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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's unswerving allegiance to the carbon power industries, to the detriment to all life on earth, is one of the few constants of his presidency. Here is the latest. It is disgusting.
The Trump administration on Monday slapped wind and solar power companies operating on federal lands with retroactive rent bills. Credit: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty
While giving fossil fuel companies access to relief funds ostensibly meant for small businesses struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration on Monday slapped solar and wind power firms with retroactive rent bills dating back two years.
The Interior Department is demanding rent payments from renewable energy companies operating on federal lands, two years after it suspended rent for the operators as it investigated whether the Obama administration had charged too much.
The administration plans to collect $50 million in rent this year from 96 companies operating on federal property—the same amount of money that a recent report showed is going to fossil fuel companies in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, the oil and gas companies may not have to pay those loans back.
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette also admitted last week that the White House pushed the Federal Reserve to open its Main Street Lending Program to the oil and gas industries.
Stephan: Here is some potentially excellent news about reversing the plastic pollution trend. Now, this technology has to be adopted by corporations that use plastic bottles and containers. It will, of course, get down to price, since few corporations actually care about the environment.
Avantium, a biochemical company in the Netherlands, is fundraising for a new project that will turn sustainably grown crops into a plant-based plastic. Credit: Avantium
Beer and soft drinks could soon be sipped from “all-plant” bottles under new plans to turn sustainably grown crops into plastic in partnership with major beverage makers.
A biochemicals company in the Netherlands hopes to kickstart investment in a pioneering project that hopes to make plastics from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels.
The plans, devised by renewable chemicals company Avantium, have already won the support of beer-maker Carlsberg, which hopes to sell its pilsner in a cardboard bottle lined with an inner layer of plant plastic.
Avantium’s chief executive, Tom van Aken, says he hopes to greenlight a major investment in the world-leading bioplastics plant in the Netherlands by the end of the year. The project, which remains on track despite the coronavirus lockdown, is set to reveal partnerships with other food and drink companies later in the summer.
Stephan: New Zealand, unlike the United States, is led by a government committed to fostering the wellbeing of its citizens and has a population that is united in supporting that goal. The comparison of New Zealand's experience of the Covid-19 pandemic and that of the United States under Trump makes it starkly clear which is the better government.
New Zealand has found no new Covid-19 cases in the past two days, just as a new poll named Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern the country’s most popular leader in 100 years thanks to her pandemic response.
Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
KEY FACTS
Tuesday was the second day in a row that no new Covid-19 cases were counted in New Zealand, following weeks of a consistent drop in the country’s daily infection rate, with only 19 new Covid-19 registered in all of May.
Ardern, the country’s youngest prime minister, is also the most popular in a century according to a Newshub-Reid Research poll released Monday, with nearly 60% of those surveyed calling her their preferred leader.
Ardern’s popularity has surged since she ordered the country’s strict lockdown, her approval rate jumping about 20 points since the last poll and as almost 92% of respondents say they support the measures she implemented.
Though no new cases have been found since a single new confirmed case Sunday, […]
Stephan: It is my view we are heading into a real estate crisis. I see it as arising from three real estate trends: First, sea rise, and the collapse of the value of coastal real estate. Second, people's inability to pay their mortgages. Third, a corporate reappraisal, as a result of the pandemic, about whether they actually need the same square footage of costly large office buildings, or whether in a number of situations, employees could work from home.
This report lays out the home mortgage situation.
If you are planning to not pay your mortgage please take a look at this:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-no-1-mistake-to-avoid-if-youre-skipping-your-mortgage-payments-2020-04-28?mod=article_inline
More than 4 million Americans have stopped making mortgage payments because of economic hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Credit: Getty
Fewer Americans are calling their mortgage servicers to ask for relief from mortgage payments, but the housing industry isn’t out of the woods yet.
More than 4.1 million homeowners are in forbearance plans now, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
While mortgage servicers are still facing stress because of the record deluge of requests for payment relief, signs suggest that homeowners’ prospects have improved as parts of the country have begun to emerge from coronavirus stay-at-home orders.
Overall, 8.16% of all mortgages were in forbearance as of May 10, meaning borrowers can either skip or make reduced payments, the trade group said. That was up from 7.91% as of May 3, which is the smallest increase since March. Forbearance requests dropped from 0.52% of the total mortgage volume to 0.32%.
“There has been a pronounced flattening in loans put into forbearance — despite April’s uniformly negative economic data, remarkably high unemployment, and it now being […]
Stephan: I do so love factual data discerned by rigorous research protocols, and this Gallup study surprised me in a number of ways. Read it, I think you will see why.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
47% say they worried a lot “yesterday,” down from 59% earlier in crisis
Democrats, lower-income, single adults report more negative emotions
Women more likely than men to report daily worry and loneliness
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As many states have begun to reopen their economies and many more are making plans to do so, Americans are reporting improvements in their emotional health. Although the coronavirus crisis persists, less than half of U.S. adults (47%) now say they worried a lot of the previous day — down from 59% in late March/early April, when Gallup recorded an unprecedented increase in self-reported worry.
In addition to the 12-percentage-point drop in worry, boredom has dipped five points, to 41%, and happiness has edged up five points, to 72%. Loneliness has held steady, with about a quarter of Americans continuing to say they experienced it “during a lot of the day yesterday.”
Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center - Robert Reich Blog
Stephan: A reader sent me this, and I agree with every word of it. I am publishing it because it brings clarity to a fecal fog of Trumpian fantasy and disinformation.
Robert Reich | Registered nurses and health care workers protest a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) available for frontline workers amid the coronavirus pandemic Credit: Win McNamee/Mario Tama/Getty
Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back.
So what is Trump’s reelection strategy? Ignore the warnings of public health experts and reopen the economy at all costs.
Here’s his lethal 4-part plan:
Step 1: Remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work.
Trump’s Labor Department has decided that furloughed employees “must accept” an employer’s offer to return to work and therefore forfeit unemployment benefits, regardless of the risk of returning to work before it’s safe.
Forcing people to choose between contracting a potentially deadly virus or losing their livelihood is inhumane. It’s also nonsensical. Our collective health in this pandemic depends on as many workers as possible staying home.
Step 2: Hide the facts.
No one knows how many Americans are infected because the Trump administration continues to drag its heels on testing. As of May 5th, only 7.5 million tests have been completed in a population of over 330 million […]
Stephan: America's gun psychosis, the insecurity of a certain cohort of lower-class largely overweight white men concerning their manliness, and their virulent White racism have combined to create the Red Hat Maga militia movement.
These men and the women around them are not very bright, but they are violent, and it is that violence and the country's tolerance for it, that really concerns me not only for itself but what it tells us about the ubiquity of unspoken White racism in our society. As I said recently how would the media deal with an aggressive pack of Black men in camos armed with AK-47s storming into a state capital? How would the police react? How would the political class respond?
We saw the precursors of the Red Hat Maga militia movement in Hitler's Brown Shirt, and Mussolini's Black Shirt militia movements. People that don't learn from history repeat it in their ignorance.
Think of it as a kind of high fever warning us the national body is seriously ill.
The U.S. government has the official public policy of never negotiating with terrorists, paying them ransom or otherwise surrendering to their demands. The logic is simple: to give in to terrorists is to encourage more violence and other attacks.
It would appear that the state of Michigan does not follow the same policy.
Stephan: Kakistocratic kleptocracy, a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state, who also care for nothing but their own power and greed. That is the world of Trump. Every day we see the reports, hear the stories, and yet nothing changes the feelings and minds of nearly half of us. It is destroying us.
Trump’s Agriculture Department is turning our nation’s cattle ranchers and feedlot operators into modern-day sharecroppers as beef prices soar during the pandemic.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) asked the Senate Judiciary Antitrust subcommittee to hold a hearing on claims of price manipulation and collusion in the beef meatpacking industry. Fischer pointed to the spike in the index of prices for butchered beef compared with the 30% drop in cattle futures after Jan. 24, when the country’s first coronavirus case was reported.
Feedlot operators often have one or two meatpackers who buy their cattle. These large companies can dictate contract terms. Since 1980, 41% of U.S. cattle producers have gone out of business.
