July 2023 – Page 16 – The Tarbabys Blog

Conservatives go to red states and liberals go to blue as the country grows more polarized

Associated Press

Conservatives go to red states and liberals go to blue as the country grows more polarized

Nicholas Riccardi – July 4, 2023

Jennifer and Tim Kohl poses for a photo in their front yard with the American flag and a thin blue line flag in Star, Idaho, on April 14, 2023. The couple recently moved to Idaho from the Los Angeles area. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history. (AP Photo/Kyle Green)

Kathleen Rickerson poses for a photo at her home Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in the west Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colo. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Aaron and Carrie Friesen feed chickens in the backyard of their home in Boise, Idaho, on April 12, 2023. The couple, who has three children, recently moved to Idaho from the Bluffton, S.C., area. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history. (AP Photo/Kyle Green)

Leah Dean, a native of the Texas Panhandle, poses outside her home Monday, July 3, 2023, in Denver. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

STAR, Idaho (AP) — Once he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to a Boise suburb last year, Tim Kohl could finally express himself.

Kohl did what the couple never dared at their previous house outside Los Angeles — the newly-retired Los Angeles police officer flew a U.S. flag and a Thin Blue Line banner representing law enforcement outside his house.

“We were scared to put it up,” Jennifer Kohl acknowledged. But the Kohls knew they had moved to the right place when neighbors complimented him on the display.

Leah Dean is on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but she knows how the Kohls feel. In Texas, Dean had been scared to fly an abortion rights banner outside her house. Around the time the Kohls were house-hunting in Idaho, she and her partner found a place in Denver, where their LGBTQ+ pride flag flies above the banner in front of their house that proclaims “Abortion access is a community responsibility.”

“One thing we have really found is a place to feel comfortable being ourselves,” Dean said.

Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history.

One party controls the entire legislature in all but two states. In 28 states, the party in control has a supermajority in at least one legislative chamber — which means the majority party has so many lawmakers that they can override a governor’s veto. Not that that would be necessary in most cases, as only 10 states have governors of different parties than the one that controls the legislature.

The split has sent states careening to the political left or right, adopting diametrically opposed laws on some of the hottest issues of the day. In Idaho, abortion is illegal once a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus — as early as five or six weeks — and a new law passed this year makes it a crime to help a minor travel out of state to obtain one. In Colorado, state law prevents any restrictions on abortion. In Idaho, a new law prevents minors from accessing gender-affirming care, while Colorado allows youths to come from other states to access the procedures.

Federalism — allowing each state to chart its own course within boundaries set by Congress and the Constitution — is at the core of the U.S. system. It lets the states, in the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, be “laboratories of democracy.”

Now, some wonder whether that’s driving Americans apart.

“Does that work as well in a time when we are so politically divided, or does it just become an accelerant for people who want to re-segregate?” asked Rob Witwer, a former Republican Colorado state lawmaker.

Colorado and Idaho represent two poles of state-level political homogenization. Both are fast-growing Rocky Mountain states that have been transformed by an influx of like-minded residents. Life in the two states can be quite similar — conversations revolve around local ski areas, mountain bike trails, and how newcomers are making things too crowded. But, politically, they increasingly occupy two separate worlds.

Witwer watched Colorado steadily swing to the left as affluent, college-educated people fled the coasts for his home state starting in the late 1990s. For two decades, it was one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, and during the Trump era it swung sharply to the left. Democrats control all statewide offices and have their largest majorities in history in the legislature, including a supermajority in the lower house.

In contrast, Idaho has become one of the nation’s fastest-growing states during the past decade without losing its reputation as a conservative haven. It has moved even more sharply to the right during that time and become a beacon to those, like the Kohls, fleeing blue states where they no longer feel welcome.

The states’ swings aren’t simply due to transplants, of course. The increasing clustering of Americans into like-minded enclaves — dubbed “The Big Sort” — has many causes. Harvard professor Ryan Enos estimates that, at least before the pandemic, only 15% of the homogeneity was due to people moving. Other causes include political parties polarizing on hot-button issues that split neatly on demographic lines, such as guns and abortion, and voters adopting their neighbors’ partisanship.

“A lot of this is driven by other sorting that is going on,” Enos said.

When Americans move, politics is not typically the explicit reason. But the lifestyle choices they make place them in communities dominated by their preferred party.

“Democrats want to live in places with artistic culture and craft breweries, and Republicans want to move to places where they can have a big yard,” said Ryan Strickler, a political scientist at Colorado State University-Pueblo.

But something may have changed as the country has become even more polarized. Businesses catering to conservatives fleeing blue states have sprouted, such as Blue Line Moving, which markets to families fleeing from blue states to Florida. In Texas, a “rainbow underground railroad” run by a Dallas realtor helps LGBTQ+ families flee the state’s increased restrictions targeting that population.

The switch might have been flipped during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which created a class of mobile workers no longer bound to the states where their companies were based. Those who are now mobile are predominantly white-collar workers and retirees, the two most politically engaged parts of the national population.

Mike McCarter, who has spearheaded a quixotic campaign to have conservative eastern Oregon become part of Idaho, said most people didn’t pay much attention to state government until the pandemic.

“Then it was like ‘Oh, they can shut down any church and they can shut down my kids’ school?’” McCarter said. “If state-level government has that much power, you’d better be sure it reflects your values, and not someone else’s values that are forced on you.”

The pandemic helped push Aaron and Carrie Friesen to Idaho. When the pandemic hit, they realized they could take their marketing firm remote from its base near Hilton Head, South Carolina. They’d always planned to return to the West, but California, where Aaron, now 39, was born and raised, was disqualified because of its cost and progressive politics.

The Friesens and their three children settled on Boise. They loved the big skies, the mountains rearing up behind the town, the plethora of outdoor activities.

And they liked Idaho’s pandemic policies. When the Friesens visited, almost no one was wearing masks, which they took as a good sign — they were happy to mask up when sick, but found constant masking pointless.

“This was a place that had like-minded people,” Carrie Friesen said.

The Friesens are happy with the direction of their new state and the abortion and transgender restrictions out of the latest legislative session. But they don’t see themselves as part of what they called “the crazy right,” referring to the families displaying Trump yard signs in the less-politically-mixed Boise suburbs. They like living close to the center of Boise, one of the more liberal areas in the state.

They try not to make too many decisions based on politics — to a point.

“With the temperature of politics nowadays, if people choose to move somewhere, they are going to choose to move to a place with like-minded people,” Aaron Friesen said.

That’s apparently been happening in Idaho, said Mathew Hay, who oversees a regular survey of new arrivals for Boise State University. Historically, transplants mirrored the conservative population’s leanings, with about 45% describing themselves as “conservative,” and the rest evenly split between liberal and moderate.

But something changed last year — the share of newcomers that said they lived in Idaho for the politics jumped to 9%, compared to 5% for long-timers. The percentage describing themselves as “very conservative” also rose.

When Melissa Wintrow rode her motorcycle across the U.S. in 1996, she was captivated by Idaho.

“It was this grounded, commonsense, reasonable group,” Wintrow said. “Of course they were conservative, but they weren’t going to say openly racist and homophobic things.”

Now a Democratic state senator, Wintrow is aghast at how her adopted state has become more hardline.

“The state has just moved to a more extreme view,” she said. “It’s a certain group of people that is afraid their ‘way of life’ is diminishing in the world.”

In Colorado, the reverse may be happening.

Bret Weinstein, owner of a realty firm in Denver, said politics has become the top issue for people buying a home.

“It’s brought up in our initial conversations,” Weinstein said. “Three years ago, we didn’t have those conversations, ever.”

Now, many entering the state tell him they’re looking for a way to escape their red state — and homeowners leaving Colorado say they’re fed up with it turning blue. Even within Colorado, Weinstein said, homebuyers are picking based on politics, with some avoiding conservative areas where debates on mask mandates and curriculum has dominated school board meetings.

One of those politically motivated migrants is Kathleen Rickerson, who works in human resources for Weinstein’s firm. Rickerson, 35, lived in Minnesota for seven years, but during the pandemic grew weary of the blue state’s vocal anti-masking, anti-vaccine minority.

Rickerson’s parents and sister urged her to join them in Texas, but that was out of the question. Ready for a change, Rickerson instead zeroed in on Colorado. She moved to a Denver suburb in December 2021.

Cheered by the state’s strong stance to protect abortion rights, Rickerson wants Colorado Democrats to go further.

“Colorado isn’t as quick to take a stand on things, and I’d like to see that happen a bit more,” she said.

That was a sentiment shared by Colorado progressives, who were frustrated their party didn’t muscle through an assault weapons ban and other priorities of the left during the most recent legislative session.

“There is a point at which we need to stop acting like trying to get along with our enemies is going to preserve our institution,” progressive state Rep. Stephanie Vigil said at the end of the session, after the chamber’s Democratic leader said it was important that Republicans still feel like they have a voice.

The increasing political homogeneity in states makes it harder for both parties to feel invested, said Thad Kousser, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

“It gives one party the ability to move a state further when they’re doing exactly what their constituency wants,” he said.

The system works as a sort of escape valve, Kousser said, letting the majority in the state feel in power regardless of what’s happening in Washington, D.C. But the local minority party gets shortchanged.

The Kohls felt shortchanged in California. They said they watched their native state deteriorate before their eyes, and no one was willing to fix the problems. Trash piled up with homeless encampments. Tax money seemed to go to immigrants who had entered the country illegally rather than U.S. citizens. Jennifer’s mother qualified for government assistance due to her low income, but was on dozens of wait lists that were seven years long. Tim’s police station, in a former hippie colony in the mountains running through West Los Angeles, was firebombed during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

The Kohls wanted to live in a red state, but Jennifer said they’re not just party-line voters. A nurse, she hasn’t registered with either party and has a wide range of beliefs, including that abortion is sometimes necessary.

“I believe so many different things,” she said.

On balance, they feel more comfortable in a more conservative place.

“Here, the tax dollars naturally goes to the citizens, not the immigrants,” said Tim Kohl, who can understand why Idaho is growing so fast. “Most of the people we’ve met here are from California originally.”

In Denver, Dean has found other people who fled red states. She and her partner, Cassidy Dean, discovered that their neighbors fled Florida after the state’s hard turn to the political right.

Leah Dean was a 19-year-old cosmetology college student in San Antonio in 2008 when she had an abortion. She chafed at the obstacles she faced — the state-mandated waiting period before the procedure, having to get a sonogram before the procedure — and became a committed Democratic activist. She met her partner at the Texas state party convention in 2016, and every year since then she’s felt the Republican state legislature and governor make the state less and less hospitable to people like her.

Now in Colorado, she and her partner both work from home, telecommuting to their old Texas jobs. They have limited social outlets, but took care of that by throwing themselves into politics again, with Leah Dean becoming vice chair of Denver Democrats.

“It’s also how we meet people,” she said. “We don’t have any other way to do that.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Tick safety: A guide to avoiding ticks, treatments for bites and info about Lyme disease

Delaware Online – The News Journal

Tick safety: A guide to avoiding ticks, treatments for bites and info about Lyme disease

Krys’tal Griffin, Delaware News Journal – July 3, 2023

We’ve waited months for warm weather to grace us so we can spend more time outdoors, but with warm weather comes pesky ticks.

As more people hike through summer grasses, play in backyards and camp in forests, ticks are taking the opportunity to shimmy up pantlegs, crawl through sleeves or land in your hair to do what they do best: feed on your blood.

Reports show some states are seeing an increased presence of ticks this spring and summer, and with them, a surge in Lyme disease cases.

Here’s the rundown of everything we know about tick presence, Lyme disease cases and tick bites in Delaware, including prevention, symptoms and treatment.

Where are ticks found?

Trails, forests and other humid and moist environments are where ticks can be found.

Ticks dwell in a variety of habitats and can be found in forest, meadows and wetlands throughout Delaware. They live in yards and residential areas, too, according to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Wooded areas, tall grass or brush — the edges where woods and lawn meet — are desirable spots for ticks, along with leaf litter, beneath ground-cover plants and around woodpiles or stone walls where small mammals live.

From there, ticks can latch onto the birds, mammals or reptiles they prey on and spread to other organisms.

Ticks are active year-round if temperatures are above freezing.

What types of ticks are in Delaware?

While there are hundreds of species of ticks found worldwide and dozens in the United States, only a handful are commonly spotted in the First State.

Lone Star tick

The most common tick species in the area is the Lone Star tick, identifiable by a white dot on its back. Found all over the state, it is more common in Kent and Sussex counties.

And while it may be tiny, it sure is mighty.

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“It’s described as being an aggressive biter,” said Ashley Kennedy, tick biologist at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. “The bite itself can be very painful, very itchy.”

A bite from a Lone Star tick could trigger flu-like illness or, in rare cases, alpha-gal syndrome, in which a person develops an allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals such as dairy.

Black-legged/deer tick

The black-legged tick, also called the deer tick or bear tick, is a carrier of Borrelia burgdorfi bacteria, which causes Lyme disease.

The black-legged/deer tick is not as common as other species but is more likely to infect you if it bites you.

One of the illnesses it can cause is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that can spread to your joints, heart and nervous system if not treated early.

American dog tick

The American dog tick is the least likely to make you sick, but a small percentage of them carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Kennedy said.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a bacterial disease that begins with symptoms such as fever, headache and rash. It can be deadly if it is not treated early on with the correct antibiotics.

Asian longhorned tick

The newest Delaware tick species, first spotted in 2019, is the Asian longhorned tick.

This invasive species has a female-only population that can lay eggs without needing a male and occasionally bites.

What is Lyme disease?

Like mosquitoes, ticks are feared for their capacity to spread debilitating illnesses like Lyme disease.

A major concern when it comes to ticks is Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S. but just one of 16 tickborne illnesses that can be passed to humans.

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It is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected blacklegged tick and can lead to an infection of the joints, hearts and nervous system if left untreated. There is no evidence that the disease can be passed from person to person, according to the CDC.

Lyme disease accounts for approximately 30,000 of the reported tick-borne illnesses each year. The CDC suggests this number is actually closer to 476,000 due to underreporting when it comes to the disease.

Lyme disease in Delaware

In accordance with the Delaware Division of Public Health’s section of Epidemiology, Health Data and Informatics, the entity cannot disclose the current number of Lyme disease cases in Delaware, said Laura Matusheski, media relations coordinator for DPH.

“Delaware sees cases of Lyme disease in all three counties year-round and continues to monitor disease trends. People who spend time outdoors in grassy or wooded environments are at risk for increased exposure,” the Division of Public Health stated.

The CDC defines Delaware as a high-incidence state for Lyme disease, ranking it among the top 10 states for cases in the United States.

DPH tracks yearly totals for the number of Lyme disease cases reported in Delaware, and the number of cases per 100,000 people per year over the last five years are as follows:

In 2018, there were 540 cases of Lyme disease statewide per 100,000 people. New Castle County contributed 302 cases, followed by Kent County at 87 and Sussex County at 131.
In 2019, there were 659 cases statewide. New Castle County contributed 437, followed by 86 in Kent County and 136 in Sussex County.
In 2020, 353 cases were reported statewide. New Castle County contributed 249, Kent County contributed 43 and Sussex County contributed 161.
In 2021, 354 cases were reported statewide. New Castle County reported 250, Kent County reported 40 and Sussex County reported 64.
In 2022, the most recent year with data, 385 statewide cases were reported. New Castle County documented 253, Kent County documented 64 and Sussex County documented 68.

As the data shows, New Castle County has reported the highest incidence rates of Lyme disease compared with Kent and Sussex counties, at time documenting cases that are four times greater than throughout the rest of the state.

What are the symptoms of Lyme disease?

Lyme disease bacterium can infect several parts of the body and cause different symptoms at different times. Some of these symptoms may be nonspecific and resemble other diseases, according to the Division of Public Health.

Early symptoms of Lyme disease include:

Headache.
Fatigue.
An expanding red rash, commonly referred to as a bulls-eye rash. It can appear anywhere on the body and be warm to the touch but is usually not itchy or painful. Not all affected individuals will develop a rash.
Fever and/or chills.
Muscle and joint aches.

If left untreated, the following symptoms can occur:

Heart palpitations and dizziness.
Severe joint pain and swelling, usually in large joints like the knees.
Severe headaches and neck stiffness due to meningitis.
Loss of muscle tone on one or both sides of the face, called “Bell’s palsy.”
Neurological problems like numbness or tingling in extremities and problems with concentration and short-term memory.

If you think you have Lyme disease, contact your health care provider. Most cases of Lyme disease can be cured with antibiotics taken over the course of a few weeks, but the severity of symptoms and subsequent treatment may vary this timeline.

Some patients experience chronic symptoms months and years after the infection has cleared.

How to keep ticks away from your home

Fall foliage, picture here at Killens Pond State Park in Felton, is the perfect spot for ticks to latch onto unsuspecting hikers.

When it comes to keeping ticks away from you and your home, there are several ways you can decrease the presence of ticks on your property.

Keeping your grass mowed and removing leaf litter, brush and tall weeds from the edges of your lawn are routine ways to keep ticks out.

Other tactics from the CDC include:

Moving firewood, birdhouses and feeders away from your home. Wood should be stacked in a dry area.
Using plants that do not attract deer or exclude deer by using various types of fencing. Deer are the main food source for adult ticks.
Creating a 3-foot or wider wood chip, gravel or mulch barrier between your property and the woods.
Removing old furniture or trash, which ticks love to hide in, from your yard.
Keeping playground equipment, patios and decks away from yard edges and trees, instead placing them in sunny locations, if possible.

Tick bite prevention

Check yourself thoroughly after spending time in tick habitats.

Knowing where ticks usually dwell is the first step in preventing an encounter with them.

If you find yourself in a moist and humid environment that is near wooded or grassy areas, there are extra steps you can take to stay safe while in these places.

For those of you tasked with wading through fall leaves or tidying up the shrubs, wear light-colored clothing to allow you to see ticks crawling on you.

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If you find yourself in an area ripe for ticks, be sure to wear long sleeves and pants. Tuck your pant legs into your socks and consider wearing a hair tie on your sleeves to prevent ticks from crawling into the openings of your clothes.

Other ways to prevent tick bites, according to DPH, include:

Applying tick repellent that contains DEET. This lasts only a few hours and needs to be reapplied as necessary. Adults should use a repellent containing less than 50% DEET. Children’s repellents should contain less than 30% DEET. Do not use repellents with DEET on infants under 2 months old.
Searching your body for ticks during and after an outing. Be thorough when checking under your arms, inside your belly button, in and around your ear, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist and in and around all head and body hair.
Checking children and pets for ticks. Your beloved pet probably has no clue a tick just latched onto him for a free ride into the house after a round of fetch. Giving your kids another look after they check for ticks can’t hurt either.

Symptoms of a tick bite

If you suspect you have been bitten by a tick, many tickborne illnesses share similar signs and symptoms.

See your health care provider if you develop the following symptoms within a few weeks of a tick bite:

Fever or chills: All tickborne diseases can cause fever.
Rash: Lyme disease, Southern tick-associated rash illness, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis and tularemia can cause distinctive rashes.
Aches and pains: Tickborne diseases can cause headaches, fatigue and muscle aches.

Tick bite treatment

After spending the day outdoors, your tick check might alert you to some unwelcome hitchhikers on your body.

If you discover a tick on you or your pets, do not use home remedies like petroleum jelly or hot matches to remove the ticks. They do not work, the Division of Public Health said.

Instead, use these steps to help rid yourself of ticks:

Use fine-tipped tweezers or shield your fingers with a paper towel, rubber gloves or a tissue to remove ticks. Do not pick at them with bare hands.
Grasp the tick close to the skin surface and pull upward with steady, even pressure.
Do not squeeze, crush or puncture the body of the tick. Its fluids, such as saliva, body fluids and gut contents, may contain infectious germs.
After removing the tick, clean the removal spot with an antiseptic or soap water. Don’t forget to wash your hands afterward!

Why you should never remove a tick with your fingers, according to a nurse

Insider

Why you should never remove a tick with your fingers, according to a nurse

Kim Schewitz – July 4, 2023

A close-up of tick attached to a person's body. Fingers touch the skin on either side of the tick — A tick embedded into the skin.Getty Images

A nurse explained why you should never remove a tick with your fingers.
Using your fingers risks the tick regurgitating its stomach contents into your body.
Ticks bites can spread diseases including Lyme.

A registered nurse has warned against removing ticks with your fingers, amid a particularly bad tick season in the US.

Not removing a tick correctly risks regurgitating its stomach contents into your body, Jennifer Quante, a Texas–based nurse who makes health-related videos, said in a recent TikTok. This could increase the risk of infection, according to Harvard Medical School.

How to remove a tick

The proper way to remove a tick is by using fine-tipped tweezers to grasp it as close to the skin’s surface as possible, the CDC advises. Then, you should steadily pull upwards and avoid twisting, which could cause the tick’s mouth to break off and remain in your skin.

If any parts of the tick can’t be removed easily, leave the area and let the skin heal. Once you have removed the tick, thoroughly wash the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.

To dispose of a live tick, either put it in alcohol, flush it down the toilet, place it in a sealed bag or container, or wrap it tightly in tape.

The CDC says you should always get checked out if you develop a rash or fever in the weeks following a tick bite.

“Never, ever, ever, ever remove it with your own hands. You’re just gonna have to, unfortunately, let it stay there until you get access to tweezers,” Quante said.

Quante said folklore remedies, such as burning the tick with a flame or trying to suffocate it with petroleum jelly or essential oils, are all risky.

Ticks can spread disease including Lyme

Not all ticks carry disease, but the bites of those that do can cause Lyme and rarer conditions such as Powassan virus disease and Heartland virus disease. Quante recommended putting the tick in a zip-lock bag after you’ve removed it and sending it out for testing to check if it’s infected.

Insider previously reported that the number of Lyme infections in the US and Europe has soared in recent months in what could be the worst season on record, as tick territories expand due to climate change.

Lyme disease, a tick-borne condition spread by the blacklegged tick, is caused by a bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi, and Borrelia mayonii less commonly. Though it can usually be easily treated with antibiotics, the infection can cause debilitating symptoms, such as Lyme arthritis and fatigue, if left untreated.

Around 500,000 Americans a year are affected by Lyme disease, according to CDC estimates, and research suggests that 15% of the world has caught the disease.

Early symptoms typically include a fever, muscle aches, joint swelling or pain, headaches, swollen lymph nodes, and sometimes a red bull’s eye rash, known as erythema migrans.

Florida construction and agricultural workforces diminished after new immigration law takes effect

The Week

Florida construction and agricultural workforces diminished after new immigration law takes effect

Catherine Garcia, Night editor – July 4, 2023

Buildings under construction in Miami Joe Raedle / Getty Images

A new law that took effect in Florida on July 1 is already hitting the state’s agricultural and construction industries hard.

The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in May, makes it a third-degree felony for people to use a false identification to get hired for work. Any business that is found to knowingly employ those unauthorized workers could have its license revoked and face daily fines. Additionally, hospitals that accept Medicaid are now required to question a patient’s immigration status, driver’s licenses given to undocumented immigrants in other states are invalid, and it’s a third-degree felony to knowingly transport undocumented immigrants into the state.

An estimated 772,00 undocumented immigrants lived in Florida in 2019, with many working on construction sites, farms and packaging facilities. Migrant workers began leaving the state once DeSantis signed the new law in May, The Wall Street Journal reported, including those who are authorized to work but are married to someone who isn’t. A spokesperson for DeSantis defended the law, saying that businesses that hire undocumented immigrants “instead of Floridians will be held accountable.”

At multiple construction sites in Miami, workers shared with the Journal that they have lost about half of their crews; one man said he knows people who went to Indiana, where they could make $38 an hour instead of $25 and not have to worry about running afoul of the immigration law. Tom C. Murphy, co-president of Coastal Construction, told the Journal there was already a labor shortage before the law went into effect, and while “we fully support documentation of the immigrant workforce, the new law is aggravating an already trying situation.”

Immigration is usually a federal area of law, immigration lawyer Daniela Barshel told the Journal, and it will be difficult to give guidance to clients when there are differing state and federal rules. “It’s kind of extreme that Florida passed a law like this,” she said. Companies cannot be advised to stop hiring noncitizens, since that could be discrimination on the basis of race or national origin, leaving businesses with no easy path forward. “You don’t want to be fined by the government, and you also don’t want to be sued by someone because they were authorized to work and you didn’t hire them,” Barshel said.

Probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics: The microbe garden in your gut

THe Washington Post

Probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics: The microbe garden in your gut

Anahad O’Connor – July 4, 2023

Gut microbiome concept. Stylized human intestine microbiota with healthy probiotic bacteria. Flat abstract illustration with hand drawn textures. (DrAfter123 via Getty Images)

Think of your gut microbiome as an intestinal garden, teeming with trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that play a crucial role in your health.

Whether the beneficial microbes in your gut are flourishing or getting crowded out by unwelcome guests largely depends on how well you’re taking care of them.

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Scientists estimate that a typical person’s gut microbiota contains between 300 and 500 species of bacteria. Your gut microbiome is a complex ecological community, and the food that you feed it, the new species you invite, and the waste products they create all can affect your physical and mental health.

Here’s a guide to the busy world of “biotics” that inhabit your gut, and how to care for them.

Probiotics

What are probiotics?

The word “biotic” refers to “life” or living organisms. Probiotics are live microbes – including bacteria and fungi – that have beneficial effects on your health. Think of probiotics as the seeds that you sprinkle on soil: With proper care, they’ll turn into flowers that beautify your garden, repelling pests and crowding out weeds.

Why are they important?

Probiotics help metabolize your food and produce vitamins, fatty acids, and other nutrients. They regulate your immune system, lower your risk for Type 2 diabetes and other chronic disease, and prevent the bad guys from colonizing your gut.

Where do they come from?

Among the most well-known probiotics are bifidobacteria. These bacteria colonize our digestive tracts as soon as we’re born. We get them from our mothers during delivery and through breast milk.

Another common probiotic, lactobacillus, is found in many fermented foods. Lactobacillus and bifidobacterium are just two of the many different types of bacteria that inhabit our intestinal gardens.

How do I increase probiotics in my body?

Probiotic supplements, which come in the form of capsules, gummies, powders, and pills, are immensely popular, but they shouldn’t be your first choice. While they may help certain people, studies show they can also crowd out the wrong microbes. In general, a better way to cultivate your gut garden is to eat plenty of fermented foods and fiber-rich plants.

In one recent study, Stanford researchers found that assigning people to eat fermented foods every day for 2 1/2 months reduced their inflammation and increased their gut microbiome diversity. Higher levels of microbiome diversity are associated with better health and lower rates of disease.

Examples of fermented foods include the following:

-Kimchi and sauerkraut.

-Kombucha, a fizzy sweet and sour drink made with tea.

-Fermented dairy products like yogurt, kefir and cottage cheese.

-Tempeh, natto, miso and other fermented soy products.

-Some cheeses, like gouda and gruyère. You can identify cheeses that contain probiotics by looking for phrases like “live cultures” or “active cultures” on their labels.

Prebiotics

What are prebiotics?

Think of prebiotics like fertilizer for your microbiome. A prebiotic is typically a high-fiber food.

Why are they important?

The trillions of microbes that live in your gut depend on you for sustenance: Every time you eat, you’re feeding them too.

“If probiotics are the good guys, then prebiotics are the foods that promote the good guys,” says Erica Sonnenburg, a senior research scientist in microbiology and immunology at Stanford University.

Where do they come from?

Prebiotics consist mainly of complex carbs and fibers found in a variety of different plant foods. When you eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and other plants, much of the fiber they contain passes through your stomach and small intestine relatively intact because humans lack the enzymes to break it down. But the microbes in your large intestine can metabolize fiber and break it down into other compounds.

The way to promote lots of different friendly bacteria is to feed them lots of fiber and prebiotics, says Chris Damman, a gastroenterologist at the digestive health center at the University of Washington Medical Center.

How can I eat more prebiotics?

Prebiotic foods include:

-Vegetables such as asparagus, onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, cabbage, peas, tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes and chicory.

-Chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans and soybeans.

-Whole grains such as oats, barley, rye, wheat and corn.

-Fruits like apples, berries, bananas, grapefruits and watermelon.

-Almonds, pistachios, cashews, and other nuts and seeds.

-Prebiotic supplements aren’t typically recommended. One small study found suggested that a prebiotic supplement called inulin at low doses was likely good for health, but that consuming more than 20 grams of it daily could be harmful. They also pointed out that the “health effects vary among individuals.”

Some marketers are selling prebiotic beverages, but nutrition experts say there’s no strong evidence that they work.

Postbiotics

What are postbiotics?

Your gut microbes break down high-fiber foods. The waste products this process leaves behind are called postbiotics. These compounds include a wide range of new compounds including vitamins, enzymes and amino acids.

“There are thousands and thousands of compounds that they’re making,” says Damman.

Why are they important?

When you feed your gut microbes prebiotics, they transform them into a group of postbiotic compounds called short-chain fatty acids, which are exceptionally good for your health.

One of the most well-studied short-chain fatty acids is butyrate. This compound helps to maintain gut health because it serves as a source of fuel for the cells that line your colon. Butyrate helps to reduce inflammation and mediate the immune system. It influences brain health and can stimulate the production of GLP-1, a hormone that reduces appetite, says Damman. (Ozempic and Wegovy, the popular weight loss and diabetes drugs, work by mimicking the action of GLP-1.)

“Butyrate is maybe the superpower of the microbiome,” Damman says. “It’s one of the key things that it’s producing that is critical in all aspects of our health.”

Where do they come from?

Postbiotics are created during the digestive process as your gut microbes break down fiber. One of the fascinating things about postbiotics is that the compounds that one species of bacteria produces can be the food – or prebiotic – that another species of bacteria depends on.

“It’s cyclical,” Damman says. “You have this web of many players, and in this community they’re both depending on one another and providing sustenance for each other.”

What can I do to increase postbiotics in my body?

Fermented foods contain postbiotics like lactic acid (yogurt) and acetic acid (kombucha), and these compounds have been shown to confer health benefits.

Coffee, chocolate and some teas don’t contain live bacteria, but they do contain postbiotics, which may be part of their healthful effects, Damman says.

“We’re still trying to tease this all apart,” Sonnenburg says. “If it turns out that lactic acid, for example, is the part that’s most important than all these probiotic pills that people are taking may be missing the most active component of fermented food. That’s why we tell people it’s better to just eat the fermented food.

What about antibiotics?

We’ve talked a lot about friendly bacteria, but there are plenty of pathogenic bacteria that cause deadly infections. The best line of defense against harmful bacteria are antibiotic medications, which kill off bacteria or make it difficult for them to grow and multiply.

Antibiotics were one of the great discoveries of the last century. They’ve saved many lives and made it possible for doctors to pioneer medical procedures like open-heart surgery and organ transplants. Experts say the introduction of antibiotics a century ago helped to extend the average human life span by 23 years.

But one downside of antibiotics is that they kill both the harmful and friendly bacteria in your gut. Think back to the lawn analogy. If you’ve got a bunch of weeds growing all over your lawn, you may have to use an herbicide and destroy some of your grass and plants in the process – so you can clear space for new grass to grow.

If you have a bacterial infection, taking an antibiotic will kill off the bad microbes and perhaps sacrifice some good ones in the process.

Should I use a probiotic to counter the effects of antibiotics on gut health?

Many people who take a course of antibiotics combine it with a probiotic supplement, hoping that the supplement will protect or restore their communities of good gut microbes.

But research suggests that it’s better to eat fermented foods instead or let your gut recover on its own rather than taking a supplement. In one study, the microbiomes of people who took a probiotic while using antibiotics took far longer to recover. While probiotic supplements are very useful for specific conditions – like irritable bowel syndrome, traveler’s diarrhea and inflammatory bowel disease – there are more reliable ways to nourish your gut microbiome.

The way to promote lots of different friendly bacteria is to feed them lots of fiber and prebiotics, Damman says. “It all comes back to diet,” he added. “Diet is not the only thing, but it’s a big thing – and the problem for a lot of people is that they’re not eating the right foods.”

World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3

Reuters

World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3

Gloria Dickie – July 4, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Red alert for heatwave in Beijing

Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F) as heatwaves sizzled around the world.

The southern U.S. has been suffering under an intense heat dome in recent weeks. In China, an enduring heatwave continued, with temperatures above 35C (95F). North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C (122F).

And even Antarctica, currently in its winter, registered anomalously high temperatures. Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base in the white continent’s Argentine Islands recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7C (47.6F).

“This is not a milestone we should be celebrating,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain’s Imperial College London.

“It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems.”

Scientists said climate change, combined with an emerging El Nino pattern, were to blame.

“Unfortunately, it promises to only be the first in a series of new records set this year as increasing emissions of [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gases coupled with a growing El Nino event push temperatures to new highs,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, in a statement.

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Editing by Mark Potter)

How Chernobyl Workers Defeated the Russian Army

Daily Beast

How Chernobyl Workers Defeated the Russian Army

Dan Ladden-Hall – July 2, 2023

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, soldiers entered the country by crossing the northern border from Belarus. Their sights were set on capturing Kyiv, around 60 miles south.

Standing between them and the capital, however, was the ruins of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and its surrounding exclusion zone, a heavily restricted 1,000 square-mile area poisoned by radiation. Undeterred, the Russian forces moved in and captured the decommissioned plant on the very first day of the invasion. Five weeks later, even as the horrors of the war raged throughout Ukraine, Russian forces quit the plant.

Ever since the plant’s No. 4 reactor exploded in April 1986—to this day, the worst nuclear power accident the world has ever seen—the site has been meticulously managed by generations of workers to mitigate the ongoing threat the area poses to the public. Their critical work could not stop when the Russian tanks and troops arrived on Feb. 24, 2022.

A new film featuring the worker’s testimonies tells how, under incredible strain, they used their expertise and manipulation against Russian occupiers until the soldiers were finally forced to leave.

“Never before in history has a nuclear power plant been taken over by a hostile army. This is something that’s unprecedented,” Oleksiy Radynski, a Kyiv-based documentarian, told The Daily Beast. “And also, no one was prepared for this because people assumed that everyone is a little bit civilized and you don’t do this. You don’t do something that can really lead to a global disaster of like unspoken proportions. But the Russians did it.”

A still from the documentary "Chernobyl 22" about the Russian Army's invasion of Chernobyl. — A still from the documentary “Chernobyl 22” about the Russian Army’s invasion of Chernobyl.Oleksiy Radynski

Radynski is part of The Reckoning Project, a team of journalists and researchers documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine to build a body of evidence for eventual prosecutions. One such war crime was the occupation of Chernobyl, which Radynski explored through testimony of those who were forced to work and live alongside Russian forces as they moved in and shocked the world by turning the site into a military base. He also made a documentary film, Chernobyl 22, using footage from interviews conducted after the occupation of the plant ended on March 31, 2022.

Radynski’s connection to the area is personal, having been one of tens of thousands of children evacuated from Kyiv following the disaster at the plant 37 years ago when he was just two years old. The meltdown, created by human error, and its aftermath are among Radynski’s earliest childhood memories. It was unthinkable, he says, that the security of Chernobyl would be risked by a military operation of any kind, right up until the moment it happened.

“They had security protocols for literally any kind of disaster, like a natural disaster or a terrorist attack for example, but not for an invading army coming in with tanks and heavy artillery and so on,” Radynski said of the plant workers. “So they had to improvise. I think they did something really, really amazing. The resolve of these people is also just unimaginable.”

The plant’s capture immediately sparked international condemnation and concern. Those fears were exacerbated when monitoring stations at the plant recorded a huge spike in radiation levels on the day Russian forces arrived as military vehicles disturbed contaminated soil as they plowed across the exclusion zone. The risks were real. But the Ukrainian workers realized they could use the fear of those risks to their advantage, Radynski says, by exacerbating the fear of radiation among Russian commanders.

A Terrifying Secret in Putin’s War Is Now Impossible to Hide

“What the Ukrainian personnel at the plant—I mean the senior personnel—did, was they said: ‘If you want to survive, this place is very dangerous,’” Radynski says. “‘If you think you have taken over the nuclear power plant you are wrong. This is not really a nuclear power plant, this is a decommissioned and post-disaster nuclear plant. It’s something completely different and if you want to survive here you have to follow Ukrainian laws on radiation safety.’”

“This was of course true, but this was also a bit of manipulation, because along with these basic radiation safety rules they also started to impose on the Russians,” Radynski says. In one incident, on March 9, the plant suffered a blackout due to power lines being damaged in fighting elsewhere. The workers at the plant convinced the Russians to give them fuel for diesel generators, arguing that a complete loss of power could lead to catastrophic consequences. The plant’s Supervising Electrician, Oleksiy Shelestiy, says in Radynski’s film that staff joked among themselves that, in their own way, they were helping Ukraine’s armed forces by diverting tons of fuel to Chernobyl and away from Russian tanks.

The daily reality for those who did have to remain working in the decommissioned plant throughout the occupation was nevertheless perilous and draining. “They didn’t have proper sleep,” Radynski says. “They didn’t have proper rest. They were completely exhausted—they could make a mistake of any kind at any moment. They could do something wrong at the plant. So this was also extremely dangerous. Some of them spent even more than 25 days of nonstop working there.”

When they could sleep, many had to do so in the same areas as the Russians. Of course, the danger of the situation in Chernobyl affected the invading troops too.

One particularly bizarre example of the recklessness shown by Russia throughout the occupation is where they chose to dig their fortifications. One of the sites was in the Red Forest—the wooded area near the plant named for the rubescent shade its pine trees turned after being exposed to large amounts of radiation during the 1986 disaster. As part of the clean-up operation, authorities decided to bulldoze the forest and bury its contaminated trees in trenches.

A photograph of the roadblock and trenches made by Russian soldiers near the Red Forest within the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant's Exclusion Zone on May 29, 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. — The roadblock and trenches made by Russian soldiers near the Red Forest within the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s Exclusion Zone on May 29, 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images

“They dug fortifications in this area, which is actually not a forest, but the forest is below ground,” Radynski says. “The most contaminated materials are below ground. So you shouldn’t really walk there, but one thing you definitely should not do is dig there.”

In the course of his interviews, Radynski says he learned this extremely hazardous decision may not have simply been down to Russian commanders’ negligence of their own soldiers’ wellbeing. “The Russian generals who were taking over the plant, they were kind of boasting to the staff that they know their plant really well because in Russia they have an identical plant,” Radynski says.

Kremlin Wants to Purge Prigozhin Loyalists From Key Wagner Roles

That twin plant, Radynski says, is the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia—a Soviet plant built in the 1970s which is so structurally similar to Chernobyl that it’s been used as a stand-in for its Ukrainian double as a filming location.

“They were saying that they were planning and rehearsing this takeover in that nuclear power plant in Kursk,” Radynski said of the Russian commanders. “But of course there is one thing that they didn’t take into account probably—is that the power plant in Kursk is really identical in every way with one exception: it’s not contaminated.”

The extent of the damage to Russian soldiers exposed to potentially dangerous doses of radiation remains unclear. Reports claimed some required treatment for radiation sickness in Belarus, while one witness in the documentary claims workers saw Russian men “evacuated on buses full of people vomiting.” Another said Chernobyl’s cooks had to warn Russians who had shot and skinned a moose that eating the animal—where wild fauna graze on the contaminated fauna—might be a bad idea.

When the Russians withdrew, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry cited losses incurred at the hands of its armed forces and “radiation exposure” as key reasons for the departure, taking the opportunity to mock Russian “mutants” on their way out.

The occupation nevertheless had serious consequences for the ongoing safety of Chernobyl. As the Russians left, large amounts of property was either destroyed or stolen—one estimate suggested around $1 million of property was looted—including everything from technical equipment to teapots. “It’s just lucky that a lot of really vital equipment is just too large to be squeezed into a tank or a military bus,” Radynski says. The area has also been heavily mined, a small part of a national scourge which has reportedly seen an area the size of Florida in Ukraine infested with explosives.

Arguably the most troubling of all the consequences for the workers, Radynski says, is the now ever-present sense of insecurity that comes with the fear that the Russians could return. Once unimaginable, the cavalier attitude toward nuclear safety in Ukraine has remained constant since Chernobyl’s occupation. On Thursday, Ukrainian emergency workers even took part in drills to prepare for a possible radiation leak at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant—Europe’s largest—amid alarming reports that Moscow is preparing such a plot at the site. Like Chernobyl, the southwestern Zaporizhzhia plant was captured by Russian forces early in the war—but the occupiers are still in control there to this day.

For Radynski, the fact that the Chernobyl plant is back under Ukrainian control is in itself a remarkable testament to the fortitude of those workers who stoically carried out their duties in the face of unparalleled danger. “There has been many stories of Russian military defeats during this war—I hope there will be more,” he says. “But most of the stories of Russian defeats that we know of, they come from the Ukrainian Army.”

In this case, however, it was Ukrainian workers who won out. The Russians in Chernobyl “were defeated by the power of Ukrainian kafkaesque bureaucracy,” Radynski says, as the staff found a way to “swallow them into this kind of swamp of radiation protocols.” Protocols, he notes, which they didn’t follow anyway.

In the documentary, a physical protection engineer at Chernobyl describes an exchange with a Russian energy official who kept tabs on the plant’s staff fearing they might intentionally trigger some kind of nuclear disaster. “‘I don’t care about your armed thugs,’” Vitaliy Popov says he told the official. “‘Our guys will take care of them. As for me, I actually came here to stop 1986 from happening again.’ I told him: ‘I will accomplish my task.’”

A shadowy club in California recently associated with Clarence Thomas is being sued for multiple labor violations. Here’s what the secret retreat is known for.

Insider

A shadowy club in California recently associated with Clarence Thomas is being sued for multiple labor violations. Here’s what the secret retreat is known for.

Hannah Getahun – July 2, 2023

In this July 29, 1971 file photo is the roadway into the exclusive Bohemian Grove, a quiet encampment 80 miles north of San Francisco in Monte Rio, Calif.Sal Veder/AP Photo

Former workers, known as valets, are suing an elite men’s club for alleged labor violations.
The lawsuit claims they were forced to work over 15 hours daily without breaks.
The Bohemian Club has been associated with right-wing political figures, including Clarence Thomas.

The Bohemian Club, an all-men’s private society in California that counts former presidents among its members, faces a class action lawsuit from servers for alleged labor violations.

The exclusive club occasionally pops up in the news, primarily for its association with elite and wealthy men. Most recently, a ProPublica report detailing Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with Harlan Crow mentioned the club.

Thomas, who went on luxurious vacations with the billionaire real estate magnate and GOP megadonor, accompanied him to Bohemian Grove — a hidden woodland retreat often associated with the club that hosts events like a 14-day summer camp.

Former valets who used to work at Monastery Camp in Monte Rio, California, which they described as one of the “most prestigious and well-known camps at Bohemian Grove,” filed the complaint on June 5.

The valets, who attended to wealthy guests during summer camp, claim in the complaint that workers were required to work over 15 hours a day with no breaks or meal periods while only receiving pay for 8 hours a day. The suit alleges that club management “continually worked together to come up with methods to avoid paying payroll taxes and overtime.”

The suit names Bohemian Club treasurer William Dawson as someone who directly asked employees to “falsify payroll records.” It also claims that valets were asked to hide when the owner of the payroll company Pomella LLC, also named as a defendant in the suit, came to inspect the Grove. The suit alleges that the payroll company was also aware of the falsified timesheets.

The lawsuit also alleges that valets working at around 100 other camps plaintiffs say are associated with the club are run by captains that have engaged in similar labor violations. The lawsuit says that Bohemian Club may seek to distance itself from these camps during litigation, but asserts that these affiliate camps are a joint venture of the main club and that members pay the club to access these sites.

The members are suing for up to $1.5 million in damages.

In a statement to the Press Democrat, Sam Singer, a communications representative for the club, said that the club “has always valued and respected its employees, and that includes our commitment to full compliance with all applicable wage and hour laws and regulations.”

“We believe these three individuals know full well they did not work for the Club and that this lawsuit is a transparent attempt to drag the Club into their individual circumstances,” Singer told the Press Democrat. “The Club will vigorously defend itself in this action, as it would in any other meritless lawsuit.”

The Bohemian Club, which has thousands of members and has been associated with Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and George HW Bush, has been hosting the summer camp for over 150 years and describes itself as a club of “gentlemen who are connected professionally with Literature, Art, Music, or the Drama.”

The club, full of elite men often tight-lipped about its members and events, has garnered the interest of conspiracy theorists, left-leaning protestors, and interested onlookers. Although there is still much to learn about the club, one ritual was uncovered by InfoWars host Alex Jones, who snuck into the Bohemian Grove summer camp to film a strange ritual that consisted of robed members burning a coffin effigy — named “Care” — in front of a 40-foot owl statue.

According to previous investigative reports, the Grove also hosts various social activities, like plays and comedy shows featuring men portraying female characters. The club is also known for hosting “Lakeside Talks,” where members, often those of the political elite, speak about policy ideas.

The Bohemian Club and a lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Why is America not the lawless, gun-free, socialist wasteland Republicans warned us about?

USA Today – Opinion

Why is America not the lawless, gun-free, socialist wasteland Republicans warned us about?

Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – July 2, 2023

Last I checked, there are approximately 3,756 Republicans running for the GOP presidential nomination, and the vast majority of them – particularly the Donalds Trump and the Rons DeSantis of the world – want voters to know they should be terrified.

Terrified of what, you ask? Oh, I dunno. Socialism. Marxism. “Radical” teachers. Mickey Mouse. Drag queens. “Others.” Pretty much everything, it seems. All the fears. (I’d add spiders to that list, but that’s just me, a liberal scaredy cat.)

Fearmongering is a tried-and-true Republican Party tradition and with the 2024 election cycle about to kick into full gear, it’s mongering season.

Republican fearmongering, and some questions about why fears are never realized

So I have a suggestion for GOP voters, from the MAGA loyalists to the (three remaining) moderates to everyone in between. The first GOP presidential debate will be Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. At that event, you should demand answers to the following fear-related questions:

Why is “her” – the Hillary Clinton character in the “Lock her up!” chant – not locked up? Former President Donald Trump was supposed to do that, yet “her” walks free.

President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during a debate in 2016.

Why haven’t we been literally invaded by umpteen South American migrant caravans?

Where is the country-destroying migrant surge that was supposed to come after Title 42 ended?

Why aren’t there violent MS-13 gang members on every street corner?

Fascist? Moms for Liberty newsletter quotes Adolf Hitler, complains about being labeled ‘extremist’

Why haven’t the tyrannical Democrats taken our guns?

Why hasn’t Obamacare been repealed?

Where is the GOP health care plan? (Coming in two weeks, I’m sure of it!)

Why, with godless, devious Democrat Joe Biden as president, are Americans still allowed to say “Merry Christmas”?

Campaign buttons for sale during the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro on June 10, 2023.

Why did the COVID-19 vaccines work? Why did they not contain tracking chips that allow the government to monitor us?

Why has the economy not collapsed and why has the American way of life not been destroyed?

Why is there not, as Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon promised in 2022 before not becoming governor, “a drag queen in every classroom, indoctrinating our children”?

Why haven’t drag shows turned all Americans into drag queens?

Years of fear, with so few results – it’s almost as if they’re manipulating voters

Why are America’s big cities not actually dystopian hellscapes?

Why is the murder rate declining when we’ve been told repeatedly that crime is spiraling out of control?

How come our children are able to watch Disney movies without turning gay?

Why are Americans still allowed to speak English?

Why are we still able to hold dear all the things we hold dear?

I was specifically promised widespread socialism. What the heck?

Why has nobody come to confiscate our guns? We have actual buckets filled with guns in the basement and bullets everywhere and not a single damn Democrat has come to rip them from our hands, cold and dead or otherwise.

Losing already? Maybe Ron DeSantis’ flailing presidential campaign caught ‘woke mind virus.’

Why has virtually everything a Republican candidate or Fox News talking head ever said to instill fear in our hearts wound up being either total nonsense or, at best, an almost bizarre overexaggeration of a relatively minor issue?

Why has America not been transformed into a socialist wasteland?

Why, for the last time, do we still have all of our guns?

You deserve answers to these questions, my Republican friends. Because often, in this big and confusing world of ours, there are inescapable signs that suggest you’re being lied to.

Learning to spot them is an important life skill. Off you go.

Is the West’s water crisis spreading? Drought blankets Midwest, America’s Breadbasket

USA Today

Is the West’s water crisis spreading? Drought blankets Midwest, America’s Breadbasket

Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY – July 2, 2023

DENVER — Heavy winter snows have temporarily eased the well-documented water crisis in western states including Colorado and California, but now Midwestern farmers in America’s Breadbasket are worrying more about their crops as drought worsens across Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Ohio.

While Midwestern dry spells aren’t unusual, the current lack of rain is compounding existing problems with dry soils and streams, experts say, potentially raising the cost of cattle feed and ultimately the price Americans pay for beef.

“These are fairly serious drought conditions we’re seeing right now,” said Dennis Todey, the director of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub in Ames in Iowa. “It’s not a major national issue yet, but it can become a larger issue if things don’t turn around soon.”

Farmer Jose Esquivel prepares to feed his livestock on June 14, 2023 in Quemado, Texas. Ranchers and farmers have begun shrinking cattle herds due to drought and high costs in the region. The shrinkage threatens steep climbs in prices for the supply of beef.

What is happening with the Midwestern drought?

Many states are reporting drought conditions, ranging from “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought.” Those states include Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and further east to Indiana and Ohio. Missouri Gov. Michael Parson has issued an executive order to help his state manage the dry conditions.

“The Midwest and east-central Great Plains saw mostly worsening conditions and widespread crop stress and low streamflows after another week of mostly dry weather,” the federal government’s U.S. Drought Monitor warned Thursday. “Heavy rains in parts of Ohio and Kentucky led to some improvements in ongoing short-term drought. Otherwise, much of the region saw conditions stay the same or worsen this week…”

Drought at this time of year can be troublesome because it can stunt the growth of corn and grass, which are used primarily as food for cattle. Few Midwestern farmers irrigate their crops, and so they depend heavily on spring and early summer rains to provide water at this critical time.

Federal officials also noted reports of drought problems for vineyards, soybean growers and strawberry farmers.

The ground is already drier than it otherwise would be, thanks to a dry fall. So the moisture that does fall soaks deeper into the soil, which absorbs it like a sponge.

“It’s a bit of a bigger problem because some of this area has had on and off drought for several years now, so we have so very dry ground water conditions,” Todey said.

How does drought affect food prices?

A poor corn crop would help drive up feed prices, which in turn are passed along to consumers via the price they pay for beef at the supermarket. But corn and grass aren’t the only feed, and soybean crops so far are doing generally OK, Todey said.

Elsewhere in the country, scorching heat in most of Texas is imperiling both grass hay growth and the survival of beef cattle, according to experts. When feed prices are high, farmers will often sell their younger, smaller cows for slaughter earlier than usual, which brings them less profit.

The federal government’s January cattle survey showed the number of cattle at feedlots was down 4% over 2022.

Prices paid to beef producers have been rising steadily since mid-2020, and recently hit levels not seen since 2015. Consumer prices for beef have risen from $9.12 a pound for uncooked steak in May 2021 to $10.22 in May 2023, reflecting a 12% increase, according to federal statistics.

Some liberal politicians, including Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, have criticized meatpacking companies, saying that they are raising prices beyond what’s necessary to cover the higher costs paid to producers.

What happened to all the snow from this winter?

While most of the West saw historic snowfall — from Colorado to Utah, Nevada and California — the Midwest and East had mild winters with less snow. Because the vast majority of that snow fell west of the Continental Divide, levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead are rising significantly, and drought conditions across the Southwest have generally eased.

How does climate change play into this?

It’s important to remember the difference between weather and climate: Weather is what happens on any given day, while climate reflects the patterns over years or decades.

While Midwest temperatures are generally cooler in December than August, climate change means temperatures in both months are likely to be warmer on average than they used to be. The average December temperature in the Midwest rose between 2.5 and 3 degrees over the last century, according to National Weather Service records.

Similar warming temperatures are altering heat and precipitation patterns across the country, climate scientists say. For the Midwest, scientists predict higher average temperatures of 5-10 degrees by the end of the century and more frequent heavy precipitation events in the winter but fewer spring and summer rains.