Look at the graph at the head of this article. Do you note the differences in concern between the Democrats and the Republicans? Particularly the 48-point spread of concern over climate change. In addition to everything else in the Red-Blue Schism, this lack of concern about pollution, and climate change, are both alarming and dangerous.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A majority of Americans, 55%, express “a great deal” of worry about the pollution of drinking water in the U.S., which remains their top environmental concern of six problems tested. Half of U.S. adults express the same degree of worry about the pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs.
Although roughly four in 10 Americans worry a great deal about the other four issues tested — extinction of plant and animal species, the loss of tropical rain forests, global warming or climate change, and air pollution — majorities say they worry at least “a fair amount” about each.
Gallup has tracked worry about each of these problems annually since 2000, except for 2005, with concern about water pollution consistently ranking at the top of the list of environmental issues. The latest findings, from a March 1-23 poll, show modest declines in worry since last year for most of the problems.
The percentages of Americans expressing a great deal of worry about air pollution and the loss of tropical rain forests have each fallen seven points since 2022, while […]
The thing that amazes me is that the MAGAt voters don’t seem to get that the people they are electing to office to represent them, don’t give a damn for their wellbeing, they have an entirely different agenda as this article lays out. And yet MAGAt voters keep voting for them year after year angry and resentful about what these corrupt cretins are doing yet unable to blame them. It must be the Democrats they think, because that is what MAGAt media tells them. This is what is tearing America apart.
MAGAt Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and other MAGAts Credit: Kevin Dietsch / Getty
Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz and other far-right members of the House GOP, Republican lawmakers are intensifying their push to establish new work requirements for millions of people who receive Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, an effort that progressives slammed as a cruel attack on the poor.
The Washington Postreported Tuesday that Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have rallied around work requirements as a key demand as they use the ongoing debt ceiling standoff as leverage to pursue steep spending cuts and other policy changes.
“The debate in some ways resembles the Republican-led campaign against so-called welfare queens in the 1990s, when a politically resurgent GOP—then under the leadership of House Speaker Newt Gingrich—secured a dramatic restructuring of the government’s social safety net,” the Post noted. “The resulting overhaul, enacted by President Bill Clinton, slashed cash benefits for millions of Americans in ways that GOP leaders now cite as a model.”
Ling Zeng and Daniela Mahl, Assistant Professor of Digital Methods and Critical Data Studies, Utrecht University | Daniela Mahl, PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich - Raw Story
Stephan:
Very few Americans, unless they are involved with it, realize that MAGAt world is trying to create its own economy, by doing the reverse I what I have been recommending. That is they recommend you only invest or buy things from companies and individuals who support MAGAt principles, whereas I recommend you only invest or buy from companies or individuals that foster wellbeing.
A man hiding money in his suit Credit: Shutterstock
The last few years have seen the west swept by political polarisation, much of which has played out online. Debates around race, gender and freedom of speech have splintered democracies, spread conspiracy theories and sparked a series of culture wars. One byproduct of this is a rightwing movement in the tech and economic spaces, known as the “parallel economy”.
The parallel economy is a system of financial services, e-commerce websites and social media targeting communities with rightwing political values, mainly in the US and Europe. Boasting taglines like “America’s first credit card for Conservatives” and “Save America, stop funding woke corporations”, these services aim to circumvent or compete with mainstream financial institutions and tech.
Historically, the term parallel economy has been used alongside concepts like the “shadow” or “underground” economy, referring to an unsanctioned economic sector operating outside of official channels and eluding GDP estimates.
But now, both in the US and Europe, the term has become a catchall to describe a resistance movement against what […]
Seventy percent of Americans are feeling financially stressed. One in seven American children has hunger issues. But for the oligarchs times have never been better; they are almost a third richer than they were three years ago. Because of our grotesquely skewed tax system, the United States has become two very different countries. Not the Red Blue schism, although that is part of it, but wealth inequality so great that it has created a wealth aristocracy made up of the 5.3 million millionaires who represent the gentry, and 770 billionaires who have become a financial nobility. And then there is a shrinking middle class and several hundred million peasants. If that sounds medieval financially it is.
Credit: Tayeb Mezahidia / Pixabay
As the deadline for Americans to file federal income tax returns fast approaches, Oxfam America on Friday renewed calls for taxing the ultrarich while publishing an analysis showing America’s growing number of billionaires saw their wealth increase by nearly one-third since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and by nearly 90% over the past decade.
“Wealth inequality in the U.S. is more extreme and dangerous than income inequality; and we need to change our approach, so we effectively tax wealth as well as income,” the charity said in an introduction to the report, Tax Wealth, Tackle Inequality.
Based on Forbes data, the report found that “U.S. billionaires are almost a third richer (over a trillion dollars, in real terms) than they were at the onset of the pandemic in 2020,” while overall U.S. billionaire wealth has soared 86% since 2013.
The number of U.S. billionaires—of which there are now more than 700—is also nearly 60% higher than it was a decade ago, according to the analysis.
Laura Paddison, Nadine Schmidt and Inke Kappeler, Reporters - CNN
Stephan:
Here is some good news for Germany. While the American government is considering building more nuclear power plants, the Germans have had the good sense of get out of nuclear power. They still have the waste problem of course, that will plague them for generations, but at least they aren’t making any more.
The Isar nuclear power plant, in Essenbach, Germany.Credit: Alexandra Beier / Getty
Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spannedmore than six decades.
Nuclear power has long been contentious in Germany.
There are those who want to end reliance on a technology they view as unsustainable, dangerous and a distraction from speeding up renewable energy.
But for others, closing down nuclear plants is short-sighted. They see it as turning off the tap on a reliable source of low-carbon energy at a time when drastic cuts to planet-heating pollution are needed.
Even as these debates rumble on, and despite last-minute calls to keep the plants onlineamid an energy crisis, the German government has been steadfast.
“The position of the German government is clear: nuclear power is not green. Nor is it sustainable,” Steffi Lemke, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection and a Green Party member, told CNN.
“We are embarking on a new era of energy production,” she […]
