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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: 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 virus […]
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 Read the Full Article
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
