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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.

— Stephan

SCHWARTZ REPORT PODCAST

Schwartz Report Episode 52: Secrets of Happiness

Human cells grown in monkey embryos spark ethical debate

Stephan:  The temptation to create chimeras, a new species of human-animal, is I believe, the most important ethical choice humanity will make. How much shared DNA does it take to be a human? If we go down this road it will forever change the arc of humanity's history. It must also be seen in context with the concurrent trend to create Homo Superior. Think about what that world would be like.
Human stem cells were introduced into macaque embryos

Monkey embryos containing human cells have been made in a laboratory, a study has confirmed.

The research, by a US-Chinese team, has sparked fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments. The scientists injected human stem cells – cells that have the ability to develop into many different body tissues – into macaque embryos.

The developing embryos were studied for up to 20 days.

Other so-called mixed-species embryos, or chimeras, have been produced in the past, with human cells implanted into sheep and pig embryos.

The scientists were led by Prof Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute in the US, who, in 2017, helped make the first human-pig hybrid.

Their work could pave the way in addressing the severe shortage in transplantable organs as well as help understand more about early human development, disease progression and ageing, he said.

“These chimeric approaches could be really very useful for advancing biomedical research not just at the very earliest stage of life, but also the latest stage of life.”

He maintained that the study, published in the journal Cell, had […]

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Why Abortion Pills Are the Next Frontier in the Battle Over Reproductive Rights

Stephan:  Since I was old enough to have a perspective on the issue based on data I have thought that continuity of consciousness was correct. I think the evidence for it is irrefutable at this point. That certainly informs my views on abortion. But it is not the only reason I feel as strongly as I do about this issue. If a woman does not control her own body she controls nothing. Abortion is a right. What I have particular contempt for is the anti-choice people who after a child is born have no interest in their care, eduction, or health, or the health of the mother. Even a woman raped and impregnated should bear the rapist's child, and raise for the rest of her life. It is preposterous. But as the technology has evolved, it has become harder and harder for the anti-choice people to make a case. Now we are down to pills.
The Food and Drug Administration recently lifted restrictions on abortion pills to allow patients to get them through telemedicine.
 Credit: Katharina Staerck/Getty

The Biden Administration is removing restrictions on mailing abortion pills during the COVID-19 pandemic, a reversal from the Trump Administration’s policy that marks a new phase in the national debate over abortion rights.

The move temporarily changes longstanding Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules governing mifepristone—one of two drugs used to terminate early pregnancies—that required patients to pick up the pills in-person from a medical provider. Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock sent a letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine on Monday saying that her agency reviewed recent evidence and found that using telemedicine to provide abortion pills would not increase risks and would help patients avoid potential exposure to COVID-19.

The change only lasts through the public health emergency, and the FDA has not said how it will handle the requirement after the pandemic. But abortion pills have become the latest front in the heated battle over reproductive […]

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97% of Earth’s Land No Longer Ecologically Intact, Study Finds

Stephan:  If we don't wake up and get serious about protecting earth's matrix of life we are going to pay a civilization threatening price.
Amazon Forest depredations

Ecologists and environmental advocates on Thursday called for swift action to reintroduce species into the wild as scientists at the University of Cambridge in England found that 97% of the planet’s land area no longer qualifies as ecologically intact.

“Conservation is simply not enough anymore,” said financier and activist Ben Goldsmith. “We need restoration.”

The authors of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, expressed alarm at their findings, which showed that of the 3% of fully intact land, much lies in northern areas which weren’t rich in biodiversity to begin with, such as boreal forests in Canada or tundra in Greenland. 

The amount of ecologically intact land “was much lower than we were expecting,” Dr. Andrew Plumptre, head of the Key Biodiversity Areas Secretariat at Cambridge and lead author of the study, told Science News. 

“Going in, I’d guessed that it would be 8 to 10%,” he added. “It just shows how huge an impact we’ve had.”

The researchers examined whether natural habitats had retained the number of species which were present in the year 1500—the standard […]

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No apology owed for pepper-spraying Black and Latino Army officer in Virginia, police chief says

Stephan:  American law enforcement, both police and sheriffs are rotten, and the entire structure needs to be reorganized and redesigned. As you can see by the chart at the beginning of this article, American police in 2020 killed 14 TIMES MORE MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN THAN CANADA, AUSTRALIA, GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, ENGLAND AND WALES, JAPAN, NEW ZEALAND, ICELAND, AND NORWAY COMBINED. FOURTEEN TIMES MORE! The facts are clear: If you are a person of color and you are stopped by the police in the U.S. your life is in danger no matter who you are, or how minor the reason for the stop.

PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA — While he said he felt bad for how the events of a traffic-stop late last year unfolded, the police chief of the town where a Black and Latino military officer from Petersburg, Virginia, was accosted by two of his officers said Wednesday that he does not think the soldier is in need of an official apology.

In response, Army Lt. Caron Nazario’s legal team said Windsor Police Department Chief Rodney D. Riddle “continues a false narrative” of the case and blaming their client for initiating it. They said the video of the stop “shows otherwise” that their client was nothing but compliant.

“I’m gonna own what we did,” Riddle said about the stop during a news conference Wednesday in the Isle of Wight County, Virginia, community where Nazario was stopped last December while on his way home. “My guys missed opportunities to verbally de-escalate that thing and change that outcome.”

When asked by a reporter if Nazario was owed an apology for that, Riddle replied: “I don’t believe that,” adding he wished […]

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No Hoax: New Report Says Trump’s 2016 Campaign Shared Info With Russian Intelligence

Stephan:  It is now clear and irrefutable, Donald Trump was either a "useful idiot" or functionally a Russian agent, as was Paul Manafort. Now that that is clear, many other things about the Trump administration come into proper focus.
Putin and his “useful idiot” agent Donald Trump.

Imagine this news flash: the campaign manager of Joe Biden’s presidential bid throughout the 2020 race was in continuous and covert contact with a Chinese intelligence officer whom had once been her business associate. During these clandestine communications—which included secret meetings—she passed internal Biden campaign polling data to the Chinese operative, and the operative encouraged her to help advance a Chinese proposal that would allow Beijing to succeed in its territorial disputes in the South China Sea and further extend its influence there. And throughout this all, China was running an undercover operation to help Biden win.

Ka-boom! There would be headlines galore. The right-wing media would go bananas. Fox News would explode. Sean Hannity might lose the power of speech. And congressional Republicans would demand investigation upon investigation. There would be talk of impeachment. 

Well, this did happen. Just not with Biden and China, but with Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 election. Yet this key piece of the Trump-Russia story never became a major scandal for the former president, who has not stopped claiming (falsely) that all talk about Vladimir Putin’s attack […]

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Poll: The partisan gap on climate change is widening

Stephan:  Forty-three percent of Republicans don't want to get vaccinated, only 29 percent believe climate change is happening. But they do believe in White supremacy. However, younger Republicans, who realize they are going to have to live with climate change, have a rather different view, so that is one small fragment of good news.
Illustration credit: Grist / Hemera Technologies / Getty

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when climate change was a bipartisan issue. In 1988, Congress listened with interest as climate scientist James Hansen testified about the links between human activity and climate change. Bills to limit emissions found ample cosponsors. George H. W. Bush’s administration was eager to work with Democrats on energy policy. But in the mid-1990s, the Republican Party, abetted by oil, gas, and coal companies, began its downward spiral into climate denial. That brings us to today, when the gap between Republicans and Democrats on climate change appears to be growing ever wider, even as intensifying hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods leave scars across the country. 

Gallup’s annual survey of American attitudes about global warming, published last week, shows that Democrats are increasingly in agreement with the scientific consensus. A whopping 82 percent of Democrats said they believe that the effects of global warming have already begun. Meanwhile, only 29 percent of […]

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Federal Court Ends Trump Effort to Open 128 Million Acres of Atlantic, Arctic Oceans to Drilling

Stephan:  Here is some good news. The rape of the Arctic by the carbon industry okayed by Trump will not happen. Very good news.
Arctic oil exploration

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt the final blow to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to open nearly 130 million acres of territory in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans to oil and gas drilling.

In April of 2017, Trump signed an executive order aiming to undo an Obama-era ban on fossil fuel exploration in that territory, but a federal judge in Alaska ruled the move unlawful in 2019.

Though the Trump administration appealed the ruling, President Joe Biden revoked his predecessor’s 2017 order shortly after taking office, rendering the court case moot. On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to dismiss the Trump administration’s appeal.

“Because the terms of the challenged Executive Order are no longer in effect, the relevant areas of the [Outer Continental Shelf] in the Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and Atlantic Ocean will be withdrawn from exploration and development activities,” the court said in its order.

Erik Grafe of Earthjustice, which represented a coalition of advocacy groups that challenged Trump’s order, said in a statement that “we welcome today’s decision and its confirmation of President Obama’s legacy of […]

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Six GOP Senators Are Trying to Block a Bill to Combat Hate Crime Violence Against Asian Americans

Stephan:  Tom Cotton (AR), Ted Cruz (TX), Josh Hawley (MN), Roger Marshall (KS), Rand Paul (KY), and Tommy Tuberville (AL), six Republicans that have no business being senators, because they can't even manage to be decent human beings, but whose states elected them anyway. The problem with America once again turns out to be Americans who cannot control their hate.

Six Senate Republicans are trying to block legislation that would help combat the rise in hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and a former president and members of his party who insist on calling it the “Chinese virus.”

Late Wednesday afternoon the Senate voted 92-6 to begin debate on the legislation, known as the “COVID–19 Hate Crimes Act.” Six Republicans voted against moving the legislation forward, in an attempt to block its passage.

The six are Senators Tom Cotton (AR), Ted Cruz (TX), Josh Hawley (MN), Roger Marshall (KS), Rand Paul (KY), and Tommy Tuberville (AL).

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