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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.
A woman who told me she has been reading SR for 20 years sent me this article telling me, “You cover trends, but this is a trend I haven’t seen you say a word about, but I live in Texas and I see this trend blossoming everywhere.” I read the piece and did some research on it in the conservative media, and realized she is right. I find it hard to believe this kind of thinking is taking power amongst conservative women, but apparently it is.
Credit: Paige Vickers / Vox / Getty
In February, America’s most prominent conservative activist declared his opposition to having sex for fun.
In a post on X, the “anti-woke” crusader Christopher Rufo wrote, “‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.”
Much gawking at Rufo’s grimly utilitarian take on sex ensued. Yet the firestorm largely ignored the woman whose anti-birth-control tirade had ignited it.
Rufo’s remarks were sparked by a video of a 2023 Heritage Foundation panel. In that clip, a bespectacled British woman details the supposed ravages of both oral contraception and the sexual culture that it birthed. She claims that the normalization of birth control has condemned women to higher rates of mental illness while offering them little in recompense beyond the freedom to endure “loveless and sometimes extremely degrading” […]
Mekela Panditharatne, Counsel for the Brennan Center’s Elections & Government Program - Brennan Center for Justice
Stephan:
I am increasingly concerned that AI misinformation is going to destroy a fair election in November. Here is an article describing what I mean but, happily, it also offers some solutions. We will have to see if the President, Congress, or state legislatures take this issue seriously.
Illustration by Chris Burnett
On the eve of the 2024 New Hampshire primary, robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden counseled voters against partaking in a write-in campaign supporting Biden, urging them to “save your vote” for the general election. It was the first known instance of the deployment of voice-cloning artificial intelligence at significant scale to try to deter voters from participating in an American election. A political operative later admitted to commissioning the scheme; creating the fake audio reportedly cost just $1 and took less than 20 minutes. Similar attempts are almost certain to plague future elections as the rapid uptake and development of generative AI tools continue apace.
This phenomenon is not entirely new — vote suppression through disinformation has a long provenance in the United States. Since Black Americans and other Americans of color gained the formal right to vote, malefactors committed acts of terror to intimidate voters and pressed for restrictive election […]
Benjamin Netanyahu is destroying Israel’s status in the world, and creating massive anti-semitism in the U.S. and other countries. Look at the pro-Palestinian demonstration videos on the news on most channels, and consider the effect it is having on major prestige universities. I wondered what effect, as the high school year is ending, this is having on college applications. People have a hard time apparently making the distinction between Israel and Judaism as a religion. This is what I found. It may take as long as a generation before Israel becomes a respected nation again. Netanyahu is as big a disaster for Israel as Trump is for the United States, and both are racist fascists.
Scott Katz, a sophomore sports management major from Pennsylvania, sits in his dorm room at Elon University in North Carolina. Credit: Veasey Conway / The Free Press
The recent wave of violent protests and arrests at elite universities like Yale and Columbia have only confirmed for Scott Katz that he made the right decision to attend Elon University. The North Carolina college, where he is currently wrapping up his sophomore year, is a long way from his hometown of Lafayette Hill, the predominantly liberal Philadelphia suburb where the average home costs $610,000.
Katz, who is Jewish, says the antisemitism that’s increasingly visible at colleges nationwide—especially in the Ivy League, and other elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley—hasn’t even touched his campus.
“I haven’t been affected by it at all,” Katz told me. “I definitely feel very safe on campus regarding my religion.”
He notes that Elon was one of only two universities in the country to get an A grade from the Anti-Defamation League for its policies protecting Jewish students against hate. (The other is […]
I watched the reporting on Trump’s attorneys presenting his case for immunity. My main takeaway was the corruption and unethical quality of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Just start with Clarence Thomas not recusing himself in a trial over incidents in which is wife was a significant player. Or Samuel Alito’s comments. In my opinion, there is a desperate need to change the Supreme Court, both in terms of ethical standards, and tenure.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito complained Thursday about the concept that a “special” former officeholder like Donald Trump could be expected to be “subject to the criminal laws just like anybody else.”
Alito made the remarks to special counsel attorney Michael Dreeben during oral arguments in Trump’s presidential immunity appeal to the high court. Trump’s attorneys had argued the former president could not be charged with election interference because the office gave him immunity.
“Well, Mr. Dreeben, do you really, I mean, the presidents have to make a lot of tough decisions about enforcing the law, and they have to make decisions about questions that are unsettled, and they have to make decisions based on the information that’s available,” Alito said.
“Do you really, did I understand you to say, well, you know, if he makes a mistake, he makes a mistake. He’s subject […]
This is what we have come to in America. Once again we see guns considered more important than children. Instead of controlling weapons, we arm teachers. Can you imagine your fourth-grade teacher walking around the classroom you remember with a Glock or a Smith & Wesson on her hip, or bulging in her pocket? Maybe she’s gotten a shoulder holster. She couldn’t put it in her handbag because she would never get to it in time if someone came into the classroom with an AR-15. I asked my wife who for several decades was an elementary school teacher what she would do if she was asked to arm herself. Her answer was, “I would quit,” and I think a number of Tennessee teachers may make the same decision. Other states run by Republicans will replicate this stupidity, and public education already being severely sabotaged in Red states will be degraded further.
Gun reform activists protest to adopt Senate Bill, which would authorize teachers, principals, and school personnel to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds, in Nashville, Tenn. Credit: Seth Herald / Reuters
Lawmakers in Tennessee passed a measure Tuesday that would allow school staff to carry concealed handguns on school grounds, sending the bill to the governor a year after a shooter opened fire and killed six people at a Nashville school.
The Tennessee House cleared the legislation in a 68-28 vote. Four Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the measure.The state Senate, which is also controlled by the GOP, passed the measure earlier this month.
Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams on Tuesday said the bill would bolster school safety.
“I believe that this is a method by which we can do that, because what you’re doing is you’re creating a deterrent,” he said on the House floor.
Under the legislation, faculty and staff members who wish to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds would need tocomplete a minimum of 40 hours […]
Pranshu Verma and Cat Zakrzewski, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan:
Yet another story of how AI is distorting American society, and damaging our democracy. We are destroying our ecosystems out of greed and now degrading our democracy with AI. You would think that this would be a defining moment for this issue less that 200 days before an election. Do you see or hear anyone in Congress bringing this up? No? Neither do I.
Divyendra Singh Jadoun, 31, a creator of deepfake content, poses against a green screen which he uses for generating videos using artificial intelligence in the deserts of Pushkar, India, on April 16. Credit: Saumya Khandelwal / The Washington Post
Divyendra Singh Jadoun’s phone is ringing off the hook. Known as the “Indian Deepfaker,”Jadoun is famous for using artificial intelligence to create Bollywood sequences and TV commercials.
But as staggered voting in India’s election begins, Jadoun says hundreds of politicians have been clamoring for his services, with more than half asking for “unethical” things. Candidates asked him to fake audio of competitors making gaffes on the campaign trail or to superimpose challengers’ faces onto pornographic images. Some campaigns have requested low-quality fake videos of their own candidate, which could be released to cast doubt on any damning real videos that emerge during the election.
Jadoun, 31, says he declines jobs meant to defame or deceive. But he […]
The United States has more people incarcerated than any other nation, over two million. Many are physically or psychologically ill. The American Gulag is a national shame. Finally, there is some awakening as to how awful this crisis has become. Maybe there is hope.
If jails, prisons and detention centers are death-making by nature, then it follows that the public’s health is ill served by continuing to invest in carceral structures that make people and their communities sick. Credit: Getty
In Body and Soul, a pathbreaking examination of the Black Panther Party’s abiding commitment to health activism, Alondra Nelson recounts how Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and other party leaders came to prioritize the pursuit of health and healing as vital to their survival — in more ways than one. As the Panthers’ reputation for armed resistance to police violence and demands for a society that left no Black or poor people behind grew in the public eye, so did their criminalization, incarceration, surveillance and even death at the hands of state actors. Combined with disenchantment with the insufficient civil rights gains of the 1960s, evident in the enduring precarity of the so-called war on poverty, the party bolstered its focus on a key aspect of its platform: their people’s health. Serving the people, […]
Here is some good news about the transition out of the carbon era that BIden is making possible. More hope.
Credit: Adobe
Clean energy, like so many commodities in this country, is neither distributed evenly nor equally. Disadvantaged communities have far fewer solar panels arrayed across their rooftops than areas with higher incomes. The federal government just took a major step toward crossing that chasm.
On Monday, President Joe Biden announced the 60 organizations that, under the administration’s Solar for All program, will receive a combined $7 billion in grants to bring residential solar to low-income neighborhoods. The funding will flow into state, municipal, and tribal governments as well as nonprofits to support existing programs for low-income solar and battery storage installations and spur new ones. Such efforts are expected to bring affordable clean energy to 900,000 households.
While the climate and environmental benefits of this effort are critical, the households poised to benefit will feel the most immediate impacts on their pocketbooks.
“Low-income families can spend up to 30 percent of their paychecks on their energy bills,” Biden said while […]
