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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.
Todd Wilson, Reporter - WPTV (West Palm Beach, Florida)
Stephan:
Here is yet another MAGAt culture war move in Florida. I track Florida because along with Texas it tends to lead the former Confederate states in trying to turn the United States into a White supremacy christofascist obsessively heterosexual nation. One part of their culture war strategy is to create ignorance, and here is the latest example of what Florida is doing at the University level.
Joe Saunders with Equality Florida explains how the decisions affects students at Florida colleges and universities. Credit: WPTV
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA. — The Florida Board of Governors approved new rules that remove sociology from general education core course options and prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) spending at the state’s public universities and colleges.
The ruling happened Wednesday.
“All in favor, say ‘I.’ Opposed, two no’s. Motion carries,” Chair Brian Lamb said.
The vote will prohibit funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
“We are here to take action as a board,” Lamb said.
The action the board took in essence prohibits a university from providing state or federal funding to promote, support or maintain any DEI programs.
Joe Saunders with Equality Florida said this decision threatens and eliminates student unions for Black, Jewish, to LGBTQ students.
“To ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from receiving state funding,” he said, “what it really means is the only resources left to support any of these programs is a small sliver that’s available through student fees.”
This story describes why I have always been against nuclear-generated civilian electricity. It is the unexpected accidents and the waste. Nuclear waste lasts thousands of years and any number of causes can produce disastrous accidents. Remember Chernobyl, Fukushima, and as this report describes, now possibly Greenland and the Marshall Islands. Nuclear energy was created for naval usage, not civilian installations. Few today seem to understand this.
U.S. military officers watch nuclear waste being dumped on Runit Island in the Marshall Islands. Credit: Department of Defense
Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.’”
Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the U.S. conducted Castle Bravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened Indigenous people, poisoned fish, upended traditional food practices, and caused cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today.
A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The […]
I am glad President Biden is finally doing something for the people of Gaza, but I think this is pretty pathetic. I think Biden is making a significant mistake, both nationally and internationally, harming both himself and the country as a whole. In my view what needs to be done is Biden should tell fascist Benjamin Netanyahu, you either stop killing the people of Gaza, or you don’t get another dime of aid from us nor a single bullet.
Aid airdrops over Gaza City. Credit: Kosay Al Nemer/ Reuters
The use of airdrops is a spectacular but inefficient way of delivering aid, and Friday’s announcement suggests that Biden had given up on being able to persuade Israel in the near future to coordinate a large-scale ground-based relief effort under the threat of mass starvation across Gaza.
Critics suggested it represented no more than a gesture, which obscured Biden’s reluctance to use US leverage to force Israel to be more cooperative in the delivery of humanitarian aid.
“The loss of life is heartbreaking,” Biden said, making the announcement at the White House at a meeting with Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. “People are so desperate that innocent people got caught in a terrible war unable to feed their families and you saw the response when they tried to get aid in.
This election has become very simple for me, and I think it should be for you. If you value democracy. and want something postive to be done about climate change, you vote Democrat. Period. You want America to become an authoritarian state that is destroyed by climate change you vote for Trump and other Republicans. It is as simple as that. About a third of Whites are going to choose Trump. Their rage, resentment, racism, and sense of being the victim will lead them to make the Trump choice. The outcome will be determined by whether more of us vote for Democrats and the Electoral College reflects that. Which side are you on?
Climate change demonstration. Credit: Adobe
In the wake of the hottest year on record, with fossil fuel production increasing and sea levels rising, the stakes for the climate couldn’t be higher in this year’s elections.
In the presidential contest, the contrast is distinct. President Joe Biden’s massive climate initiatives and tougher environmental regulations are sure to drive turnout on both sides of the political aisle. And likely Republican nominee Donald Trump’s promises to pull the country out of the Paris climate accord again, aggressively “drill baby drill” and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act are making headlines.
In previous election cycles, climate change was typically low on the list of voters’ concerns and largely ignored by the candidates. But it was a powerful predictor of voters’ behavior — helping boost Democrats in recent elections, according to a new study. Climate change likely cost Republicans the 2020 election, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder Center for Environmental Futures, helping pull Democrats, independents, moderate Republicans and younger voters to the polls.
The Republicans, and the MAGAt media, spend hours promoting the idea that immigrants are creating a terrible crime wave. It is a blatant lie, as anyone can ascertain in five minutes searching the internet. Here is what you find:
The Southern states demonstrate significantly higher murder rates than the rest of the country, with Mississippi leading at a rate of 23.7 homicides per 100,000 people, followed by Louisiana at 21.3, and Alabama at 15.9.
In stark contrast, the Northeast carries the lowest homicide rates.
Unfortunately, the MAGAt Whites who make up the Trump base are not smart enough to do that, they just listen to the lies of the Fox propaganda network, IMAX and the others, all of which spread the migrant crime story.
Immigrants Credit: Qian Weizhong / VCG / Newscom
“The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country,” said former President Donald Trump during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Thursday.
Trump’s remarks come at a tense moment in the nation’s sentiment toward immigration. Americans now say that immigration is “the most important problem facing the U.S.,” according to the results of a Gallup poll published this week. Earlier in February, 57 percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center said that “the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime.” For many, those ideas became more salient last week, when Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan man who immigrated to the U.S. illegally, was charged with the murder of Georgia college student Laken Riley.
Riley’s murder, along with incidents such as migrants drinking alcohol and consuming drugs in public and getting into fights in New York City, have spurred increased coverage of a “migrant crime” wave. “Over the past month, […]
If you have ever spent half an hour watching and listening to Fox propaganda spokesperson, Maria Bartiromo, you learn quickly that she has no ethics, is a compulsive liar, and MAGAt ideologue. What makes her interesting to me is that she says out loud what Trump’s MAGAt base believes and says amongst themselves. They don’t want America to be a democracy.
Maria Bartiromo attends a speech by President Donald Trump at the Economic Club Of New York in the Grand Ballroom of the Midtown Hilton Hotel on November 12, 2019 in New York City. Credit: Steven Ferdman / WireImage
Fox News Business anchor Maria Bartiromo is attacking the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage American citizens to register to vote. In interviews with several Republicans on Friday she claimed the federal government outreach only helps elect Democrats.
“Okay, so what are you all doing about it on the Republican side?” Bartiromo asked House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise Friday morning. “As the government, Biden’s government, Biden’s administration seems to be using a whole on government approach to get people to vote Democrat?”
Sticking to GOP talking points, Scalise suggested it is “the weaponization of government.”
Bartiromo had cited an article on the right-wing website The Federalist, “9 Ways The Feds Are Using ‘Bidenbucks’ To Rig The 2024 Election,” that details ways the administration is helping or encouraging Americans to register to vote. There is […]
Alexandra Sharp, Contributing Writer - Foreign Policy World Brief
Stephan:
As thuggish as Putin is — I met him once in Moscow there is a reptilian quality about him — I don’t think he is crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon. I read this as an attempt to threaten Sweden and Finland who have just joined NATO, because those new members have made the Baltic Sea a NATO lake, and that has totally freaked out Putin and his political servants that make up the Russian government. But the Russian could miscalculate and make a mistake and that would lead to a complete change in the course of international history.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons against NATO members that deploy forces to Ukraine in his annual State of the Nation address on Thursday. The more than two-hour-long speech contained one of Putin’s most explicit nuclear warnings yet against the West. “All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization. Don’t they get that?” he said.
Putin’s comments were in reference to French President Emmanuel Macron suggesting on Monday that NATO should not rule out deploying foreign troops to Ukraine. Leaders of other Western powers, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and senior U.S. officials, quickly rejected that possibility. Putin, meanwhile, dismissed the idea that Russia would spread the conflict into other European countries, calling it “nonsense.” But he added that “tragic consequences” would occur if foreign troops were to become involved in the war.
NATO members have previously warned that Russia could test the alliance’s collective defense clause (known as Article 5) within the next three to five years. If that were to occur, experts believe that Russia might […]
Americans have a significantly shorter life span than people in other developed democracies and notably worse health, much greater obesity, heart disease, cancer and on and on. Why? Well, a large part of the answer is the crappy American diet. What can you do to live longer and be healthier? Stop eating processed foods. Eat only organic food. I know it costs more but it is far cheaper than your medical expenses would be. Read this article and build your diet accordingly.
A review of research involving almost 10 million people has found a direct association between eating too many ultra-processed foods — those breads, cereals, snacks and frozen meals that have been industrially manufactured with flavors and additives to make them more palatable — and more than 30 health conditions, including heart disease, anxiety and early death.
Now, a team of international researchers has undertaken a comprehensive review of the evidence on adverse health outcomes to date — examining 45 “pooled meta-analyses” from 14 review articles involving nearly 10 million people. All were published in the past three years, and none was funded by companies making ultra-processed food.
