try to reach Trumpers with facts. They will not change. They constitute a White Supremacist, christofascist cult. But they are a minority of America, and the way to deal with them is to overwhelm their numbers with votes by decent, fact-based, honorable, men and women.
The Mueller report hasn’t been in the headlines much in 2020, a year that has found reporters heavily focused on the Ukraine scandal, President Donald Trump’s acquittal on two articles of impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic, former Vice President Joe Biden’s surge in the Democratic presidential primary and — most recently — the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. But the Mueller report is still a compelling read, and a federal judge is demanding some answers after confirming, on June 8, that he has read an unredacted version of the lengthy document.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, according to Law & Crime’s Matt Naham, has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to answer questions “regarding certain redactions of the Mueller Report” at a hearing now set for July 20. In the past, Walton has been critical of Attorney General William Barr’s response to the Mueller Report, asserting that Barr, in 2019, “distorted” the findings of former special counsel Robert Mueller. And now that Walton has read the Mueller Report […]
Stephan: I didn't know the facts, but this piece did not surprise me at all. It is obvious Barr has always been dishonorable, corrupt, and a bully. But here are the facts.
Police in Buffalo shove a 75-year-old man to the ground and blood pours from his ear. Police in Brooklyn knock down a young woman and call her a “bitch” because she asked why she had to leave the street. Federal authorities in Washington fire tear gas at peaceful demonstrators, then lie about it.
Get the feeling law enforcement in this country is being run by a middle-school bully?
If so, you are not wrong.
Childhood bullies have a predisposition to become adult bullies, research shows, and, sure enough, it seems Attorney General William Barr was a teenage bully more than 50 years ago.
Back in 1991, during Barr’s confirmation to be George H.W. Bush’s attorney general, lawyer Jimmy Lohman, who overlapped with Barr at New York’s Horace Mann School and later Columbia University, wrote a piece for the little-known Florida Flambeau newspaper about Barr being “my very own high-school tormentor” — a “classic bully” and “power abuser” in the 1960s who “put the crunch on me every chance [he] got.”
Nobody noticed the Flambeau piece at the time, but Lohman posted it on Facebook when President Trump nominated Barr in 2018, and it took […]
Stephan: Today, as we are all submerged in bad news, I thought I would focus on what may not look like good news but, in fact, is good news: the demise of the carbon energy industries. The polluters who have brought us climate change are beginning to see the future, and it looks very bleak. If I were in the financial markets I think I would begin to start calculating when the smart financial move is to short oil.
Stephan: I have been tracking the petroleum trend for some years now, because the petroleum industries worldwide are amongst the most powerful and corrupt multinational corporations in the world, and they care nothing for the wellbeing of the nations where they hold investments. But the trend is changing, and the momentum is against them, as this BP report notes.
A general view of BP (British Petroleum) refinery in the Port of Rotterdam on April 23, 2020 Credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty
Fossil fuel giant BP made headlines earlier this year when it announced it would target net zero emissions by 2050. Now, it is in the headlines again, since it announced on Monday that it would slash 10,000 jobs, roughly 15 percent of its workforce, as it struggles during a downturn in the oil market and transitions its practices towards renewable energy, as CNN reported.
In an email to staff on Monday that was also published on LinkedIn, BP CEO Bernard Looney announced the layoffs, which mostly affect senior office-based positions and not front-line operational staff. He called it part of some “tough decisions” but said that “we must do the right thing for bp and this is that right thing,” as Gizmodo reported.
BP currently employs 70,100 people. “We will now begin a process that will see close to 10,000 people leaving BP – most by the end of […]
Stephan: Petroleum assets, once considered as close to a sure thing as possible, are beginning to look less attractive. Here is an example of what I mean.
Sultanate of Oman
Occidental Petroleum may be considering a sale of oil and gas assets in Oman to reduce its debt burden, unnamed source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The assets could fetch over $1 billion, the sources added.
Occidental has a debt load of some $40 billion, most of which it took on last year when it bought sector player Anadarko in what now many see as one of the worst-timed acquisitions in history, finalized just months before oil prices tanked. About $11 billion of this debt matures by 2022 and the company is actively seeking ways to conserve and generate cash.
The acquisition cost Oxy some $55 billion and aimed at expanding its presence in the U.S. shale patch, which got battered by the oil price crash. Because of the unfortunate timing of its acquisition of Anadarko, Oxy has become one of the worst-affected oil players in the United States. Asset sales, one of the usual means of reducing significant debt loads, will fetch a lot less than before the crisis if they go through at all.
Stephan: Although criminal Trump and the Republican Party are doing everything they can to support their masters in the petroleum business, to whom they give billions of dollars in subsidies, and free them from as much environmental oversight as possible, it is a losing game.
In light of the postponement of multiple final investment decisions (FIDs) on projects and lower investments in offshore oil and gas, coupled with increased activity in the offshore wind sector, Rystad Energy, an independent energy research and business intelligence company, expects that the two markets will reach parity as soon as next year. The company anticipates that capital expenditure on offshore wind will surpass upstream oil and gas spending in Europe in 2022.
Capex towards offshore wind in Europe surpassed the $10 billion mark in 2015 and has since hovered in the range of $10 billion to $15 billion per year. Annual capex levels are expected to rise from around $11.1 billion in 2019 to around $13.8 billion in 2020, $18.2 billion in 2021 and more than $22 billion in 2022.
The abundant oil supply and reduced demand have reduced the price of oil, and consequently, annual capex towards upstream offshore oil and gas in Europe is expected to decline from more than $25 billion in 2019 to less than $17 billion in 2022.
Stephan: Oil will come back a bit, I think and will go up and down, but the overall trend is down. In my opinion, within 15 years, petroleum power will be a small fraction of what it is today. And what will happen? It is already possible to see in cities that were once almost hidden the petroleum pollution clouds, that with the pandemic and decreased use of petroleum engines clear skies have returned. That is the future.
Oil pump jack
U.S. crude output is set to fall by 670,000 bbl/d in 2020 to 11.56 million bbl/d, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday, steeper than the 540,000 bbl/d decline it forecast previously as drillers have slashed activity.
The agency now expects U.S. petroleum and other liquid fuel consumption to plunge 2.4 million bbl/d to 18.06 million bbl/d in 2020 compared with its previous forecast for a drop of 2.19 million bbl/d.
Oil prices collapsed this year as the coronavirus pandemic slammed global demand and restricted travel across the world.
The EIA said 2020 world oil consumption is expected to plummet by 8.30 million bbl/d to 92.53 million bbl/d, a sharper slide than the 8.15 million bbl/d previously forecast.
However, demand across the world has started to edge higher with countries easing lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.
“Initial data show the global oil market rebalancing faster than EIA previously forecast,” EIA Administrator Linda Capuano said in a statement.
“We expect [global oil] inventories to begin drawing in June, as a result of sharper declines in global oil production during June and […]
