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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.
The United States has become a nation defined by its corruption. The petroleum corporations will do anything to protect their profits even as their products destroy the wellbeing of Earth. The individuals that control these corporations don’t seem to understand or believe that they, their families, and their descendents will be affected by what they are doing.
Members with the group Divest Princeton protested BP’s annual meeting on campus with researchers from Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Institute. Credit: Divest Princeton
“Universities globally are often caught in a web of financial and research dependencies with the fossil fuel sector. These ties not only conflict with the ethics of academic independence but also hinder the progress of genuine climate research,” Campus Climate Network said on its website.
One institution, Princeton University, seems to have actually owned an oil company — Petrotiger, named after its mascot — earning it millions of dollars, reported The Guardian.
Six analyses put together by students at each institution focused on Princeton,
Here is an aspect of the corruption of the Supreme Court I had never considered. I knew that Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society was a Roman Catholic and Opus Dei member, and that six Justices are catholics, but I did not know of the Opus Dei connection in the Court. It is a measure of the failure of corporate journalism that none of the journalists who routinely cover the Court have reported and properly emphasized it. Our laws are determined by six christofascists.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito either belong to or are close to members of Opus Dei, the secretive lay movement within the church, first created in Spain by Father Josemaría Escrivá in the 1920s.
Opus Dei critic Matthew Fox is in no doubt about the power that the secretive group now yields on the Catholic justices.
“The Supreme Court itself has become a cesspool of religious ideology ignoring the pluralism of American culture in favor of a far-right version of evangelical and Roman Catholic Christianity committed to anti-abortion fanaticism,” writes Fox.
The outline philosophy of the justices as professed in Alito’s memorable dismissal of Roe v Wade last month closely mirrors the priorities of Opus Dei (in English, Work of God) the deeply conservative Catholic group they owe fealty to.
Anybody asking what the opinion of Opus Dei is on the issue of abortion would be left in no doubt as to group’s hardline views that all abortions be banned. Roe v Wade may have been […]
Cheryl D. Fryar, M.S.P.H., Margaret D. Carroll, M.S.P.H., and Joseph Afful, M.S. , Division of Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys - National Center for Health Statistics
Stephan:
Obesity is a disease that occurs when there is an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat that poses a risk to health. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC define obesity as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher for adults. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight. Morbid obesity is defined as a BMI of more than 40, which is roughly 80 pounds overweight for women and 100 pounds overweight for men. You can calculate your BMI here: https://www.forhers.com/tools/bmi-calculator.
A primary care physician who is, herself, an SR reader sent me this, and wrote that in the 30 years of her practice her patients, young and old have become ever more obese, and would I publish this in SR to warn people they needed to talk with their physicians about how to lose weight because their lives depended on it. As I thought about this study I realized she was right, and that it is a growing problem shaping the American culture. I have already published in SR that Americans have much shorter lives — typically about seven years shorter — than people in other developed democracies, and that obesity resulting from poor diet is one of the major causes of this shortened life span. If this is an issue for you, or someone you know please do help them get the assistance and guidance they need.
Results from the 2017–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an estimated 42.5% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over have obesity, including 9.0% with severe obesity, and another 31.1% are overweight. Body mass index (BMI), expressed as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (kg/m2), is used commonly to classify overweight (BMI 25.0–29.9), obesity (BMI at or above 30.0), and severe obesity (BMI at or above 40.0). Age-adjusted trends in overweight, obesity, and severe obesity prevalence from 1960–1962 through 2017–2018 are shown in Table 1. Because surveys before 1988 did not include persons over age 74, Table 1 shows the prevalence for adults aged 20 and over since 1988, and for adults aged 20–74 for all survey periods dating back to 1960. The age-adjusted sex-specific trends of overweight, obesity, and severe obesity among adults aged 20–74 from 1960–1962 through 2017–2018 are shown in the Figure. Table 2 contains the prevalence of obesity by age for men and women since 1988–1994, and Table 3 […]
The United States, it makes me very sad to say, on the basis of objectively verifiable data, is a second-tier nation in everything but militarism. The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about has become one of the largest corporate corrupters in our society. It began with the Viet Nam war but becam supercharged with George W. Bush’s obscene “war on terror” which has caused the U.S. to be at a kind of low grade war ever since. Since Bush was president (2001-2009) we have never not been at war somewhere at some level. If not with our own troops, as the supplier of death weapons. It has been a fabulously profitable time for the corporations that make the weapons, and Citizens United legalized their overt bribery of politicians, which made it so much easier to keep the scam going. Putting aside the moral evil as this report describes, is the climate impact of these wars, and the weapons used in them. I have suspected this for some time, but this is the first fact-based report I have seen describing what this militarism is doing to Earth’s climate. You never hear anyone in media talking about this, but the effects are there nonetheless.
A soldier in the Afghan National Army (ANA) walks past a burn pit at a command outpost recently handed over to the ANA from the United States Army on March 22, 2013, in Kandahar Province, Zhari District, Afghanistan. Credit: Andrew Burton / Getty
This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.
After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.
The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is […]
The effect of the Dobbs decision on physicians is not getting a lot of attention but it is, in fact, having a significant effect on the political views of the medical community. Here is one of the first fact-based reports I have seen on this.
Doctors are giving nearly twice as much to Democrats as Republicans this cycle, teaming with Kamala Harris’ campaign and broadcasting the hazards they see in a second Trump administration on social media.
Some of their colleagues worry all the politicking will further erode trust in public health, but the Harris supporters say they see it as a moral obligation.
“Elections do matter for your health,” Dr. Suhas Gondi, an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who’s involved with the organizing, told POLITICO. “It’s hard for me to not be engaged in politics.”
Doctors’ strong support for Harris is the culmination of a political shift that started with the battles over patients’ rights and HMOs in the early 2000s and gained speed with Donald Trump’s 2016 run — which drove educated professionals into the Democratic Party.
Until then, physicians, as individuals and the organizations representing them, gave more to GOP candidates in every election cycle since the 1990s, save 2008.
Doctors skeptical of their colleagues’ public display of partisanship say they’re worried about how it’s playing in the exam room and […]
The Environmental Protection Agency was specifically created to protect the wellbeing of Earth and you. Here, in this report, we see what happened during traitor Trump’s administration, and how great governmental corruption by corporations was during his time in office. And yet millions of witless Americans are preparing to vote again for this disgusting human being and his Frankenstein VP. And yet more witless Americans, particularly according to polls young Black men, either won’t vote or want to vote for a third party candidate when there is only a two party system. Anything other than voting for Democrats, however imperfect they may be, is a vote for traitor Trump. If Harris wins, and the House and Senate have Democratic majorities, that will be the time for civil activism to get rid of the Electoral College, give the Supreme Court term limits and a proper ethics code, and add four more justices, so there are 13. Also to restructure the tax system so that the uber-rich pay their fair share, and vastly expand programs to foster wellbeing for not just humans but the entire Earth’s ecosystem.
Martin Phillips is one of three scientists who faced retaliation by supervisors at the Environmental Protection Agency, an inspector general’s investigation found. Credit:Jenn Ackerman / ProPublica
Three reports issued by the agency’s inspector general detailed personal attacks suffered by the scientists — including being called “stupid,” “piranhas” and “pot-stirrers” — and called on the EPA to take “appropriate corrective action” in response.
More than three years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.
During President Donald Trump’s administration, they said, their managers at the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring them to make new chemicals they were vetting seem safer than they really were. They were encouraged to delete evidence of chemicals’ harms, including cancer, miscarriage and neurological problems, from their reports — and in some cases, they said, their managers deleted the information themselves.
After the scientists pushed back, they received negative performance reviews and three of them were removed from their positions in the EPA’s division of […]
As this report describes large numbers of young people (18-34) are registering to vote in November, and they seem to be favoring Harris-Walz. I hope that is true because as the days count down to the election the actions and words of the MAGAt Republicans become ever. more horrifying. Consider Mark Robinson as but one example.
Young Black voters register to vote. Credit: USA Today
Voter registration is breaking records as Election Day approaches, particularly among young people, many of whom are first-time voters.
On Tuesday’s National Voter Registration Day more than 150,000 people registered through Vote.org, the most the organization has ever seen on that day. The organizationregistered 279,400 voters in all of last year.
Last week, 337,826 people visited a link posted on Instagram by pop star Taylor Swift that directed them to their state’s voter registration site.
Although Swift noted that she would be voting for the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, people don’t have to declare a party affiliation when they register and neither vote.org nor Swift tracked registrations by party. Vote.org has previously told USA TODAY that about 80% of people they register turn out in the next election.
A huge percentage of the newly registered voters are young people, many voting for the first time.
According to Vote.org, voters under 35 made up 81% of Tuesday’s registrations, with the biggest spike among 18-year-olds. On this year’s National Voter […]
The MAGAts, as this article describes, are serving the interests of Putin, the anti-vaxxers, and a range of other anti-American weaponized misinformation designed to destroy the U.S. democracy. Have you been sucked into the Intelligencer? Do you know someone who has? Did you believe anything you read? Then you or they are a victim of skillfully designed lies.
George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona Mangiante9. Credit: Getty
Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines.
Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.
The growth of the website, which has not been reported on before, comes at a time when the US is seeking to crack down on Russian influence ahead of the 2024 election. Recently, the justice department charged two members of RT (formerly known as Russia Today) with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering for payments they allegedly made to “recruit unwitting American influencers”. It also placed sanctions […]
