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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: Trump is an incompetent psychopath and he has never understood the point of NATO or why we have maintained military outposts in Europe for 75 years. This action of his is getting zero coverage in the electronic media that just goes over and over the same thing. But in Europe and in Russia this is a game changer. Trump has done what Putin has sought since he came to power, and once again one has to ask: What is it that Putin has that holds Trump by his balls?
Donald Trump and European leaders
Perhaps only President Donald Trump could turn a withdrawal of troops into an act of aggression.
The president has directed the Pentagon to reduce sharply the number of U.S. military forces stationed in Germany, where a heavy presence of GIs has long served as a symbol of Washington’s commitment to protecting its European allies.
The White House would not confirm the plan, which was first reported Friday by the Wall Street Journal, but current and former officials familiar with it said Trump would cap the U.S. military presence at 25,000 — requiring a reduction of nearly 30 percent, or roughly 9,700 troops.
As of March 31, there were 34,674 U.S. military personnel stationed in Germany, including 20,774 from the Army and 12,980 from the Air Force, according to the most recent publicly-available Pentagon deployment report.
Some 19,000 additional civilian employees support the uniformed military forces, and that number would almost certainly be cut as a result of the planned withdrawals.
The reduction in forces stands to reverse an increase in the […]
Stephan: John Alexander has been studying and writing about geopolitical issues for decades, and he has a very discerning eye. In this essay he describes in some detail the damage Trump is doing to America's international standing. This is something it will be very hard to fix.
President Donald Trump speaks from the Oval Office of the White House
Credit: Carlos Barria/Pool Photo/AP
Isolationism is a path well-travelled, but the results never have been efficacious. Based on fear and ignorance, invariably such tendencies of appeasement and willful ignorance of political realities too often have led to war. Geographically, the United States long have benefited from the physical separation afforded by oceans. Such was the case prior to both World War I and World War II. Many Americans naively believed that whatever happened in Europe was none of our concern. Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, for the vast majority of our citizens, events in Asia barely were even an afterthought.
Following the experience of WW I, the country was deeply divided concerning re-engagement in foreign affairs. There were famous people who opposed America either getting involved in the war against Germany, or even materially supporting the UK while they were in dire straits. Among those leading that effort was legendary aviator, Charles Lindbergh, who first soloed across the Atlantic and who later became the spokesperson for […]
Trevor Timm, - The Intercept/Freedom of the Press Foundation
Stephan: Trump's fascism and misuse of the military coupled with the emerging videos of police violence has finally, I hope brought us to the critical point of really looking at what has happened to law enforcement in the United States. We need to ask why American police kill more people each year than all the European and the Nordic nations combined. And we need to ask what a militarized hostile police are doing to our free press.
A police officer shouts at Associated Press videojournalist on June 2, 2020, in New York. Credit: Wong Maye-E/AP
We are witnessing a truly unprecedented attack on press freedom in the United States, with journalists are being systematically targeted while covering the nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
The crisis has rightly generated international outrage. Some have pushed a narrative — fueled by commonly used phrases like “journalists are being attacked by police and protesters alike” — that police and protesters are attacking journalists at relatively equal rates.
Stephan: This is how we appear in the foreign press. We have gone from Reagan's "shining city on a hill" to just another tin-pot self-righteous corrupt authoritarian country little different from those in Africa or Central or South America. And these attacks by the police and military on a free press... well, you know the story.
Caught in the middle of a scrum covering protests in Minneapolis on Saturday, photojournalist Ed Ou could feel his hands and face were wet. For a long time, he didn’t know if it was teargas, pepper spray, or blood – in the end, it turned out to be a combination of all three.
Sheltered behind a wall in a pack of journalists, Ou had not seen the attack coming. He has documented civil unrest in the Middle East, Ukraine and Iraq, where he learned a few things: never get in the police’s way, find cover, stick together, always know your exit and make sure you are clearly identifiable as press. So when the curfew hit and police fired teargas into the crowd of protesters, Ou stood steady, out of the way, documenting. And then the unexpected happened.
“They literally started throwing concussive grenades in our direction, in the middle of the journalists,” he says.The police approached Ou directly and maced him in […]
Stephan: The list keeps growing. Senior military officers, and ranking civilian Defense Department officials are stepping forward to identify Donald Trump as an aspiring fascist dictator. Never, ever, in our history has something like this occurred. Be very clear in your mind, American democracy hangs by a thin and fraying thread.
Meanwhile, with the exception of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, from the Republican senators, we hear... nothing. Like the voles in my wife's garden when the light shines on them they chirp and scuttle away.
Every Republican senator and all Republican representatives up for election in November need to voted out of office, and a number should be indicted, prosecuted, and imprisoned.
Former Republican Senator and Secretary of DefenseWilliam Cohen
During an appearance on CNN on Friday morning, former Defense Secretary William Cohen – who also served in the U.S. Senate as a Republican — denounced Donald Trump in no uncertain terms, saying his use of military personnel against anti-police brutality protesters is a sign he has set the country on the path to a dictatorship.
To emphasize his point, he later called Trump the “dictator-in-chief.”
Speaking with host Jim Sciutto, Cohen didn’t mince words after the CNN host noted that the president and his former attorney called the protesters “terrorists.”
“What does it mean for you to hear a sitting president dismissing a whole range of protesters, who in fact were largely peaceful around the White House, dismissing a whole range of them as terrorists? What does that mean to you?” the CNN host asked.
“It means that he has no understanding of what the rule of law really means in this country,” Cohen began. “He has declared he wants to be the ‘president of law and order,’ but that’s not what the […]
Terry H. Schwadron, DC Report Opinion Editor - DC Report
Stephan: Attorney General William Barr, like his overlord Donald Trump is a fascist. And, like all fascists Trump and Barr want an army of secret police to intimidate the peasants. Well Barr has put together just such a force of 132,000 men who will do as they're told with little or no accountability except to Trump and Barr.
Did you ever think you would see something like this on American soil? I certainly didn't, but it is here, and this is now.
Fascist Attorney General William Barr’s secret police
At the heart of upheaval over George Floyd’s killing is police accountability.
Do the act, face the effects– legal, political. ethical.
It’s the rewrite of what we grew up hearing – do the crime, do the time.
That’s the conundrum we’ve been seeing from the White House, where Donald Trump through Attorney General William P. Barr has been unleashing armed government agents stripped of personal or even agency identity.
The question, obviously, is why? What sense does this make, and what is Barr trying to achieve for the White House other than intimidation of would-be looters and peaceful protesters alike?
The imagery of federal troops – or agents that look like federal troops – guarding the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was strong … enough to reflect what we would expect in an authoritarian regime.
From all that has been reported, Barr organized his small army from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, who did wear identifying information without names. But also included were officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals; the […]
Ryan J. Reilly, Senior Justice Reporter - Huffpost
Stephan: The thing about fascism is that it is a system designed for the rich, and its treatment of everyone else is notable for little acts of nastiness. Fascism has no interest whatever in social wellbeing unless it impacts the interests of the uber-rich who own the government. This report is about as clear an example of what I mean as you could ask for.
WASHINGTON ― Law enforcement agents have seized hundreds of cloth masks that read “Stop killing Black people” and “Defund police” that a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization sent to cities around the country to protect demonstrators against the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has had a disparate impact on Black communities.
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) spent tens of thousands of dollars on the masks they had planned to send all over the country. The first four boxes, each containing 500 masks, were mailed from Oakland, California, and were destined for Washington, St. Louis, New York City and Minneapolis, where on May 25 a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old handcuffed Black man, setting off a wave of protests across the country.
But the items never left the state. The U.S. Postal Service tracking numbers for the packages indicate they were “Seized by Law Enforcement” and urge the mailer to “contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for further information.”
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Stephan: When you think of Trump supporters you probably think about the Magas, White lower class, or middle class, largely rural, less educated, men and women to cite their demographic profile. But Donald Trump only cares about those people at his rallies.
He wouldn't eat with them. or socialize with them, and he cares nothing about their wellbeing, as his policies make clear.
What he cares about are the people he thinks of as his peers, the White uber-rich fascists. The people who, because of Citizens United, routinely bribe Senators and Representatives to buy the kind of laws and tax policies that reflect their interests.
These people matter to him, and he to them, as this list of billionaires and their political donations make clear. And one of the things I find particularly interesting is that many didn't contribute to him in 2016 but now, after almost four years, during which he has shown his fascist White racist bona fides, they are donating very generously.
The richest president in American history has gotten financial support from nearly one in 10 U.S. billionaires.
Nearly five years ago Donald Trump descended an escalator inside Trump Tower and announced a long-shot bid to become president of the United States. Standing on a stage in the building’s lobby, in front of eight American flags, he spoke to a gaggle of cameras. “I’m using my own money,” Trump said, indicating that he would self-fund his campaign. “I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”
How times have changed. Now in the midst of his reelection campaign, President Trump has accepted donations from 80 billionaires and their spouses, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings. Fifty-one moguls donated in their own names. Seven others are married to people who did. In other words, 9% of America’s billionaires, who together are worth a combined $210 billion—either directly or through their spouse—have pitched in to cover the costs of Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Forbes mined more than 2.5 million entries in the Federal Election Commission database to […]
