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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.
Housing costs are one of the difficult problems faced by middle class and poor Americans. And much of the source of their stress and struggle is, at its source, an aspect of our economy being taken over by oligarchs. They are able to cause all this pain because of two things: First, the legalization of the bribery of politicians and our Supreme Court. Second, the rigging of our tax structure which created the oligarchs. As this article describes, outgoing President Biden has done something to disadvantage the real estate oligarchs, we will see if the servant of the oligarchs, the incoming President, allows the Justice Department to continue.
Photo illustration by Andrea Wise / ProPublica. Source photos: Getty
The Department of Justice on Tuesday sued six of the nation’s largest landlords, accusing them of using a pricing algorithm to improperly work together to raise rents across the country.
The lawsuit expands an antitrust complaint the department filed in August that accused property management software-maker RealPage of engaging in illegal price-fixing to reduce competition among landlords so prices — and profits — would soar. Officials conducted a two-year investigation into the scheme following a 2022 ProPublica story that showed how RealPage was helping landlords set rents across the country in a way that legal experts said could result in cartel-like behavior.
Together, the six landlords manage more than 1.3 million apartments in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Prosecutors have already negotiated a settlement with one of them.
“While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today’s lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust […]
Michelle Ma, Jennifer Epstein and Kelsey Butler , Staff Writers - msn | Bloomberg
Stephan:
Even as the fires still rage, the real estate profit vultures have descended on the burned-out neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We are far far from the end of this story. And, I predict, it is going to play out all over the nation as climate change wreaks havoc. To his credit, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is making moves to stop it. I think Newsom would be an excellent choice as the next Democratic Presidential candidate. The Democrats need to move to a younger generation.
Los Angeles Braces For More Firestorms As Death Toll Hits 24. Credit: Benjamin Fanjoy / Bloomberg
Danielle Neal is a fourth-generation resident of Altadena who saw the house she grew up in and the home she rented burn down in the wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County.
Neal, 30, said her aunt and uncle, who lived in the family home, have already been deluged by parties looking to purchase the still smoldering ruins at a steep discount.
“There’s not a lot of compassion,” Neal said of the speculators. “It feels like a version of looting.”
Real estate vultures are circling the middle-class community of Altadena and other burned out parts of Los Angeles, hungry to turn a profit from fire victims still struggling with where they’ll live and how they’ll rebuild their homes and lives. Investors are reaching out to people like Neal’s family, as well as to local real estate agents who’ve fielded inquiries from across the country.
Neal’s fear, and that of many in her community, is that the wildfires will change the character of a neighborhood that had long been home […]
If the criminal a majority of Americans have chosen for their President, a man who sees himself more as a king than a President, does as he says he will do because he knows that half of his MAGAt voters support the use of the military in his deportation schemes by the end of this coming week we may see members of the armed forces involved in civil actions we have not seen since the Viet Nam era and the Kent State killings.
Almost half of Republican voters believe the U.S. military should round up undocumented immigrants and put them into detention camps until they can be deported, a new survey finds.
Why it matters:President-elect Trump has suggested that he’ll use the military in immigration raids and turn to a 1798 law to put immigrants in camps.
His base appears to support those plans despite the likely fierce opposition from most Americans.
By the numbers: 46% of Republicans endorse using the military in mass deportation raids and placing immigrants in camps, according to a nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) post-election survey.
That’s more than double that of independent voters (19%) who agree with the idea.
And that’s more than five times as Democratic voters (8%) who supported this policy.
What they’re saying: “There have been questions in the Trump era where I’ve thought…I can’t believe that we need to know the answer to this question,” Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI, tells Axios.
“I guess the good news is that three-quarters of the country rejects this idea that we should be putting immigrants […]
I keep thinking we must surely have reached the outer limit of MAGAt world’s stupidity and nastiness. But I keep being surprised. Who even suspected that sign language for the deaf would be ranked by MAGAts as something “woke.” and offensive to them? Well, as this article describes, they do.
Add sign language to the growing list of right-wing culture attacks sprouting up among conservative voices as Donald Trump’s inauguration fast approaches.
Critics began to pounce after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk during his Wednesday podcast called for the elimination of sign language interpreters as emergency officials in California delivered remarks on the ongoing wildfire disaster.
“I mean, this is just over the top,” Kirk said on his show. “It’s a distraction is what it is.”
By Friday, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine and conservative activist Christopher Rufo also aired their disapproval.
“I’m sorry, but we have to stop with the ridiculous sign language interpreters, who turn serious press conferences into a farce,” Rufo told his followers on X. “There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services. No wild human gesticulators necessary.”
Devine replied to Rufo’s post with her own hot take: “I actually think that’s the point of them. It’s to reinforce our powerlessness.”
Their comments were met with outrage on social media.
“Sign language is woke now,” Tony Martin, a comedian and host of the Sizzletown podcast wrote on Bluesky.
“Charlie Kirk was whining about sign language interpreters giving information about the […]
No one seems to be properly discussing this in the media, but I think it is very important that Americans realize they have elected a President who is not only a convicted sex offender but a 34-count multiple convicted felon, and six-time bankrupt, and that this demonstrates not only the poor judgment of a majority of American voters, but also very clearly illustrates how corrupt and debased our legal system has become.
Donald Trump, the first person ever to be elected President who was also a multiple convicted felon and sex offender. Credit: Dennis Van Tine / Star Max / IPx
Convicted of 34 felony counts in his hush money case, Donald Trump could have faced severe consequences. Each of the felony counts of falsifying business records was punishable by up to four years in prison and fines of up to $5,000. Yet U.S. District Judge Juan Merchan took a remarkably light approach in sentencing Friday, issuing Trump an “unconditional discharge” — meaning no jail time, no fines, and effectively no punishment except that he retains his felony conviction.
For many in the criminal justice reform and abolitionist space, his feather-light sentence further highlights the widespread inequities and failures of a criminal legal system where hundreds of thousands of Americans remain behind bars without ever even being convicted, let alone of a felony.
Despite the nonexistent penalties (aside from limits […]
Thom Hartmann gives us an accurate snapshot of the state of America as we prepare to inaugurate for President a man who could not get a job as a janitor if all they saw was his resumé. And his demand for loyalty over ethical behavior reminds me more of Hitler or Putin than any prior President. Get ready, I think we are in for something we have never before seen in the United States.
Man in Black Knit Cap and Black Hoodie Credit: Altin Ferreira / Unsplash
— The fossil fuel industry is apparently paying off Republicans — in a practice legalized by Republicans on the Supreme Court — to make sure Congress never passes legislation to hold them accountable for all the death and destruction they’ve caused by lying about climate change for the past 50 years. Here, for example, are the biggest recipients of their largesse, according to OpenSecrets: Romney, Mitt (R-UT) $8,291,262; Cornyn, John (R-TX) $4,678,062; Cruz, Ted (R-TX) $4,138,421; McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $2,852,107; McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA) $2,581,832; Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX) $2,332,021; Inhofe, James M (R-OK) $2,320,139; Pearce, Steve (R-NM) $2,236,714; Barton, Joe (R-TX) $2,211,987; Brady, Kevin (R-TX) $2,087,396; Scalise, Steve (R-LA) $1,847,013; Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK) $1,792,602. If you haven’t yet noticed the trend, just check out the party affiliation of each…
— Convicted Felon Trump now has the “Scarlet F”: Our first felon President. There was a […]
I have been telling you for years about what I call The Great Schism Trend. As this report from Gallup confirms this trend is real, and the split is growing ever greater. We are increasingly becoming two countries in a single nation. I think we will stay one nation, but I also think real power is going to move to the states, and they are going to become ever more different. Oligarchs are already buying the country’s levers of power, media, corporations, and healthcare. By this coming June, I think the Blue state governments are going to become more and more resistant to this takeover, and that will make the schism grow ever greater.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ ideological identification was steady in 2024, with an average of 37% describing their political views as “very conservative” or “conservative,” 34% as “moderate,” and 25% as “very liberal” or “liberal.” However, this stability masks new highs in the percentages of Republicans identifying as conservative and Democrats as liberal.
Americans’ Ideological Identification Was Steady in 2024
None of the three main ideological groupings of Americans — conservatives, moderates and liberals — has had majority-level status since Gallup began tracking ideology with this measure in 1992. Rather, conservatives and moderates have been closely matched as the two leading groups, while liberals have consistently accounted for a smaller share.
Still, the trend documents changes in the relative strength of each group.
Most notably, the percentage of Americans identifying as moderate has declined from an average of 43% in 1992 to 34% in 2024, while conservatism has been fairly steady, fluctuating around the three-decade mean of 38%.
As a result, moderates fell from being the largest ideological group in the 1990s to tying with conservatives in the early 2000s and lagging conservatives slightly […]
Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting - MedPage Today
Stephan:
American healthcare is getting worse, as this evidence proves. Under Trump, I think the trend will continue downward because of the people he is appointing and his Congressional subservients are going to confirm. Think about it. Mehmet Oz, Robert Kennedy, Jr. both incompetent conspiracy freaks. Then add the corporate pharmaceuticals, hospital owners, and physician group practice corporations all of which operate entirely to make profit and you can easily see where this is headed.
Credit: MedPage Today
Patient care experiences worsened after private equity firms took over hospitals, according to a difference-in-differences analysis.
From 2008 to 2019, the percentage of patients rating hospitals a 9 or 10 (on a scale of 0-10) was unchanged at 73 hospitals acquired by private equity firms (65% before the acquisition and 65.2% after), while it rose at matched control hospitals that weren’t acquired (66.2% to 69.2%), according to Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues.
Furthermore, the percentage of patients who would definitely recommend the hospital declined at those acquired by private equity (66.9% to 65.5%), while it increased at control hospitals (68.2% to 69.3%), for a differential change of -2.1 percentage points (95% CI -3.6 to -0.7).
Wadhera noted that the difference in overall measures of patient care experience between hospitals acquired by private equity and control hospitals grew each subsequent […]
