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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.
Never in the last century have so many people of one party walked away from a career in Congressional public office. I don’t think anything could make it clearer that the TCP have taken over the Republican Party and those in the House have no interest in actually governing to foster wellbeing. They have other agendas, other priorities, and Republicans who still care about keeping the United States as a democracy.
Hopefully, the November election will result in criminal Trump losing and both houses of Congress being under the control of the Democrats. I don’t say this as a partisan I say it as someone who believes the function of government should be fostering wellbeing. And the TCP/Republicans are stopping that from happening.
Republican Representative Jacob LaTurner (R-KS) Credit: Andrew Harnik / Getty
Another Republican announced Thursday he’s leaving the House and heading home.
Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS) declared his decision not to seek reelection in the fall in a public statement on X that both acknowledged and downplayed criticisms that his party has spurred chaos in the House of Representatives.
“Undoubtedly the current dysfunction on Capitol Hill is distressing,” LaTurner wrote. “But it almost always has been; we just didn’t see most of it.”
LaTurner, 36, said he left to pursue other opportunities, unspecified with the exception of the chance to spend more time with his wife Suzanne and their four young children.
“I remain optimistic about the future of this country not only because we have overcome more significant obstacles in the past, but that the vast majority of people I have served with are good and trying to do the right thing,” he wrote.
“It has become fashionable for some to fear for the future of this country and act as […]
On balance, I am not sure the internet is a positive influence in society. I see more and more stories about White supremacists organizing violence, the fake porn of barely pubescent girls circulated through their schools, the scamming of the elderly, and the weaponization of lies to manipulate voters. Then, today, I came across this one. And while all this damage is being done the American Congress behaves like cultish teenagers and nothing gets done. Based on the evidence it is clear the dark side of the internet is a constant social cancer.
Accounts branded with 764 were prevalent on Instagram, where users posted graphic images. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, says has banned 764-related accounts that violate its rules. Credit: Ali Winston / Instagram
WIRED collaborated with Der Spiegel, Recorder, and The Washington Post on this reporting. Each wrote separate stories that the news organizations agreed to publish in tandem. This story contains descriptions of abuse, self-harm, murder, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
It sounds like a cheap true-crime conspiracy: An international network of predators steeped in Satanism lure children from seemingly harmless online platforms like Discord, Minecraft, and Roblox and extort them to sexually exploit and grievously harm themselves. Some victims are even pushed to suicide.
Except it’s true.
A reporting consortium including Der Spiegel, Recorder, TheWashington Post, and WIRED has unearthed a sprawling ecosystem that has targeted thousands of people and victimized dozens, if not hundreds, of children using some of the internet’s biggest platforms. Law enforcement believes the “com” network encompasses a swath of interlocking groups with thousands of users, including hundreds of hardcore members who victimize children through coordinated online campaigns of extortion, doxing, swatting, and harassment.
This reporting consortium has obtained and analyzed more […]
Here is what looks like wonderful good news. As a person who has worn glasses or contacts since I was 8 years old, I immediately reacted with positive thoughts when I read this report. I will stay in touch with this emerging technology and keep SR readers up to date.
Professor Sutton at work. Credit: Stefanie Zingsheim / University of Sydney
In an interview with the Brisbane Times, an Australian ophthalmologist and biotech entrepreneur lays out his vision for a world in which curing blindness in millions of people worldwide is easy and can be done with a bit of cell replication and a 3D printer.
Professor Gerard Sutton is co-founder of Bienco, which he claims now possesses a product—both physical and intellectual—that will soon be able to mass-produce natural corneas for transplantation into the blind.
Cornea transplantation is the most common way of restoring lost sight, but it’s a very technical procedure that relies on donors. The thin see-through “windscreen” of the eyeball, damage or disease to the cornea is a major cause of non-hereditary blindness worldwide.
In the interview, Sutton’s voice shrinks as he recalls a trip he took to Myanmar in 2004 when he was hoping to help the situation of blindness from the previous civil war by training surgeons to perform cornea transplants. On ice, he said, he had brought along […]
I have been telling you for 30 years that Republican governance at any level is always inferior in terms of average individual and social wellbeing when compared with Democrat governance. The data on this is irrefutable. It is one of the tragedies of U.S. history that about a third of Americans either don’t understand this or are not intelligent enough to comprehend it. Here is the latest data to confirm what I am saying.
Key findings
Since 1949, there has been a Democratic advantage in the average performance of key macroeconomic indicators measuring economic health, including:
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
Job growth
Unemployment rate
Growth in inflation-adjusted wages
Growth of market-based incomes per capita
Inflation
Interest rates
This Democratic advantage is across the board in all variables we measure but strongest in private-sector outcomes—notably, business investment, job growth, and the growth of market-based incomes.
Household income growth (adjusted for inflation) was faster on average and far more equal during Democratic administrations, and the Democratic advantage shows up for every group.
Why this matters
We suspect that the simple facts on economic performance during Democratic and Republican administrations aren’t well known. Providing accurate economic information at a time of rampant misinformation supports an informed citizenry.
Full Report
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance…The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous: it holds almost regardless of how you define success. By many measures, the performance gap is startlingly large. (Blinder and Watson 2016)
This quote is not from an op-ed written by a political […]
The United States is a declining society, and is seen as such by the other developed democracies, as vouchsafed by hard data. Here is the latest from Gallup.
LONDON, U.K. — For the first time in almost two decades of polling, the United States now lags behind most of the other leading industrialized nations in the G7 across a range of Gallup indicators. The U.S. trails several G7 countries when it comes to its own people’s confidence in the national government and key institutions — including the military and the judiciary — as well as the ability of its people to meet their basic needs.
Americans No Longer Most Confident in Military
Since 2006, Americans’ confidence in the nation’s military has stood out among the G7. Even though it continues to spend more on its military than most nations on Earth combined, Americans’ confidence in their armed forces dipped to a new low of 81% in 2023, for the first time falling significantly below the ratings of another G7 member country (France).
Today I did my podcast for Friday focused on how materialism is destroying the earth’s matrix of life. I covered a lot of material that few people, except those doing the actual research, know about or talk about. Here is yet another example of what I mean. We are creating a tragedy over which future generations will condemn us passionately.
Researchers listening to soundscapes in the soil to learn more about its biodiversity. Credit: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Sounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become “acoustic fossils” without urgent action to halt environmental destruction, international experts have warned.
As technology develops, sound has become an increasingly important way of measuring the health and biodiversity of ecosystems: our forests, soils and oceans all produce their own acoustic signatures. Scientists who use ecoacoustics to measure habitats and species say that quiet is falling across thousands of habitats, as the planet witnesses extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. Disappearing or losing volume along with them are many familiar sounds: the morning calls of birds, rustle of mammals through undergrowth and summer hum of insects.
Today, tuning into some ecosystems reveals a “deathly silence”, said Prof Steve Simpson from the University of Bristol. “It is that race against time – we’ve only just discovered that they make such sounds, […]
Because America has become a society that has only one social priority, profit, we have distorted all of our values. Here is but one of many examples. Because of this distortion college has become a profit source instead of something society wants everyone to have a chance at. For those who are able to go debt is an issue shaping their lives. Seventy-one percent who do go to college, whether they finish or not end up with a debt that alters their lives. Here is the data, and it is very sad.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seventy-one percent of all currently enrolled college students or previously enrolled students who stopped out of their program before completing it say they have delayed at least one major life event because of their student loans.
The most commonly delayed event is purchasing a home, named by 29% of borrowers, followed closely by buying a car (28%), moving out of their parents’ home (22%) and starting their own business (20%). Fifteen percent of these borrowers also report they have delayed having children because of their student loans, and 13% have delayed marriage.
Among previously enrolled students, 35% say their student loans have kept them from reenrolling in a postsecondary program and finishing their degree, exceeding the percentage who have delayed buying a home, buying a car or other events.
The latest results are from the Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2024 State of Higher Education Study, conducted Oct. 9-Nov. 16, 2023, via a web survey with 14,032 current and prospective college students. This includes 6,015 students enrolled in a post-high school education program (certificate, associate or bachelor’s degree), 5,012 adults not currently enrolled […]
Because of the TCP/Republican Putin supporters in the House the United States is destroying its international reputation and putting itself at grave risk by blocking the support Ukraine needs. I am ashamed of what these cretins are doing to our country, and you should be too.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Vilnius, Lithuania, on April 11. He told “PBS NewsHour” that further U.S. aid was crucial to Ukraine. Credit: Petras Malukas / Getty
Russia destroyed a thermal power plant in Kyiv because Ukraine had run out of missiles to defend it, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as he warned that without further U.S. aid to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s aggression, Ukraine would “have no chance of winning.”
Zelensky told PBS NewsHour that the destruction of the Trypilska thermal power plant on April 11—which cut out the generating capacity of Centrenergo, an energy company the capital depends on—was the result of the country having “zero missiles.”
“Eleven missiles were headed towards it. The first seven, we took down,” he said in the interview released on April 16. He added that the other four missiles destroyed the plant. “Why?” Zelensky continued. “We ran out of all missiles.”
