Living in West Virginia stinks.

That’s according the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released late last month that seeks to test “Americans’ perceptions on topics such as physical and emotional health, healthy behaviors, work environment, social and community factors, financial security, and access to necessities such as food, shelter and health care to create a composite well-being rank for each state.” West Virginia ranked dead last in such categories (there are 55 of them) as “life evaluation”, “emotional health”, “physical health” and “healthy behaviors.” Interestingly, it ranked 14th in “work environment.”

The bottom of the (state) barrel is unchanged from 2012 with West Virginia (50th), Kentucky (49th) and Mississippi (48th) bringing up the rear. The top of the chart has a new number one with North Dakota — and its booming oil economy — jumping all the way from 19th in 2012 to first in 2013. South Dakota moves from 12th to second happiest in 2013. Of the top ten happiest states, only one — Washington — is located on either of the nation’s two coasts. (The middle of the U.S. may be flyover country but people who live there seem to love it.)

Here’s the well-being index in map form. Green states […]

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Last week, a bill to make way for the display of Ten Commandments in public buildings, such as courthouses and schools, passed out of an Alabama Senate committee, sending it to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week.

If you want to know why nine out of the 10 poorest states are located in the hyper-religious South, look no further than this calculated right-wing political play, which is designed for one purpose: to ensure Southern and Sunbelt voters continue to vote against their own self-economic interests.

If passed by the state Senate and signed by the governor, the state would put a constitutional amendment on the next ballot to let Alabama voters decide the issue. The theocratic authors and the Republican Party sponsors of this bill are fully cognizant of the fact that the bill is unconstitutional, and thus it will, inevitably, be struck down by the courts.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” It is the very basis of the separation of church and state.

For state Sen. Trip Pittman (R-AL), the constitution is a secondary concern. “We talk about the constitutionality […]

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The shoreline of Bay Jimmy, which was heavily impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is seen in an area that has tar mats and oozing crude oil on the marsh platform, in Plaquemines Parish, La., Friday, Sept. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This article has been corrected since it first published.

Sorry, BP: You’re still going to have to pay damages for the Gulf oil spill. A divided New Orleans appeals court ruled late Monday that the oil giant has to stick to the terms of its $9.2 billion settlement with the spill’s victims.

The decision reverses an earlier ruling in BP’s favor, and now requires the company to compensate even those businesses that can’t directly trace their damages to the spill. From Reuters:

U.S. District Judge Barbier had ruled that BP would have to live with its earlier interpretation of a multi-billion dollar settlement agreement over the spill, in which certain businesses claiming losses were presumed to have suffered harm.

The company argued that this would allow businesses to recover for fictitious losses, but the 5th Circuit rejected its appeal.

‘The settlement agreement does not require a claimant to submit evidence […]

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When I interviewed investigative reporter Robert Whitaker in 2010 after the publication of his book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, he was not exactly a beloved figure within the psychiatry establishment. Whitaker had documented evidence that standard drug treatments were making many patients worse over the long term, and he detailed the lack of science behind these treatments.

Whitaker’s sincerity about seeking better treatment options, his command of the facts, and his lack of anti-drug dogma compelled all but the most dogmatic psychiatrists to take him seriously.

For Anatomy of an Epidemic, Whitaker won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors Book Award for best investigative journalism. This and other acclaim made it difficult for establishment psychiatry to ignore him, so he was invited to speak at many of their bastions, including a Harvard Medical School Grand Rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he faced hostile audiences. However, Whitaker’s sincerity about seeking better treatment options, his command of the facts and his lack of anti-drug dogma compelled all but the most dogmatic psychiatrists to take him seriously.

In the past four years, the psychiatry establishment has pivoted from first ignoring Whitaker to […]

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The Affordable Care Act, President Barack Barack Obama’s signature health law, is already boosting household income and spending.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending rose a better-than-expected 0.4% and personal incomes climbed 0.3% in January. The new health-care law accounted for a big chunk of the increase on both fronts.

On the incomes side, the law’s expanded coverage boosted Medicaid benefits by an estimated $19.2 billion, according to Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The ACA also offered several refundable tax credits, including health insurance premium subsidies, which added up to $14.7 billion.

Taken together, the Obamacare provisions are responsible for about three-quarters of January’s overall rise in Americans’ incomes.

Of course, what the government gives, the government can take away. Case in point: The late-December expiration of a federal program that provided extended aid to unemployed Americans reduced benefit payments $16.7 billion.

Excluding special factors, the Commerce Department said personal income increased a more moderate $23.7 billion, or 0.2%, in January, after falling $15.1 billion, or 0.1%, in December. So it hasn’t been a very good winter for American households.

Also worth noting: The payments are categorized as ‘transfer receipts.” That is, the money is transferred from one household to another via government taxes.

On […]

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