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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.
Jake Johnson, Staff Writer - Raw Story/Common Dreams
Stephan: The politicization of getting vaccinated is insane. More than that, it is literally killing people, and as it continues will kill more. This trend demonstrates very clearly that about a third of Americans are emotionally very psychologically disordered. And it is all being generated by Trump and the other social monsters who serve him. It is, as I said, mad, and lethal, and unnecessary.
Outdoor cookout barbecue party Credit: Shutterstock
A new data analysis by researchers at Georgetown University pinpoints a number of undervaccinated clusters of the United States that pose a significant threat to the nation’s—and potentially the world’s—gradual progress against the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly given their potential to serve as “factories” for extremely contagious variants such as the now-dominant Delta strain.
The five most significant clusters identified by the Georgetown researchers are largely located in the southern U.S., in states such as Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana—all of which are currently experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases as Delta rips through communities concentrated with people who have yet to receive a single vaccine shot. Those clusters include more than 15 million people.
“The group of counties in each cluster… together have lower vaccination coverage than expected, and make up a large population size. All of the top five clusters are focused in the southeastern U.S.,” the researchers note.
“The more geographically clustered unvaccinated individuals are,” the analysis continues, […]
Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting - MedPage Today
Stephan: MedPage over the years has proven to be a reliable source of accurate medical data. I say this at the beginning because the disinformation and outright nonsense about Ivermectin and Covid make getting reliable information very difficult. I know from correspondence from readers that the Ivermectin issue is causing a lot of confusion. It turns out from this meta-analysis that the drug is neither as good nor as bad as whichever side claims and further research is needed. This is the way science is supposed to work.
Proponents of ivermectin for COVID-19 have long been talking about an expected review and meta-analysis led by Andrew Hill, PhD, of the University of Liverpool.
These results were finally published this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, and they’re positive — but they haven’t escaped criticism, and most researchers still want results from a randomized controlled trial.
The review and meta-analysis was conducted as part of the International Ivermectin Project Team from December 2020 to May 2021. Ivermectin proponents said Hill was conducting the analysis for the WHO, but MedPage Today was not able to confirm WHO involvement. Hill did not respond to an email request for comment.
Hill and colleagues assessed 24 randomized trials totaling 3,328 patients that involved some type of control, whether it was standard of care or another therapy. Sample sizes ranged from 24 to 400 participants. Eight of the studies had been published, nine were preprints, six were unpublished results shared for the analysis, and one was reported on a trial registry website.
In the 11 trials (totaling 2,127 patients) that focused on moderate […]
Norman Solomon, National Director of RootsAction.org - Reader Supported News
Stephan: History would suggest that the Republicans will take both houses of Congress in 2022. If that happens you can kiss democracy goodbye. The only thing that is going to block this from happening is massive, and I do mean massive turn out electing Democrats already in office and new members of both the House and Senate. Are you up to it?
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell
Since the Civil War, midterm elections have enabled the president’s party to gain ground in the House of Representatives only three times, and those were in single digits. The last few midterms have been typical: In 2006, with Republican George W. Bush in the White House, his party lost 31 House seats. Under Democrat Barack Obama, his party lost 63 seats in 2010 and then 13 seats in 2014. Under Donald Trump, in 2018, Republicans lost 41 seats. Overall, since World War II, losses have averaged 27 seats in the House.
Next year, if Republicans gain just five House seats, Rep. Kevin McCarthy or some other right-wing ideologue will become the House speaker, giving the GOP control over all committees and legislation. In the Senate, where the historic midterm pattern has been similar, a Republican gain of just one seat will reinstall Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader.
To prevent such disastrous results, Democrats would need to replicate what happened the last time the president’s party didn’t lose House or Senate […]
Stephan: Hate, and its first cousin resentment are powerful motivators, and for a large, but still a minority, of the American population it has become their major political motivator. They are manipulated by it like cows with rings through their noses.
In 2016, Donald Trump recruited voters with the highest levels of animosity toward African Americans, assembling a “schadenfreude” electorate — voters who take pleasure in making the opposition suffer — that continues to dominate the Republican Party, even in the aftermath of the Trump presidency.
With all his histrionics and theatrics, Trump brought the dark side of American politics to the fore: the alienated, the distrustful, voters willing to sacrifice democracy for a return to white hegemony. The segregationist segment of the electorate has been a permanent fixture of American politics, shifting between the two major parties.
Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, makes the case via Twitter that Trump has “served as a lightning rod for lots of regular people who hold white Christian supremacist beliefs.” The solidification of their control […]
Stephan: When I tell you that we are in a cold civil war between those who favor racial and gender equality and the christofascist White supremacists that have taken over the Republican Party, I am neither kidding nor exaggerating. In fact, my main concern is that Democrats do not recognize this, and are not taking it seriously. Well, here is a major Republican moron, Representative Mo Brooks. Listen to his words. what do you think he is saying?
Alabama voters you sent this cretin to Congress; is this the kind of person you want representing you? Please do the rest of us a favor and vote this many out of office.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1413636083993227267
U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who was one of the very first leaders of Donald Trump‘s January 6 insurrection, on Friday urged GOP voters at a conservative conference to fight and die for America, just like George Washington’s soldiers did at Valley Forge, and telegraphing to them their very “survival” is at stake.
Brooks was the first member of Congress to declare he would vote against certifying the results of the Electoral College and vote to overturn the free and fair presidential election. On January 6 he also delivered a speech, telling Trump supporters at the Trump-financed, Trump-produced, and Trump-promoted rally prior to the violent attack on the Capitol, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
On Friday Brooks told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, that the “choice is simple: We can surrender and submit. Or we can fight back, as our ancestors have done.”
The use of the word “ancestors” appears quite intentional, and may have been used in an anti-immigrant whitewashing to make his audience feel even more connected to America’s founders.
Stephan: Three times, when I was a boy 11-13 a Roman Catholic priest tried to put his hand down my pants. Each time I, not a Roman Catholic, was so turned off and appalled by the man himself, in two cases particularly their horrible breath, that I instantly stopped them. It left me with a definite attitude about the Catholic clergy.
The business of adult men by the thousands trying to fondle the penises and testicles of pre-pubescent boys has clearly been going on for centuries and, until recently, few took much notice of it. To their congregants after all these were God's spokesmen. But over the past several decades the profound sexual dysfunction of the Roman Catholic clergy has become a major issue for the church, particularly in countries where a high percentage of the population belongs to the church. That doesn't mean it has stopped, only that people now know it is a problem.
This article about Poland makes the point with hard data. I have seen studies suggesting that as much as 15% of the priests, monks, and brothers are inclined in this way. What amazes me is that although it has cost the Roman Church billions it is still going on. I do note that between 2000 and 2019 the membership in the church has declined by two million people, although Christianity, in general, is shrinking. It should be noted that in the United States this seems to be less about child sexual molestation and more because mainstream Protestant Christianity has become a White supremacist christofascist cult.
Polish Archbishop Wojciech Polak
The Catholic Church has been rocked by the unearthing of yet another clergy sexual abuse scandal with reportedly 368 children sexually abused between July 1, 2018, till December 31, 2020, in Poland.
“Between July 1, 2018, and December 31, 2020, Catholic Church dioceses and monasteries in Poland received 368 reports regarding sexual abuse of minors,” the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics announced on Monday, adding that its report covered the period between 1958 and 2020.
According to the disturbing reports coming in from Poland, it appears that one minor child per day was being sexually abused by a Catholic priest in the country.
It is the second time the episcopate has published a report on pedophilia cases. The first was published in 2019 and showed 382 cases reported between January 1990 and June 2018.It is shockingly learned that 50 percent of all reports concerned children under 15 years of age.
The Catholic Church in Poland has asked for forgiveness for the “evil of the Church” after new figures revealed over 360 incidents of child sexual abuse involving […]
Stephan: If you had told me when the Covid Pandemic began that it would kill millions of people worldwide and yet, in the United States, would very quickly morph into a test of one's political affiliation with one party deliberately exposing itself to an illness that could kill or leave one with long term health issues I would have said, no one is that stupid. Well, I was wrong. States governed by Republicans have low vaccination rates, and high death and illness rates. The correlation is so strong it can be used as a political predictor as to how someone voted. Kay Ivey, never known for being a bright bulb, is one of the people propagating this tragic nonsense, and the people of Alabama are dying at disproportionate rates as a result. Thus, proving that voting for the wrong person can kill you.
Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey
There’s a piece of fortune cookie wisdom passed around the Twitterverse. Maybe you’ve seen it, too.
If you don’t think politics is important, then remember, the mayor in Jaws is still the mayor in Jaws II.
Rattling around loose in my head, that little nugget won’t leave me alone lately — because Chief Brody is waving his arms like a madman from the beach, but our public officials are acting like it’s safe to go back into the water.
But instead of a dorky mayor in a goofy blazer, we have Gov. Kay Ivey.
This week Alabama’s Chief Brody, UAB infectious disease expert Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, gave a warning about the big fish offshore. New coronavirus vaccinations have slowed close to a standstill. Test positivity is up. Hospitalizations are, too. The Delta variant is looking for a fat swimmer and we’re the biggest in the sea.
And then she uttered the sort of warning that gets the souvenir shop owners making angry calls to the mayor.
Stephan: Florida is facing inundation, California is now asking residents to cut back on water usage by 15% because they don't have enough water. Let's all say it together: Water is destiny. You would think that in all the coastal and Southwestern states, albeit for very different reasons, water policy would be a topic at the top of everyone's list. But it isn't. We, as a country, are not doing anything like what we should be doing to prepare for what is coming. Therefore, we are going to see massive suffering, chaos, and death as a result of inadequate preparation.
As the extreme drought emergency continues in California, the water levels at Shasta Lake continue to drop and is currently at 38% of capacity. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty
California’s governor has asked people and businesses to voluntarily cut their water use by 15% as the western US weathers a devastating drought.
Gavin Newsom’s request is not an order, but it demonstrates the growing challenges of a drought that will only worsen throughout the summer and fall and is tied to recent heatwaves. Reservoirs across the state, which are depended on for agriculture, drinking water and fish habitat, have dwindled to dangerously low levels and some counties have already enacted mandatory water restrictions.
Temperatures in parts of the state are spiking this week but are less intense than the record heatwave that may have caused hundreds of deaths in the Pacific north-west and British Columbia a week ago.
California’s Democratic governor is asking for voluntary water conservation, which would include actions such as taking shorter showers, running dishwashers only when they are full and reducing the frequency of watering lawns.
