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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: I have been waiting for one of the polling research groups to publish hard data on how Americans feel about the debacle in the Senate. Here it is. Note particularly the numbers on Republicans.
Nearly three in five Americans believe President Donald Trump should have been convicted in the Senate impeachment trial, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll that fielded immediately after the trial concluded. A similar number believe the evidence presented in the trial was strong; however, a strong majority believe the senators voted not based on facts in the case, but on partisan politics.
1. Most Americans believe Trump should have been convicted in the second impeachment trial. However, partisans remained as deeply divided as they were before the trial began.
Overall, 58% believe Trump should have been convicted, and a similar number (61%) say the charges were serious enough for him to be impeached and put on trial.
While a vast majority of Democrats (88%) and most independents (64%) believe Trump should have been convicted, just 14% of Republicans agree.
These numbers do not reflect any growth or change in levels of support for impeachment compared to the time period before the trial.
2. While most believe the evidence against Trump was serious, ultimately the American public feels the senators acted from […]
Sarah Kennedy and Chavo Bart, - Yale University Climate Connections
Stephan: This is the first report I have seen that directly addresses the issue of coastal nuclear waste storage facilities and the threat sea rise poses to these vulnerable sites. What could that mean? Imagine a dozen Fukushimas occurring at the same time.
Coastal nuclear plant Credit: GorissM/Flickr
Nuclear power is a source of low-carbon electricity, but producing it creates dangerous radioactive waste that needs to be stored safely and permanently.
Recent research suggests that as seas rise, some nuclear waste storage facilities are at risk of flooding or storm damage.
“We really focused in to say, ‘OK, well, how many plants might actually be subject to these risks?’” says Sarah Jordaan of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Her team looked at 13 facilities along the U.S. coast.
They found that if seas rise about six feet – which is possible by the end of the century – more than half of the waste storage sites would be directly along the water’s edge or even surrounded by water.
So she says it’s critical to anticipate these long-term vulnerabilities and take action.
“There are certainly ways that those risks can be managed now,” Jordaan says.
For example, after five years, spent fuel can be moved to dry casks. This is a safer long-term storage method than the cooling pools where a lot of […]
Stephan: The Trump administration did everything they could to protect the corporations who produce these "forever" chemicals. Now more good news from the Biden administration; they are going to completely reverse this and get these chemicals out of the culture and your body, and the bodies of your children.
Industrial “forever chemicals” found in hundreds of consumer goods and linked to adverse health effects may face new regulations under the Biden administration.
Why it matters: Environmental groups and members of Congress are calling on President Biden to follow through with his promise to designate the long-ignored and largely unregulated synthetic chemicals, which can last for hundreds of years without breaking down, as hazardous substances.
They’re also calling for him to set enforceable limits for the chemicals in the Safe Drinking Water Act and to fund toxicity research on them.
How they work: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — dubbed “forever chemicals” for their durability — are a family of nearly 5,000 types of chemicals that resist degradation by repelling oil and water and withstanding high temperatures.
They are commonly found in nonstick, water-repellent and fire-resistant products, including cookware, and some food packaging.
Because of their strength, PFAS can remain in the environment while accumulating in fish, wildlife and humans.
Of note: There are currently no national drinking water standards for PFAS nor […]
Stephan: This is excellent good news. One of the greatest powers ordinary people have in a profit is the only social priority society like America's is to stop buying something, or shopping in a particular store or chain. It is a tactic straight out of The 8 Laws of Change. For instance, my wife and I never go into a Hobby Lobby, or a Chick-Fil-A. We make a point to learn whether a company is owned by fascists, and we never shop there again. You can do the same. When enough of us do that these corporations either change or go out of business.
Florida-based grocery chain operates more than 1,200 stores across seven south-eastern states. Photograph: Larry Marano/REX/Shutterstock
Wendy Mize’s family grew up on Publix, disciples to the giant supermarket chain’s empirical marketing slogan: “Where shopping is a pleasure”. As infants, her three daughters wore diapers bought from the Publix baby club. As children, they munched on free cookies from the bakery. There were even perks for the family’s pets, who are proud members of Publix Paws.
But now the decades-long love affair is over. After a member of Publix’s founding family donated $300,000 to the Donald Trump rally that preceded January’s deadly Capitol riots, Mize is pulling out of what she says has become “an abusive, dysfunctional relationship”, and joining others in a boycott of the Florida-based grocery chain that operates more than 1,200 stores across seven south-eastern states.
“It was the last straw,” said Mize, 57, an advertising copywriter from Orlando whose youngest twin daughters are now 19. “Insurrection at the Capitol, images of the police officer with his head being crushed, individuals dressed as Vikings on the floor of the Senate… we’re not going […]
Stephan: Yet another account of mass murder as a result of Trump policies. Trump is the largest perpetrator of mass murder in American history.
rump signs House Joint Resolution 41, removing some Dodd-Frank regulations on oil and gas companies, on Feb. 14, 2017. Credit: Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty
A new report by a commission of health experts found 22,000 deaths in 2019 were caused by Trump‘s failed environmental policies alone.
The report was published this week by The Lancet, an esteemed medical journal whose “wade into the politics behind health policy is highly unusual,” Bloomberg Green reported. But while the journal’s editor Richard Horton has faced controversy before, the study was co-authored by 33 scientists, signaling “a changing time,” Gretchen Goldman, a research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Bloomberg Green.
“If you told me four years ago that scientific journals would be speaking out against Trump, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Goldman told Bloomberg Green. “But since then, there has been quite a shift, reflecting both the severity of what Trump did as well as the changing willingness of the scientific community to engage in policy conversations.”
During his administration, Trump rolled back 84 […]
Molly Schwartz, Digita Media Fellow - Mother Jones
Stephan: More good news from the Biden administration. Biden is committed to canceling all Trump environmental policies replacing them with policies that promote wellbeing.
Biden signs Executive Order to change American climate change policies. Credit: Adam Schultz/White Houses/Planet Pix/ZUMA
After four long years of the crisis being officially ignored, stopping climate change is back on the White House agenda.
President Joe Biden’s first two weeks in office have been filled with a flurry of executive orders that aim to put the United States back on course to cut carbon emissions and resume a place of global leadership on climate action. They present a stark contrast to the first hundred days of then President Donald Trump’s term, when he immediately set to work unraveling the Obama administration’s environmental policies, starting with the appointment of Scott Pruitt, a known climate change skeptic, to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“He appointed people who were the very antithesis to the agencies that they led,” Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones’ environmental politics and policy reporter, tells Jamilah King on the Mother Jones Podcast. “President [Trump] himself really promoted this idea of climate denial and anti-science theory.”
Stephan: Finally, a president who is willing to address America's gun psychosis obsession. Am I being partisan and unfair to say that? Consider, 41,000 men, women, and children in America died of gunfire during the 365 days of 2020. Twenty died on the last day of the year. There is no other developed nation on earth with numbers anything like that. What would you call it? And please don't say 2nd Amendment rights. The Founders would never have permitted this kind of gun violence; they meant something very specific in the 2nd Amendment, and it had nothing to do with what is happening in the country today.
Biden in his office
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden on Sunday called on Congress to institute “commonsense gun law reforms,” including widespread firearm sales background checks and a ban on assault weapons — highlighting an “epidemic of gun violence” in the US on the third anniversary of the deadly Parkland school shooting.
“Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said in a statement.”
This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” the statement reads. “We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer.”
The call from Biden comes three years after a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, leaving 17 people dead. The tragedy led many of the survivors to speak out against gun violence and confront […]
Stephan: Little seemingly mundane things like this tell us the culture is changing, an accommodation of trends is occurring that will produce a larger effect.
Closeup image of a woman holding and choosing credit card to use
The credit cards that dominate the spending habits of so many consumers, from companies that range from Mastercard to Visa and even Apple with its Apple Card, are slowly changing the look and feel that consumers have come to expect from these card products.
Credit cards are increasingly taking on a vertical orientation.
This comes as apps like TikTok and Instagram acclimate the world toward a vertically scrolling feed, and it also reflects how most consumers use their credit cards anyway — by inserting them into chip readers vertically, for example.
Here’s something I bet most you didn’t see coming: TikTok and Instagram are such pervasive cultural forces in the world today, they’re starting to quietly influence the design of — credit cards, of all things.
In recent days, PayPal released new debit and credit card vertical designs for its Venmo app, which a company executive said was partly inspired by the vertical orientation of those popular social media apps. Daniela Jorge, vice president of design […]
