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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.
Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey,, Reporters - ProPublica
Stephan:
This is a fact-based report of what the christofascist MAGAts have in mind to do with the United States if criminal Trump wins the Presidency. It is horrifying, of course, these people are not in the least interested in America remaining a democracy. But what strikes me as particularly weird, and I mean really weird, is that they don’t seem. to believe climate change is really happening, and they don’t want people talking about it. It is beyond willful ignorance. I actually think it is a form of mental illness, an inability to deal in a meaningful way with reality. We have about a third of the country suffering from this, and its is not going to produce a happy future for the United States if Trump wins.
Illustration by ProPublica. Credit: Project 2025 training videos obtained by ProPublica and Documented, and The7Dew/Getty
Reporting Highlights
Deep State Battle: Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could fight the so-called deep state on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.
New Videos: Dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025 were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.
Advice Given: “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. Were they helpful?
Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration […]
Unless I am missing something, criminal Trump is going to face sentencing in September on the 34 felony counts for which he was found guilty. That’s an election changer for sure.
Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Credit: Andrew Bailey’s campaign
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s efforts to delay sentencing in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York were rejected Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision came a day before Bailey won the Aug. 6 primary election against Will Scharf, a member of Trump’s legal team.
In a one-page order, the court refused to intervene in the case, meaning a gag order against Trump will remain in place and sentencing on his 34 felony convictions will move forward as scheduled next month.
Bailey argued the New York prosecution was politically motivated and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene because it has jurisdiction in cases involving one state suing another. He sought to delay sentencing until after the election and lift the gag order placed on Trump that prevents him from speaking out against prosecutors, court staff and their families.
The court rejected Bailey’s argument without comment.
“It’s disappointing that the Supreme Court refused to exercise its constitutional responsibility to resolve state v. state disputes,” […]
The MAGAt media is screaming that Harris and Walz are proposing a universal gun ban designed to take your guns away. As with most of the things MAGAt media claims about Democrats, this is crap. What they are proposing is to reinstitute an assault weapons ban. I absolutely support that. Speaking as a former Viet Nam era Army medic I can see no reason whatever for ordinary citizens to have weapons maade specifically to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. If you have ever seen a man shot in the gut with such a weapon, or a child whose brains have been blown out, you will understand why I feel so strongly about this. The leading cause of death in the United States for children under 17 is being murdered with such a weapon.
Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz. Credit: Getty
During a rally in August 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz announced a gun ban if they win the presidential election in November.
In a rally speech on Aug. 6, 2024, Harris said she and Walz will pass universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban if she wins the presidential election in November. The pair did not announce a general “gun ban.”
On Aug. 6, 2024, the National Rifle Association’s X account posted a video of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris giving a speech while her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, stood behind her. In the clip, she said: “And together, when we win in November, we are finally going to pass universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban.”
In the X post, the NRA claimed the pair announced a “gun ban.” They wrote: “HARRIS-WALZ ANNOUNCE GUN BAN,” and, “They’re coming for our […]
Julie Conley, Staff Writer - Raw Story | Common Dreams
Stephan:
The United States has become, based on objectively verifiable social outcome data a second-tier nation with a societal cancer. We have only one social priority: profit. The wellbeing of Americans just doesn’t seem to matter to the oligarchs and the corporations they control. Here is the latest.
Expressing doubt that a new artificial intelligence-powered “dynamic pricing” model used by the Kroger grocery chain is truly meant to “better the customer experience,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren said Friday that the practice shows how “corporate greed is out of control.”
Warren (D-Mass.) was joined by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) on Wednesday in writing a letter to the chairman and CEO of the Kroger Company, Rodney McMullen, raising concerns about how the company’s collaboration with AI company IntelligenceNode could result in both privacy violations and worsened inequality as customers are forced to pay more based on personal data Kroger gathers about them “to determine how much price hiking [they] can tolerate.”
As the senators wrote, the chain first introduced dynamic pricing in 2018 and expanded to 500 of its nearly 3,000 stores last year. The company has partnered with Microsoft to develop an Electronic Shelving Label (ESL) system known as […]
Do you find it interesting that, as this article describes, all kinds of businesses, particularly restaurants and farmers are desperate for migrant labor, while politicians from both parties whine and shout about immigration? Do you think maybe we aren’t handling immigration into this correctly?
Migrant kitchen worker. Credit: SBS
Mark Berzins has a devil of a time finding enough kitchen staff for his 17 bars and restaurants in the Denver area.
The metropolis has an unemployment rate slightly below the national average and a highly educated populace that shies away from manual labor. While some employers might be able to lure foreign workers through the H1-B visa program, that isn’t an option for cooks and dishwashers.
So instead, Berzins is tapping into a city program to hire asylum seekers — primarily from South and Central America — who have obtained federal work permits. So far, he’s given jobs to about a dozen people at kitchens where the managers speak Spanish.
“It’s really gotten so bad that almost all of these kitchens around Denver are chronically understaffed,” he said. “They try to make college a priority for graduates of Denver public schools. When that happens, those are not your cooks of the future.”
Denver’s program and similar efforts in places ranging from New York to […]
We are the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal birthright single payer healthcare; what we have is an illness profit system. It is the worst healthcare in the developed world. And, by orders of magnitude, the most expensive. It is also getting worse ever year. It has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the American people. It is all about profit, and particularly in rural areas it is essentially vanishing, particularly in states controlled by the MAGAts that used to be the Republican Party. OB/GYNs are leaving those states, pediatricians are growing fewer and fewer, and we are thousands of physicians shy of what the country needs. Some areas are now medical deserts, and with no hospital at all.
A hospital that is closing. Credit: MedPage Today
More rural hospitals are in danger of closing, in large part because of insufficient reimbursement from private health plans, a report found.
“The primary reason hundreds of rural hospitals are at risk of closing is that private insurance plans are paying them less than what it costs to deliver services to patients,” the report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR) noted. “Although the at-risk hospitals are losing money on uninsured patients and Medicaid patients, losses on private insurance patients are the biggest cause of overall losses.”
The report documents 703 rural hospitals nationwide at risk of closing, compromising almost a third of rural hospitals. This is on top of the 105 hospitals that have closed since 2015. In addition, more than two dozen hospitals shut down their inpatient services in order to become Rural Emergency Hospitals (REHs), which offer emergency services only, the report explained.
People may think that changing from being a full-service hospital to becoming an REH means eliminating only inpatient beds, but that’s not true, […]
Do you know a child or teenager, or have a child or teenager in your family? If you do read this, and get them to change their diet as described. IT will change their entire life in a good way.
The Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and healthy fats, has already been associated with health benefits for adults. Now, a systematic review suggests it may have similar effects on children and teens. Researchers analyzed data from 9 randomized clinical trials involving 577 children aged 3 years to 18 years that measured the effects of Mediterranean diet–based interventions on cardiometabolic markers.
Researchers looked at such biomarkers as blood pressure, total cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. They then compared changes in biomarker levels between the intervention and control groups. The children in the intervention group lowered their systolic blood pressure by an average of nearly 5 mm Hg and their triglyceride concentration by an average of about 16 mg/dL. They also lowered their total cholesterol and raised their high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.
Although the researchers noted in JAMA Network Open that the biomarker changes were modest, they added that even these reductions may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood.
Amy Gibbons, Dominic Penna, and Cameron Henderson , Reporters - Microsoft Start / The Telegraph (U.K.)
Stephan:
Finally, someone in the position to do something is trying to take on the tidal wave of misinformation that has flooded the internet to the benefit of the oligarchs who own social media, particularly Elon Musk. The democracies of the world, particularly the United States are in crisis, but almost no one talks about it. Real journalism is dying. If you saw the Trump media session the other day you saw what it has become. The only media person on television who saw it and called it out was Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. It is getting harder and harder to find real facts, even in the scientific press.
Tech companies will be forced to ban fake news from their platforms under plans being considered by the Government in the wake of the riots.
The Telegraph understands that ministers are looking at introducing a duty on social media companies to restrict “legal but harmful” content.
It could mean that firms are required to remove or suppress posts spreading fake news about asylum seekers or other topics such as self-harm, even if they do not meet the threshold for illegality.
However, critics have said the proposals expose “the sinister and authoritarian side” of Sir Keir’s Labour Party, driving “a coach and horses” through the principle of free speech.
The plans come after a row between Elon Musk who owns X, formerly known as Twitter, and the Prime Minister over his handling of the riots.
The potential crackdown on tech companies would likely form part of a review of the Online Safety Act, which was passed last year.
The Act requires platforms to take “robust action” against illegal content and activity and […]
