IF YOU ENJOY SR AND FIND IT USEFUL WOULD YOU PLEASE DONATE
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: Anyone who tells you that nuclear energy is the way to replace carbon energy is just telling you they are willfully ignorant. Civilian nuclear power was created to give companies like Westinghouse and General Electric, who were making nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors for ships, a big enough market to. make it worthwhile, and to create enough skilled personnel in nuclear technology to service the military's needs. To make this scary technology seem safe and happy it was sold as the clean energy future for America. It was all crap from start to finish and those in the know knew it.
Admiral Hyman Rickover who created America's nuclear navy, as his last act before retiring asked Representative Edward Hubert, committee chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to ask him to testify one last time before Congress. What did he want to say? Civilian nuclear power was a mistake, and potentially very dangerous, with long term consequences. Go look it up.
The civilian nuclear power industry which thrived during the Cold War and still lingers on, has left the United States with a horrible and grotesquely expensive nuclear waste problem. Here are some real facts.
It’s a place of superlatives. Reporters have called it the most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere. It’s also the location of one of the largest construction projects in the world.
At the Hanford Site in south-central Washington state, 177 giant tanks sit below the sandy soil, brimming with the radioactive remnants of 44 years of nuclear-materials production. From World War II through the Cold War, Hanford churned out plutonium for more than 60,000 nuclear weapons, including the atomic bomb that razed Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. The sprawling enterprise eventually contaminated the soil and groundwater and left behind 212 million liters of toxic waste—enough to fill 85 Olympic-size swimming pools. Decades after the site stopped producing plutonium, the U.S. government is still grappling with how to clean it all up.
Today the 1,500-square-kilometer site, roughly half the size of Rhode Island, is a quiet expanse of sagebrush and wispy grasses outside Richland, Wash. The underground steel-and-reinforced-concrete tanks are grouped in “farms” beneath a central plateau, while shuttered nuclear reactors stand like sentinels on the periphery. Scientists have identified […]
Stephan: As a country, the United States is being fundamentally, and perhaps irrevocably, altered because media is no longer required to be grounded in facts. In fact, very lucrative and influential operations now dominate much of the news and they explicitly gaslight and propagandize through disinformation the less intelligent members of our society. What this means is spelled out in this well-conducted Gallup Organization survey.
Americans’ news consumption habits are deeply polarized. Liberals tend to use a certain set of news sources; conservatives, another set. A recent series of Gallup/Knight Foundation surveys, including interviews with more than 13,500 U.S. adults, finds that polarized news media habits seem to have an independent effect on the way Americans view the news media.
News consumption diet — the top news sources people use — is strongly related to opinions about the news media. Only 3% of Americans with a conservative news diet have a “very favorable” or “favorable” opinion of the media, compared with 56% of those with a liberal news diet and 34% with a mixed news diet. For more information on how Gallup categorizes news diets, see the online appendix (PDF download).
A similar relationship exists between news diet and trust in national news organizations, suggesting that favorability of the news media and trust in national news organizations measure the same underlying attitudes. Meanwhile, 27% of those with a conservative news diet express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in […]
Lauri Myllyvirta, - Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air
Stephan: Because of the self-isolation policies that have been adopted all over the world, one of the good things to come out of this pandemic is that it has shown us unequivocally that decreased petroleum and gas usage results in a much nicer, and healthier environment, and far fewer air pollution deaths. How much clearer does it need to get that we exiting the carbon energy era will be a boon to all?
The measures to combat the coronavirus have led to an approximately 40% reduction in average level of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution and 10% reduction in average level of particulate matter pollution over the past 30 days, resulting in 11,000 avoided deaths from air pollution (95% confidence interval: 7,000 – 21,000). This effect comes as power generation from coal has fallen 37% and oil consumption by an estimated 1/3. Coal and oil burning are the main sources of NO2 pollution and key sources of particulate matter pollution across Europe.
These findings are based on a new CREA assessment of the air quality and health impacts of reduced fossil fuel consumption during the epidemic.
Other avoided health impacts include 1.3 million fewer days of work absence, 6,000 fewer new cases of asthma in children, 1,900 avoided emergency room visits due to asthma attacks and 600 fewer preterm births. Most of these health impacts are linked to chronic air pollution exposure and will be realized over coming months and years.
The health impact analysis also highlights how, regardless of improved air […]
Stephan: There are so many things that I find despicable about Trump and the people with whom he associates and has brought into government. But nothing quite matches the rape of America's public lands. And of course, as I have been saying repeatedly, these people are using the pandemic to further that process. Here is the story -- in a British newspaper.
Dead Horse Point state park in Utah features an overlook of the Colorado River and Canyonlands national park. A proposed land sale could see energy extraction within a half-mile of Canyonlands. Credit: Alamy
The Trump administration has ratcheted up its efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic to overhaul and overturn Obama-era environmental regulations and increase industry access to public lands.
The secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt, has sped efforts to drill, mine and cut timber on fragile western landscapes. Meanwhile, the EPA, headed by the former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, has weakened critical environmental laws and announced in March that it would cease oversight of the nation’s polluters during the Covid-19 crisis.
The rollbacks appear to follow a playbook put forth by influential conservative thinktanks, urging the White House to use the pandemic as justification for curtailing, or eliminating, environmental rules and oversight. President Trump should have “the ability to suspend costly regulations without extensive process”, according to a recent report by the Heritage Foundation.
Critics, such as Melyssa Watson, executive director of the Wilderness Society, accuse the administration of using the pandemic […]
Stephan: Just as Trump found the White Supremacy Neo-nazis in Charlottesville to be "good people," so he found the White racist milita Trumpers who flooded armed with assault weapons into the Michigan statehouse to be, "very good people, but they are angry." America's gun psychosis has nurtured an evil: the armed White Supremacist movement.
When you look at pictures of these people what do you see? What I see is a highly ritualized fear group, who mask their fear with hatred. They are a cadre, a cohort, very distinct, and they go to great lengths to define themselves. All are White. They are all male. They seem to range in age from 25 to 45. They all dress alike, particularly favoring Camo and baseball caps with the bills forward. They look like they smell. A large percentage are overweight with a belly hanging out over their pants. They favor a kind of frontier beard, and they clearly have a fetish about guns, particularly assault rifles.
This group is a growing menace in the country. It is just a matter of time until there is an incident. And they are cultivated and funded by the uber-rich, for their own purposes. This is straight out of Germany in the early 1930s, as Hitler was coming to power. If you think that isn't true spend a few minutes doing a Google on "the rise of Nazism" and read what comes up.
Protestors try to enter the Michigan House of Representative chamber and are being kept out by the Michigan State Police Credit: EFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty
President Trump threw his support behind armed right-wing protesters who entered the Michigan Capitol shouting and blocked the office of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, claiming that they are “very good people, but they are angry.”
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” Trump tweeted. “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”
The president did not explain what he meant by “a deal.” Whitmer, a Democrat who has become a favorite punching bag for the president, extended the state’s social distancing guidance Thursday through May 15. However, she lifted many of the restrictions which had become a flashpoint for the protests, such as opening travel between primary and second homes and allowing residents to go boating and play golf. (Golf carts still remain verboten, though.)
Residents are still required to stay home as much as […]
Stephan: To say that Alex Jones is a vulgar intellectually challenged boor, and a christofascist provocateur seems self-evident. Why would anyone pay attention to this man? And yet the Alex Jones Show is the 56th most popular radio program/podcast in the United States and the 13th most famous. In other words, millions of Americans find this man a creditable source of information. They constitute the Trumper hardcore. And here is what Mr. Jones has to say:
Far-right conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones has a long history of saying outrageous things in order to draw attention. And this week on his radio show — with the deadly coronavirus pandemic raising concerns about safety at food processing plants and integrity of the supply chain — Jones threatened to resort to cannibalism if faced with food shortages.
“I’ll admit it: I will eat my neighbors,” Jones told listeners. “I’m not letting my kids die.”
Jones asserted that although he is stocking up on food as much as possible, he will resort to cannibalism if food shortages become a reality and he ever runs out of food. Jones told listeners, “I’m literally looking at my neighbors now going, ‘I’m ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up.’ And you know what? I’m ready. My daughters are not starving to death. I’ll eat my neighbors.”
Jones added, “My children are not going hungry. I will eat your ass. And that’s why I want the globalists to know: I will […]
Stephan: The lowest marriage rate recorded in our history is a trend with all sorts of social implications.
WASHINGTON—The share of Americans getting married has fallen to its lowest level on record, according to government figures released Wednesday that reflect how economic insecurity and changing norms are eroding the institution.
The U.S. marriage rate fell 6% in 2018, with 6.5 new unions formed for every 1,000 people, according to a report by the National Center for Health Statistics. That was the lowest rate since the federal government began keeping data in 1867, said Sally Curtin, a statistician at the center and lead author of the report.Marriage rate in the United States(1900–2018)Source: National Center for Health Statistics1905’20’35’50’65’80’95’10051015
“Millennials are in peak marriage years, their 20s and 30s, and it’s still dropping,” Ms. Curtin said. “This is historic.”
The new report shows how marriage rates plunged near the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s, then rebounded sharply after World War II, hitting a high of 16.4 marriages per 1,000 people in 1946. The marriage rate began a near-steady decline in 1982 that lasted until 2009, then remained near flat before inching upward in 2014. Ms. Curtin said there was […]
Shira A Scheindlin, United States District Judge (Ret.) - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: "After three years of Trump’s appointments, the federal judiciary is 73% white and 66% male, but it will be even more male and pale by the end of his term," this report begins. I have been telling you this for three years. The Republican Party under Trump and Moscow Mitch is restructuring the American judicial system so that it is christofascist: White, racist, "Christian" and corporatist. We are going to be living with this distortion of our legal system for decades. It will be one of the major legacies of Trump and McConnell when, hopefully, they are both voted out of office in November. It's up to you to make that happen.
The US Capitol is seen from the supreme court in Washington DC on 27 April 2020. Credit: Tom Brenner/Reuters
Whether or not he is re-elected, Donald Trump will be revered by conservatives for his judicial appointments. As of March, Trump has appointed 193 judges to the federal bench, with another 39 pending on the floor of the Senate or in the Senate judiciary committee. Those nominations will surely be acted on favorably by the Senate before 20 January 2021, when there may be a new president and a new Senate. There are another 38 district court vacancies awaiting nominations. In one presidential term, Trump may appoint up to 270 federal judges, or 31% of the entire federal judiciary. For perspective, Barack Obama appointed 329 in eight years.
There is no doubt that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, will confirm Trump’s appointments until the very last day of his term. This is of course the same Senate gatekeeper who infamously blocked Obama’s final supreme court nomination, Merrick Garland, for an entire year – on the ground that in the final year of a presidency, the […]
