I tell you frequently that Republican governance is always inferior to Democratic governance, and that this can be verified by wellbeing social outcome data. I know that sounds like partisan politics but it is not. It is the measure of wellbeing for the people who live in Red states, compared with the wellbeing of people living in Blue states. Look at the chart at the head of this report. As this article describes Ron DeSantis, a vulgar, crass, and rather nasty man, was elected by the people of Florida, and he has done just what he said he would do and the result is just what I said it would be. The degrading of the quality of life for the people who elected him. So the question I think we should be asking is, why do people vote for politicians whose only achievement is to make their lives miserable?
The title of Governor Ron DeSantis’s book, which he is zealously promoting across the nation, is less important than the subtitle. The Courage to Be Free is a forgettable title shared by a volume by actor and gun rights activist Charlton Heston. But the subtitle, Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, unlocks DeSantis’s national ambitions.
While former US president Donald Trump labours under the frayed slogan of “Make America great again”, DeSantis is building a case to “Make America Florida” – a phrase that appears on caps, flags and other merchandise.https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2023/04/archive-zip/giv-13425v1EEiCKrw633/
The governor argues that he has made glorious summer in the Sunshine state. If and when he announces a run for US president in 2024, he will claim that he can repeat the formula in state after state across the US. Florida, his theory goes, is an incubator of conservative ideas that work.
He dangles a carrot to Republicans who, weary of Trump’s losing streak, are seeking a saviour. DeSantis writes that when he was elected in 2018, there were nearly 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida; […]
I am seriously studying what is going on in Florida and Texas because in both states the Republicans are trying the same thing. To gerrymander themselves so they cannot be defeated, and to recreate Viktor Orban’s model of goverment in Hungary: Christofascist anocracy. What surprises me is how docilely the voters of Florida and Texas are going along.
Christofascist Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Credit: Alberto Pezzali / AP
Watch out, woke investors—Ron DeSantis is coming to get ya, even if it means screwing over his own constituents.
On Tuesday, DeSantis signed into law a bill that forbids state and local governments in Florida from investing public money into funds and entities that consider environmental, social, and governance factors—or ESG. House Bill 3 is a sweeping law with lots of implications for both money within the state as well as the GOP’s larger culture wars.
The origins of bills like these began in Texas, when the state passed a law in 2021 that forbid it from doing business with banks and other entities that “boycott” the fossil fuel industry. Since then, the anti-ESG movement has picked up steam in statehouses around the country, as at least seven states in addition to Florida have passed laws or adopted measures to target ESG investing. GOP lawmakers in Congress have also tried to take the fight national, by targeting Biden administration policies meant to encourage ESG. Culturally, […]
Fenit Nirappil, Health & Science Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
This is a very sad story. Possibly you, like me for the last three years, have been isolated because of the pandemic in a way not experienced previously. Most of my interactions during this time have been on ZOOM/SKYPE or Facetime, but not everyone does media interviews or speaks at conferences and, anyway, I spend so much time alone normally, except for my beloved wife, doing research and writing that the Covid-19 shutdown hasn’t been a big deal for me. But for many others, as this article lays out, this collapse of normal social life has become a major problem. If isolation has been a major issue in your life reach out and get involved in something like ecological movements. Something that focuses you on something bigger than yourself. It will help. I also encourage you to develop the daily practise of meditation. There are many ways to do this, and I have created one for modern minds (Mediation for Modern Minds).
Half of U.S. adults experience loneliness, which has consequences for mental and physical health. Credit: iStock
Loneliness presents a profound public health threat akin to smoking and obesity, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy warned in an advisory issued Tuesday that aims to rally Americans to spend more time with each other in an increasingly divided and digital society.
Murthy said half of U.S. adults experience loneliness, which has consequences for mental and physical health, including a greater risk of depression, anxiety — and, perhaps more surprisingly, heart disease, stroke and dementia.
His advisory calls for a collective effort to “mend the social fabric of our nation,” including teaching children how to buildhealthy relationships; talking more to relatives, friends and co-workers; and spending less time online and on social media if it comes at the expense of in-person interactions.
Time spent with friends declined 20 hours a month between 2003 and 2020, according to research cited in the advisory, while time spent alone increased by 24 hours a […]
The MAGAt Republicans want to convince everyone that the national debt has arisen because we feed hungry children and provide care for aging vets. This is all crap, as this article describes. The problem is that the rich in the United States pay a tiny fraction of what they should pay, and used to pay. Do the MAGAts want to raise the taxes paid by the rich who rent them as needed? Of course not.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks to the media in National Statuary Hall following the House passage a bill focusing on the debt ceiling on April 26, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Credit: Matt McClain / The Washington Post / Getty
We are now somewhere between one and three months away from the U.S. hitting its debt ceiling limit, running out of accounting gimmicks and being unable to pay its bills.
Whenever the government runs out of wriggle room, however, economists are pretty much unanimous in warning that the damage of Congress not raising the debt ceiling — […]
Texas under Gregg Abbott and Florida under Ron DeSantis are attempting to become neofascist states, and the lengths to which the neofascists will go is illustrated by stories such as this one. As the quality of life in those states degrades it will be interesting to see whether the people are intelligent enough to comprehend who has damaged their wellbeing, and see how it affects their voting.
Bars Prison Jail Credit: Dan Henson / Shutterstock.com
An incarcerated woman in Texas was thrown into isolation by prison guards after they heard her debunking right-wing talking points against abortion, reported The Nation on Tuesday.
The problems started when Kwaneta Harris, a former nurse who was sentenced to 50 years in 2009 for killing and burying her romantic partner, began trying to fill in the sex education of women in adjacent cells in the Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where she has been locked up on high security since trying to forge a note from a judge to escape prison in 2016.
“One Wednesday in mid-April, Harris removed her headphones and heard the younger women shouting through their cell doors. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but the conversation soon had Harris at her own door. They were giving advice about avoiding pregnancy — and all of their advice was wrong,” reported Victoria Law. “‘You gotta let him in yo butthole before yo biscuit and be a toaster […]
