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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.
This is a very sad story. I once had great respect for Nate Silver because I thought he was a pollster of real integrity. Instead, this is just another story of corruption. 538 I realize now is not to be trusted.
Former President Donald Trump sits at the defense table at his ‘hush money’ trial. (AFP)
Polling expert and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver updated his presidential election forecast Sunday and gave GOP nominee Donald Trump a 63.8 percent chance of winning the Electoral College in November, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris trailing with only a 36 percent chance.
But veteran conservative consultant Stuart Stevens — a Never Trumper conservative who is supporting Harris — is critical of Silver’s forecast, arguing that there is a connection between Silver’s FiveThirtyEight and billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel.
In a Tuesday post on X, Stevens wrote, “Polymarket is Peter Thiel’s creation. @NateSilver538 is being paid by Peter Thiel.”
In May, Forbes reported that “controversial billionaire political donor Peter Thiel and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin” had “raised about $70 million in funding for Polymarket.”
According to Axios’ Sara Fischer, the predictions market platform Polymarket hired Silver as an adviser in July.
Stevens is a veteran of conservative politics and has worked […]
Abhimanyu Ghoshal, Contributing Writer - New Atlas
Stephan:
Here is some interesting good news about what is happening in developing renewable non-carbon energy technologies. I think it is significant that neither this technology nor the one referenced in Scotland are coming from the United States.
The M4 wave energy converter should enter use later this month Credit: Marine Energy Research Australia
If you find yourself in the Australian port city of Albany and spot a humongous yellow machine bobbing in the waves of King George Sound, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a generator prototype making a case for renewable wave energy.
Developed by the University of Western Australia’s Marine Energy Research Australia knowledge hub, the device is called the Moored MultiMode Multibody (M4) Wave Energy Demonstration Project.
Following the machine’s launch ceremony last week, the plan is to operate it for six months (starting later this month) and gather data on how efficiently it generates energy. An even larger model will subsequently be built and deployed on the high seas.
The M4 demonstrator spans a massive 79 feet (24 m) in length and is nearly 33 feet (10 m) wide – approximating the length of an average wave within King George Sound. It consists of […]
Here is some good news from the Biden-Harris administration. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 22.8% of US adults, or 57.8 million people, had a mental illness in 2021. The number is even higher After excluding children without current health insurance and those younger than 6 years, it is estimated that 16.5 percent of U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 17 — about 7.7 million — have at least one treatable mental health disorder (i.e., depression, anxiety or ADHD. Simply put, a significant percentage of the people of the United States have mental health issues. As this article describes, Biden-Harris is doing something meaningful to help foster wellbeing with those issues. It also tells you that the MAGAt Republicans will do everything they can, added by the corrupt MAGAts on the Supreme Court to block this good work.
The Biden administration move is likely to impact millions of Americans and comes as the nation faces a worsening mental health crisis. Credit: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty
The Biden administration is finalizing a sweeping expansion of regulations that require insurers to cover mental health and addiction care on the same terms as other care.
Administration officials said insurers have flouted a 2008 law requiring so-called mental health parity — and are expanding the rules, with potential fines for violators. However, the administration’s decision is expected to draw legal challenges from the industry.
“This final rule will stop the industry evasion that has led millions of people to pay for care even when they have insurance,” said Neera Tanden, head of President Joe Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, on a call with reporters ahead of Monday’s announcement. “No one should have to drain their savings or go into debt to get help for themselves or their loved ones. President Biden and the vice president believe mental health is health.”
The move is likely to impact millions of Americans and comes as […]
I do not in any way excuse or justify what Hamas did that set war in the Middle East in motion. But that does not justify or excuse what Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli fascists have done to keep the war going, and keep Netanyahu in power. However, this little group of Israeli fascists is is clearly destroying the status of Jews in the world and stimulating, as this article describes, a worldwide anti-semitism not seen in decades. I do not understand why the Israeli people can not seem to get Netanyahu out of power? Why is this happening? More than anything I would say it is a matter of national consciousness just as Americans cannot seem to realize that Trump is a loathsome criminal in many ways, and a traitor to boot, and thus, why this is still a close election. There is a change in consciousness occurring throughout the world. I think it is an unconscious fear generated by the precognition of humans that we are facing the civilization changing catastrophe of climate change.
An Israeli flag with a swastika superimposed on the Star of David is burned at a pro-Palestinian protest in Istanbul Credit: Ozan Kose / AFP
Surging anti-Semitism since Hamas’s October 7 attack sparked the war in Gaza recalls the run-up to World War II, with fear spreading through Jewish communities worldwide, top European and US envoys warned this week.
“We have seen a tsunami of anti-Semitism really rolling across Europe and the globe,” said Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission’s coordinator on combating anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish life.
“We are seeing a situation that we had hoped we would never see again,” she told AFP in Geneva after a closed-door workshop at the United Nations on Wednesday on how to address the threat.
She pointed to the firebombing of synagogues, Stars of David spray-painted onto houses where Jews live and Jewish students attacked on university campuses.
“I think we are now in a situation that really reminds us of the darkest days of Europe.”
During Wednesday’s event, hosted by the United States, speakers highlighted a dramatic surge in anti-Semitic attacks since October 7 last year.
Thom Hartmann, has the same view as I do about what the MAGAt Republicans, led by traitor Trump, are doing to America as millions of American voters stand by him entranced. I wish I had the funding to write a book about what this is doing to destroy the social wellbeing of the United States as proven by objectively verifiable social outcome data. The evil afoot in America is clear when one actually looks at the facts.
The Republican War against your right to vote. Over the next few months the entire book will be here, new chapters posted every Sunday, for subscribers to read at no cost. If you want to get a physical book to mark up or share with others, just click on the picture above, visit your local bookstore, or check your favorite online seller.
Buying Politicians, Selling Lies, and Suppressing the Vote
Right-wing billionaires know that if average Americans understood their real agenda, we’d never again elect a Republican. And it’s been that way for a long, long time.
As historian, author, and University of Wisconsin professor Harvey J. Kaye wrote in 2015 for Bill Moyers’s online magazine:
Polls conducted in 1943 showed that 94 percent of Americans endorsed old-age pensions; 84 percent, job insurance; 83 percent, universal national health insurance; and 79 percent, aid for students—leading FDR in his 1944 State of the Union message to propose a Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee those very things to […]
John B, Alexander, Contributing Writer - Daily Kos
Stephan:
When I tell you about the bewitchment of millions of Americans who cannot see the reality of traitor Trump and the MAGAt Republicans, no one illustrates this better than John Alexander, himself a former law enforcement officer. I think what he is describing should outrage every American who wants the United States to remain a democracy. Even our police like our politicians, and our judiciary, have been corrupted by the precognitive fear I have been describing for you.
The National Fraternal Order of Police endorses a traitor and convicted felon
On 6 September, the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) officially announced they will support a convicted felon for president of the United States. Their statement includes, “The FOP is the number one voice of America’s law enforcement. We have a responsibility to our members, to the 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States, and to the communities they serve to do our part in determining the direction in which our country will head.” In so doing, the FOP made it clear they place their personal and institutional allegiance above that of the U.S. Constitution and the American people they are sworn to protect and defend.
While the FOP has previously endorsed several presidential candidates, this is the first time they have supported a convicted felon who is awaiting sentencing on 34 counts and many more pending. Notably they did support Trump after he recommended that […]
As this report of recent research makes clear Americans just don’t get it. As a people we don’t understand or accept what we are doing to destroy Earth’s matrix of life; nor do we comprehend what this destruction is doing to us. I have been thinking about this all day. Why don’t Americans understand what is happening to the Earth and to us. The answer I think is in two parts. The first is the failure of corporate media to do its job because so many of the corporations that advertise on media, or the billionaires who own the major newspapers don’t want coverage of those topics. It is the same reason you don’t see much coverage about how bad our healthcare system is. The second reason is the corruption of our political system at both the state and federal level.
Power lines are cast in silhouette as the Creek Fire creeps up on on the Shaver Springs community off of Tollhouse Road on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, in Auberry, California.
Most people are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the state of the natural world, a new global public opinion survey shows.
Roughly 70 percent of 22,000 people polled online earlier this year agreed that human activities were pushing the Earth past “tipping points,” thresholds beyond which nature cannot recover, like loss of the Amazon rainforest or collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s currents. The same number of respondents said the world needs to reduce carbon emissions within the next decade.
Just under 40 percent of respondents said technological advances can solve environmental challenges.
The Global Commons survey, conducted for two collectives of “economic thinkers” and scientists known as Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance, polled people across 22 countries, including low-, middle- and high-income nations. The survey’s stated aim was to assess public opinion about “societal transformations” and […]
Paradise Afshar and Cindy Von Quednow,, Reporters - CNN
Stephan:
This is what carbon energy is doing to us. These climate crises are happening somewhere every day, and the effects go way beyond the fire. It is burning alive parts of our matrix of life. It is changing the very nature of the environment. At an almost trivial level compared to these changes it is. making it impossible for humans to get home insurance in these areas. Yet, do you hear anyone making this a truly serious part of the political debates as the election comes in days? You do not.
The Line Fire burns next to highway 330 near Running Springs, California, on September 7, 2024. Credit: David Swanson / AFP / Getty
Raging wildfires in California and Nevada have led to mandatory evacuations of thousands of homes, as forecasters warn of record heat in the West for the next few days. There are 14 active wildfires currently burning across California – with one so intense, it’s created its own weather pattern. Here’s the latest:
• California’s Line Fire explodes in size: The wildfire has consumed 17,459 acres as of Sunday after igniting at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains on Thursday. The blaze has more than quadrupled in size since Saturday morning. Authorities urged residents in several areas to flee as the massive blaze shot bright red flames and thick, billowing plumes of smoke into the sky. More than 600 fire personnel are battling the wildfire, which was 0% contained as of Sunday morning, according to Cal Fire. The blaze has injured three people, though authorities have not released any details about the extent of injuries.
