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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: Racist fascism is a growing problem in the United States, and one of the most alarming manifestations of this ideological cancer is the invasion of these people into the military. Here is a good story in a publication oriented towards the armed forces that describes what is going on. This is very scary stuff.
White nationalist demonstrators use shields as they clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017. Crredit: AP/Steve Helber
Brandon Russell had a tattoo of a radiation symbol on his arm when he enlisted in the Florida National Guard in 2016.
The three-bladed symbol didn’t raise alarms at the time, but should have been a warning sign. Russell was the co-founder of a dangerous neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Division, considered one of the deadliest in the country. The tattoo represented “atomwaffen,” which means “atomic weapon” in German.Advertisement
The soldier was later sentenced to five years in prison after bomb-making materials were found in his Florida apartment. But when he was asked while chatting on the now-defunct Iron March website in 2016 whether he was worried about being “found out” during Army basic training, he gave a troubling response.
“I was 100% open about everything with the friends I made at training,” Russell wrote on Iron March, which has been linked to violence worldwide. “They know all about it. They love me too cause im [sic] a funny guy.”Advertisement
Stephan: One of the main lessons for me to come out of the dark era of Trumpism is that something very profound has changed in American media, and it must be corrected. It is as dangerous as limiting free speech. The issue is how information is categorized. The traditional assumption of journalism is that you got the facts rght. You could put your publication's bias within those facts, but the facts were the facts. That is no longer true. An entire industry has grown up whose only interest in profit made by peddling fantasy specifically designed to serve fears, racism, resentment, privilege, the usual list. Fox even said this under oath at the Tucker Carlson trial. He was not a journalist, he was an entertainer. Facts being the distinction. This propaganda world is another manifestation of a society whose only social priority is profit. Facebook is a purveyor.
Mark ZuckerbergCredit: Samuel Corum/Getty
Facebook and Australia are at war. Though the country’s Parliament has yet to pass a proposed law that would require tech giants to pay for sharing others’ content, Facebook has already retaliated by cutting off Australian users’ ability to see or share news content; it also instituted a global ban on sharing content from Australian publishers. Claiming it had little choice, Facebook said that “the proposed law fundamentally fails to understand how our services work.” The consequences have been widespread: Australian charities, health care workers, domestic violence helplines, emergency response services—along with newspapers and magazines—have found their Facebook pages rendered useless and their content unshareable. The country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, said that his government “will not be intimidated.”
This isn’t the first time, even in recent memory, that Facebook has defied a country’s laws or its leadership. In October, it told the Turkish government that it wouldn’t follow a law requiring the company to appoint a local representative (Facebook later
Stephan: More good news about the transition out of the carbon era, which is essential to our dealing with climate change.
Jaguar Land Rover, a British-based manufacturer owned by Indian automaker Tata Motors, announced Monday that the brand will make the shift beginning in 2025.
The company said it also expects 60% of Land Rover sales to be electric vehicles by 2030.
The move comes amid gradual advancements in battery technology that are making electric vehicles cheaper and enabling longer range on a charge. It also marks a response to stricter carbon emissions standards throughout the world.
, - Jet Propulsion Laboratory - California Institute of Technology
Stephan: What a juxtaposition. On the one hand fact-based science and ingenuity allowed America to fly to Mars and land a rover the size of a car and a drone on the planet undamaged. On the other hand Texas Republican politicians living in an alt-right fantasy world can't assure the citizens of their state they will have electric power or even potable water during a storm, even though they knew what was coming and had been warned years ago they were unprepared.
The Perseverance Mars mission lands a rover the size of a car in the Jezero Crater. Credit: NASA
The agency’s latest and most complex mission to the Red Planet has touched down at Jezero Crater. Now it’s time to begin testing the health of the rover.
The largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers). Confirmation of the successful touchdown was announced in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST).
Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.
“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting […]
Stephan: Today if you. have been watching the news you have certainly seen stories about who or what is responsible for the utterly avoidable disaster that has befallen Texas. I listened and read particularly the Fox world fantasy media, and was struck by the lies and complete fabrications of the Republican officials, starting with Greg Abbott, the governor. At the same time, I kept going back to the amazing Perseverance Mission to Mars, and its success. The contrast was glaring. First, Abbott tried to blame wind and solar, despite the reality that alternatives constitute a lesser fraction of power generation in Texas. Then came the clarification when it became undeniable that the government's story was a fantasy. The fact is Texas is in the situation it finds itself in because the people of Texas voted into office incompetent ideologues, and they are now reaping the fruits of that choice, and the rest of us are watching a kind of Three Stooges movie about how the Republicans deal with climate change. we can only hope the citizens of the other Red value states observe and learn.
Temperatures in the state fell as low as 0 degrees Fahrenheit earlier this week, causing widespread disruption. Thermal energy sources, including gas, coal and nuclear energy were all affected due in part to frozen instruments.
But it was wind turbines which drew the attention of Sid Miller, Texas’s Commissioner of Agriculture. He said in a Facebook post Tuesday: “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas. The experiment failed big time. Governor Abbott’s Public Utility Commission appointees need to be fired and more gas, coal and oil infrastructure built.”
Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw said on Twitter that same day: “This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get as bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.”
However, Texas generates most of its energy from other sources including natural gas—a fossil […]
Paul P. Murphy, Rosa Flores, Konstantin Toropin and Sara Weisfeldt. , Reporters - CNN
Stephan: The thing about Republican grifters is that they are rarely subtle. It is always very obvious, to anyone who cares to take the time to look, that everything they do is geared to favor the rich people and corporations who fund them, giving them breaks lesser mortals, in their eyes, do not deserve. But even saying that it is rarely as blatant as this Florida story outlines.
Vanessa Baugh admitted on Thursday that she “wanted to make sure certain people were on the list” for vaccination after emails revealed that she directed county officials to create a list to let her and others jump the line. In response to criticism that county officials had only permitted residents from the two richest zip codes in the county to get vaccinated at the event, Baugh further admitted that she picked the zip codes herself.
In a public county commissioner meeting on Thursday, Baugh apologized for the criticism regarding the “pop-up” vaccination site,but said that if presented with the opportunity again, “I will do exactly what I did this time.” Baugh further explained that she “did exactly what (DeSantis) wanted” in organizing the vaccine drive.
On Tuesday, in another public county commissioner meeting, Baugh said that the vaccine drive was initiated by […]
Stephan: What goes around comes around. We are watching a new trend. The Democrats have learned from the Republicans led by McConnell, and now it is going to play the other way. And I predict the Democrats will increase their majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2022.
The policy that incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin is pursuing would make no change to the so-called “blue slip” process. Credit: Tom Williams/Getty
Senate Democrats are planning to continue the GOP’s approach to giving home-state senators veto power over lower court nominees — while granting freer rein to President Joe Biden’s circuit court nominees.
The policy that incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is pursuing would make no change to the so-called “blue slip” process that Republicans changed in 2017 to yank home-state senators’ power to block former President Donald Trump’s circuit court picks. While Democrats criticized Republicans for scrapping blue slips for Trump, they’re now signaling that after four years of bruising judicial confirmation battles, they’re not going to reinstate the obscure tradition they had defended.
“Chair Durbin has said on a number of occasions that there cannot be one set of rules for Republican nominees and another set of rules for Democratic nominees,” said a Senate Judiciary Committee Democratic aide.https://e5d4f188e53d717f86f2dbd416ac0864.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Then-Judiciary chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) cited delays from Democrats when he did away with blue […]
Stephan: In the last 45 days, we have witnessed things happen in the United States that five years ago I would not have thought possible, and it has left me shell shocked, and deeply concerned about the survival of democracy in America. More than that it has demonstrated to me once again the power of a group of people who hold a collective intention, and worldview. America's problem at its foundation is a problem of consciousness. And nowhere is this clearer than in Texas today. So I decided to focus today's edition on what is going on there. Both the catastrophes that plague Texas, the pandemic, and the power and water failure, should have been if not avoidable, in the sense of the Coronavirus, at least very less of a problem, and the power and water crisis, should never have happened at all.
