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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.
The reality that there are already people who are richer than some countries, and they are getting still richer is a sign of how dysfunctional our national economy has become. This all happened because over and over the Trump Chritofascist Party (the former Republican Party) has cut taxes for the rich and rigged the tax system to favor them. On top of that the Supreme Court fascists legalized the bribery of politicians. These changes are the source of most of the problems the United States faces.
Illustration: Elia Barbieri / The Guardian
At the beginning of each year, the world’s corporate and political elite gather in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to pat each other on the back, attend seminars on “the fourth Industrial Revolution” – whatever that might be – and generally mull over the state of the world. Rarely is so much wealth to be found in so few conference rooms. And each year, Oxfam, the global development charity, takes the opportunity to run the numbers on the state of global inequality. Oxfam’s findings are often eye-catching, but this year especially so.
The wealth of the five richest people in the world, they found, has more than doubled, from $405bn (£320bn) in 2020 to $869bn in late 2023. That’s an increase of about $14m an hour, which is not bad going by anyone’s reckoning. Perhaps more strikingly, Oxfam calculates that on current trends the world is due to welcome its first dollar trillionaire within a decade. Elon Musk, the richest person at the time of writing, is worth about a fifth of that, at $210bn.
It may of course take longer than Oxfam predicts, but the global trends are […]
Here is a writer in the U.K. saying what I have been telling you for 20 years. I take this as a sign of the general awakening by journalists that all life is interconnected and interdependent. I did a media interview today, with Jeff Lippman, and most of the questions he asked me in essence dealt with this same realization. It is my view what has created the Trump Christofascist Party base is the precognitive but unconscious fear of what climate change is going to do to civilization.
“The health of humans, animals and our environment are woven together in a bond that is inextricable, yet fragile.” Credit: Surachet1 / iStock)
If our planet were a patient, it would be admitted to intensive care. Its vital signs are alarming.
It is running a fever, with each of the last nine months the hottest on record, as we hurtle towards the 1.5 degree threshold.
Its lung capacity is compromised, with the destruction of forests that absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.
And many of the earth’s water sources – its lifeblood – are contaminated.
Most concerning of all, its condition is deteriorating rapidly.
Is it any wonder, then, that human health is suffering, when the health of the planet on which we depend is in peril?
The health of humans, animals and our environment are woven together in a bond that is inextricable, yet fragile. We belong to the same unique, finely balanced ecosystem.
This is not a new realisation. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote in the 5th century BCE that, “The physician treats, but nature heals.”
We are now re-learning what humans have always known, but which, since the industrial revolution, we have forgotten or ignored – that […]
Yesterday I told you that one of the defining characteristics of the MAGAt/TCP supporters is how ignorant they are. Here’s some proof of that. When asked questions immigrants are asked in order to get citizenship, they couldn’t. So most of the people who support Trump could not, in fact, obtain citizenship.
Trump TCP supporters who couldn’t answer a simple question about the U.S. government. Credit: ABC
On Monday, Kimmel upped the ante once more by showing just how little Trump’s die-hard supporters know about the world around them.
The late-night host sent writer Blaire Erskine to a Trump rally in South Carolina with one simple task: Get Trump supporters to agree to answer a few questions from the American Citizenship Test “to find out just how patriotic these patriots are,” Kimmel explained.
“The fact of the matter is the people who support Trump and the MAGA agenda are under the impression that America was founded on the idea of excluding those who do not share your beliefs, which is the opposite of the truth,” said Kimmel, which is […]
This is yet another story demonstrating what is happening in healthcare for women in the Red states. It is amazing to me that women in Red states still vote by the millions for Trump Christofascist candidates. Do they not realize that by their votes they put the wellbeing of the women in their state in serious danger? Apparently not.
Under Louisiana’s abortion ban, doctors face penalties of up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines and loss of their medical license. Dr. Neelima Sukhavasi, a Baton Rouge OB-GYN, says that doctors are scared. Here, Dr. Sukhavasi poses for a portrait in Baton Rouge, La., on Monday, March 18, 2024. Credit: Christiana Botic
In the wake of Louisiana’s abortion ban, pregnant women have been given risky, unnecessary surgeries, denied swift treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and forced to wait until their life is at risk before getting an abortion, according to a new report first made available to NPR.
It found doctors are using extreme caution to avoid even the appearance of providing an abortion procedure.
“We were stunned by just how much regular medical practice for pregnant people has been disrupted,” said Michele Heisler, the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights and one of the report’s authors.
It draws on interviews with 30 health care providers and 13 patients conducted in 2023, and was jointly supported by four groups that support abortion access: Physicians for Human Rights, the Center for Reproductive […]
David Badash, Senior Editor - New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan:
Have you noticed how many Trump Christofascist Party (TCP) supporters are openly criminal? Trump and those who support him come straight out of the Hitler playbook and even though the TCPs have done everything they can to rig the U.S. judicial system, from the top down, there are still enough honorable men and women on the bench and the legal system that these TCP minions keep getting charged, indicted, and found guilty — look at Peter Navarro going to prison today. We will see what happens with Gaetz.
TCP Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida was subpoenaed for having sex with an underage girl.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) reportedly has been subpoenaed in a civil case against a young woman, involving allegations he had sex with her while she was an underaged 17-year old girl, according to ABC News. The case was brought by a friend of Gaetz.
“Gaetz was issued the subpoena, which has not been previously reported, by attorneys representing the woman who is now in her 20s and was at the center of a years-long investigation by the Justice Department into allegations that the Florida congressman had sex with her when she was a minor, sources said,” ABC adds.
The case “is part of a sprawling defamation and racketeering lawsuit brought by Gaetz’s longtime friend, former Florida House member and lobbyist Chris Dorworth, against the woman and others.”
ABC also reports that “Dorworth alleged in the lawsuit a complicated effort to falsely accuse him of ‘child sex trafficking, sex with a minor, prostitution, obstruction of justice, and an illegal ghost candidate scheme,’ according to the suit.”
Citing court documents, ABC News adds that “Dorworth filed a […]
Dan Foster, Contributing Writer - The Good Men Project
Stephan:
White Evangelicals, as a group, are poorly educated — according to statista only 15% are college graduates — and lower IQ — 34% of Americans have an I.Q. between 98 and 85, 78 is considered retarded. They tend to be fearful and resentful, male dominance-oriented, and racist. Also remember 54% of Americans can’t read beyond a sentence like: The man walked across the street. Nor are they numerate enough to calculate fractions. They are not literate enough to read Time Magazine, or The Washington Post, nor numerate enough to comprehend a Gallup Organization survey. I feel bad even writing this, but that is what the research tells us. Not everyone, of course, but that is the cohort profile. That’s the evangelical movement population, so it is no surprise they are easily manipulated into climate denial, as this article describes, by oligarchs whose money comes from polluting the earth.
Credit: The Good Men Project
In a baffling display of cognitive dissonance, two “Christian” Texas billionaires, Farris and Dan Wilks, have emerged as the patrons of climate change denialism. Their substantial wealth, built on an industry that contributes substantially to the destruction of the planet, now fuels a movement that contradicts both the scientific consensus and the teachings of their professed faith.
When he’s not pillaging the earth of its natural resources, one of the brothers, Farris Wilks is the pastor of a modest church known as the Assembly of Yahweh in Cisco, Texas… and a freaking rich Pastor, at that.
They have made their fortune from fossil fuel extraction using oil and gas fracking.
Unearthing the Roots of Denial
Fracking, the cornerstone of the Wilks brothers’ fortunes, is a controversial technique used by mining companies for extracting natural gas and oil from deep beneath the Earth’s surface. It involves injecting high-pressure fluids into rock formations, often causing environmental damage through water pollution, habitat disruption, and the release of greenhouse gases.
The industry that has propelled the Wilks brothers into the echelons of the super-wealthy is one of the major contributors to climate change. It’s no secret that […]
By most research estimates one in three Americans consider themselves evangelicals, and they are the Trump hard-core base. That’s why the TCPs are pouring so much money into getting these low-education low-IQ people ginned up to vote for Trump. This is how Trump plans to win back the Presidency. That’s part of Trump’s plan. The other part is bringing Paul Manafort back to his campaign because, I also think, he hopes Manafort can get someone to cover the $500 million judgment he faces in New York. Suppose the Saudis put up the money through some corporation they control, or the Russian government by giving it to some oligarch who passes it through some corporation to Trump. The TCP has become so openly criminal at this point that I think Trump will try anything and believe he will get away with it because the TCP will protect him through inaction.
Chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Ralph Reed pats Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on the shoulder at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference on June 24, 2023. Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty
A prominent evangelical advocacy organization plans to significantly ramp up political spending in the 2024 election with one goal in mind: returning Donald Trump to the White House
Faith & Freedom, a conservative-leaning organization, intends to spend $62 million registering and turning out evangelical voters, texting and calling supporters, and door-knocking — $10 million more than it spent four years ago. The group is expected to, among other things, hand out 30 million pieces of literature in 125,000 churches — many of them in battleground states.
“In terms of home visits and voters reached at the door, to my knowledge it’s the largest effort on the right outside of the Republican National Committee ever,” Ralph Reed, a longtime Republican strategist and Trump ally who oversees the organization, said of the direct voter contact enterprise.
The investment underscores the degree to which the white evangelical community has allied itself with Trump, even as he faces a […]
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, - Letters From an American
Stephan:
How blatant the TCP has become that dictator Viktor Orban was so welcomed by evangelicals, The Conservative Action Project, and the Heritage Foundation. The TCP is actively trying to turn America into a pseudo-democracy like Hungary and Russia. Hold elections but rig them so the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Heritage Foundation Makes Plans to Staff Next G.O.P. Administration Credit: The New York Times
On Friday, journalist Casey Michel, who specializes in the study of kleptocracy, pointed out that reporters had missed an important meeting last week. Michel noted that while reporters covered Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, they paid far less attention to the visit Orbán paid to the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Heritage Foundation on Friday, March 8. There, Orbán spoke privately to an audience that included the president of the organization, Kevin Roberts, and, according to a state media printout, “renowned U.S. right-wing politicians, analysts and public personalities.”
Michel noted that it was “nothing short of shocking” that Orbán declined to meet with administration officials and instead went to Washington, D.C., to meet with a right-wing think tank. With Roberts’s appointment as head of Heritage in 2021, the conservative organization swung to the position that its role is “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
Roberts has been vocal about his admiration for Orbán, tweeting in 2022 that it was an honor to meet him. At last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Orbán boasted that Hungary is […]
