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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.
Greg Miller and Missy Ryan, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: Here is the latest in Trump's attempt to both sabotage Biden, but also to carry out what is obviously some kind of secret plan to affect national security. Personally, I think it is all an attempt to destroy the records of the secret dealings Trump had with the Russians, Turkey and other authoritarian governments where Trump has personal financial interests.
The Pentagon is pictured on Oct. 9, 2020. It lies in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters
The Trump administration has refused to allow members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to meet with officials at U.S. intelligence agencies that are controlled by the Pentagon, undermining prospects for a smooth transfer of power, current and former U.S. officials said.
The officials said the Biden team has not been able to engage with leaders at the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other military-run spy services with classified budgets and global espionage platforms.
The Defense Department rejected requests from the Biden team this week, the officials said, despite a General Services Administration decision Nov. 23 clearing the way for federal agencies to meet with representatives of the incoming administration.
The delays came even as Biden advisers spent much of this week meeting with officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA, intelligence agencies that are independent of the Defense Department.
But Pentagon officials said their agency was taking steps required to provide outside […]
Stephan: Here is yet another proof that fostering wellbeing is more efficient, more productive, easier to implement, nicer to live under, and much much cheaper.
Happy worker Credit: Getty
For many companies, their bottom line is–well–the bottom line, and rightfully so, especially during this pandemic. But what research shows us is that there is tremendous value in ensuring employees are well supported throughout challenging times, and it’s not just about good benefits.
Gallup research has found that people thriving in the five elements of wellbeing–career, social, financial, physical, and community–are better employees. Career wellbeing is defined as liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals; physical wellbeing comprises having good health and enough energy to get things done daily; social wellbeing means having supportive relationships and love in your life; community wellbeing is liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community; and financial wellbeing centers on managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security.
Gallup’s research has established that wellbeing is about much more than just physical wellness or happiness. Here are four ways employees thriving in all five elements of wellbeing demonstrate better performance.
They Rebound Better Following Adversity
Employees whose wellbeing is properly maintained are 36 percent more likely to report a full recovery after an illness, injury, or hardship. According to the
Stephan: We are beginning to see what a Trumpian Supreme Court is going to be like. All of his appointments, in my opinion, are people who should never have been nominated, let alone approved by the Republican Senate, to sit on the highest court in the land. By appointing christofascists, particularly Amy Coney Barrett a lifelong cultist, to join Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, he has restructured how the law will be interpreted in the United States for a generation.
One week ago today the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a group of New York churches and synagogues, overruling Governor Cuomo and declaring that even in a deadly pandemic that now is breaking new records, houses of worship are exempt from coronavirus restrictions on attendance maximums.
Now, in what experts are calling an “essentially unprecedented” and “unusual move,” the Supreme Court has just basically pressured a California trial judge to obey its ruling in the New York case.
Stephan: Here is a fascinating report on a research paper published in Frontiers in Physics. I think you will find the symmetry very interesting.
The neurology of the human brain.
An astrophysicist at the University of Bologna and a neurosurgeon at the University of Verona have claimed that the brain resembles the universe. The two Italian researchers came up with the galaxy-brain theory that is out of this world: The structures of the perceptible universe, they say, are astonishingly comparable to the neuronal networks of the human brain.
University of Bologna astrophysicist Franco Vazza and University of Verona neurosurgeon Alberto Feletti document the extraordinary similarities between the cosmic network of galaxies and the complex web of neurons in the human brain. The detailed study was published in the journal Frontiers in Physics showcasing the human brain has roughly 27 orders of magnitude separated in scale, while similarly, the composition of the cosmic web shows comparable levels of complexity and self-organization, according to the researchers.
The brain itself contains an estimated 69 billion neurons, while the visible universe is comprised of at least 100 billion galaxies, strung together like a mesh network. Even more intriguing both galaxies and neurons only […]
Stephan: This is, as the headline says, a big deal. It is also the latest advance in the CRISPR technology that readers should be familar with, because SR has been covering it since it began (See SR archives). I have followed it so closely because this is the technology that is going to create Homo Superior. However, this development holds the promise of producing a cure for AIDS.
Scanning electron micrograph of HIV particles infecting a human H9 T cell Credit: Getty
With multiple coronavirus vaccines being produced as we speak, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have an end in sight, though the HIV pandemic continues after more than 40 years. That might seem like a head-scratcher: why is HIV, a virus we’ve known about for decades, so much harder to cure than a virus discovered just last year? Part of the reason is that HIV, as a retrovirus, is a more complex virus to vaccinate against than SARS-CoV-2 — hence why a vaccine or other cure has eluded scientists for decades.
Now, a surprising new study on a related retrovirus shows incredible promise for the potential to develop a cure for HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus. In an article published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, scientists revealed that they had used CRISPR – a genetic technology that can alter DNA and whose developers won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — to successfully edit SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), […]
Stephan: Every day a new Trumpian grift is reported in the media. Think about this: had the Senate Republicans had any sense of morality and ethics this criminal could have been removed from office months ago, and this constant rain of grifts and crimes could have been avoided. I am surprised more people in media are not talking about this.
Department of Justice
The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court.
The case is the latest legal twist in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration after several of his top advisers have been convicted of federal criminal charges and as the possibility rises of Trump giving pardons to those who’ve been loyal to him.
The disclosure is in 20 pages of partially redacted documents made public by the DC District Court on Tuesday afternoon. The records show Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s review in August of a request from prosecutors to access documents obtained in a search as part of a bribery-for-pardon investigation.
The filings don’t reveal a timeline of the alleged scheme, or any names of people potentially involved, except that communications between people including at least one lawyer were seized from an office that was raided sometime before the end of this summer.
Stephan: I completely agree with this essay. I think all the Trump attorneys starting with Barr should be disbarred. Many on the staff should go to prison, including Trump. I understand that 70 million dim racist Americans will be upset, but if there is no accountability then the next Republican autocrat to come along will feel free to do what Trump has done, only not as stupidly, because there were no consequences for Trump and his orcs.
Donald Trump will not serve a second term. The litigation launched by his campaign and the Republican Party to overturn the election results has no chance of preventing Joe Biden from swearing the oath of office on January 20—as Trump himself seemed to haltingly recognize last week after his administration finally allowed the presidential transition to begin. But even though the worst has not come to pass, Trump and his team are doing lasting damage to American democracy as the president struggles to come to grips with the reality of his loss. And yet, these lawyers and officials will likely face no real consequences for their actions—and if they do, those repercussions will not be enough to address the scale of the problem.
Credit: Universal Images Group/ / Getty/ The Atlantic
The odds that Trump would accept an election loss were always slim. In 2016, he promised to accept the election results only “if I win.” He showed no sign of changing his tune in the run-up to the 2020 election. “We’re going to have to see what happens,” he
Stephan: When I read this story about a Republican politician in the Marshall Islands -- The Republic of the Marshall Islands is now a sovereign state in free association with the United States -- in a British paper I was left with the feeling that there is no level to which members of the Republican Party will not sink, no limit to what they will do. My personal feeling is the Republican Party should be dissolved, and members barred from holding office. It is basically a racist christofascist criminal organization.
Two children look at the flooding in a house on the Marshall Islands in 2014. The low-lying Pacific nation is among one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rise from climate change Credit: AFP/Getty
A former politician has been sentenced to six years for running an illegal adoption racket which took advantage of impoverished women from the Marshall Islands, a low-lying nation in the Pacific Ocean, where more and more citizens are being forced to flee because of the climate crisis.
Paul Petersen, a onetime Republican county assessor who was also an adoption attorney, illegally paid women to come to the US to give up their babies to Americans. Petersen had at least 70 adoptions cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas over three years.
Petersen “manipulated birth mothers into consenting to adoptions they did not fully understand,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Fowlkes of the Western District of Arkansas.
Judge Timothy Brooks, who imposed the sentence from Fayetteville, Arkansas on Tuesday, said that Petersen abused his position as an attorney by misleading or instructing others to lie to courts in adoptions that wouldn’t […]
