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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.
I am seeing more and more stories, and have published several in SR over the past few months, about AI-created fake child porn, and public figure porn. And yet it is rarely discussed on corporate media channels, and almost never discussed by politicians who use it to their benefit. The reality is the developed world is faced with a rights crisis that desperately needs attention. The vast distribution of misinformation, and the creation of AI-generated fake child and celebrity porn is distorting societies all over the developed world. We need to rethink what free speech means.
‘It just feels really sinister,’ Cathy Newman said of the deepfake material. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi / The Guardian
More than 250 British celebrities are among the thousands of famous people who are victims of deepfake pornography, an investigation has found.
A Channel 4 News analysis of the five most visited deepfake websites found almost 4,000 famous individuals were listed, of whom 255 were British.
They include female actors, TV stars, musicians and YouTubers, who have not been named, whose faces were superimposed on to pornographic material using artificial intelligence.
The investigation found that the five sites received 100m views in the space of three months.
The Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, who was found to be among the victims, said: “It feels like a violation. It just feels really sinister that someone out there who’s put this together, I can’t see them, and they can see this kind of imaginary version of me, this fake version of me.”
Since 31 January under the Online Safety Act, sharing such imagery without consent is illegal in the UK, but the creation of the content is not. The legislation was passed in response to the proliferation of deepfake pornography being […]
I have never before seen or heard a former Supreme Court Justice speak out in this way, and I agree with retired Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. I think it should be taken as a response driven by the almost complete collapse of respect for the Court. Forty six percent of Americans disapprove of the way the Court is handling its job. If we ever get a working ethical Congress again, I would hope they would eliminate the Electoral College, limit the age and term of Supreme Court Justices as retired Associate Justice Breyer advocates, and create publicly funded elections. I don’t think we are going to save American democracy without these changes.
Stephen Breyer worries about Supreme Court’s public standing in current political era Credit: CNN
Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer signaled his support for age and term limits in the nation’s highest court, in a Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
What he’s saying: “I don’t think that’s harmful,” Breyer told “Meet The Press” moderator Kristen Welker, adding that court justices could serve “long terms.”
“Why long? Because I don’t think you want someone who’s appointed to the Supreme Court to be thinking about his next job,” Breyer said.
“And so, a 20-year term? I don’t know, 18? Long term? Fine. Fine,” he said.
Breyer said term limits would have helped him avoid “going through difficult decisions” in deciding when it was time to retire.
“You’ve been there for quite a while, and other people also should have a chance at these jobs. And at some point, you’re just not going to be able to do it,” he said.
Flashback: Breyer retired in June 2022 and was replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Robert Reich, Robert B. Reich is currently the Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies - Robert Reich Substack
Stephan:
It is becoming increasingly clear to all Americans that the U.S. Congress is barely functional. America is a failing state by almost any social outcome measure you choose to pick. Our future is going to turn on the November election, not just the Presidential election, and the election at every level. At every level where the TCP wins we will see failure and decreased wellbeing, because the TCP is defined by its corruption and lust for power.
Gallup has been asking the public the same question for 50 years, since April 1974: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?”
Since then, public approval of Congress has usually ranged between 30 and 40 percent. (See graph below. The sharp peak in approval occurred just after the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States, as Americans rallied around the flag.)
In the most recent Gallup poll of February 2024, approval of Congress sank to the lowest it’s been in the entire half-century. Only 12 percent of the public now approves of the way Congress is handling its job.
I’m surprised it’s even that high.
Ever since the bailout of Wall Street in 2008, public trust in all branches of the U.S. government has sunk to new lows. Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen have further reduced trust.
But Republican control of the House starting in 2022 has brought a new level of congressional dysfunction, revealing the extent to which Trump Republicans are eager to trash government. Trump thrives on chaos and has been the House Republicans’ off-stage coach and cheerleader.
Early yesterday morning, President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion spending bill […]
, - Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres / Phys.org
Stephan:
The climate change reports are getting more and more alarming. Meanwhile, the Trump Christofascist Party (TCP) members of Congress continue to waste time trying to impeach Biden and blather on about Hunter Biden. The TCPs are literally trying to condemn your children to death as climate changes destroy the earth’s ecosystem.
Ole Zeising starting pRES (radar) measurement on 79 North Glacier. Credit: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Nik
Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79° N-Glacier is losing. According to measurements conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the thickness of the glacier has decreased by more than 160 meters since 1998. Warm ocean water flowing under the glacier tongue is melting the ice from below.
High air temperatures cause lakes to form on the surface, whose water flows through huge channels in the ice into the ocean. One channel reached a height of 500 meters, while the ice above was only 190 meters thick, as a research team has now reported in The Cryosphere.
A rustic camp in northeast Greenland was one of the bases for deploying autonomous measuring devices with modern radar technology by helicopter in a part of the 79° N-Glacier that is difficult to access. Measurement flights with the polar aircraft of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), and satellite data were also incorporated into a scientific study that has now been published.
John B Alexander, PhD, Colonel, USA (Ret.) - Daily Kos
Stephan:
John Alexander is a career combat leader and retired Army colonel and PhD. He is the first person I have seen tell the truth about how the Afghanistan War ended, and criminal Trump became the first American president in history to surrender. This is a story you should forward on to friends and family members. It is a major part of the Trump disgrace that no on every talks about.
Criminal Trump, the only U.S. President to ever surrender Credit: CBS
As self-acknowledging “suckers and losers,” all active and former military members supporting Trump are betraying the million men and women who made the “ultimate sacrifice.” It is disconcerting that so many of them are willing to overlook one of many critical flaws in a narcissistic megalomaniac who couldn’t care less about them.
They should also know that Trump is the first American president to overtly surrender to an adversary during a period of conflict. They seem ignorant of the facts that form the basis of the Doha Agreement that Trump had Zal Khalilzad negotiate with the Taliban on his behalf. Betraying our Afghan allies, Trump’s negotiators entered the discussions without including the very people who would have to carry on with the governance of the country.
The agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, was if U.S. forces stopped attacking the Taliban, they would not attack our troops. It also included a departure date by which all U.S. and NATO forces would be out of the country. That was/is in effect, surrender.
Michelle Boorstein, Religion Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
If the christofascists can’t get rid of public education they at least want to turn it into a “Christian” (nothing to do withe Jesus’ actual teachings) indoctrination system. It is their next battle in the war to make the U.S. a christofascist autocracy.
A sign directs the way to the chaplain’s office at the Florida House of Representatives in Tallahassee. Credit: Brendan Farrington / AP
Lawmakers in mostly conservative states are pushing a coordinated effort to bring chaplains into public schools, aided by a new, legislation-crafting network that aims to address policy issues “from a biblical world view” and by a consortium whose promotional materials saychaplains are a way to convert millions to Christianity.
The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. Chaplain bills were approved by one legislative chamber in three states — Utah, Indiana and Louisiana — but died in Utah and Indiana. Bills are pendingin nine states. Onepassed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature.
The bills are mushrooming in an era when the U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the rights of religious people and groups in the public square and weakened historicprotections meant to keep the government from endorsing religion. In a 2022 case, […]
This is another story about the corruption of the American Congress, but the difference from most of the stories is that this one shows the Democrats are just as corrupt as the TCPs when it comes to renting themselves to the Fossil Fuel corporations who pour tens of millions of dollars into Democratic coffers. This is all the result of Citizens United and no one wants to change it. That’s why I tell you the United States is the most corrupt democracy in the world.
In January, Joe Biden temporarily halted approvals for new liquid natural gas exports and processing terminals. Since then, fossil fuel–backed Democrats have scrambled to undo the climate win.
hen President Joe Bidenannounced in January that he was temporarily halting approvals of new liquefied natural gas exports and processing terminals, Emma Guevara welcomed the news.
A resident of Brownsville, Texas — a historically poor city and fossil fuel hot spot on the Gulf of Mexico — Guevara is concerned about two multibillion-dollar proposed liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals for the area. Beyond the projects’ potential impacts on nearby ecosystems, air, and water quality, Guevara is worried about how carbon emissions from the projects would impact the planet — and her home.
“We’re on the coast,” said Guevara, a local Sierra Club organizer. “And we’re a really marginalized community that can barely handle regular natural disasters, let alone what we’re looking at in the next ten years.”
But Biden’s pause on such fossil fuel projects isn’t just being opposed by Republicans — it’s also facing pushback from some Democrats, including Guevara’s own Democratic congressman, Vicente Gonzalez.
Gonzalez is one of fourteen House Democrats who have […]
Here is some good news about pollution, improving wellbeing, and dealing with climate change. Only a fraction of what could have been done, of course, because of the corruption that plagues the United States. “This rule could’ve been the biggest single step of any nation on climate, but the EPA caved to pressure from big auto, big oil and car dealers, and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” said Dan Becker, Center for Biological Diversity’s safe climate transport campaign director, as The Guardian reported.
Afternoon traffic on the I-15 freeway between the 60 and 210 freeways in Ontario, California on Jan. 31, 2024. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / Getty
In a historic move, the Biden administration has announced new tailpipe emissions regulations, which call for a 56% reduction in the average carbon dioxide emissions of passenger cars, medium-duty vehicles and light-duty trucks by 2032.
The new rules will apply to vehicles with model years from 2027 to 2032 and beyond, a press release from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.
“With transportation as the largest source of U.S. climate emissions, these strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “The standards will slash over 7 billion tons of climate pollution, improve air quality in overburdened communities, and give drivers more clean vehicle choices while saving them money.”
The updated standards will provide almost $100 billion in net benefits to society annually, with $13 billion in public health benefits from improved air quality, and reduced fuel, repair and maintenance costs of $62 billion.
When the new rules have been completely phased in, they will provide an estimated $6,000 in fuel and […]
