The obsession of the MAGAt Republicans about controlling women has reached a level of nastiness I honestly didn’t imagine possible. They now want to arrest and imprison any friend or family member who drives a woman to a Blue state where she can get the healthcare she needs but cannot get in her MAGAt controlled Red State. That is the government intruding into a woman’s life in a manner I would have thought was unacceptable even to Republicans. Here is what I am talking about. Frankly, I wouldn’t live in a Red state, and I suspect others will increasingly feel the same.
“Your help means the world to me,” a grateful Brittni Silva texted her best friends, Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, last July. “I’m so lucky to have y’all. Really.”
A month after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Houston mother of two experienced an unplanned pregnancy with her now ex-husband and allegedly sought abortion care with the help of her friends. For nearly a year, Texas had imposed a six-week abortion ban, and a full “trigger” ban would be enacted in just a few weeks. Silva needed to act fast and extricate herself from what appeared to be an emotionally unhealthy relationship with a husband she would go on to divorce in February. Her friends offered their unwavering support.
I don’t know how you find it, but I find the sheer nastiness of the Republican Party, particularly as it plays out at the state level, just stomach turning. This story about Kansas would, if I were a part of the LGBTQ community, cause me to move to a Blue state. In fact, I think the Republican nastiness has become one of the defining trends of American society today, and I think there is going to be considerable internal migration out of Red states by both heterosexual women, and LGBTQ folk, and the Red states are going to become increasingly ideological.
Kansas state Reps. Michael Murphy (left) (R-Sylvia) and Kyle Hoffman (right) (R-Coldwater) confer during a House debate on overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a transgender bathroom bill, Thursday, April 27, 2023. | John Hanna/AP Photo
The nation’s political strife over gender, sex, bathrooms and sports teams boiled over in Kansas Thursday as conservative lawmakers passed one of the broadest restrictions on transgender people in the country.
The Republican-controlled Legislature overrode a veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to define a “woman” in state law by a person’s reproductive biology at birth. It’s a move LGBTQ activists say will legally erase trans existence and will embolden conservative school districts to install stricter policies against already vulnerable students.
“I promised Kansans I’d govern from the middle of the road and that I’d serve as a check on legislation that is too extreme one way or the other,” Kelly tweeted after the override. “I’m disappointed some legislators are eager to force through extremist legislation that will hurt our economy and tarnish our reputation as the Free State.”
This is bad news, and I do not understand, why the Biden administration is supporting this. Obviously some corporate corruption, but still how is this progress as we move out of the carbon energy era? How does this help the wellbeing of the earth?
This Pacific loon was photographed in Alaska’s North Slope on July 8, 2018. Credit: Nick Athanas / flickr
Migratory bird nest survival “decreased significantly” near fossil fuel extraction sites in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, a study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society revealed Tuesday.
WCS analyzed 17 years of migratory bird nesting data in Prudhoe Bay and found that “nest survival decreased significantly near high-use oil and gas infrastructure and its related noise, dust, traffic, air pollution, and other disturbances.”
“Prudhoe Bay is the site of intensive energy development and is located on the Arctic Coastal Plain, one of the most important avian breeding grounds in the world,” WCS noted. “Millions of birds nest here, with some then migrating through every state in the nation to wintering grounds in Central and South America, even Africa, with others crossing the Pacific Ocean to Russia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.”
According to the study, which was published in the Journal of Avian Biology:
The Arctic Coastal Plain is one of the most important avian breeding grounds in the […]
The transition out of carbon power continues and gathers momentum. Good news.
Electric car charging stations in the U.S. Credit: gerenme / iStock / Getty
Last year was a good year for the electric vehicle market. Of new cars sold in 2022, electric cars made up 14%, or around 10 million units, globally. Now, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is predicting that growth to continue, with electric car sales expected to increase 35% in 2023 compared to last year.
In 2022, new electric car sales reached 14% of all new cars sold, compared to just 9% in 2021, according to IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2023. Already this year, 2.3 million electric cars were sold in the first three months — 25% higher than electric car sales in Q1 of 2022.
IEA estimates that 2023 will reach 14 million new electric cars sold, a 35% increase compared to the number of units sold in 2022. Purchases are expected to increase in the second half of 2023, and electric cars could make up around 18% of new cars sold for the year.
“Electric vehicles are one of the driving forces in the […]
This trend is what I see as the greatest threat to a successful election in 2024. The election workers, most older, who do their work as an act of patriotism, and the MAGAts have been threatening them and making them afraid. It is an attack on the functioning structure that makes our elections work.
Credit: Jason Redmond / Getty
Our elections are secure, but our election officials are not.
Today, the Brennan Center released a new poll of local election officials. Twelve percent, roughly one in nine, have resigned since the 2020 election, and an additional eleven percent are likely to leave their jobs before the 2024 election.
Part of the Great Resignation? Not exactly. Election officials don’t seem to be seeking out remote work opportunities or fleeing to the exurbs. They’re more worried about their safety and the safety of their families. According to the poll results, nearly one in three officials has been harassed, abused, or threatened. One in five is worried about being physically assaulted on the job. And 45 percent expressed concern for the safety of other election officials and workers. None of them signed up for this.
Here, perhaps more than in any other area of governance, we see two diseases of American politics converging: disinformation and guns.
Republicans have long made baseless claims of voter fraud. Republican-controlled legislatures have worked to close polls earlier, reduce the number […]
“Your help means the world to me,” a grateful Brittni Silva texted her best friends, Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, last July. “I’m so lucky to have y’all. Really.”
