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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 the latest on what is going on with the insurance industry and the people they insure in the states impacted by Hurricane Helene. And then there are the hundreds of thousands of home owners who have no or inadequate home insurance. I think we are going to see an increasing number of people leaving pasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. This is al part of what I see as the growing internal migration I have been telling you about in SR.
Cindy White looks over the devastation inside her home in North Carolina caused by Hurricane Helene. Only a tiny number of households in North Carolina have flood insurance. Credit: Kathy Kmonicek / AP
Hundreds of thousands of people across parts of the Southeast will struggle to rebuild their homes after Hurricane Helene for one reason: Hardly anyone has flood insurance.
In dozens of counties in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina that were flooded by Helene, less than 1 percent of households have flood insurance through the federal program that sells almost all of the nation’s flood policies.
“People never thought they would have a problem with flooding,” said Jimmy Isaacs, fire chief of Boone, North Carolina, a mountainous town in Watauga County, where less than 2.5 percent of households are insured. “It’s going to be a difficult recovery.”
Helene is highlighting the major gaps in U.S. flood insurance and their consequences as climate change amplifies flood risk both from coastal storm surge and rapidly overflowing rivers in Boone and other inland areas.
Flood insurance is sold separately from homeowners’ […]
Robert Reich, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley -
Stephan:
This is the question I keep asking myself: How is it possible this election is so close? Frankly, as I have already said, I wouldn’t hire Donald Trump to cut my grass, because he would probably steal tools from my workshop in the barn. The man is a lifelong racist grifter, sex offender, and multiple felonious criminal. And yet millions of Americans plan to vote for him. Here is Robert Reich’s answer to the question.
With less than 40 days until Election Day, how can it be that Trump has taken a small lead in Arizona and Georgia — two swing states he lost to Biden in 2020? How can he be narrowly leading Harris in the swing state of North Carolina? How can he now be essentially tied with her in the other key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin?
More generally, how can Trump have chiseled away Harris’s advantage from early August? How is it possible that more voters appear to view Trump favorably now than they did several months ago when he was in the race against Biden?
How can Trump — the sleaziest person ever to run for president, who has already been convicted on 34 felony charges and impeached twice, whose failures of character and leadership were experienced directly by the American public during his four years at the helm — be running neck-and-neck with a young, talented, intelligent person with a commendable record of public service?
Since his horrid performance debating Harris, he’s doubled down on false claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Ohio. He’s been accompanied almost everywhere by right-wing conspiracy nutcase Laura Loomer. He said he “hates” […]
This report is just the latest in the White christofascist Republican sexually perverted male dominant governanc of the state of Louisiana. By almost any social outcome data Louisiana quality of life is equivalent to a developing country. In fact, it is worse than many developing countries. Let me give you some facts. People in Costa Rico have a life span 4 years greater than people living in Louisiana. Costa Rico has a far lower maternal mortality death rate than Louisiana. In Louisiana 50% of women don’t receive postpartum care. Costa Rica’s adult literacy rate is 98.04%; it’s 72.9% in Louisiana. Then there is the blatant racism, and I could go on and on. This is what happens when the people of a state vote for Republican control. Republican governance, based on real social outcome data is always inferior to Democratic governance.
Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 16, 2022. The Supreme Court is deciding whether women will face restrictions in getting a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues. Credit: Allen G. Breed / AP
The two drugs used in medication abortion are officially controlled substances in Louisiana after a law took effect that criminalizes their possession without a prescription.
The first-of-its-kind law reclassified mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV controlled substances, the same category as opioids, ephedrine and antidepressants. Critics fear it could be used as a model for other Republican states with abortion bans to tighten restrictions on the drugs.
“This new law sets a dangerous precedent by mischaracterizing safe medications that are neither addictive nor dangerous, but rather are standard of care for a variety of women’s health and other conditions,” said Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, in a statement.
During a medication abortion, mifepristone is given first, followed by misoprostol […]
Abrahm Lustgarten, Reporter - Microsoft Start | The New York Times
Stephan:
I have been telling you for years that we are going see what this report describes as Climate Abandonment resulting in millions of Americans being forced to internally migrate to a safer environment. Well it is starting. If you live in one of the threatened states you might consider your options before you are in crisis.
Climate ‘Abandonment’ Zones Are Coming to the American South Credit: Zack Wittman / The New York Times
When Hurricane Helene, the 420-mile-wide, slow-spinning conveyor belt of wind and water drowned part of Florida’s coastline and then barged its path northward through North Carolina last week, it destroyed more than homes and bridges. It shook people’s faith in the safety of living in the South, where the tolls of extreme heat, storms and sea level rise are quickly adding up.
Helene was just the latest in a new generation of storms that are intensifying faster, and dumping more rainfall, as the climate warms. It is also precisely the kind of event that is expected to drive more Americans to relocate as climate change gets worse and the costs of disaster recovery increase.
KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Writers - Politico
Stephan:
It just goes on and on. Can there be any doubt that Donald Trump is a traitor seeking to overturn our Constitutional democracy? And yet he never gets held accountable. And you know that whatever U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan decides, it will get appealed and whatever the appeals court decides it will be appealed to the corrupt christofacist Supreme Court. I hope I am wrong but I doubt anything will happen before the election because traitor Trump’s lawyers just play the system like a video game. If Trump wins it will all just go away. We seem to have two kinds of law in the United States. One for the rich and powerful. The other is for everyone else.
Jack Smith’s new filing is aimed at showing Donald Trump’s conduct in 2020 was taken in his capacity as a candidate for office — not in his official capacity as president. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / AP
As his bid to hold on to power in 2020 grew increasingly desperate, Donald Trump pressed Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel to help promote a false claim that voting machines in Michigan had been manipulated.
McDaniel balked. She had spoken to the state’s House speaker, Lee Chatfield, a Republican, who told her the claim was “fucking nuts.”
That detail was among a dossier of evidence unfurled Wednesday in a newly released legal brief by special counsel Jack Smith. The 165-page filing offers the most detailed look at Smith’s case charging Trump with orchestrating multiple criminal conspiracies in his failed quest to subvert Joe Biden’s victory.
The filing is replete with new revelations about the alleged scheme drawn from interviews with key figures such as former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The corruption of the petroleum corporations is international an never-ending. These companies run by individuals with no integrity or concern for the wellbeing of Earth are literally damaging not just your pocketbook but your wellbeing, and the wellbeing of your family and friends. All so they could be a little bit richer. My view is these individuals, and these corporations should be heaviy taxed and the money used to prepare Earth for what climate change is going to do as a result of the use of carbon energy. One thing is for sure, do not buy Chevron gas.
A sign displays gas prices at a gas station on May 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Credit: Scott Olson / Getty
“We cannot allow fossil fuel companies to gouge the American public in concert with OPEC while raking in record profits,” said one watchdog, calling for congressional hearings.
Consumer advocates demanded congressional hearings on alleged price fixing by oil giants on Monday after the Federal Trade Commission banned an executive from serving on the board of Chevron, saying he had colluded with international representatives to keep oil prices high.
The FTC said it would prohibit John B. Hess, CEO of the Hess Corporation, from serving on Chevron’s Board of Directors as part of Chevron’s acquisition of the company, citing Hess’ public and private communications “with the past and current secretaries-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and an official from Saudi Arabia.”
“In these communications, Mr. Hess stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged these officials to take actions on these […]
I have been telling you for years now that to prepare for climate change and reduce its impact on Earth we are going to need new technologies that solve problems and meet needs without producing pollution problems. Here is an another example of what I mean. I have seen an increasing number of such reports, and I see this as the good news we need to prepare for our future.
Manufactured glass bricks assembled together in a wall configuration at MIT’s Killian Court. Credit: Ethan Townsend
The technology for 3D printing has come a long way from printing product prototypes from acrylic resin. In recent years, researchers have found ways to use algae as a bioplastic, pea protein to create sustainable plant-based salmon, and even everyday foods like peanut butter and banana to make cheesecake. Even buildings have been made using 3D-printed concrete.
Now, researchers have found a way to reuse old glass by 3D printing it into strong, durable and reusable building bricks that could help lower the embodied carbon in buildings.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), manufacturing construction materials makes up about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting a need for more sustainable building materials.
With advancements in 3D printing, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are exploring ways to reduce these emissions by developing reusable construction products with 3D printers that can build blocks from materials such as recycled glass.
Inspired by the circular potential of construction, the engineers used 3D printing […]
A reader wrote and asked if I would find something fact-based that explained how global warming is calculated. That is an important question so I did just that, and here is the report. One of the takeaways after reading this is stop using cans of pressurized aerosols.
We know it’s getting hotter, but just how hot will it get? Credit: The Burtons / Getty
With so many extraordinary heat waves, floods, and storms piling up, one may wonder: Just how much warmer is the Earth going to get?
The answer hinges on two main factors: how much more heat-trapping gasses humans will emit, and how the planet will respond.
Whether humanity continues to dawdle or actually takes aggressive action to cut emissions is the biggest source of uncertainty in the future of the planet since the bulk of the warming we’re experiencing is due to the waste gasses from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations’s climate science team, has chalked out five scenarios with different levels of action needed from global leaders to curb climate change to plug into its climate models.
On the other side of the equation, scientists have been working […]
