Stephan: This is the world before Roe, the world that is now Texas, a state where women, particularly poor women, suffer because they do not have the right to legally control their own bodies. The Dobbs decision overturning Roe, will not end abortion, it simply threw America back to an earlier time, and degraded wellbeing.
Illustration by Deena So’Oteh / The New Yorker
Shortly after nine o’clock on the morning of June 24th, a woman in her forties, whom I’ll call Luisa, arrived for her appointment at an abortion clinic in Texas. Inside the waiting room, a space bedecked with posters of women rendered in white, red, and blue, she filled out a series of mandated forms, and was escorted to the back of the facility, where dozens of other patients waited. A single mother of three who moved to the U.S. several years ago, Luisa had visited the clinic the previous day to get a sonogram, which revealed that she was less than six weeks pregnant, the legal limit to have an abortion in Texas at the time. Per state law, however, she needed to wait at least twenty-four hours before the procedure could take place.
Minutes after Luisa’s arrival, the Supreme Court issued its ruling overturningRoe v. Wade. Few of the patients knew that the Justices had the authority to take away women’s right to abortion. But when the […]
Stephan: SR reports on trends that are shaping the future and this is one of the nastier trends I see. Please be clear, this has nothing to do with saving the lives of unborn fetuses. If the anti-choice fanatics cared a twig for children they would be leaders in pregnancy healthcare, early childhood care, child education, and maternal care. In fact, they not only do not support such programs they are against them. Look at the social outcome data in the states where these people have control. There is no question about this. The anti-choice movement is about controlling women, keeping them in a second-class status. I see this as little different in essence than what the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan. Like the 6 January insurrection, this is all part of the christofascist maneuverings to end democracy and assure White supremacy authoritarian control of the United States whatever the majority of Americans want.
Credit: Christian Horz / Eyeem / Getty
Conservative state lawmakers waged an assault on state courts in 2022, introducing dozens of bills that seek to give themselves more power by preventing courts from being able to block unlawful abortion bans or election restrictions, in what appears to be a step in fascism’s “legal phase.”
A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice finds that lawmakers across 25 states considered at least 74 bills aimed at curbing state courts’ power this year, with five of those bills eventually becoming law.
These bills all appear to be related to the right’s current quest to hand total power to politicians while stripping away other officials’ ability to keep them in check, representing an attack on the concept of checks and balances in state government. They also appear to be attempts to set the stage for further extremism coming from an increasingly far right Republican Party, and in many cases relate to specific topics that the right is currently focused on.
For instance, 16 laws were specifically related to preventing state or federal […]
Stephan: The Republican Party as you can see from the way they vote simply don't have wellbeing as a priority; they have other issues, mostly their own personal power. You would think a bill such as the one described in this report would be easy to pass. It was not because 28 Republicans voted against it: Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar (Ariz.); Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx (NC); Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mo Brooks and Barry Moore (Ala.); Louie Gohmert, Ronny Jackson, Troy Nehls, Chip Roy, and Michael Cloud (Texas); Andrew Clyde, Jody Hice, Austin Scott, and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.); James Comer and Thomas Massie (Ky.); Rick Crawford (Ark.); Byron Donalds and John Rutherford (Fla.); Bob Good (Va.), Clay Higgins (La.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Ralph Norman (SC), Scott Perry (Pa.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), and Jeff Van Drew (NJ).
MAGAt queen Marjorie Taylor Greene
The bipartisan Respect for Child Survivors Act, a law that would aid victims of child sex abuse and their families, just passed the House in a 385-28 vote.
All 28 votes against the bill came from Republicans.
The bill would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to aid sex abuse victims and their families in order to prevent re-traumatization from investigation and any cases from being dropped. These teams would include “investigative personnel, mental health professionals, medical personnel, family advocacy workers, child advocacy workers, and prosecutors,” Newsweek reported.
U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the legislation.
“I applaud Senator Cornyn’s leadership on this issue to correct an egregious wrong committed by certain FBI agents regarding their treatment of victims of sexual abuse,”said Sen. Graham.“Requiring the FBI to use appropriate, tried and true methods to interview child victims will help ensure the FBI’s failure in the Nassar case doesn’t happen again. This legislation will make it clear that we expect better.”
Stephan: I think the United States is headed for food issues that are going to affect all American families, and devastate the poor. As I read the literature there are two major things that are going to create these problems. The first is lack of water in agricultural areas dependent on the Colorado River; the second is the increasing failure, as this article describes, of industrial chemical monoculture agriculture, particularly in the Midwest. Modern agriculture was premised on the idea that the soil was not a living world. That was a major mistake and, as a result, the soil has seriously eroded and the living organisms that made the Midwestern soil so rich and fertile have been replaced with synthetic chemicals from the fertilizers and pesticides that system of agriculture depends upon. The result is going to be shortages and increasing prices. Going to your grocery and seeing $11 heads of lettuce, as has already been reported, may become commonplace.
Credit:sstop / Getty
Midwest soil is eroding at an alarming rate according to new, first-of-its-kind research.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than it was before modern agriculture practices reigned supreme across the region. The study found that before modern agriculture, the rate of soil erosion was vastly smaller than what is now deemed an acceptable amount of erosion by the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA.
“The Midwest is losing soil, for most of these sites, about 100 times faster than it’s forming,” Isaac Larsen, a geoscience professor at the University of Massachusetts and a study co-author, told Grist.
Larsen, an Iowa native, said the loss of soil is a concern across the board, from the fragility of food production to concerns over groundwater pollution. He said the rich soil the Midwest is known for has been eroding and replaced with synthetic chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides.
Hayley Smith, Ian James, - Yahoo News / Los Angeles Times
Stephan: Here is a report on the other major trend I see that is going to affect food production in the U.S.. While our Congress, because of the Republican cartoon character members, is mostly focused on culture wars, what we need is a series of long-range planning agricultural programs that prepare the country for what climate change is doing
A woman waters her garden in Los Angeles in August. Credit: Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty
As California faces the prospect of a fourth consecutive dry year, officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have declared a regional drought emergency and called on water agencies to immediately reduce their use of all imported supplies.
The decision from the MWD’s board came about eight months after officials declared a similar emergency for 7 million people who are dependent on supplies from the State Water Project, a vast network of reservoirs, canals and dams that convey water from Northern California. Residents reliant on California’s other major supply — the Colorado River — had not been included in that emergency declaration.
“Conditions on the Colorado River are growing increasingly dire,” MWD Chairwoman Gloria Gray said in a statement. “We simply cannot continue turning to that source to make up the difference in our limited state supplies. In addition, three years of California drought are drawing down our local storage.”
