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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.
The christofascist Republicans have made their next move clear: eliminate no-fault divorce. They want to take the United States back to the 1950s, and the years before that. This is their next move to control women. If you are a woman, and you vote for a Republican in November, you are saying that you choose to be submissive to your husband, and let him through the laws control you, and make it very difficult for you to get away. I had seen some earlier reports about this trend but didn’t run them because I thought it was too fringe to be taken seriously. I was wrong. Read this article carefully; it will help you realize what the Republicans really have in mind.
Some lawmakers are talking about turning back the clock on divorce law. Credit: Mofles/ Getty / iStockphoto
Before the 1960s, it was really hard to get divorced in America.
Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.
Then came a revolution: In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan of California (who was himself divorced) signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce law, allowing people to end their marriages without proving they’d been wronged. The move was a recognition that “people were going to get out of marriages,” Zug said, and gave them a way to do that without resorting to subterfuge. Similar laws soon […]
JANELL FETTEROLF and STEPHANIE KRAMER, - Pew Research Center
Stephan:
Pew Research Center has recently published a very sad story about America: “Americans are less likely than people abroad to feel close to others in their country and community, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 24 nations. This is especially the case among certain groups of Americans, including younger adults, those with lower incomes and less education, those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and those who are religiously unaffiliated. This is part of the Great Schism Trend, and gives yet another perspective on how American society is breaking apart.
Americans are less likely than people abroad to feel close to others in their country and community, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 24 nations. This is especially the case among certain groups of Americans, including younger adults, those with lower incomes and less education, those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and those who are religiously unaffiliated.
How we did this
Across all 24 countries surveyed, a median of 83% of adults say they feel very or somewhat close to other people in their country. A majority of U.S. adults (66%) also hold this view, but Americans are the least likely among those in the countries surveyed to do so.
Even fewer Americans feel close to people in their local community: 54% feel a connection to others near them, compared with a median of 78% of adults across all 24 countries. South Korea is the only country with a lower share of adults who feel connected with others in their community (50%).
Feeling close to other Americans
Some Americans are less likely than others to feel a connection to […]
Here is yet another example that you rarely hear anyone talk about showing how women, young girls in this case really, are controlled by adult men. The more research I do on this subject the more I realize what a big factor it is in American society.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
As more states make child marriage illegal, the places where it is still lawful are emerging as havens for ceremonies which can devastate the lives of young people. A Newsweek investigation reveals the disturbing reality that a lack of unified action against child marriage can establish.
Californian Sara Tasneem was just 15 when her father arranged for her be married in a spiritual ceremony to a stranger almost twice her age.
She was visibly pregnant, she said, when they left the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-90s to embark on a road trip to Reno, Nevada, where she was legally married. “Nobody asked me if this was something that I wanted,” she told Newsweek.
“I was a very petite teenager and I was clearly pregnant… “Nobody asked me, ‘do you want me to call your mom?’ Nothing. That day, basically, I signed everything away.”
At the time, Nevada law permitted minors to marry with the consent of one parent.
“It only took a signature from a parent or guardian, basically on a permission slip that was notarized,” she said.
Yet another report on the Congressional Republicans seeking to control how Americans are able to conduct their own reproductive process. Anyone who knows someone who has had to use IVF for a woman to get pregnant knows what a desperate, expensive, difficult process it is. A couple has to really, really, want to have a child to have to resort to IVF. However, the christofascist Republcians who maintain a fertilized egg has the full rights of an incarnated person want the state, not individuals, to oversee every aspect of reproduction.
A senior embryologist at West Coast Fertility Centers in Fountain Valley, California, adds media to petri dishes containing embryos, before freezing the embryos, on February 29. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / The Washington Post / Getty
Senate Republicans voted Thursday to block a bill put forward by Democrats that would guarantee access to in vitro fertilization nationwide.
The legislation failed to advance in a procedural vote by a tally of 48-47. It needed 60 votes to advance. Republicans criticized the Democrat-led legislation as unnecessary overreach and a political show vote.
“Why should we vote for a bill that fixes a non-existent problem? There’s not a problem. There’s no restrictions on IVF, nor should there be,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, told reporters.
The vote is part of a broader push by Senate Democrats to draw a contrast with Republicans over reproductive health care in the run up to the November elections. Democrats are highlighting the issue this month, which marks the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
You may not realize it, polls seem to show most Americans don’t, but the United States is in the middle of a religious war. Christianity although he talks endlessly about Jesus, actually has almost nothing to do with Jesus’ teachings. Instead, this is a christofascist war against authentic American followers of Jesus, secular Americans, and people who support genuine democracy. This is same same war as the Taliban war in Afghanistan, only this time the misuse of religion is about Christianity instead of Islam.
Messengers raise their ballots in support of a resolution put up for vote during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis on Tuesday. Credit: Doug McSchooler / AP
The largest Protestant group in the US has condemned the use of in vitro fertilization, a move that is sure to inflame the already white-hot battle over IVF and reproductive rights in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v Wade.
On Wednesday, during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, delegates voted in favor of a resolution that urges Southern Baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation”.
The resolution in effect calls on the Southern Baptist Convention – a group that includes nearly 50,000 churches and almost 13 million members – to avoid IVF.
The success of the resolution is a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, swathes of which have long opposed IVF on the grounds that providers create embryos that are not implanted in a woman’s uterus or are set aside […]
Tom Costello and Corky Siemaszko, Correspondent | Senior Reporter - NBC News
Stephan:
If you watch the Fox propaganda network or any local channel of the Sinclair Network you think that crime is rising and out of control. It is a standard MAGAt Republican lie. And that is just what it is, a deliberate example of the weaponization of misinformation for political purposes. In fact, as the FBI has just reported crime during the Biden administration has been dramatically declining.
To access the actual FBI report: https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2024-quarterly-crime-report-and-use-of-force-data-update
The latest FBI statistics point to a “historic” drop in crime in the first quarter of this year, Attorney General Merrick Garland says.
And this, after a year in which the murder rate fell at one the fastest rates ever recorded, a top criminologist added.
“This should be good news for everybody,” criminologist Jeff Asher, who analyzed the FBI numbers, told NBC News. “But it’s also early June and the trend of the nation’s crime rate is always uncertain.”
The rate of violent and property crimes dropped precipitously in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to quarterly statistics released Monday by the FBI known as the Uniform Crime Report.
The murder rate fell by 26.4%, reported rapes decreased by 25.7%, robberies fell by 17.8%, aggravated assault fell by 12.5%, and the overall violent crime rate went down by 15.2%, the statistics show.
Reported property crimes also decreased by 15.1%, according to the UCR report, which the FBI compiles using crime statistics supplied to the agency by law enforcement agencies across the U.S.
You may think the Fox propaganda channel is nothing but the weaponization of misinformation to support the MAGAt Republicans, and it certainly Is just that. What you may not know, few seem to, is that Sinclair Broadcasting which owns or operates nearly 200 local channels, is the same thing, spewing the same kind of crap. So I am publishing a list of all those local channels. Notice they are often affiliated with the big broadcast networks. I urge you to go through the list and don’t watch a Sinclair channel, or pay attention to its political news, and alert your family and friends about the real nature of Sinclair Broadcasting, owned by a Trump MAGAt supporter, David Smith.
Here is some important good news that is getting almost no media coverage at all. I searched for half an hour to find a story that explained. it. While criminal Trump is telling the oligarchs and the corporations they control how he is going to reduce their taxes, President Biden is making a major move, as this article describes, to improve your financial wellbeing. You’d think this would be a major story but it is not and, I think, this is telling us something important about the media’s failure to cover major changes in people’s lives. It is also making it clear that anyone who votes for the Republicans and criminal Trump will have no one to blame but themselves.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on protecting consumers from hidden junk fees as CEO of xBk Tobi Parks, center, and CEO of DICE Phil Hutcheon, left, listen during an event at the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on June 15, 2023, in Washington, DC. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty
President Joe Biden has embraced a decidedly pro-consumer agenda at a time when many Americans aren’t feeling confident about the state of the economy — even though it may do little to assure voters whose primary economic concern is higher prices.
Through his executive authority, Biden has taken steps to combat “junk fees” — hidden fees that make everything from airline bookings to concert tickets more expensive than their sticker price, but also just feel like shady corporate attempts to get the better of consumers. He has also required companies to provide more transparency in their pricing.
His administration has also tackled monopolies like it’s the Roosevelt era, filing a flurry […]
