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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.
Well, today one of criminal Trump’s trials has started. His worshipper’s and Trump himself constantly wail that he is being mistreated and victimized. In fact, as this report spells out in detail no person in American history has had so many special and exceptional treatments. Any other defendant would long ago have been sent to prison. What starts today is going to have an enormous effect on the legal system of the United States — for good or ill.
Criminal Donald Trump appears in court for his first arraignment, on April 4, 2023, in New York. Credit: Steven Hirsch
A firebrand politician named Donald is about to stand trial. Just a few days before jury selection, he goes on TV to slam the charges as baseless and biased.
“The FBI and the Justice Department,” he insists, have “targeted” their political opponents in a burst of partisan persecution.
The rhetoric sounds familiar, but this is not a story about Donald Trump. It’s about a man named Don Hill, a former Dallas City Council member who was facing bribery charges 15 years ago.
The telltale clue that this isn’t about Trump is what happened next: The judge, upset by the attempt to taint the jury pool, slapped the politician-turned-defendant with criminal contempt and ultimately sentenced him to 30 days in jail for violating a gag order.
Today, Trump routinely spouts invective far more inflammatory than anything Hill said. He denigrates prosecutors. He lies about his cases. He vilifies the
I have become evermore concerned that AI is going to destroy humanity because we are not taking the steps we should to control it. Greed and a lust for power are devouring us. But there is still a chance if we can awaken to making fostering wellbeing our first priority. This is the best article I have read about what is going on, and what needs to be done to save us. Read it carefully.
President Joe Biden hands Vice President Kamala Harris the pen he used to sign a new executive order regarding artificial intelligence during an event in the White House on Oct. 30, 2023. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Just over 10 months ago, the U.S. Senate started considering what the nation should do about the rise of artificial intelligence. I was there, testifying in front of the Senate hearing that kicked off months of frenzied AI focus on Capitol Hill, alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and IBM’s Christina Montgomery. We answered question after question on how to regulate AI and what was at stake.
The overwhelming, bipartisan sense of the room was that the United States needed to address AI policy, urgently. Yet so far not one major piece of AI legislation has reached the floor.
At the time, Democrats and Republicans agreed that the Senate had been too slow to act on the explosive rise of social media, and the clear […]
This is a horrifying study of the state of elementary and high school education in the United States. There is no other developed democracy in the world that is experiencing anything remotely like the gun violence happening in America. It should be a matter of national shame but, instead, the TCP/Republican approach is to arm teachers so they go around in their schools carrying a gun. Really, they are actually proposing that.
Twenty-five years after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, a majority of public K-12 teachers (59%) say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school. This includes 18% who say they’re extremely or very worried, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
How we did this
Another 31% of teachers say they are not too worried about a shooting occurring at their school. Only 7% of teachers say they are not at all worried.
About a quarter of teachers (23%) say they experienced a lockdown in the 2022-23 school year because of a gun or suspicion of a gun at their school. Some 15% say this happened once during the year, and 8% say this happened more than once.
High school teachers are most likely to report experiencing these lockdowns: 34% say their school went on at […]
I have been watching the TCPs/Republicans trying to block the forgiving of student college debt and trying to figure out why they would be doing that, other than that they have no apparent interest in fostering the wellbeing of society. This is so clear that I continue to be stunned that the people who vote for these churls don’t seem to get that the people they are electing don’t give a damn about them. All they care about is status and power as they make clear almost every day. I know this will be taken as a partisan statement but it is not. Look at the social outcome data. TCP/Republican governance always produces inferior social wellbeing.
Credit: MD Duran / Unsplash
This Tuesday, seven states, led by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General, sued the Biden administration to stop his most recent attempt to reduce student debt. In a separate lawsuit, ten other Republican-controlled states filed a separate lawsuit to try to block the same Biden effort.
The week before, somebody slipped this little gem into Maria Cantwell’s must-pass legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (my inquiry to her press office was never answered):
“The Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Attorney General may not take any action to cancel or forgive the outstanding balances, or portion of balances, on any Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, or otherwise modify the terms or conditions of a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, made to an eligible student, except as authorized by an Act of Congress.”
In other words, it appears, they’re trying to use the force of law to prevent President Biden from forgiving a large category of student loans. As Forbes noted:
This is one of the most interesting stories I have seen about the recent eclipse, and I thought you might also find it interesting.
The April 8 eclipse as seen from Pinnacle Mountain State Park outside Little Rock, Ark. Credit: Lee Hedgepeth / Inside Climate News
Yesterday, all eyes pointed toward the sky as millions of people across parts of the U.S., Canada and Mexico witnessed the moon temporarily shroud the sun.
People traveled from around the country and world into the “path of totality” for this rare celestial event. Analysts projected that spending surrounding the total solar eclipse—such as booking hotels or dining out—could reach as high as as $6 billion. That’s about $300 million more than the Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour brought in for local economies within her path of totality during 2023, reported the Morning Brew.
For others, the eclipse offered a unique opportunity to study the environmental impacts of this temporary darkness—from unusual animal behaviors to solar power disruptions. Today, I wanted to spotlight some of these efforts and what experts have learned so far.
Solar Shrouding: For energy experts, a natural first place […]
This article caught my attention, and I bring it to yours because it makes very clear that new technologies designed to cope with climate change are not always the initial successes they are originally thought to be, and it requires further changes in subsequent generations of the technology to get the benefit being sought. All of this takes time and experience, and we are running out of time, and we have a Congress so dysfunctional they’re not even interested.
Leafy vegetables grow indoors at Eden Green Technology in Cleburne, Texas Credit: Nitashia Johnson / The Washington Post
No one would argue that the climate in North Texas is ideal for growing lettuce, a crop that thrives when there’s a chill in the air. But the region’s broiling summers are of no concern to Eddy Badrina, chief executive of Eden Green Technology, a vertical, hydroponic greenhouse company just outside Dallas.
The company, which sells its leafy greens to Walmart, controls every aspect of a plant’s life. At its 82,500-square-foot facility, cool air is pumped in to create the ideal microclimate around each head of baby butterhead and romaine lettuce. Seven miles of pipes deliver nutrient-rich water. Although natural light floods the space — setting it apart from vertical farms that block out the sun in favor of controlled lighting — additional LED lights obey a programmed algorithm directing them to shine just the right amount of light on each […]
James Temple, Staff Writer - MIT Technology Review
Stephan:
This is yet another example of the subtle complexities humanity faces as we attempt to deal with the processes of climate change we have set in motion that threaten our existence. It is becoming ever more clear as well that you don’t want to live in a state controlled by the TCP (former Republican Party). The TCPs are deeply committed to taking their state back the 19th century, where women were dominated, White supremacy was in power, and people were less educated and more easily manipulated. I understand now why the remote viewers in my 2050-2060 projects describe the United States as still existing but with real power having devolved down to the states, and groups of states, and America being no longer the world leader of democracy.
Credit: Getty
Usually when we talk about climate change, the focus is squarely on the role that greenhouse-gas emissions play in driving up global temperatures, and rightly so. But another important, less-known phenomenon is also heating up the planet: reductions in other types of pollution.
In particular, the world’s power plants, factories, and ships are pumping much less sulfur dioxide into the air, thanks to an increasingly strictset of globalpollution regulations. Sulfur dioxide creates aerosol particles in the atmosphere that can directly reflect sunlight back into space or act as the “condensation nuclei” around which cloud droplets form. More or thicker clouds, in turn, also cast away more sunlight. So when we clean up pollution, we also ease this cooling effect.
Before we go any further, let me stress: cutting air pollution is smart public policy that has unequivocally saved lives and prevented terrible suffering.
The fine particulate matter produced by burning coal, gas, wood, and other biomatter is responsible for millions of premature deaths every year through cardiovascular […]
In yesterday’s SR I tried to give you a sense of the growing zeitgeist of civil violence I am seeing in a wide spectrum of media. This is particularly a White male Republican (what I now call TCP) phenomenon, and it is getting worse each day as we move closer to the November election. Here is an example of what I mean.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman Credit: screengrab / X
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman last week, according to the report, was asked by Donald Trump to hold an umbrella over the former president’s head during the wake for former New York City police officer Jonathan Diller.
Per the the Daily Beast, Blakeman and Nassau County Sheriff Anthony LaRocco last month “put an ad on the county’s website for residents to apply to be ‘Provisional Emergency Special Deputy Sheriffs,’” and the ad notes, “the deputized civilians must be ‘skilled in the use of firearms,’ and ‘within 45 days of appointment must be trained and qualified on service weapon and complete basic training at the Academy in the NYS Penal law and Use of Force.’”
Furthermore, The deputized citizens would be paid a $150 stipend each day they’re on duty.
According to Long Island News 12, the New York GOP leader “says he wants to deputize pre-screened citizens with gun licenses so they can be called upon in cases of ‘significant emergency’ to protect government buildings, hospitals, […]
