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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.
All my life, beginning when I was five, I have valued and cherished public libraries. I understood even as a young boy how important they were. Libraries were the place you could go to learn about anything that interested you or that could entertain you when you were alone, or before you went to bed. I walked away from my career in government because after Watergate, having known most of the people involved, I realized I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, but I stayed in Washington another year because I didn’t want to lose access to the Library of Congress. Now the MAGAts, who realize libraries educate people to different points of view, are attacking public and school libraries to stop that. MAGAts want indoctrination not education; they want a semi-literate population easily manipulated by their misinformation.
Andrew Carnegie, a childhood immigrant, realized the importance of public libraries like this one in Pittsburgh and left most of his money to be used to build such libraries across the United States. Credit: Wikipedia
On the first of July 1731 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin and members of the Junto Club, an organization of civic minded Philadelphians that Franklin had founded and organized, carried out what they considered one of their most important actions to foster civic wellbeing. They founded a library. To quote the Benjamin Franklin Historical Society, “The idea to create a lending library started during Junto Club gatherings where each member would bring books toshare with others and consult during debates, but bringing books back and forth became cumbersome. It was agreed by the members to keep the books in the meeting room so that all members would benefit from them. It was also of great benefit to borrow a book and bring it home to read, therefore the idea of starting a public subscription […]
Thom Hartmann lays out very well what the leaders of the MAGAt cult are trying to do. You would think voters who support criminal Trump and the MAGAt Republican cult would understand that the leaders of the cult are trying to create an easily manipulated ignorant semi-literate peasantry to serve the autocratic uber-rich authoritarians. You might think that since it is so obvious, but you would be wrong. The White MAGAt cult is so consumed by their resentments and hate they don’t get it at all.
MAGAt cult Republican Speak of the HOuse Mike Johnson Credit: Win McNamee / Getty
Odds are you’ve never heard of the “mudsill theory of labor,” but you and everybody else in this country really should learn about it. It explains a whole spectrum of Republican behavior that otherwise seems baffling and self-defeating. For example:
— The past 7 years have seen a near-fivefold increase in documented child labor violations by employers. States have responded to this alarming trend in two ways: Democratic-controlled states are putting more teeth into their laws and upping enforcement; Republican-controlled states are loosening their laws and cutting back on enforcement so children can drop out of school and go to work.
So far, three Blue states (and two Red ones) have made it harder for employers to exploit child labor, while eight Red states have made it easier for children to get trapped in a cycle of work that often ends their educational progress and consigns them […]
Here is some good news. In preparation for the upcoming election, President Biden is trying to Trump-proof the NIH, the largest medical research entity in the U.S. so that even if Biden loses medical science will not be subject to the same medical nonsense espoused by criminal Trump when he was president.
Dr. Anthony Fauci the one rational voice in the Trump administration during the Covid pandemic Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty
The Biden administration is setting up new tripwires for Donald Trump at America’s premier health research agency to safeguard against political interference if Trump wins in November.
The White House fears Trump could try to advance an ideological agenda at the National Institutes of Health, like the ones he’s suggested on everything from vaccines to diversity policies.
In an effort to Trump-proof, NIH has designated an official to identify political meddling in the agency’s work and is tasking a soon-to-be-established scientific integrity council with reviewing those cases. The White House knows Trump could still cast those plans aside but is calculating that doing so will set off alarms with the media, Congress and the public. The Biden administration likely hopes GOP lawmakers, even those who think the NIH needs an overhaul, will temper Trump’s moves.
“Interfering and manipulating science to hit a partisan agenda is inappropriate and is what we’re working to wall against,” Lyric Jorgenson, NIH’s designated scientific integrity official, said […]
This is an interesting insight into the recent college protest movements arising from the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. It is a rather sad commentary on what is happening in corporate media.
Pro-Palestinian protesters chant at University of Chicago police while being kept from the university’s quad as the student encampment is dismantled Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Chicago. Credit: Charles Rex Arbogast/ AP
An emerging complaint the corporate media have against the nationwide—and now international—peace encampments is that many student protesters won’t speak to them. The problem, pundits and reporters say, is that these encampments have designated media spokespeople, and other protesters often keep their mouths shut to the press.
Conservative pundit Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, 5/2/24) said of her trip to the Columbia University encampment:
I was at Columbia hours before the police came in and liberated Hamilton Hall from its occupiers. Unlike protesters of the past, who were usually eager to share with others what they thought and why, these demonstrators would generally not speak or make eye contact with members of the press, or, as they say, “corporate media.”
I was on a bench taking notes as a group of young women, all in […]
The Great Schism Trend is moving into a new phase. I have reported on this before but, as we move towards the election, it is now gathering momentum. Somewhere from 20 to 30% of the population of each state favors some measure of secession. Notice this involves both political and racial issues. Every week it becomes clearer how we are becoming two countries in a single nation. MAGAt world wants this, seeks this.
In an increasingly divided United States of America, a radical solution to resolve fraught political differences is gaining momentum: secession.
Be it the campaign for Texas to quit the US and form its own republic or efforts by red counties in Oregon to join Idaho, movements are gaining support at both local and state levels.
In nearly every case, the campaigns have been formed in conservative areas by voters eager to break away from the progressive leaders who govern them.
Some are a pipe dream. Texas is unlikely to depart the union any time soon, despite the optimism of those leading its ‘Texit’ independence campaign.
But several localized efforts have succeeded – or gained enough support to be taken seriously.
DailyMail.com recently reported that voters in thirteen counties of eastern Oregon now support secession from the state to join Idaho by redrawing state lines.
More than 2,000 miles away in Louisiana, the new city of St George was recently incorporated after wealthy residents controversially voted to separate from Baton Rouge over claims of crime issues and a poor education system.
Here, DailyMail.com explains some of the most prominent and longstanding secession […]
Another report on the growing insurance crisis in the United States. This crisis is spreading all over the country has climate change becomes an ever larger factor in local weather. As a country, we need a new nationwide insurance structure, but with our present dysfunctional Congress, I don’t see how it is going to happen.
Damage the day after a deadly tornado struck Greenfield, Iowa, on 22 May 2024. Credit: Scott Morgan / Reuters
The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance is now one of the most prominent symptoms of the climate crisis in the US. Major carriers such as State Farm and Allstate have pulled back from offering fire insurance in California, dropping thousands of homeowners from their books, and dozens of small insurance companies have collapsed or fled from Florida and Louisiana following recent large hurricanes.
The problem is fast becoming a crisis that stretches far beyond the nation’s coastal states. That’s owing to another, less-talked-about disaster that has wreaked havoc on states in the midwest and the Great Plains, causing billions of dollars in damage. In response, insurers have raised premiums higher than ever and dropped customers even in inland states such as Iowa.
These so-called “severe-convective storms” are large and powerful thunderstorms that form and disappear within a few hours or days, often spinning off […]
I think Biden is making another mistake; he seems to be trapped in a Washington political structure that no longer exists. We a House that is controlled by a cult, where they even dress like their master, and a Supreme Court with a majority cabal at a level of corruption never before seen. In my opinion, Biden needs to speak out in both instances and stand for democracy and honorable ethics. The Democrats need to define themselves as defenders of democracy and fairness, and clearly distinguish themselves from the MAGAts. The voter polls make it explicit this is not happening.
Associate Justice Alito questions DOJ use of “obstruction” in January 6th cases. Credit: Politico
Top Democrats have no plans to investigate reports that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew an upside-down American flag outside his home after the 2020 election. And Joe Biden has no desire to even talk about it.
Amid growing demands from the base of the party to call out the actions of several conservative justices and embrace reforms of the court, both the president and the White House have stayed mum.
Biden has publicly warned that Republicans are undermining democratic norms and threatening its institutions. But he is reluctant to extend that argument to the judicial branch, aides say, fearful it could be cast as politically motivated and undermine his broader effort to portray himself as a champion for strengthening democratic institutions. They believe it’s crucial to maintain a clear contrast with Donald Trump, who has readily attacked an independent judiciary for political gain.
“The central pushback should come from the legislative branch, and not the executive branch,” said Anthony Coley, a former senior official in the Biden Justice Department, arguing that Congress has wide-ranging investigatory authority. “That’s the right place where we should be seeing […]
Ron DeSantis has an ego so large that he seems to think he can banish or ignore climate change. Either way he is deliberately and consciously failing to prepare the people of his state for what is coming, and Florida is going to become one of the most severely impacted of all the states
MAGAt Republican Ron DeSantis Credit: Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty
South Florida suffered through brutal heat and humidity this week when the heat index (the “feels like” temperature) in Key West reached 115 degrees F — matching the record for any time of year. With rising temperatures, flooding on sunny days, and toxic algae blooms, Floridians recognize that something’s amiss. Ninety percent of residents accept that climate change is happening, according to a new survey from Florida Atlantic University, and two-thirds want their state government to do more to address the problem.
But Governor Ron DeSantis, the former Republican presidential hopeful, is moving in the opposite direction. On Wednesday, as heat records fell, he signed legislation deleting most references to the words “climate change” from the state’s laws and removing emissions reductions as a priority for energy policy. It also bans the construction of offshore wind turbines off Florida’s coasts, weakens regulations on natural gas pipelines, and prevents cities […]
