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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.
While the congregations of christofascist churches are growing, traditional real Christian churches are shrinking. To a point where, as this article describes, their congregations are considering other uses for their church buildings that reflect true Christianity. Meanwhile, the christofascist churches are buying their ministers bigger fancier cars.
The Rev. Chris Deacon delivers a Sunday service at Northwood Presbyterian Church in Silver Spring, Md., on Jan. 21, to a crowd that totaled 19 people. One attended online, he said. Credit: Danny Nguyen / The Washington Post
Northwood Presbyterian Church is, in a sense, a kind of home. People have gotten married in the cinder block building. They’ve sat with their kids in the pews and watched the Rev. Chris Deacon deliver sermons beneath the stained-glass cross for years.
But as the 15,000-square-foot church, which sits on seven acres on the edge of Silver Spring, Md., has seen its congregation shrink from 400 at its first service in 1958 to just above 100 in recent years, Deacon and his colleagues believe the church could be used to house people in a more literal way. Church officials have begun talking to developers about whether they can shrink the congregation’s physical space and convert parts of the property into affordable housing.
As churches across the region and the country have seen attendance decline — a decades-long trendhastened by the pandemic — some are examining creative ways to use their […]
Brooke Sopelsa, Editorial Director of NBC Out, NBC News - NBC News
Stephan:
Something is happening with younger women in the U.S., as this report describes. It is my opinion that this is happening because of what is happening with men, who are angry and resentful that women want and expect equality, and who are tired of men telling them the state (men) has control of their bodies. This has become part of The Great Schism Trend and, I think, the next chapter of this horror story will be attacks on contraception. TCP men are scared of women who seek equality, they want Hand Maids.
Women ages 18 to 26 were more than twice as likely to identify as LGBTQ than their millennial counterparts, the survey found.
The percentage of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer adults in the U.S. continues to increase, reaching an all-time high of 7.6% in 2023, according to a new Gallup report. Broken down by gender, the survey of 12,000 people 18 and older across the country found that women were nearly twice as likely as men to identify as LGBTQ.
“Almost 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+, most as bisexual,” Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, told NBC News. “That’s where a lot of the growth seems to be happening.”
This is the first year Gallup has laid out its annual LGBTQ identification report in a way that breaks down each generation by gender. Looking at all generations, 8.5% of women and 4.7% of men identified as LGBTQ, the survey found. The survey reported margins of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points among LGBTQ respondents.
Parsing each generation, the gender story gets more interesting. In the three younger generations surveyed — Generation Z, millennials and Generation X — women are more […]
STEPHANIE MARKEN and ZACH HRYNOWSKI, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan:
The Great Schism Trend is having a very serious effect on colleges and universities in Red States, which will further degrade the social outcome data of states controlled by the TCP, both their educational status and the quality of their healthcare, particularly for women. It is further evidence that we are becoming two quite different countries technically operating as a single nation.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
71% say state reproductive healthcare policies impact college choice
80% of all current/prospective students prefer states with greater access
86% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans prefer states with greater access
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seventy-one percent of currently enrolled and prospective college students say that states’ reproductive healthcare policies are at least somewhat important in their enrollment decisions. This is up slightly from 67% who said the same in late 2022. An even greater increase in the relevance of this issue to prospective and current students is also seen among those indicating these policies are highly important in their enrollment decisions (38% compared with 30% in 2022).
Both surveys were conducted after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022.
The latest results are from the Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2024 State of Higher Education Study, conducted Oct. 9-Nov. 16, 2023, via a web survey with 14,032 current and prospective college students. This includes 6,015 students enrolled in a post-high school education program (certificate, associate or bachelor’s degree), 5,012 adults not currently enrolled with some college but no degree, and 3,005 adults who have never been enrolled in a postsecondary school or […]
This is another aspect of The Great Schism Trend. States where voters have voted into power advocates of TCP, are not just the least educated, most illiterate, shortest lifespan men and women, they are also the most obese. If you click through you can get a list of all the fatty communities. It was too long for me to put it in SR.
Obesity problem in United States Credit: C.Z. Andriano / stock.adobe
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The South is known for its fine cuisine and delicious barbecue, but a new survey finds it’s also at the center of the nation’s growing obesity epidemic. Researchers have found that many of the country’s most overweight and obese cities are in the southern part of the United States.
WalletHub’s findings (full list below) also paint a concerning picture of health and financial burdens across the nation. With nearly 42 percent of U.S. adults classified as obese, the ramifications extend far beyond individual health, affecting the nation’s economy with obesity-related medical treatments costing around $190.2 billion annually and work absenteeism resulting in approximately $4.3 billion in productivity losses each year.
The study compared 100 of the most populated U.S. metropolitan areas across 19 key metrics, ranging from the percentage of physically inactive adults to future obesity projections and access to healthy foods. This approach sheds light on the cities that are most affected by weight-related issues and underscores the pressing need for public health interventions.
Philip Bump and Lenny Bronner, - Microsoft Start / The Washington Post
Stephan:
How is it possible for a Black or Hispanic person to vote for the TCP which is so blatantly White supremacist in both their words and deeds? I think it is a calculation to gain power, in hopes that if they vote for Trump they will be able to bargain for some benefit. Sadly, if Trump wins they are going to discover how wrong their judgment was.
One of the recurring rebuttals to Donald Trump’s endless claims that the 2020 election was stolen was that — contrary to his insinuations — swing-state cities were not hotbeds of voter fraud. In fact, they often supported Joe Biden at smaller margins than they had Hillary Clinton four years before.
That change in some of the most racially diverse places in the country, combined with the shift in heavily Hispanic parts of the country to Trump, were early hints that the conventional wisdom about race and party was being undercut. In the years since, we’ve seen more evidence that Black and Hispanic Americans in particular are less hostile to the Republican Party and Trump than they used to be.
Last month, Gallup released data showing how the two-party margin between Black and Hispanic Americans had shifted dramatically since 2020. In 2020, Black Americans were 66 points more […]
Stephan’s computer has been attacked once again. He is unable to post today’s edition. Technicians are working on his system, but cleaning up the malware will cost another $500. He wants to thank everyone for your continued support.
Laura Meckler, Hannah Natanson, John D. Harden, Reporters - Microsoft Start
Stephan:
When you breed hate you get hate crimes, and that is exactly what is happening to LGBTQ kids where the Trump christofascist Party (TCP) controls the state government. This is the exact opposite of government designed to foster wellbeing. This is part of the Great Schism Trend, and I believe we are going to see families with LGBTQ kids moving from these Red states. How big is this population: Here is what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has to say:
Number and percentage of students, by sexual identity — Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, 2021
Site
Sexual identity
Heterosexual (straight)
Gay or lesbian
Bisexual
Other/Questioning
No.
%
CI*
No.
%
CI
No.
%
CI
No.
%
CI
National survey
Total
12,421
74.2
(72.4–75.9)
520
3.2
(2.7–3.7)
1,848
11.9
(10.9–12.9)
1,482
9.0
(8.0–10.0)
Male
7,358
87.3
(85.8–88.7)
195
2.4
(1.9–3.1)
356
4.0
(3.2–5.1)
333
3.7
(3.1–4.3)
Female
4,992
61.6
(59.1–64.0)
298
3.7
(3.0–4.5)
1,449
20.0
(18.5–21.6)
1,055
13.7
(12.3–15.3)
LGBTQ students Credit: USA Today
School hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people have sharply risen in recent years, climbing fastest in states that have passed laws restricting LGBTQ student rights and education, a Washington Post analysis of FBI data finds.
In states with restrictive laws, the number of hate crimes on K-12 campuses has more than quadrupled since the onset of a divisive culture war that has often centered on the rights of LGBTQ+ youth.
At the same time, calls to LGBTQ+ youth crisis hotlines have exploded, with some advocates drawing a connection between the spike in bullying and hate crimes, and the political climate.
LGBTQ+ students have long dealt with bullying and harassment at school, but some students are feeling particularly vulnerable due to the wave of legislation. They are also on edge following the death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager who died after a fight in their Oklahoma public school bathroom.
That’s the case for Carden, a transgender 17-year-old. He argues that politicians’ anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has shaped the views of adults in the conservative Virginia county where he […]
David Badash, Senior Editor - New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan:
Trump and his Trump christofascist Party (TCP) do not like public education, and are openly making it clear if Americans elect them they are going to gut the system that probably educated you. They don’t want education. Like Hitler and the Nazis they want indoctrination not fact-based education. Don’t say you haven’t been warned about their intentions. They also want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That’s the TCP’s agenda, is that what you want?
In two separate videos on Trump’s little-noticed “Agenda 47” website, the ex-president details his vision to take millions of dollars away from the endowments of private colleges and universities, through lawsuits and fines, as retribution for some students he suggests embraced Hamas after it attacked Israel. Those millions of dollars would be used to create an entire new federal government university system which, Trump vows, would be entirely non-political: no “wokeness” would be allowed.
Trump claimed colleges and universities are “turning our students into communists, terrorists, and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions. We can’t let this happen. It’s time to offer something dramatically different. Under the plan I’m announcing today we will take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy.”
Trump also announced plans to entirely eliminate the U.S. Dept. of Education, allowing states to keep those funds so they can determine what and how children should be taught.
“Rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material, which is what we’re doing now, our schools […]
