Saturday, March 23rd, 2019
Stephan: They don't teach what used to be called Civics in most public schools anymore, and this is what it has led to. How can the people of America fight for a republic based on a democracy when they don't even know what either of those words mean?
NEW YORK — Nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe the First Amendment is under threat, according to a new survey, yet a large portion of respondents couldn’t correctly name what the amendment protects.
Of the 2,000 adults who took part in the poll, half thought that “liberty” is one of the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment, while nearly half (49 percent) believed “the pursuit of happiness” was included. Thankfully, only 3 percent named “life” as one of the protected freedoms.
What’s more, barely more than a quarter (26 percent) of participants knew how many amendments even comprise the Bill of Rights. In fact, 1 in 5 people wasn’t even familiarwith the Bill of Rights when asked.
Despite the struggle with what should be common American knowledge, the survey — commissioned by the Samuel Hubbard Shoe Company — revealed that 57 percent of respondents feel the First Amendment is at risk in the nation’s current climate. Many people point to bias in the media and the rise of fake news as main reasons for their concern. One in […]
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Tina Casey , - Clean Technica
Stephan: In spite of the flagrant bias the Trump administration has to support the continuance of carbon energy, around the country, good news is cropping up like spring flowers. Here is an example of what I mean.
Rural U.S. electrical cooperative solar installation
The US rural electric cooperative movement dates back to the economic development programs of the 1930’s New Deal, when 9 out of 10 rural households had no electricity. Now RECs are recasting themselves as solar power leaders of the Green New Deal, before there is even a Green New Deal.
It hasn’t been easy sailing. RECs looking to go solar have to disentangle themselves from existing contracts, in addition to bucking political headwaters.
Nevertheless, the barriers are beginning to crumble even in Wisconsin, a state that has been an epicenter of Koch-funded anti-renewable activity.
More Solar Power For Wisconsin
Wisconsin rates a lowly 41 for installed solar capacity, which is even worse when you consider that 41 is a step down from last year, when the state weighed in at number 38 for PV installations.
That’s why the latest news is so exciting. Earlier this week Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power Cooperative laid claim to the entire 149 in solar capacity anticipated from a proposed new PV array in Jefferson County.
The project, called Badger State […]
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Cassidy Randall , - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is some more good news about the demise of carbon energy.
Oil drilling in Wyoming
In the first significant check on the Trump administration’s “energy-first” agenda, a US judge has temporarily halted hundreds of drilling projects for failing to take climate change into account.
Drilling had been stalled on more than 300,000 acres of public land in Wyoming after it was ruled the Trump administration violated environmental laws by failing to consider greenhouse gas emissions. The federal judge has ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages US public lands and issues leases to the energy industry, to redo its analysis.
The decision stems from an environmental lawsuit. WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center sued the BLM in 2016 for failing to calculate and limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from future oil and gas projects.
The agency “did not adequately quantify the climate change impacts of oil and gas leasing”, said Rudolph Contreras, a US district judge in Washington DC, in a ruling late on Tuesday. He added […]
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Olivia Rosane, - EcoWatch
Stephan: Here is a glimpse of the future whose impact you will feel later this year when food prices go even further up from where they are today -- a small organic head of romaine in our market is now $3.89. Would you pay $7 for a head of lettuce? How about $18.00 for a pound a garlic? I am so glad that Ronlyn grows all our produce.
As this article describes American farmers between Trump and climate change are already in desperate trouble, and yet they still support Trump. Will this continue? We're going to find out because everything I can see in the research I am doing tells me that the American industrial chemical mono-culture agriculture system, with its patented seeds, and lethal toxins, is moving into crisis and a future that is very unclear.
If you can start a garden I urge you to do so.
An aerial view of the flooding at the Camp Ashland, Nebraska on March 17, 2019.
Credit: Staff Sgt. Herschel Talley / Flickr
The record flooding in the Midwest that has now been blamed for four deaths could also have lasting consequences for the region’s many farmers.
Flooding has swamped fields and stockpiles and drowned or harmed livestock in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and other states. In Nebraska alone, the loss of crops and livestock is estimated to total nearly $1 billion, Reuters reported Tuesday.
“The economy in agriculture is not very good right now. It will end some of these folks farming, family legacies, family farms,” Iowa farmer Farmer Jeff Jorgenson told The Associated Press. “There will be farmers that will be dealing with so much of a negative they won’t be able to tolerate it.”
One of those farmers might be Anthony Ruzicka of Verdigre, Nebraska. His family has been farming the same plot […]
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Stephan: The Republican Party at both the federal and state level is doing everything it can to keep American women subordinate and on a leash. Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to their contraception and abortion policies. Here are the facts from a reliable fact source.
Background
Sparked by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that legalized abortion nationwide, federal and state governments have enacted laws that allow health care professionals and institutions to refuse to provide services related to reproductive health without facing legal, financial or professional consequences.
A patchwork of federal laws explicitly allows many health care professionals and institutions to refuse to provide care related to abortion and sterilization services. Collectively, these laws prevent government agencies from forcing the provision of services or “discriminating” against individuals and institutions that refuse to provide them; they also prevent institutions receiving certain federal funds from taking action against health care personnel because of their participation or nonparticipation in beliefs about abortion or sterilization. Separate federal laws and regulations, notably Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, prohibit employers from discriminating against personnel based on religion, including religiously based objections to performing specific job functions; an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious practices unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
Almost every state has adopted similar policies related to abortion, and, in many instances, […]
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