The House of Representatives on the Republican MAGAt side is made up of men and women who have very little interest in actually governing. Their interests and their voting is all centered on their personal power and getting what they personally want whether it does harm to the country or not. They don’t seem capable of understanding the geopolitics of the Ukraine war, and why America’s support for the Ukrainians is to critically important. So they blunder around, doing damage to the United States with every turn.
The 70 House Republicans who voted to cut off US military aid to Ukraine. Credit: Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives
70 House Republicans voted in favor of an amendment to the country’s annual defense bill that would have cut off all US military aid to Ukraine.
“Notwithstanding any provision of this or any other Act, no federal funds may be made available to provide security assistance to Ukraine,” reads the one-sentence amendment, one of the dozens offered by hard-right Republicans that lawmakers voted on over the course of Thursday evening.
The amendment easily failed by a 358-70 margin, with all Democrats and a majority of Republicans opposing the measure.
But the vote count offered the starkest indication yet of where House Republicans stand on sending military aid to the besieged European nation, which has defended itself against a Russian invasion since February 2022 with the help of tens of billions of dollars in US aid.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the sponsor of the amendment, acknowledged during the floor debate on the measure earlier […]
If you read SR regularly you know that for several years now I have been counseling readers who are coastal residents to explore what climate change is likely to do to their immediate area, and to watch what the insurance companies are doing because there will come a point where it will not be possible to get insurance for your property, or the insurance you have will be cancelled with no chance of renewal. That will be followed by a massive collapse of real estate values because you can not buy property and get a mortgage without insurance. Well, that time is nigh in Florida. About half the state is going underwater in the coming years, and no one follows this more closely than insurance companies. And, Farmers, one of the country largest insurers has just announced they will no longer insure property or even cars, in Florida. They are also limiting what they will cover in California in areas with major forest fire issues. Other companies will follow Farmers so if you own coastal property look at what the future holds and sell before the collapse.
Central Florida Flooding in 2023 Credit: CNN
Farmers Insurance said Tuesday that it will no longer offer coverage in Florida, ending home, auto and others policies in the state in a move that will affect tens of thousands of residents.
Farmers becomes the fourth major insurer to pull out of Florida in the past year, as the state’s insurance market looks increasingly precarious amid a growing threat from extreme weather.
“We have advised the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation of our decision to discontinue offering Farmers-branded auto, home and umbrella policies in the state,” Farmers spokesman Trevor Chapman said in a statement to CBS Miami. “This business decision was necessary to effectively manage risk exposure.”
Under Florida law, companies are required to give three months’ notice to the Office of Insurance Regulation before they tell customers their policies won’t be renewed.
Samantha Bequer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Insurance Regulation, told CBS Miami that the agency received a notice Monday from Farmers about exiting Florida. The notice was listed as a “trade secret,” so its details were not publicly available Tuesday.
Farmers said the move will affect only company-branded policies, which […]
David Badash, Staff Writer - The New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan:
Texas ranks 41st of the 50 states in the U.S. in terms of the quality of its education. Pathetic. So what are the christofascist Republicans who control the state doing about that giving a large surplus. Nothing. Why? Because the Republican Party knows that the more educated a person becomes the more likely they are to vote for Democrats, and what the Republicans want is poorly educated tweebs easily manipulated through culture wars that speak to their fears, hates, and resentments. This sort of thing is going on in Red states across the country.
The Republican majority in the Texas state legislature declined to give schools any additional funding this year, despite the state having a $32 billion surplus, leading one school’s superintendent to grant modest pay raises to teachers even if it causes deficit spending, and a state-installed superintendent to announce cuts of up to 600 jobs. Lawmakers in the Lone Star State are focused on tax cuts.
Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott has called on lawmakers in special session to cut property taxes and expand the state’s school voucher program, as the Texas Tribune reported last month.
“Lawmakers didn’t approve extra money this year to help schools balance their budgets or pay for raises, despite having an unprecedented $32 billion surplus in their hands — and even after Gov. Greg Abbottcommissioned a task force last year to improve teacher pay and retention,” the Tribune added Monday. “The political fight over school vouchers derailed the only school funding bill that had a chance of passing.”
Temple Independent School District Superintendent Bobby Ott told The […]
Here is another prediction you’ve seen on SR now coming to pass. I think there are two transportation trends going on that we need to be following. Toyota has announced a EV battery that will go 750 miles on a charge and charge in 10 minutes. So we are seeing a major battery evolution. Second, I don’t think the gas station network model of charging stations is the one that will prevail. Instead, I think major highways are going to be retrofitted so that they charge the batteries of the vehicles they drove over them. And that too has started, as this report describes.
A new type of pavement, soon to be tested on U.S. 231, could charge electric cars and trucks as they drive over it.
WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA — A new type of pavement, soon to be tested on U.S. 231, could charge electric cars and trucks as they drive over it.
A quarter-mile test bed will be located on the right northbound lane of U.S. 231 between Lindberg Road and Cumberland Avenue in West Lafayette.
The project is the result of a years-long research partnership between the Indiana Department of Transportation and Purdue University.
The work involves “magnetizable concrete”: Coils beneath the pavement create a magnetic field that wirelessly charges vehicles as they drive.
“The pavements themselves, the materials don’t really change so much,” says Purdue civil engineering professor John Haddock, who is part of the research team. “What we’re doing is embedding the coils in the pavement that supply that charge to your battery as you move down the highway.”
It’s a similar concept to wireless chargers many people use for their cellphones, Haddock says.
Christofascist Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is one of the dimmer bulbs in the Senate. He’s also a White supremacist racist, of course, and also deeply committed to male dominance. I think, he is interested in raising his profile in MAGAt world. So he has done something amazingly stupid, as this article describes, and as you may already have heard. He is willing to screw up the entire military officer promotion system in order to demonstrate to the MAGAts in his state that he supports the government having complete control over women’s bodies.
Christofascist white supremacist Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville Credit: Rolling Stone
The blockade from Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on about 250 of the Pentagon’s general and flag officers has left the Marine Corps without a confirmed leader for the first time in 164 years.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger officially retired on Monday, leaving Assistant Commandant Gen. Eric Smith as the acting commandant and leader of the military branch until he is confirmed in the Senate.
The last time the Marine Corps was left with an acting commandant was in 1859, when Archibald Henderson, the fifth commandant of the Marines, died at 76 without a successor in place.
It’s unclear when Smith could be confirmed. Tuberville’s hold on the Pentagon nominees, which he began in March to protest the Defense Department’s new abortion policy, shows no signs of weakening, even as the block has sparked bipartisan frustration.
Tuberville’s hold is affecting leadership posts held by key military officers, prompting concern from the White House, Defense Department, former Defense secretaries under Republican and Democratic administrations […]
