Would You Allow Your 16 Year Old OR YOUNGER Daughter to Marry Someone?

In a vote 2 weeks ago, the Republican Party in West Virginia endorsed the idea that it's okay for kids 16 or even younger to marry in that state. That's child abuse. No wonder Florida Legislator Matt Gaetz who had sex with minors (under 18) isn't in prison. According to AP, West Virginia had the highest rate of child marriages among the states in 2014, when the state’s five-year average was 7.1 marriages for every 1,000 children ages 15 to 17. Imagine today being married at 15 years old and trying to support a family. When are voters going to get rid of these people who allow for child abuse?  Here's the story from the Associated Press (nonpartisan):

Bill to ban child marriage Defeated by Republicans in West Virginia 

 By JOHN RABY, AP March 1, 2023

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A bill that would have prohibited minors from getting married in West Virginia was defeated Wednesday night in a legislative committee. The Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the bill on a 9-8 vote, a week after it passed the House of Delegates.

The vote came shortly after the bill’s main sponsor, Democratic Del. Kayla Young of Kanawha County, testified briefly before the committee. She said that since 2000 there have been more than 3,600 marriages in the state involving one or more children.

Currently, children can marry as young as 16 in West Virginia with parental consent. Anyone younger than that also must get a judge’s waiver.

“For now, there will be no floor for the age of marriage in WV, endangering our kids,” Young wrote on Twitter after the vote.

In a rebuke, Cabell County Democratic Sen. Mike Woelfel reminded the committee after the vote that Wednesday was International Women’s Day.

Some of the bill’s opponents have argued that teenage marriages are a part of life in West Virginia.

Kanawha County Republican Sen. Mike Stuart, a former federal prosecutor who sided with the majority, said his vote “wasn’t a vote against women.” He said his mother was married when she was 16, and “six months later, I came along. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

The bill would have established that 18 is the age of consent and removed the ability of a minor to obtain consent through their parents, legal guardians, or by court petition. Existing legal marriages, including those done in other states, would have been unaffected.

According to the nonprofit group Unchained At Last, which seeks to end forced and child marriage, seven states have set the minimum age for marriage at 18, all since 2018. Supporters of such legislation say it reduces domestic violence, unwanted pregnancies and improves the lives of teens.

Although recent figures are unavailable, according to the Pew Research Center, West Virginia had the highest rate of child marriages among the states in 2014, when the state’s five-year average was 7.1 marriages for every 1,000 children ages 15 to 17.

In the News: Hiring freeze shrunk National Weather Service staff before hurricanes hit

Hurricane Harvey's  Devastation in Houston  Cr: Elite daily

If you think that you're being served well by the Trump Administration, did you know his hiring  freeze shrunk National Weather Service staff before hurricanes hit?
  It's true. We need MORE scientists, more science and better satellites and more people at FEMA to help with recovery efforts.. NOT LESS.
  REMEMBER:  YOU can change things for the better by voting for Independents and Democrats.
FACT:  The Republican party does not support science (or emergency response personnel, so keep that in mind... ESPECIALLY if you live in Hurricane-prone areas.  Oddly, Texas and Florida voted for Trump. When tornadoes ravage the southern states, they will also be wishing for more scientists, forecasters and emergency responders. Something they won't get if they keep voting for the Republican Party. That's a fact.


Source: Washington Post

Ahead of what would turn out to be a potentially record-breaking hurricane season, the National Weather Service had 216 vacant positions it could not fill due to a governmentwide hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration, according to a recently released document.

Some of those Weather Service vacancies listed in the document, obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Washington Post, were in locations that would be hit by the major hurricanes that barreled through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Staffing levels at the federal government’s weather bureau, responsible for tracking hurricanes and warning the public about hazardous weather, have fallen since 2010 when the agency employed more than 3,800 nonmanagerial and nonsupervisory employees. Staffing had declined so much that the Government Accountability Office wrote in May that employees were challenged in their ability “to complete key tasks.”

The Weather Service’s head count finally stabilized in 2016, with the forecasting agency starting and ending the year with about 3,400 on-the-ground workers.

But the staffing dip resumed in 2017, falling from 3,425 in December to 3,368 in August, according to data from the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union representing meteorologists and other NWS employees.

“There's no question that the hiring freeze had an effect,” said Dan Sobien, NWSEO president. “But really it was the straw that broke the camel's back.”

He added, “The camel was already weighed down to the ground.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Weather Service’s parent agency, said the hiring freeze played a part in the recent decline in the agency’s ranks ahead of the triplet of intense storms — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

“Yes, the hiring freeze was a contributing factor” for renewing that decline, NOAA spokesman Christopher Vaccaro wrote in an email.

But NOAA said its forecasting ability was not hampered by the shrunken staff.

“As already demonstrated during Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria, NOAA is prepared for the hurricane season and is operating at full tempo,” Vaccaro said. “Our forecasters at NOAA's National Hurricane Center, local Weather Service offices, and river forecast centers and elsewhere in the agency are fulfilling the agency's mission of protecting lives and property as they issue timely and accurate forecasts.”

The Weather Service vacancies that could not be filled because of the hiring freeze, which ended for the agency in April, include two meteorology positions at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Those posts remained unfilled as of mid-August, the agency said, right before Hurricane Harvey struck Houston.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami monitoring Hurricane Irma. (AP Photo/Andy Newman)

The freeze also prevented the Weather Service from hiring for two meteorology positions in Jacksonville, Fla., one meteorology position in Tampa and an electronics technician in Key West. 

   NOAA said all those posts, each in cities hit by Hurricane Irma, have been filled.

Ahead of the storms, the Weather Service readied “preselected backup offices” to handle forecasting for offices in the path of hurricanes in case communication was severed, Vaccaro said. For example, the field office near San Antonio covered the duties of the Key West office when Irma hit. The Miami office stepped in for the San Juan office in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria struck.

The Weather Service said that 248 positions remain vacant at the agency. Six of those vacancies are at offices in Florida. 

   "I continue to be deeply troubled by the number of unfilled positions at the National Weather Service and fatigued employees working overtime to compensate for these vacancies," Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) said in a statement. Crist, who served at Florida's Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, added that he shared his concerns with the president earlier this year.

The empty desks are not limited to low-level employees.

The National Hurricane Center, a Weather Service division, has been led by an acting director since May. An acting career official is heading NOAA until President Trump nominates and the Senate confirms a permanent replacement. Trump has waited longer than any other president to fill that role.

The union, however, contends there are actually 665 vacancies at the Weather Service as of July, far more than the agency claims, based on its own Freedom of Information response.

In either case, the vacancies at the Weather Service were numerous enough, even before Trump was inaugurated, for the GAO to audit the agency's hiring practices.

In May, it concluded that managers and employees “have experienced stress, fatigue, and reduced morale” because of the staff shortages. Because NOAA higher-ups make only “limited information” available on the status of hiring requests to those running Weather Service field offices, managers cannot “effectively plan and distribute workloads,” the internal government watchdog office found.

“People were literally getting sick from the workload,” Sobien, the union president, maintained.

GAO counted 455 open jobs as of September 2016 at the Weather Service, excluding headquarters positions, adding that worker data the agency provided "did not provide an accurate reflection of vacancies."

In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a report that lawmakers are “very concerned with the continued number of employee vacancies” even though Congress has provided enough money to fill them.

"Morale is at an all-time low and these dedicated public servants are exhausted," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is not a member of the committee. "The president's hiring freeze only further compounded the vacancies."

But if the new administration gets its way, the Weather Service’s budget will not remain as flush. The White House has proposed cutting the agency's funding by 6 percent, which would include the loss of $62 million being used to update weather models and enable the agency to predict changing weather further out.

So far, the federal government has received positive marks from the public for its hurricane response. Seven in 10 call the overall response as “excellent” or “good," according to a Post-ABC poll conducted Sept. 18-21.

Idiots in Politics: Republicans Remove retirement savings programs for low-income workers

Here's another example of what a Republican controlled U.S. Government does to hurt people- and especially the low-income workers who voted them all into Congress and the White House.  NOW: Republicans Have Voted to remove retirement savings programs for low-income workers.   The Republican Party only cares about the wealthy. This is outrageous. 

Congress rejects Labor Dept. rule for state retirement plans

Source: CBS News 5-4-17
Congress has narrowly voted to overturn an Obama-era rule designed to guide states as they create retirement savings programs for low-income workers.
The Republican-led Senate voted 50-49 Wednesday to reject the Labor Department rule, sending the measure to President Donald Trump.
   With an estimated 55 million Americans lacking access to retirement savings plans at their jobs, some Democratic-leaning states have been working to fill the void.  (EDITOR'S NOTE: Democrats have been fighting to help low-income people get access to retirement savings, but they're not in control of the government)
    At least seven states have launched programs requiring employers to automatically enroll workers in state-sponsored individual retirement accounts managed by investment professionals. The Obama administration gave states the green light last year.
     But congressional Republicans said the state programs discourage small businesses from offering private retirement plans and have inadequate safeguards. While the state-run plans "might not seem too bad on the surface, what they really add up to is more government at the expense of the private sector and American workers," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (EDITOR'S NOTE: When are people in Kentucky going to Vote out McConnell, who doesn't care for them?)
     The state plans would be exempt from federal protections that apply to private plans and would have a competitive advantage over private plans, McConnell said. If the repeal measure is signed, states still will be able to set up retirement plans but must follow federal laws that protect the workers' investments, McConnell said.

Two Republicans, Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Todd Young of Indiana, joined Democrats in opposing the repeal measure.

The Senate voted to overturn the rule using the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows a simple majority in the House and Senate to overturn executive-branch regulations that lawmakers consider onerous or burdensome. Trump and congressional Republicans have overturned more than a dozen Obama-era regulations since Trump took office.
    Democrats said the GOP measure would jeopardize efforts by states to help low-income workers.
States that have begun offering the plans include Illinois, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Oregon and Washington 
    Americans are not "clamoring" for Congress to take away their ability to save for retirement if their company doesn't offer a plan, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Instead, Wall Street financial firms that manage retirement plans "don't want to see any competition from city or state retirement plans," Schumer said.
He called the GOP legislation "another giveaway to the wealthy special interests" that will hurt working Americans who need have more low-cost choices for their retirement.
    In Illinois, a new state program called Secure Choice will give 1.3 million residents the opportunity to save for retirement — "a pragmatic solution to address a real world problem" that now is at risk, said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
    "Instead of encouraging greater competition that will help 55 million Americans save money for retirement, some of my colleagues appear to be listening to Wall Street lobbyists who want less competition and who want to take away a retirement savings option from people," Duckworth said.
California state Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon vowed that his state will continue its retirement program.
   "We will place the future and well-being of our workers over Wall Street greed," he said, promising that "Californians who have worked hard all their lives can retire at a reasonable age with a measure of dignity."

The Importance of the U.S. EPA - Environmental Protection Agency

As a scientist, and someone who likes to breathe clean air and drink uncontaminated water I wanted to educate you about some of the important roles of the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, since some foolish politicians (Republicans) think those things are bad. The EPA sets standards to reduce air and water pollution and toxic chemicals in things that people and pets use daily. They help ensure clean water and cleaner air by pollution controls. - At the end of the blog, look at the photo from modern day China, where there are no pollution controls and people walk around in masks to breathe. SO, in this blog, learn what the EPA does for YOU.  (in the next blog we'll look at China's pollution)
  
PERSONAL EXAMPLE OF EPA BENEFITS -  I visited Los Angeles in 1984 and the smog (low-level ozone pollution, the gas in smog that exacerbates asthma, other respiratory and heart ailments) was so thick and brown over the city that I could see it 10 miles away. When I got there, my eyes and my throat BURNED from the pollution. Today, the smog problem is MUCH LESS.

Los Angeles air pollution graphic

The air pollution in the Los Angeles region has lost some of its “sting,” according to a new study by researchers at NOAA and its cooperative institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.

SCIENTIFIC PROOF- In a study, published online June 17, 2013  in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, a team of scientists analyzed new data gathered using a NOAA research aircraft, along with archived data going back a half-century, to produce a comprehensive study of air pollution in the Los Angeles region.   The cleanup of California’s tailpipe emissions over the last few decades has not only reduced ozone pollution in the Los Angeles area, it has also altered the pollution chemistry in the atmosphere, making the eye-stinging “organic nitrate” component of air pollution plummet, according to a new study led by a scientist from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder.


WHAT IS THE EPA's PURPOSE? - The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the Federal government of the United States which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.

WHAT DOES EPA REGULATE?  They ensure regulations and take actions to  clean air and water pollution and toxic waste sites (known as Superfund sites).  The EPA began regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act  from mobile and stationary sources of air pollution for the first time on January 2, 2011. Do you know they even help consumers identify products made with ingredients that are safer for people and the environment? (SEE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/XywBduC1neQ)

WHY AND WHEN FORMED? - When Ohio's Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught FIRE (yes, it actually caught fire) in 1969, and people could NOT breathe the intense smog in Los Angeles the government realized that it had to regulate and create pollution controls.   EPA was established on December 2, 1970 to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection. 
 

On June 22, 1969, a fire started on the Cuyahoga River

WHAT IS THE CLEAN AIR ACT? -The Clean Air Act is a statute written by Congress that gives EPA the authority to establish regulations, policy, and guidance to protect air quality. This page provides links to some of EPA's air pollution rules and regulations. 

For more information, visit: https://www.epa.gov/  
 

Red Alert bad air quality in Beijing China 2015

 
THE EPA EVEN WORKS TO CLEAR MARINE DEBRIS -  Marine Debris: Cause, Effect, and Prevention 
Trash and litter is not only harmful to our health, but also to marine life at sea. Marine life such as turtles, birds, and the fish we catch and eat mistake this trash for food. Most of this trash begins its journey on land and enters the ocean through our streams, rivers, and waterways. See and hear how this harmful problem can be prevented and how EPA's efforts can keep our oceans clean. 
 VIDEO: https://youtu.be/0_GTORybXTM?list=PLBhfkkujnoRB6QXBuPnSR7Ib1CbIh2pgj
https://youtu.be/0_GTORybXTM?list=PLBhfkkujnoRB6QXBuPnSR7Ib1CbIh2pgj

 NEXT: A WORLD WITHOUT AN EPA: A  LOOK AT THE AIR POLLUTION IN CHINA