The greed and stupidity of Republican politicians who have sold themselves to the carbon industries should be seen as legendary. But the voters of Texas don’t seem capable to understanding just how damaging these politicians are to their personal lives. What amazes me about Texas Republican politicians is that they seem to think that censuring the textbooks used by their children will somehow have an effect on climate change that is going to devastate Texas. If you don’t teach it to your kids it will somehow go away they seem to think. Of course it won’t and the people of Texas are going to pay a fearsome price for this greed and stupidity.
Oil Wells in Texas Credit: Shuttershock
The scorching summer in Texas this year was the second hottest on record — but students in the southwestern US state might have a hard time understanding why.
That’s because a slew of science textbooks submitted to the state Board of Education (BOE) were rejected last week, as the Republican-dominated body moves to curtail education materials deemed too “one-sided” on climate change.
Many of the rejected books taught that “humans are negatively impacting the environment. And the scare tactics that come with that, that is my main issue,” Evelyn Brooks, a Republican board member, told AFP.
She claimed, counter to scientists and the federal government, that “the science is not settled on global warming.”
America’s decentralized education system leaves curriculum management mostly up to individual states, with local school districts also having a degree of autonomy.
That has led to fraught battles across the country as each jurisdiction debates how to teach climate change and other politically charged issues, such as racism and sexuality.
If you have a baby or a young child DO NOT feed them baby food from Beech-Nut, Gerber and Parent’s Choice. This article explains the dangers, which are considerable. Either cook their food yourself and use a baby food grinder, or only buy organic baby food.
Credit: The Guardian
Nearly 40% of conventional baby food products analyzed in a new US study were found to contain toxic pesticides, while none of the organic products sampled in the survey contained the chemicals, which present a dangerous health threat to babies, researchers say
The research, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit, looked at 73 products and found at least one pesticide in 22 of them. Many products showed more than one pesticide, and the substances present a dangerous health threat to babies, researchers said.
“Babies and young children are particularly vulnerable to the health risks posed by pesticides in food – and food is the way most children will be exposed to pesticides,” said Sydney Evans, a senior science analyst at EWG and co-author of the report.
The study looked at products from Beech-Nut, Gerber and Parent’s Choice, though it did not specifically identify which of the companies’ products contained pesticide residue.
Among pesticides it detected were acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide that harms bees and humans, and captan, which is linked […]
Igor Volsky, Director of Stop Deficit Squawks - Common Dreams
Stephan:
Wealth inequality has become, in my opinion, the major reason for the deep unhappiness that pervades this country. Because bribery was legalized with the Citizens United Supreme Court decision the tax system has been deliberately rigged by the Congress members the rich have purchased so that it serves the interests of the rich not the wellbeing of the nation. If you vote Republican you vote against your own self-interest. They may sound partisan but it entirely an assessment based on objectively verifiable facts.
The deficit squawks who attend each year seek to reverse the progress we’ve made investing in workers, families, and the economy in order to invest in the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.
After narrowly avoiding a shutdown for the second time in less than two months, lawmakers have gone home to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday without making sustained investments in the critical programs that empower millions of American families and enable our economy to thrive.
Programs that provide nutritional assistance to women and children or offer housing assistance will face multiple funding cliffs early in the new year because extremists in Congress are only interested in advancing the economic interests of the very rich—and partying with them.
Just hours after avoiding a shutdown, tax policy wonks, lawmakers, and staff, polished their shoes, pressed their tuxedos, and attended “Tax Prom,” an annual fundraiser to support the anti-tax Tax Foundation. The organization is a classic D.C. deficit squawk: it flies its Wall Street coop when big corporations want tax cuts, and screeches when it’s time to invest in the rest of us.
Deficit squawks are loudly—and predictably—trying their best to turn back this economic progress by […]
Emily Stewart, Business and Economics Staff Writer - Vox
Stephan:
I have been doing research on why Biden’s poll numbers are so low, inasmuch as most of the things economists usually think positively influence polls don’t seem to be working on his behalf. Here is one of the best essays on why people feel as they obviously do that I have come across in my research. However, it does not address what I think is the main reason for the national unhappiness we are experiencing which, as I covered in the previous story, is caused by the grotesque wealth inequality and evilly rigged tax system that so blatantly favors the rich.
American workers: doing well, hating everything. Credit: RichVintage / Getty
Explaining the state of the American economy at the moment is a conundrum. The labor market is good — as is much of the economy — and people say that everything is terrible.
The past couple of years have been a solid stretch for workers in America. Unemployment is low. People who want to find jobs, by and large, can. Wages are up — even accounting for inflation over the past several months, and especially for people at the lower ends of the income spectrum. Workers really have been able to flex their muscles, whether that means quitting their jobs or unionizing or going on strike.
And yet, amid all this, poll after poll shows that Americans say the economy is absolutely awful (what Americans doin this supposedly awful economy is a different thing, which we’ll get to later). That such a strong labor market isn’t making a dent, opinion-wise, is a little weird. It seems like this jobs landscape should make the public feel […]
This is what prompted me to pick the two previous stories. How are you feeling about America? As a country we have got to make fostering wellbeing for everyone our national first priority. That is the only way our children and their children are going to live in a wellbeing oriented democracy. It’s your choice how you vote.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo / Axios
Americans are increasingly unlikely to believe that those who work hard will get ahead and that their children will be better off than they are, according to two recent polls.
Why it matters: The polls reflect concerns that the American dream is dimming — or already extinguished.
Driving the news: The WSJ asked respondents whether they believe “the American Dream — that if you work hard you’ll get ahead — still holds true.”
Just 36% said it does hold true vs. 18% who said it never held true and 45% who said it once held true, but not anymore.
Compare that to surveys in 2012 and 2016, when 53% and 48% respectively said the American dream held true. Those polls were taken by a different pollster, PRRI, with different methodology, but the downward trend is clear.
Zoom in: Women were more pessimistic about the state of the American dream than men, according to the WSJ poll, while younger people were much more pessimistic than people over 65.
