I told you the Red states were going to seriously degrade the quality of their healthcare by the laws passed by Republicans to control women. In Sandpoint, Idaho the only hospital in the city has ended obstetrical care. Ob-Gyns are leaving Red States because it is too dangerous to practice in them. Here is the evidence.
With Roe v Wade overturned, abortion is now banned in 13 states and subject to restrictions and litigation in more than a dozen others. In some states,courts are embroiled in an on-off battle that can see abortion banned in a state one day, unbanned the next, and back off the table two weeks later.
Doctors are on the frontlines of this chaotic landscape,fearful of running afoul of ever-changing law, in some cases struggling to provide life-saving care. In most cases,doctors have stayed in abortion-restrictive states, because despite restrictions on their medical practice, they have ties to their patients, their communities, their families.
But others have decided to leave. What do they leave behind? In a country where, according to an analysis from the March of Dimes
EditSign, nearly half of all counties lack a single obstetrician,what care will remain? And what do their predicaments tell us about what it is like to work in reproductive health in much of the US?
I do not understand what the Biden administration is thinking. First, the Willow Oil Project, and now trying to resuscitate nuclear power plants. Both of these are bad ideas. Nuclear because of the thousand-year waste issue, and the oil project because... well, didn't they see the IPCC report (see SR archive).
California’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant conditionally received the first round of Biden administation funds to extend the lives of aging nuclear plants. Credit: Lloyd Cluff / Getty
For the first time, the Biden administration is offering money to recently shuttered nuclear plants that want to come back to life.
The funding is part of the $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit (CNC) Program offered to prevent the early closings of nuclear reactors as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Department of Energy (DOE) published application guidelines for the program’s second award cycle on Thursday, arguing that nuclear energy is essential for President Joe Biden’s vision of a carbon-free electricity grid by 2035.
“President Biden’s $6 billion investment in the Civil Nuclear Credit Program made it abundantly clear that preserving the domestic nuclear fleet is critical to reaching America’s clean energy future,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement announcing the current round of applications. “Expanding the scope of this Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will allow even more nuclear facilities the opportunity to continue operating as economic drivers […]
You saw the report I ran in yesterday's SR on the IPCC's urgent warning that humanity has reached the point where we take climate change seriously or life is going to change dramatically and negatively, and that millions are going to die. Contrast that with this: According to a national 2021 Yahoo News/YouGov poll more than two-thirds of Republicans (67 percent) continue to insist that climate change is “not an emergency.” And this report showing the Republicans in Texas under MAGAt governor Greg Abbott are doing what he and the Republican-controlled legislature can do to impede the development of renewal non-carbon energy, and to promote the continued dependence on fossil fuels. Then remember that these Republicans are in office because the people of Texas voted them there. It is obvious that we in the United States are nowhere near where we need to be mentally or emotionally to deal with what climate change is doing to alter our society.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick waves to a crowd at a Trump rally. Credit: Nick Wagner /AP
Texas Republicans are at it again. Last week, Republican politicians in the state legislature introduced a package of bills intended to punish renewable energy and boost fossil fuels, despite the fact that Texas is currently one of the nation’s top generators of renewable power.
On Thursday, Texas state senators Charles Schwertner and Phil King introduced nine bills that they said would help solve issues with Texas’s beleaguered power grid. According to the Dallas Morning News, the bills include one that would create up to 10,000 megawatts of natural gas-fueled generation; one to smooth out what Schwertner said were pro-wind and solar “market distortions” that federal tax breaks create; one to get rid of any remaining state tax credits for renewables; and one that would limit new renewable energy facilities being built based on how much natural gas facilities are also being built, in an attempt to keep natural gas competitive.
I have been telling my readers for years now: Do not ever use or have on your property the herbicide Roundup. Study after study shows that anything with glyphosate leads to a whole range of illnesses. Even eating plant matter upon which glyphosates have been used can cause cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. That is why I tell you to eat organic produce. It may be a bit more expensive, but the cost is nothing compared with what the illnesses it causes cost.
A French farmer fills his sprayer with glyphosate herbicide “Roundup 720” made by agrochemical giant Monsanto prior to spraying in Piace, northwestern France, in a corn field, on April 23, 2021. Credit: Jean-Francois / AFP / Getty
Children exposed to glyphosate, once touted as “safer than table salt,” face increased risk of conditions found primarily in older adults that can lead to cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
For Brenda Eskenazi, what once seemed merely a rich vein of epidemiological knowledge has turned out to be a mother lode.
Eskenazi, who runs the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas study (known as CHAMACOS, Mexican Spanish slang for “little kids”), has tracked pairs of mothers and their children for more than 20 years. She’s collected hundreds of thousands of samples of blood, urine and saliva, along with exposure and health records. This treasure trove of data has produced unprecedented insights into the effects of environmental hazards on children living in California’s Salinas Valley, an agricultural region often called the “world’s salad bowl.”
Here is yet another example of why I think a large number of people are going to move out of Red states. The Republican sexual dysfunctional obsession with the LGBTQ communities has become one of the dominant trends in Red states. I am waiting for the Blue states to say, enough is enough, we do not want to keep underwriting with our tax dollars the failure of the Red states. If that were in some way to happen, the Red states already suffering from inferior quality of life, would collapse into the equivalent of third-world countries.
The actual proposal put forward by Iowa Republicans reads:
House Joint Resolution 8 would add the follow amendment to the state's constitution:
Sec. 26.Marriage. In accordance with the laws of nature and nature’s God, the state of Iowa recognizes the definition of marriage to be the solemnized union between one human biological male and one human biological female.
Credit: Getty
Republican lawmakers in Iowa have submitted a proposal for a constitutional amendment in the state that would bar the recognition of marriage rights for same-sex couples.
The amendment, which was submitted this week, would only affect marriage rights in the state of Iowa and would not supersede federal marriage equality protections that have been in place since the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling in 2015. But should that ruling ever be overturned, the amendment, if passed, would grant the state the ability to deny Iowa’s same-sex couples the right to marry or have marriage benefits conferred to them.
Iowa became the third state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage — and the first in the Midwest — after its state Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage in 2009. If passed, the proposed constitutional amendment would negate that ruling.
For the amendment to become official, it must pass both houses of the state legislature, be signed by the governor, and pass the legislature again in the next session before being sent to voters.
