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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.
Here is Thom Hartmann again, and once again he is correct and insightful. The Republican Party is trying to turn the United States into an anocracy like Hungary ruled by Viktor Orbán. My question, and it haunts me, is will American voters wake up to what is happening, or are they just too disconnected from reality to comprehend what Trump and the Republicans are trying to do? I guess we will find out at the 2024 election. If they don’t wakeup then that will be the end of democracy in America.
Image by Pete Linforth / Pixabay
It’s no secret that for years Republicans have targeted Black and Hispanic voters, doing everything they can to make it harder for these folks to vote. Their latest targets are young people: the GOP has decided (probably correctly) that Gen Z is their mortal enemy.
The DLC’s National Communications Director, Abhi Rahman, laid it out for Rolling Stone magazine:
“Young people are the reason why Biden won in 2020 and Democrats up and down the ballot won in 2022 and 2023. If Gen Z continues to vote, we’re on the cusp of the most progressive era in our country’s history. Republicans know this as well, and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to stop young people from voting, including the fight for restrictions that we’re seeing play out in states like Wisconsin today.”
You could call it 21st Century Jim Crow, but this time it’s more like James Crow, PhD. The GOP has turned voter suppression from an anecdote into a computer-based science, and they’ve had a lot of […]
Racism and White supremacy were baked into the founding of the United States, an historical fact MAGAt world wants to deny and hide. How many Americans even know that of the first five Presidents of the United States four were slave owners — John Adams being the lone exception. How many Americans know the White House, the Capitol, and most of the early government buildings were built by Black slaves or freed Blacks. And racism has been a central part of the Southern states from their founding. The Republicans fear Blacks, largely because their votes can give the Democrats victory in elections. So, of course, they are doing everything possible to either gerrymander districts to diffuse Black power, or make it so difficult for them to vote that they don’t.
Confederate memorial Credit: Shutterstock
Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama — three states that were part of the Confederacy that was founded in part to maintain the institution of slavery — are now at the forefront of a new effort to rebel against court rulings aimed at securing the voting rights of Black Americans.
The Atlantic’s David Graham writes that those three states’ Republican-led state legislatures have, in recent months, shown a defiant attitude toward legal mandates that they redraw their voting maps so as not to dilute the power of Black voters in their states.
Although Graham said it would be possible to dismiss one of these states’ resistance to court orders as an aberration, he thinks that having three states engaged in the same conduct makes it part of a dangerous trend.
“That state politicians now see incentives to defy federal-court orders, for whatever reason, poses a danger to national unity, the rule of law, and, ultimately, the Constitution,” he writes.
Graham does not ascribe the actions of the GOP […]
You have read my saying a number of times on SR that I don’t think that EV charging will end up being an EV version of the gas station model. Instead I think a system will develop in which EVs will be charged as they drive over the road because the roads will have evolved into a charging system. Well, it is happening in several countries, and here is a report from one such project, this one in Israel.
Tel Aviv EV roadway
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Thom Hartmann and I often agree, and in this essay, he makes a point I have written about and with which I totally agree, corporate personhood. It is the result of a Supreme Court decision in 1886 which should be eliminated as should the Citizens United decision be reversed. This is why the American government has become so notably corrupt and is now, at least the Republicans, openly moving to making the U.S. a fascist anocracy. What I particularly respect is that Hartmann lays out the historical path explaining how this came to be. It is the first such essay I have seen outside of academic publication. Please read this. It will help you understand what is going on today, and why it is happening.
America is in the midst of a domestic political crisis with a literal madman and his cult/Party — heavily supported by some of America’s largest companies — threatening to turn America into a dictatorship.
“Could a second Donald Trump presidency slide into dictatorship? A sudden spate of dystopian warnings has got America talking about the possibility less than a year before the US elections.
“Dark scenarios about what could happen if the twice-impeached Republican former president wins in 2024 have appeared in the space of a few days in major US media outlets that include The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Atlantic.”
So, where are we now and how the hell did we get here? It turns out we are seeing the consequences of a corrupt, bribed Supreme Court from over 150 years ago.
It was a fraud at the time, the result of a Supreme Court Justice having been bribed by the big railroads, and continues to be a fraud to this […]
Yet another pharmaceutical ethical cesspit. This is a classic example of why we do not have healthcare in the United States, we have an illness profit system, in which making money is more important than human wellbeing. Except like a few in Congress such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, there is no one even trying to change this.
For questions about lead exposure and poisoning, or if you need emergency assistance, call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 or visit PoisonHelp.org for additional resources.
Even low levels of lead exposure are toxic to brain cells and nerves and can lead to lower IQ scores and cognitive deficits. Credit: Busà Photography / Moment RF / Getty
In August, the US Food and Drug Administration greenlit a new maker of an old drug used for the most severe cases of lead poisoning, ending a shortage and stopping the need for importation of the medicine from France.
The only problem: The new version costsalmost 10 times as much as the imported version, about $32,000 per course of treatment.
“What we run up against with this pricing is that the hospitals are just not able to stock this drug,” said Dr. Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center.
And though it’s rare these days for a child in the US to have blood lead levels that are high enough to require this medicine, called calcium disodium edetate or EDTA, it does happen, she said; at that stage, they could have seizures, […]
Michael T Klare, Defense Correspondent, Professor Emeritus of Peace and World-security Studies at Hampshire College and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Arms Control Association - The Nation
Stephan:
This is a very smart assessment of the AI trend as it has developed. The only thing that will save us from disaster, is character. Beingness. As individuals, and as societies, is wellbeing. Fostering wellbeing must be the first priority. Otherwise there is no other way but beingness that will stop AI from becoming a. monster. What do you think Putin would do if he had full AI weapons?
Attendee interact with a SoftBank Group Corp. Pepper humanoid robot at the COP28 Climate Conference.
The recent boardroom drama over the leadership of OpenAI—the San Francisco–based tech startup behind the immensely popular ChatGPT computer program—has been described as a corporate power struggle, an ego-driven personality clash, and a strategic dispute over the release of more capable ChatGPT variants. It was all that and more, but at heart represented an unusually bitter fight between those company officials who favor unrestricted research on advanced forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and those who, fearing the potentially catastrophic outcomes of such endeavors, sought to slow the pace of AI development.
At approximately the same time as this epochal battle was getting under way, a similar struggle was unfolding at the United Nations in New York and government offices in Washington, D.C., over the development of autonomous weapons systems—drone ships, planes, and tanks operated by AI rather than humans. In this contest, a broad coalition of diplomats and human rights activists have sought to impose a legally binding ban […]
Readers will recognize this trend; it is evolving as SR has described, and it is popping up in cities other than Dallas; I chose this becauwe that city is taking it more seriously.
DALLAS — From an 18th-floor apartment smack dab in the middle of downtown, a renter sipping coffee at a quartz countertop would have a view of towering office buildings and a distant horizon. If they moseyed to their bedroom window at the corner of Santander Tower, they could look down on bustling rush-hour traffic — and a giant sculpture of a eyeball.
Until earlier this year, no one could have called the two-bedroom apartment home. Before then, it was a vacant, unused workspace.
“This was someone’s corner office,” said Katy Slade, a Dallas developer behind the recent renovation of the high-rise on Elm Street.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work, the U.S. is sitting on a ton of vacant office space — and Texas is no exception. The state’s largest metropolitan areas are facing double-digit office vacancy rates even as their workers are back in the office at higher rates than employees in other major cities across the country.
At the same time, the U.S. is facing an acute and persistent housing […]
This is a very thoughtful and insightful look at what is happening to women in our culture, Millenials and Gen Zers particularly, as they consider having children and entering motherhood. I urge you to read it, and think deeply about what it is saying. In addition to everything else I took away from this article, what particularly stood out for me was how disordered and sick American society is compared to say countries like Sweden where social relationships and social support structures are so much healthier and fostering of wellbeing.
Illustration for Vox by Eleanor Davis
I had been seeing my boyfriend for about a year, and though things were going well, we never talked about our feelings on having children. I’m aware of the dating advice that says you’re supposed to broach that topic early on, but I didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t feel ready to talk about that fact.
That is, until Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I could no longer pretend that Roe’s gutting didn’t have real implications for us, or at least for me. So one night in the summer of 2022, I finally asked him where his head was at.
He looked surprised, considering the question. “I think I’ve always wanted to be a father,” he said slowly, adding, “That doesn’t mean it’s a deal breaker, though.”
It was as diplomatic an answer as I could have hoped for — clear, honest, and with no ultimatum attached. Still, I felt nervous and even a bit lonely, because I am not someone who has dreamed of […]
