Ruth May, Professor of Business - University of Dallas - Dallas Morning News
Stephan: This article will help you understand why the Republican Party is so passionately trying to bury or dishonor Special Counsel Mueller's exploration of the Russian Republican connection. It isn't just Trump, the whole party is complicit. These people put party and personal power ahead of the wellbeing of the United States and none of them should be holding public office, in my view.
Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA, left) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC, right). Credit: Creative Commons.
As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia.
Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.
An example is Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen and one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik’s family emigrated to the U.S. in the late ’70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late ’80s.
Stephan: We are a very sick country. The social outcome data screams that to us every day. Our social priorities are completely screwed-up, and we spend our money not to produce societal wellbeing, but to allow a few people to be obscenely rich. I have done hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories on these trends and I don't expect much anymore from the three branches of the federal government. That said this story really made me sad.
A child born in the United States has a 70 percent greater chance of dying before adulthood than kids born into other wealthy, democratic countries, a new study has found. (emphasis added)
The research, published in the journal Health Affairs on Monday, shows that the United States lags far behind peer countries on child health outcomes. It estimates that, since 1961, America’s poor performance accounts for more than 600,000 excess child deaths — deaths that wouldn’t have happened if these kids were born into other wealthy countries.
“In all the wealthy, democratic countries we studied children are dying less often then they were 50 years ago,” Ashish Thakrar, the study’s lead author, said. “But we found that children are dying more often in the United States than in any similar country.”
Christina Animashaun/Vox
The study comes out three months after Congress allowed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program — which provides insurance to nine million low-income kids — to expire. And it builds on data released earlier this year, which finds that overall life expectancy in the United States has declined for […]
Dana Hunter , Science Writer - Scientific American
Stephan: This is some of the long term damage being done to the United States. Things that our children and their children will look back and say, "How could you do that, how could you possibly have thought it was okay?"
The Redwall section of the Grand Canyon National Park. Credit: Alamy
Trump’s first year of presidency is coming to a close. We knew going in that he was going to be a disaster for science, but maybe some of us still hoped he wouldn’t be too disastrous. But the actions he has taken, the people he has appointed, and the rapacious companies and politicians he has emboldened have proved that hope was in vain. As we close out 2017, here are just a few of the countless ways the Trump administration has been a complete disaster for science and our public lands. It’s in no particular order because, frankly, it’s too depressing to linger on the damage long enough to compare.
Some of you may remember that I’m the daughter of a coal miner. One of the things my dad’s company was required to do was clean up after themselves. Once mining operations were done, they had to […]
Kali Holloway , Senior Writer and Associate Editor of Media and Culture - Alternet
Stephan: This is what the American Gulag is becoming. It reminds me of Marshalsea and Newgate two famous prisons in London where, for several hundred years, you could buy better lodgings and food if you had the means. I think this is despicable and another alarm that the American Gulag, and the judiciary that feeds it, has become a racist profit system for human warehousing.
The price to stay in one of these city jails can run the gamut from $25 a day in La Verne to just over $250 in Hermosa Beach. A collaborative investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Marshall Project found that for $100 a night, inmates in Seal Beach’s pay-for-stay program had access to “amenities that included flat-screen TVs, a computer room and new beds.” The cost also affords inmates “semi-private rooms, single showers and the ability to… make phone calls whenever they want.” In addition to creature comforts, the program lets those with resources buy their way out of serving time in the Los Angeles and […]
Stephan: Once again a Nordic country, in this case it's Norway, leads the way to sane social policy supportive of wellbeing. We can't do this at the moment in the United States as a matter of social policy because our government is owned by corporations. But we can do it as a people. It's simple. Look at the label and do not buy any product that contains palm oil. Tell your friends what you are doing and invite them to do the same. If people don't buy it that can be as effective as a government policy. It's up to us. Don't use anything with palm oil in it.
Clear cut rain forest
Half of all packaged products in the supermarket contain an ingredient called palm oil. It’s cheap and versatile, but the environmental consequences of the booming industry are huge.
Millions of acres of rainforest, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, have been destroyed to make way for oil palm plantations. Forest species are being pushed to the brink of extinction, and fires have created a blanket of smog that’s smashing air pollution records.
Palm oil production has more than tripled since 2000 — but Norway may have the found a solution to limit the massive deforestation that is being caused by the booming industry — a viral consumer boycott.
Between 2011 and 2012, Norway’s consumption of palm oil dropped by more than 60 percent after a campaign urged consumers to stop “eating the rainforest”.
“Today, all Norwegian food products are produced without palm oil or extremely negligible amounts of it,” said Lars Løvold, Executive Director of the Rainforest Foundation.
A child born in the United States has a 70 percent greater chance of dying before adulthood than kids born into other wealthy, democratic countries, a new study has found. (emphasis added)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9998545/OECD_v_US_child_mortality_rate.jpg)
Christina Animashaun/Vox
