KOKH Staff, - KOKH - Sinclair Broadcasting Group (Oklahoma City)
Stephan:
Did you think that in the second decade of the 21st-century school children, particularly handicapped children could still be subjected to corporal punishment? No? Well in 19 Republican-controlled states, it is still practiced and legal. The Republican Party is sanctimonious, self-righteous, and evil. I hate these stories, but SR is about trends good or bad that are shaping our world and the evilness of the Republican Party is in many ways the defining trend of the United States; it is shaping everything. Notice particularly the Republican who invokes God to authorize physical punishment.
FOX 25’s Payton May looks at efforts to end corporal punishment for students with disabilities in Oklahoma.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA — A bill that sought to end corporal punishment in schools for students with disabilities failed in a close vote in the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Tuesday.
“For the most part it means that you bend over and someone uses a board to hit you on the behind,” said Talley, a Republican. “It can really hurt because I had it used on me when I was a kid.”
He didn’t believe that was something a student with special needs should deal with.
“I just think a special needs student does not need to deal with that pain, because I think they would be wondering, why is this happening to me?” Talley told FOX 25 earlier this year.
Talley found some support from Rep. Anthony Moore, a fellow Republican who debated in favor of the bill […]
This is why I do not support expanding nuclear power, and why I think it should be shut down. Everything is fine until it isn't and then it can take decades -- consider Chernobyl, or what is happening in Ukraine -- maybe even a century to make whatever the accident affected safe again.
Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant is seen in Monticello, Minnesota on September 30, 2009. Credit: Nuclear Regulatory Commission / Flickr
Xcel Energy in late November told Minnesota and federal officials about a leak of 400,000 gallons of water contaminated with radioactive tritium at its Monticello nuclear power plant, but it wasn’t until Thursday that the incident and ongoing cleanup effort were made public.
In a statement, Xcel said Thursday that it “took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment.”
“Ongoing monitoring from over two dozen on-site monitoring wells confirms that the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water,” the company added.
The Monticello plant, adjacent to the Mississippi River, is roughly 35 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Asked why it didn’t notify the public sooner, the Minneapolis-based utility giant said: “We understand the importance of quickly informing the communities we serve if a situation poses […]
Fiona Harvey, Environment Editor - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
if you read me regularly you know I have been telling readers for years, that water is destiny, either too much or not enough, and that we are not preparing properly for what is coming. Here is a just-released report on what this means in terms of potable water.
The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit.
Governments must urgently stop subsidising the extraction and overuse of water through misdirected agricultural subsidies, and industries from mining to manufacturing must be made to overhaul their wasteful practices, according to a landmark report on the economics of water.
Nations must start to manage water as a global common good, because most countries are highly dependent on their neighbours for water supplies, and overuse, pollution and the climate crisis threaten water supplies globally, the report’s authors say.
Johan Rockstrom, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and a lead author of the report, told the Guardian the world’s neglect of water resources was leading to disaster. “The scientific evidence is that we have a water crisis. We are misusing water, polluting water, and changing the whole global hydrological […]
There is something seriously deranged about the MAGAt cult's obsession with the sexuality of women. These kinds of crazy bills, like the one described in this article, get reported as one-off events but I don't think that is the correct way to look at them. These are each datapoints on a single thread: the serious dysfunctionality about gender and sexuality that is part of the worldview of the far right White men (their race seems to be a factor in this) who keep introducing and voting for such bills.
State Rep. Stan McClain (R) Credit: Florida House of Representatives
A Florida Republican admitted that his bill would ban young girls from discussing menstruation with school officials but claimed it wasn’t the “intent” of his legislation.
Republican state Rep. Stan McClain introduced House Bill 1069, which would restrict education materials in schools, require schools to teach the “benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage,” and require educators to teach that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth …and that these reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.”
The bill also says that “instruction in acquired immune deficiency syndrome, sexually transmitted diseases, or health education, when such instruction and course material contains instruction in human sexuality, such instruction may only occur in grades 6 through 12.”
Democratic state Rep. Ashley Viola Gantt pressed McClain over the bill during a House Education Equality Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, questioning whether it would effectively ban girls below sixth grade from discussing their periods in school.
“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles ― because we know that typically […]
The thing that always stands out about MAGAt Republicans is their contempt for the people they are supposed to represent, and their sheer nastiness about it. How does any ethical person vote to leave their constituents in hunger. And yet millions of Americans driven by fear, resentment, racism, misinformation, and hatred vote these people into office year after year.
A sign alerting customers about SNAP food stamps benefits is displayed in a grocery store. Credit: Scott Heins/Getty
House Republicans are taking their first shot at slashing federal spending on nutrition programs for low-income Americans. It won’t be their last.
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), is introducing a bill Tuesday, shared exclusively with POLITICO, to expand current restrictions on who qualifies for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. It’s the first of what is expected to be a wave of GOP efforts this year to set limits on SNAP, the country’s largest food assistance program, which grew significantly during the pandemic. But while Republicans have telegraphed their desire to curb nutrition spending, House Democrats have yet to mount a coordinated response, raising concerns in the caucus about whether they can fend off likely GOP attacks on the program during the negotiations over the debt limit, budget and 2023 farm bill.
Johnson’s bill would expand the age bracket for able-bodied SNAP recipients without dependents, who have to meet complicated work requirements. The legislation would also limit the […]
