So many of the trends in the United States are negative that I am glad to share with you this positive trend, part of the movement that is gaining momentum to exit the carbon energy era. But it does other good things as well, as this article describes.
A new solar farm in Colorado will do triple duty as a prairie restoration project, carbon sink, and clean power source. Credit: Lightsource
A movement is afoot to quash utility-scale solar development on farmland in the US, but the case for rural solar keeps expanding in new and different directions. In the latest example, Lightsource bp has built a pair of solar farms in Colorado that double as carbon sinks and help to preserve 3,000 acres of shortgrass prairie, too.
Solar Farms Are Farms, Too
Solar developers like farmland because it is relatively flat, treeless, and exposed to sun. Roads and transmission infrastructure are pluses, too.
As for local opposition, that is a matter of local concern. However, if the objections come down to aesthetics and appropriate use of land, that is a matter of historical perspective. Farms look bucolic enough on the outside, but beneath those amber waves of grain is formerly virgin land that has been stripped of its natural state, robbed of its biodiversity, commercialized, and industrialized for generations with machines, herbicides and pesticides.
It is amazing to me that anyone who receives Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, childcare assistance, or a number of other social support programs would vote for a Republican, knowing that, as Mike Pence makes clear, Republicans want to gut those programs. Would it make a difference to you if that happened? If you know someone who receives help from a government program, and who is a Republican, ask them what their thinking is.
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Fox Propaganda Credit: Fox screen grab
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday called to end Social Security and Medicare, and instead replace them with a “better deal” for younger Americans.
During an interview on Fox News, Pence was asked about his plan for entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
“We are simply not going to reform the fiscal health of this nation by simply nibbling at the edges of the federal budget,” Pence said. “I submit to you that we have to have a conversation about reforming entitlements in the days ahead.”
“I think we can replace the New Deal programs with a better deal,” he added.
Pence proposed keeping the current system in place for “people who will retire in the next 20 years.”
“But give options to younger Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security in a private savings account and get a better deal,” he added. “I think [it] is an idea whose time will come.”
“Do you think there’s an appetite for that?” Fox News host Sandra Smith […]
American healthcare, as this article proves for the thousandth time, is not about wellbeing. Individual physicians and nurses may care about wellbeing, but the system itself cares about only one thing: maximizing profit. And yet so strong is the hold healthcare corporations have on the U.S. Congress, particularly the Republican Party, that year after year, in spite of the horrible social outcome data in this country, nothing happens and we continue to have the worst, but most expensive, healthcare in the developed world.
Nashville, Tennesse hospital emergency room entrance: Credit: KHN – Nashville Public Radio
Pregnant and scared, Natasha Valle went to a Tennova Healthcare hospital in Clarksville, Tennessee, in January 2021 because she was bleeding. She didn’t know much about miscarriage, but this seemed like one.
In the emergency room, she was examined then sent home, she said. She went back when her cramping became excruciating. Then home again. It ultimately took three trips to the ER on three consecutive days, generating three separate bills, before she saw a doctor who looked at her bloodwork and confirmed her fears.
“At the time I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, I need to see a doctor,’” Valle recalled. “But when you think about it, it’s like, ‘Well — dang — why didn’t I see a doctor?’” It’s unclear whether the repeat visits were due to delays in seeing a physician, but the experience worried her. And she’s still paying the bills.
The hospital declined to discuss Valle’s care, citing patient privacy. But 17 months before her three-day ordeal, Tennova had outsourced its emergency rooms to […]
I want to thank all of you who are helping support SR. It means a lot to me and makes operating SR much easier. For instance, it helps pay for the security that assures the site operates properly. Here is how many attempts to hack the site have been blocked in the last 47 days.
David Badash, Staff Writer - The New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan:
For the Founders, the absolute separation of church and state was one of the fundamentals of the country they were establishing. Whole states, Rhode Island, for instance, were basically grounded in this separation. Why did they feel so strongly about this issue, which was a unique aspect of their new country? No other nation at the time had such a fundamental principle. They felt that way because many of them personally, or in their immediate family history, had experienced the misery and harm that can arise when church and state are linked.
So the Founders wrote this separation into the Constitution.
“NO religious test… SHALL EVER be required as a qualification … TO ANY office or public trust …”
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
Thomas Jefferson referred to this First Amendment as creating a “wall of separation” between church and state.
The rise of Christian Nationalism in the Republican world is, by definition, a repudiation of the Constitution. Unfortunately most Americans, and I include here most Republican members of both the House and the Senate, know little or nothing about the founding of the United States and the drafting of the Constitution, and they want this fundamental principle to be abrogated and pushed into history's dust bin. Most Americans do not agree, and this is one of the foundational differences in the Great Schism between Red and Blue states.
Christian Nationalist and MAGAt Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) last summer proudly proclaimed, “I am a Christian and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” Now a new study shows the majority of Americans agree with her extremist view – while less than three in ten Americans overall support that belief.
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), “a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy,” and the Brookings Institution surveyed over 6000 Americans, asking them their thoughts on these five critical statements:
“The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.” “U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.” “If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.” “Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.” “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.”
“Researchers found that more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the […]
