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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.
As I watch the chaos of the incoming Trump administration, several trends have stood out for me. The first is how it is possible that such corrupt and incompetent men and women have been elected as the representatives of the districts and states they are supposed to serve. What I think we are seeing is the manifestation of what the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United made legal. A rich person or a small group of rich people can now buy a seat in the House or Senate for someone who has committed to serve their interests instead of the interests of their community. No uber-rich person is going to buy a seat for someone who will serve with high ethics and only make those votes that will foster wellbeing for society as a whole.
We are also seeing the result of the Reagan administration’s restructuring of the American tax laws which resulted in the creation of the billionaire oligarchs who now basically own the U.S. economy and basically have no allegiance to any country since their wealth is internationally based.
As I watch the Trump appointments to create the administration he will have when he steps into office what really stands out for me is the blatant nepotism. His acts of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or friends. It is medieval. Trump is behaving like a monarch from the 1300s, who has a parliament terrified to oppose him. Nothing that is going on with Trump suggests that by March the United States will remain an actual functioning democracy. Oh, like Hungary and Russia, we may still go through the rituals but they will be increasingly meaningless. It
So what to do non-violently that will stop the death of the America we have known all our lives? As I have been saying over and over, these trends can only be reversed, by millions of Americans going into the street, and demonstrating to demand change that fosters wellbeing. I wrote a book The 8 Laws of Change on how to do this. It is entirely fact-based both historically and scientifically. If we are going to remain a democracy it is up to you and me to become activists in whatever way we can. Nothing else is going to save us.
Cassandra Stephenson, Staff Writer - Raw Story | Tennessee Lookout
Stephan:
I want to make a point today that most of the media either does not see, or won’t properly address. They do one-off stories like this one, but they don’t report on the trend I described in my editor’s comment.
Tennessee Sen. Kenneth Yager’s recent arrest while driving a campaign-funded car on a Georgia vacation sheds renewed light on the pitfalls of lawmakers’ not-uncommon practice of dipping into campaign finances to lease or purchase vehicles.
State law doesn’t prohibit this, but does require lawmakers to keep records of vehicle use and reimburse their campaign accounts for any mileage payments they receive from the state and any personal use of the vehicle.
The Tennessee Lookout’s review of campaign finance and state mileage reimbursement records for Yager found that since he began leasing a vehicle in 2017, he has simultaneously collected more than $20,000 in mileage from the state while using his campaign account to pay for gas, maintenance, insurance and other costs typically meant to be covered by mileage reimbursements.
Reached through a Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus spokesperson Friday, Yager said the state mileage reimbursements were an “oversight” paid to him despite him marking “no mileage” on his […]
Thankfully MAGAt Republican Kay Granger, the representative for Texas’s 12th Congressional District, will retire with the close of this Congress. But the question is how long has she suffered from dementia. As the article describes she has been in her office or even having someone answering the phone for six months. The question, as I said in my comment, is how did these people get elected and keep getting elected?
A Republican Congresswoman who has been “missing” for the past six months has finally been found.
Rep. Kay Granger has served as the representative for Texas’s 12th Congressional District since 1997.
However, she suddenly disappeared from the public eye around July this year, when she cast her final vote against an amendment to reduce the salary of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs to $1.
A curious reporter at the local Dallas Express newspaper did some digging on Granger’s whereabouts and has finally been able to give her constituents some answers.
The reporter, Carlos Turcios, began by contacting her offices, from which they went directly to voicemail.
“I am sorry we are unable to answer your phone right now,” Granger said. “We are really glad you called us.
“Please leave your name, phone number and a brief message and someone in our office will call you back as soon as possible.”
The reporter then went to her constituency office only to find absolutely no signs of life or activity.
Seemingly at a dead end, Turcios then received a […]
It isn’t just Republicans that are corrupt whores serving the interest of the rich who bought them their seats instead of the poor fools who voted them into office. Kyrsten Sinema is a notable example making this point. Here’s why I say this.
Outgoing independent MAGAt Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has spent her final months in office missing votes, tanking a union-friendly National Labor Relations Board, and praising the obstructionist procedure known as the filibuster.
She has also violated campaign finance law by taking pricey trips to places like Rome and California wine country, according to a Wednesday complaint lodged by the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The group claims that since Sinema announced in March that she would not run for reelection, her campaign has spent over $100,000 on personal travel expenses. Those expenses do not appear to have any connection to campaign or official duties, making them illegal uses of her funds, CREW says. (Sinema’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)
“The law applies to you whether it’s your first week in office or your last.”
She has successfully fought off similar charges before by claiming that the expenses were related to fundraising, but that could be a tougher sell this time around given her departure from the Senate.
John Alexander lays out what is going on very accurately. He also makes a point that I think is critically important yet not properly discussed in media, and certainly not in social media. Donald Trump and his MAGAt Congressional zombies are in office because American voters put them there. It is the voters that created what is happening to the United States.
Donald Trump is an existential threat to America. While ayatollahs may portray the United States as “The Great Satan,” and verbally rant “death to America,” it is Trump who is the real existential threat to our physical existence. To be clear, by “existential” I mean the Webster definition of “having being in time and space.” At issue is the human habitability of the planet and the country.
During the 2024 election campaign, many media commentators stated that Trump was an existential threat to democracy and our chosen manner of governance. While I agree with that sentiment, what I am addressing here are his actions and utter failure in environmental stewardship. Trump’s failure will likely lead to the physical destruction of significant segments of the North American continent and also will impact the rest of the world.
This is not a prediction of a catastrophic nuclear war that might produce extensive damage, especially in heavily populated areas. I am also not precluding such an event either. Rather, I am addressing a far more insidious and devastating threat; ones of […]
This morning I got an email from a reader in Florida saying, “Stephan, you are so right-on about the insurance trend you have been warning us about, and that I just experienced. Friday, my Christmas gift from my 20-year home insurance company was that they would not extend coverage, and my policy would end in January.” Here is further confirmation of what is happening. If you live on a coastline this trend may be headed your way.
Five hurricanesmade landfall in the United States this year, causing half a trillion dollars in damages. Flooding devastated mountain towns along the East Coast. Scores of wildfires burned almost 8 million acres nationwide. As such events grow more common, and more devastating, homeowners are seeing their insurance premiums spike — or insurers ditch them all together.
An analysis released Wednesday by the Senate Committee on the Budget found that the rate at which insurance contracts are being dropped rose significantly in recent years, particularly in states most exposed to climate risks. In all, 1.9 million policies were not renewed.
“Climate change is no longer just an environmental problem,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who chairs the budget committee, said at a hearing Wednesday. “It is an economic threat, and it is an affordability issue that we should not ignore.”
As I frequently do I agree with Thom Hartmann’s call for some spine in the Democratic Party. As I have watched the last several weeks of the news on the Congress what has stood out for me is the spinelessness of the Democratic Congress members. They are all patting each other on the back for the budget extension success. And, yes, that was a sort of win. But where is the lack of action to curb the oligarchs who are taking over control of our government? Why were AOC, and Elizabeth Warren the only Democrats, along with independent Bernie Sanders, the only members calling out for something to be done about the oligarchs? Where isn’t a new generation of leadership being put forward in the Democrat Party? Once again, I think, the only thing that is going to change this is millions of Americans nonviolently but passionately out in the streets, demanding that the United States return to being a democracy fostering wellbeing.
Monday morning MSNBC and CNN (and, presumably, Fox, etc.) gave Trump roughly 40 minutes of live television time to rant and lie, threaten an Iowa newspaper and pollster, propose privatizing our Post Office, and muse about ending schoolchildren’s vaccine mandates for polio.
Everybody watching cable TV probably saw it; it was later the topic of numerous newscasts and newspaper articles that are still echoing across the news space.
Around the same time, President Joe Biden spoke at the inauguration of the Francis Perkins National Monument to FDR’s famous Labor Secretary and principal author of the New Deal. He truthfully pointed out that his one four-year administration had helped create 16 million new jobs, more than any single presidential term in history (and more than the jobs created by the Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Trump administrations combined).
The cable networks chose to completely ignore Biden’s speech. As did the rest of the nation’s media. So, I get it, there’s a strong media bias in favor of Trump (“What new outrageous thing will he say? OMG! Click bait!!!”) and […]
Annabel P. Matison, Anbupalam Thalamuthu, Victoria M. Flood, Vibeke S. Catts, Kaare Christensen, Marianne Nygaard, Nancy L. Pedersen, Perminder S. Sachdev, Simone Reppermund, Karen A. Mather, IGEMS Consortium - Scientific Reports
Stephan:
This is a very existentially depressing time in the history of the United States. For that reason, it is more important than ever, particularly if you are older, that you eat enough fruit and vegetables. Here is the research that substantiates this linkage with your wellbeing.
Abstract
Beneficial associations between higher fruit and vegetable intakes and risk of depression appear to exist but few studies have focused on adults aged 45 + years and the potential that associations are due to residual confounding has not been tested. This longitudinal study of twins (n = 3483, age 45–90 years) from Australia, Denmark, Sweden and USA, assessed the associations between baseline fruit/vegetable intake and depressive symptoms over 5–11 years using linear mixed effects models. Intakes from food frequency questionnaires were trichotomized. Depressive symptoms were assessed using validated measures. The co-twin method was used to examine familial confounding. Compared with low intakes, both high fruit and high vegetable intakes were associated with lower depressive symptoms (fruit: β -.007 [95%CI − .014, < − .001], p = .040; vegetables: β − .006 [95%CI -.011, -.002], p = .002); whereas only moderate vegetable intakes, were associated with lower depressive symptoms (vegetables: β − .005 [95%CI − .009, − .001], p = .014). No familial confounding was found for vegetables, while the results for fruit were inconclusive, likely due to smaller sample size and the marginal significance of the main result. Higher fruit and vegetable intakes may protect against depressive symptoms, presenting another argument for increasing intakes in adults aged 45 + years.