What you see over and over is the lack of ethics, integrity, and general thuggery of MAGAt Republican politicians. I see these stories weekly and don’t usually cover them. But I decided that it has become a trend and ought to be reported in SR. Also, Joe Harding is a particularly nasty example of the trend. Look at his picture. What I don’t get is how anyone could vote for this man.
Former Florida Representative and MAGAt thug Joe Harding plead guilty to one count each of wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements. Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A federal judge on Thursday sentenced to prison a former Florida state legislator who catapulted to national attention for being the sponsor of a bill barring classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity that was called by its critics the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Former Rep. Joe Harding (R-Williston), who plead guilty in March to one count each of wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements as part of a scheme to fraudulently obtain a $150,000 federal Covid-19 relief loan, was sentenced to four months in prison.
U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, also sentenced Harding to two years of supervised release following his prison sentence. Court records show that Harding is scheduled to surrender to authorities on Jan. 29.
“The theft of any amount of taxpayer funds is inexcusable,” said Jason Coody, […]
You don’t see or hear stories like this in big corporate media but in fact, trends like this have an enormous impact on major parts of our culture, in this case, the military. The U.S. adult obesity rate stands at 42.4 percent and has increased by 26 percent since 2008. Think about this, nearly half of Americans aren’t just overweight they are obese. Overweight is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher. Obesity is defined as a BMI of 30 or higher. This weight issue also plays a big role in the fact that Americans live more than five years less than people living in other developed nations.
Obese soldier Credit: Tactical Training & Conditioning
Obesity rates among active-duty servicemembers doubled in the past decade, and antiquated policies and incomplete data have complicated efforts to combat the trend, according to a new report from the American Security Project.
Military obesity rates across the active duty jumped from 10.4 percent in 2012 to 21.6 percent in 2022, according to the study, the findings of which were released on Oct. 12. This mirrors a national trend that has shrunk the military’s recruitment pool and led to billions of dollars in associated health care costs.
Today, 68 percent of active-duty servicemembers are either overweight or obese, and eating disorders in the military increased by approximately 79 percent between 2017 and 2021, the report said.
Although obesity in the U.S. and the military is not new, the seemingly rapid increase in the rate of overweight troops could renew concerns over military readiness, as obesity is a primary contributor to in-service injuries and medical discharges, the report said.
Furthermore, the report found that the military’s inconsistent use of […]
The Republicans, increasingly a minority White party, are preparing for the 2024 election and trying to ensure they stay in power by rigging how voting districts are defined. Here is an example from Texas of what I mean.
Credit: ProPublica
Through new and expansive assertions of privilege, Republican legislatures around the country are shielding their work on allegedly discriminatory voting maps to prevent the public from finding out how and why they made their decisions.
Eva Bonilla grows furious when she thinks about how Latino voters are treated by the Republican power structure in Texas. At 74, the small business owner watched the GOP Legislature pass a series of measures like a voter ID law that she felt would make it harder for Latinos to cast ballots or run for public office.
Two years ago, serving as the leader of a Hispanic women’s group in Fort Worth, she decided to strike back. The Republican Legislature had just pushed through new election maps that carved up Latino communities and made it even harder for them to elect candidates of their choice. So Bonilla joined other minority voters as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit alleging intentional discrimination in the 2021 redistricting plan.
“I wanted to see the right thing done, and this is just not […]
I am so sad when I see these stories describing the destruction of our planet. How can we be so stupid, so greedy, so short-term in our thinking that we don’t get what science is telling us almost daily about earth’s matrix of life? And yet there can be no doubt that we are all those things. Here is why I say this.
Two bridled white-eyes are seen on November 2, 2022. Credit: Laura Wolf / Flickr
“My heart breaks,” one biodiversity advocate said Monday as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 21 species would be removed from the endangered species list due to their extinction.
The agency said it had conducted “rigorous reviews of the best available science” and determined that the animal species are no longer in existence, having been protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) starting in the 1970s and ’80s, when they were already in very low numbers—or potentially already extinct in some cases.
“These plants and animals can never be brought back,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). “We absolutely must do everything we can to avert the loss of even more threads in our web of life.”
CBD noted that human exploitation of wildlife and the resulting spread of invasive species was directly linked to at least one of the species losses.
In 1973 when the Yom Kippur War occurred I was the Special Assistant for Research and Analysis to the Chief of Naval Operations, and I had to really dig into the Arab Israeli history. As I was doing this I came to realize how complicated their history is and why Israel was created at that location in the first place. Almost all of this is never discussed in the media, and most Americans haven’t a clue. So I went looking yesterday to see if anybody had published on it in a meaningful way so I didn’t have to do it. This was the best thing I could find
In 1988, a Palestinian mother and child walk along the border of the Ansar II prison camp in Gaza, Israeli soldiers standing guard. Credit: Sven Nackstrand / AFP / Getty
Hamas’s attack on Israel, and Israel’s offensive in Gaza in response, is yet another escalation in a long conflict that has already left thousands dead on both sides.
The latest round of violence between Israel and Palestine began after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel ever on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, and capturing nearly 200, by the latest estimates. Israel responded with an intense counteroffensive that included an order to carry out a “complete siege” of Gaza, and it appears to be readying for a ground assault.
Israeli airstrikes have already devastated many civilian areas, and the death toll in Gaza is growing amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis. Foreign passport holders in Gaza and aid convoys carrying life-saving supplies from Egypt have lined up at the Egyptian border crossing waiting for an agreement […]
