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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.
One of the defining characteristics of the MAGAt personality is sexual hysteria. It is notable that this involves more that trans and LGBTQ issues. in Republican MAGAt controlled states there are higher rates of out of wedlock pregnancies and higher divorce rates. MAGAts simply are highly uncomfortable with anything that has to do with sex. And yet there is also a higher usage of porn
Credit: Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post / Getty
A West Virginia Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would classify transgender people as “obscene matter” and ban them from getting within 2,500 feet of a school.
Senate Bill 197, which was introduced Wednesday, prohibits obscene matter from being within 2,500 feet of a public school building or facility. Obscene materials are defined as something that is sexually explicit “in a patently offensive way” or something that “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
The bill states that, for the sake of protecting children, obscenity also includes “any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances or display to any minor.”
Any school faculty or staff that allow obscene material within 2,500 feet of the school can face up to a year in prison, a fine of up to $500, or both. The bill, which was introduced by Republican state Senator Michael Azinger, makes no mention of how the new rules would affect transgender students.
Besides the obvious transphobia of the bill, which dehumanizes trans people by classifying them […]
I’m not sure the United States still has a functioning House of Representatives, therefore I’m not sure we have a functioning Congress. The Republican members no longer seem to have any interest in governance, as this article describes. If this same group of people are re-elected in November, even if Biden wins, we are still going to be in a state of chaos. If Trump were to win we’ll have no functioning government at all.
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon / Axios
As Congress stares down a budget deadline and multiple crises overseas, some House Republicans have focused their efforts on trying to impeach President Biden and his officials.
Why it matters: Impeachment has emerged as the House GOP’s cudgel of choice against the Biden administration as they struggle to secure policy wins in spending negotiations.
Driving the news: A House Oversight Committee hearing on holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress made headlines when the president’s son made a surprise appearance.
His arrival prefaced heated arguments between committee members and other shocking scenes of discord – just the latest twist in an impeachment inquiry into President Biden that has consumed the attention of the Oversight and Judiciary committees.
The House Homeland Security Committee, simultaneously, held the first hearing in its impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Zoom in: Biden and Mayorkas aren’t the only targets this week.
The reality is that the main takeaway from the recent climate conference, as described in this report, is that humanity simply lacks the will to do what needs to be done to preserve civilizations across the world in the face of climate change. The greed for profit continues to be the dominant priority. This is why I think the remote viewers in my 2060 project consensually predict that between 2040-2045 we are going to experience a planet wide catastrophe. We get through it, they say, but only with massive painful and difficult change.
Climate negotiators meeting in Dubai last month pledged to chart a course for stabilizing the climate system using good science. But many scientists say these promises are at best ill-defined and at worst a travesty of good science — vague and full of loopholes.
The U.N. climate conference in Dubai agreed on an action plan for two key objectives: to keep the world on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), and to stay below this threshold by achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Negotiators pledged that both objectives would be pursued “in keeping with the science.”
But neither of the objectives have agreed definitions that would allow a judgment on whether they have been achieved. Two studies published during the Dubai event exposed the problem and revealed wide gaps opening over both the 1.5-degree and net-zero targets, exposing the tensions between political expediency and scientific probity.
On the 1.5-degree target, British meteorologists reported in the journal Nature that a lack of agreement on how to measure global average temperatures is likely to delay formal recognition that […]
The United States has the worst wealth inequality of any developed democracy in the world. Listen to my podcast Friday to get the real facts on how bad this and the horrible negative impact this inequality has on everything in American society from life expectancy to child mortality. This is not what the Founders had in mind when they created the United States.
About 93% of U.S. households’ stock market wealth is held by the top 10%.
Why it matters: This stat — first spotted in the FT — is a crucial bit of context to keep in mind amid the heavily hyped surge of smaller retail investors who flocked to the stock market during and after the COVID crisis.
Details: While it’s true that a record high 58% of American households do own stocks via mutual funds or as individual shares, in the aggregate the amount of stock most of these folks own is tiny.
The big picture: Despite the trauma of the last few years — the collapse of stocks in the early days of the pandemic, and the brutal bear market brought on by the Fed’s rate hikes over the last couple of years — the stock market has soared over the long term.
In the last 10 years, the S&P 500 gained 155%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose a whopping 250%.
Between the lines: While bullish surges like those are welcome to pretty much all investors, the fact is that the majority […]
This is what wealth inequality is doing to residential real estate in America — making it impossible for young couples to buy a home, and turning hundreds of thousands of people into forever renters. I bought my first house in Chevy Chase, Maryland for $48,000 when I was 28, editor of a national magazine, with $5,000 down and a 7% mortgage. I doubt anyone my equivalent today could even rent that house.
Credit: Adobe
Democracy or plutocracy? Which label better fits today’s US of A? An apt question to contemplate as we enter what could turn out to be our most harrowing political year since Abe Lincoln’s election. Where to begin this contemplation? How about we take a stab at some definitions.
In a democracy, people identify the problems they face and, working together, try to fashion solutions. In a plutocracy, by contrast, a society’s richest employ their power to exploit the most pressing problems their nation faces — and keep real solutions off the table.
Where do these definitions leave the 21st-century United States? In deep plutocratic doo. Consider, for instance, how we’re responding, as a nation, to our contemporary housing crisis.
For younger American families, the classic American dream — a home of your own! — has become an ongoing nightmare. Some 20 percent of young American men between 25 and 34 lived with their parents last year, 12 percent of young women. America’s multigenerational household population, the Pew Research center notes, has quadrupled since the early […]
Winston Cho, Staff Writer - The Hollywood Reporter
Stephan:
Here is another report on the growing changes n media, and the decline of journalism as an authentic fact-based information activity. Misinformation is becoming the dominant form of information distribution. It is also radically changing the finances of journalism.
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch Credit: Kent Nishimura / Getty
More than a decade ago, the normalization of tech companies carrying content created by news organizations without directly paying them — cannibalizing readership and ad revenue — precipitated the decline of the media industry. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence, those same firms threaten to further tilt the balance of power between Big Tech and news.
On Wednesday, lawmakers in the Senate Judiciary Committee referenced their failure to adopt legislation that would’ve barred the exploitation of content by Big Tech in backing proposals that would require AI companies to strike licensing deals with news organizations.
Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and chair of the committee, joined several other senators in supporting calls for a licensing regime and to establish a framework clarifying that intellectual property laws don’t protect AI companies using copyrighted material to build their chatbots.
“We need to learn from the mistakes of our failure to oversee social media and adopt standards,” he said.
The fight over the legality of AI firms eating content […]
Amy Westervelt and Matthew Green, Staff Writers - The Intercept.
Stephan:
Everyday I spend hours finding for you material I am sure is factually accurate and not misinformation. It is a tedious and difficult task, made all the more so because even major respected news outlets are being corrupted by the tens of millions of dollars the petroleum industry is pouring into financially stressed newspapers television outlets, and magazines to get misinformation about their industry distributed under a respected banner like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg. Here is a trustworthy story describing what is going on.
In a recent episode of the podcast “Powered By How,” award-winning journalist Nisha Pillai leads a discussion on the energy transition. Over the course of 25 minutes, the guests — a business psychologist, a renewable energy investor, and the head of an innovation lab — describe the challenges of scaling new technologies to combat the climate crisis. The casual listener could easily miss the first five seconds, when Pillai, a former BBC World News presenter whose voice instills instant confidence, announces that the podcast was produced by Reuters Plus in partnership with fossil fuel giant Saudi Aramco. Pillai never explains that Reuters Plus is the publication’s internal ad studio, nor does she remind listeners of the show’s sponsor when the head of the innovation lab, an Aramco executive, touts the benefits of unproven, industry-backed technologies.
Reuters is one of at least seven major news outlets that creates and publishes misleading promotional content for fossil fuel companies, according to a report released today. Known as advertorials or native advertising, the sponsored material is created to look like […]
I have been warning my readers for some time now not to be seduced by the advertising and getting involved with “Medicare Advantage.” It can get you into serious financial and access to care problems. Here is yet another report confirming this.
Older adults who are in Medicare Advantage and are dissatisfied with their plans can make a switch until March 31. Credit: SolStock / Getty
In 2016, Richard Timmins went to a free informational seminar to learn more about Medicare coverage.
“I listened to the insurance agent, and basically, he really promoted Medicare Advantage,” Timmins says. The agent described less expensive and broader coverage offered by the plans, which are funded largely by the government but administered by private insurance companies.
For Timmins, who is now 76, it made economic sense then to sign up. And his decision was great, for a while.
Then, three years ago, he noticed a lesion on his right earlobe.
“I have a family history of melanoma. And so, I was kind of tuned in to that and thinking about that,” Timmins says of the growth, which doctors later diagnosed as malignant melanoma. “It started to grow and started to become rather painful.”
Timmins, though, discovered that his enrollment in a Premera Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plan would mean a limited network of doctors and the potential […]
