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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.
As you can see in the image that heads this article, we have become a country so obsessed with guns, particularly AR-15s, that people bring them to church to have them blessed, and give them away as prizes at church gatherings. In fact, there is a strong correlation between the evangelical perversion of Christianity and these weapons. If that isn’t disgusting enough Lauren Boebert and George Santos several months ago introduced the “AR-15 National Gun Act” to make the AR-15 the “National Gun of the United States.” How unsuprising a country where the largest cause of death for children under 17 is a bullet in their bodies.
A woman at the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania holds her AR-15-style rifle as people attend a blessing ceremony for their AR-15s. Credit: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
LOVELAND, COLORADO – – Conservative politicians pose with AR-style rifles for Christmas card portraits. Churches in deep red states give them away at raffles. Demonstrators on both sides of the political divide tote them at protests.
A bill in Congress supported by conservative representatives even wants to designate the AR-15 style rifle as “the National Gun of the United States.”
The AR platform of rifle – used in several of the most notorious and deadly mass shootings in American history in the past two decades – is in the spotlight again because a would-be assassin used one on Saturday to shoot former President Donald Trump, grazing him on the ear.
Deft marketing and the partisan divide have helped drive many Americans’ embrace of this style of gun, making it a potent cultural and political symbol in a country where the Constitution’s Second Amendment enshrines the right to bear arms.
“The romanticism around the AR-15s comes from marketing,” said Carolyn […]
Human stupidity and greed is destroying the matrix of life upon which the life of our own species depends. I hate having to do these stories but this trend is growing, which imperils us more each year.
A Hummingbird hovering, the only bird species that can do this. Credit: Wiki Observatory
Introduction
In Native American lore, bees symbolize community; Celtic myths tell us bees are spirit messengers from the Otherworld. Around the world, butterflies evoke the promise of metamorphosis. And the sparkling, hovering hummingbirds, because they are impossibly tiny and fast and beautiful, are emblems of irrepressible life.
The Aztecs believed hummingbirds, who are furious fighters, are reincarnated warriors. They’ve returned to life with swords as beaks, continuing their battles forever in the sky. They called them huitzitzil and ourbiri—“rays of the sun” and “tresses of the day star.”
Early Spanish visitors to the New World, seeing hummingbirds for the first time (they only live in this half of the globe), called them “resurrection birds.” They believed that anything that glittered so brightly had to have been made new each day.
In the Dominican Republic, people call them suma flor—“buzzing flower.” The Portuguese called them beija-flor, or “flower kisser.”
The Great Pollinator Disappearance: Birds, Bees, and Butterflies Are All in Decline
Today, perhaps more than ever before, we thirst for community. We hanker for transformation. We long to […]
Alex Roarty and Katherine Swartz, Reporters - NOTUS
Stephan:
I was reading a story about Republican candidates for both the Senate and realized there was a commonality to many of these candidates that most of the corporate media either did not realize, or chose not to cover — I think the current state of corporate media in this country is appalling. The trend that I saw was that not only is the MAGAt Republican Party being funded by christofascist billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, but that the candidates themselves are disproportionately amongst the uber-rich class. As I watched the convention, what stood out for me was not just that the MAGAt Party is overwhelmingly White, although a surprising percentage of Hispanics seem to be falling for the misinformation being spewed by what is essentially a White supremacy party, but they seemed low education with their white pads and flags taped to their ear. And when I checked the research data that was confirmed. So what is going on is that the MAGAt Party is both attempting to fill the Congress with the christofascist rich, financed by an even richer group — J.D. Vance was basically created by Peter Thiel. When you consider this and also read Project 2025, as I have urged you to do, it is clear these people collectively are trying to end democracy to their personal benefit.
Tim Sheehy received Donald Trump’s endorsement for the Montana Republican Senate primary. Credit: Rachel Leathe/Bozeman Daily Chronicle / AP
Tim Sheehy’s victory in Montana’s GOP primary Tuesday means national Republicans are dependent on a candidate with little political experience but a lot of money to win a key race for majority control of the Senate.
That’s by design — and it’s also true in other critical Senate races this year.
In a calculated risk, Republican officials and allies of Donald Trump have rallied behind Senate candidates who — like Sheehy — have never held elected office but can help fund a campaign through their own personal wealth. In addition to Sheehy, who received a key endorsement from Trump that helped clear his path to the nomination, national Republicans backed Senate candidates like Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania and Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, both of whom are rich and politically inexperienced.
A fourth wealthy Republican candidate, Bernie Moreno in Ohio, had more competition in his primary but ultimately won the Senate nomination thanks to a Trump endorsement.
I read a lot of foreign press looking for trends shaping our future and two things stand out for, particularly in the European and British press: They are very very concerned that after 82 years of being led by the United States democracy that this historical period may well be ending, and they will need to make other arrangements. Second, that they loath and despise Donald Trump who they see as the major cause of this transition. Here, in the British press, from the just installed Foreign Secretary David Lammy, is an example of what I mean.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has addressed statements he made about Donald Trump back in 2018. Credit: Neil Hall / Getty
David Lammy became the U.K. Foreign Secretary earlier this month after the Labour Party defeated the Conservative Party in the July 4 general election. Lammy had previously served as the Shadow Foreign Secretary since 2021, and held various positions prior to that, having been elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Labour Party in 2000.
In 2018, Lammy penned an Ideas article for TIME magazine titled “I’m a British Lawmaker. Here’s Why I’m Protesting Trump’s Visit to the U.K.” Within the piece, he referred to Trump, the then-President of the United States, as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.” Lammy went on to argue that Trump “is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.”
Lammy was asked about his former comments regarding Trump during a televised interview on Thursday morning with Sky News. The U.K. network’s journalist Kay Burley asked Lammy: “Apparently you called him […]
The countries of the world are turning against Israel because of its racism and its genocidal war in Gaza. I think this is one of the reasons anti-semitism is on the rise in Europe and the United States. I don’t think that in any way excuses Hamas, and what it has done. That was terrorism, no question, but the tens of thousands of deaths of women and children in Gaza is genocide. I think the Biden administration has been following a very poor strategy by supplying the bombs used in this genocide, and this is going to have long term consequences for both Israel and the U.S., and for individual Jews.
Demonstrators gather outside the Peace Palace, home of the International Court of Justice, to demand a ceasefire and show support for Palestine and Nicarague, in The Hague, Netherlands, on April 30, 2024. Credit: Nurphoto / Getty
In a landmark opinion issued today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said that Israel’s 57-year occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is in breach of international law.
The proceedings came out of a UN resolution passed in December of 2022. In the resolution, the UN General Assembly requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the UN’s principal judicial organ that adjudicates disputes between member states and provides advisory opinions on international legal matters.
This case is separate from the one brought forth by South Africa last year, in which the ICJ provisionally ruled that Israeli […]
It is interesting how frequently wrong rational assessments of the future are compared with remote viewing predictions. Back in the early 1970s, when I was a member of the MIT-Secretary of Defense Study Group on innovation, technology and the Future, and the Smithsonian Institution Discussions Group on Innovation, Technology, and the Future, one of the major discussions was how humanity would deal with over-population and lack of resources that would result. We barely mentioned climate change. As this fact-based article describes over-population is not, in fact, going to be a major issue, and climate change is an oncoming disaster.
A subway in Seoul, South Korea. The country’s population is projected to halve by 2100. Credit: AFP / Getty
Last week, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs released the World Population Prospects, the international body’s annual report on the current and future state of global population.
That’s two years earlier than the UN was predicting peak population as recently as 2022, and considerably earlier than forecasts from just a few years before, when population wasn’t expected to peak until the 22nd century.
10.3 billion, of course, is some 2 billion more people than the planet currently holds, so population growth isn’t stopping anytime soon, but it is slowing down rapidly. Women on average now have one less […]
CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY, ELAINE KURTENBACH, DAVID McHUGH and HALELUYA HADERO, Reporters - HuffPost / Associate Press
Stephan:
You may have been affected by this technological havoc Friday, or you may not even know it occurred. I am publishing this report because it illustrates how vulnerable the world is to the electronic networks. This is the second vulnerability of 21st century civilizations. The first is the spewing of misinformation and AI generated fake information. The United States, as well as other nations, is not dealing appropriately with either weakness, and it is changing human societies all over the world.
A traveler checks flight information at Ronald Regan Washington National Airport on July 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. Credit: Nathan Howard / Getty
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — A faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide on Friday, grounding flights, knocking down some financial companies and news outlets, and disrupting hospitals, small businesses and government offices.
The trouble was sparked by an update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and only affected its customers running Microsoft Windows, the world’s most popular operating system for personal computers. It was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
Businesses and governments worldwide experienced hourslong disruptions — their computer monitors glowing blue with error messages — and they scrambled to deal with the fallout. CrowdStrike’s CEO said some of their systems will require time-consuming manual fixes.
Thousands of flights were canceled and tens of thousands were delayed, leading to […]
I can’t upload all the images. So please click through and look at them. As you do, realize this is how psychologically damaged a large segment of American voters in the MAGAt (formerly Republican) Party have become.
The big picture: Convention attendees have been paying tribute to former President Trump, who appeared at the event with his large, white bandage on his right ear in his first appearance since Saturday’s rally shooting.
