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Seriously; if you read through these stories, both are part of the work of rightwing organizations operating in every state to get their missions accomplished. No state is safe from this sort of thing; people really need to keep their eyes on ALL of their legislators. Some of these groups even write ordinances and lobby county/municipal/local governing bodies.
TOPEKA — Melissa Sabin spoke officially on behalf of Little Lobbyists Kansas and personally in the name of her son, Logan, against a Kansas Senate bill aggressively expanding the state’s process of verifying eligibility for Medicaid, SNAP and other public assistance programs.
She was among dozens of organizations or individuals supplying opposition testimony Wednesday on Senate Bill 363. It would impose new state application and reporting requirements, some exceeding federal mandates, for programs serving children, elderly people, poor people, pregnant women and people with disabilities.
On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency, or COGE, heard from the lone proponent of the bill — a conservative Florida organization that has sought for more than a decade to slash participation in Kansas public assistance programs.
“I oppose this bill because it creates an expensive, inefficient and legally questionable administrative structure that will predictably result in eligible Kansans — especially children — losing access to health care and food assistance,” Sabin said. “SB 363 does not improve program integrity or efficiency. It instead builds layers of red tape that state agencies are not equipped to manage or that federal law does not permit.”
Sabin, state outreach manager of Little Lobbyists, said the bill was inaccurately touted by its advocates as a means of improving accountability in terms of serving 325,000 Kansans taking part in Medicaid and 188,000 enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Sabin said requiring determinations of eligibility to be repeated monthly or quarterly would lead to additional paperwork errors, missed notices or administrative delays rather than documentation of alleged fraud or abuse.
She said a proposal for recipients of Medicaid to have eligibility reassessed every three months, rather than at 12-month intervals, could violate federal regulations. In terms of her son, she said the bill would compel the state to reconsider four times each year whether Logan, born with a genetic disorder characterized by intellectual disabilities, was eligible despite lack of change in his medical diagnosis.
“His condition does not fluctuate with paperwork cycles,” his mother said. “His need for skilled care does not disappear because the form is refiled or a verification is resubmitted.”
Sabin’s message of opposition was shared by representatives of Kansas Action for Children, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, LeadingAge Kansas, El Centro, United Way of Harvey and Marion Counties, Flint Hills Breadbasket, Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, InterHab, Reach Healthcare Foundation, Kansas Interfaith Action, Kansas Children’s Service League, United Community Services of Johnson County, the Disability Rights Center of Kansas and others.
Under the Senate bill, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas Department for Children and Families would be required to establish data-matching systems to automatically share personal information on Kansans with other state agencies. KDHE would have to submit data to the federal government on a monthly basis to determine if Kansans were enrolled in Medicaid in other states.
The bill would direct the Kansas Department of Labor to affirm employment status of beneficiaries, while the Kansas Department of Revenue would reveal details on household income. The Kansas Department of Corrections would track prison inmates who might be ineligible for benefits. The Kansas Lottery would be on alert for anyone winning more than $3,000 because the income bump could compromise eligibility for aid.
As written, the Senate bill would block state agencies from unilaterally requesting approval of exemptions to federal regulations. Instead, the Legislature would have to first endorse the request. The legislation also would block Kansas agencies from accepting as true an applicant’s statements on household size, age or residency — a provision that would require extensive document searches by state employees.
Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat running for governor, said she appreciated a recommendation from an opponent of the bill to convene a special committee of the Legislature to develop a better understanding of how Kansans dealt with the process of obtaining SNAP or Medicaid assistance.
Holscher said the House and Senate should do more than accept testimony from the only organization supporting the bill: FGA Action, which operates as an arm of the conservative Florida think tank Foundation for Government Accountability.
FGA was a proponent of the 2015 Kansas law restricting enrollment in SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Research subsequently showed the state law undercut low-income families in Kansas, made it more difficult to prevent child abuse and contributed to a record surge in the number of Kansas children in foster care.
“We have 40 opponents to this bill who are subject matter experts based in Kansas,” Holscher said. “One proponent with an organization based out of Florida.”
The fiscal note attached to the Senate’s bill indicated state agencies would need to hire about 300 new employees to handle the revised eligibility processes. The Kansas Department of Administration estimated the cost of complying with the law would be $17 million to $18 million annually.
Sen. Doug Shane, R-Louisburg, and Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, challenged the fiscal note.
“Quite frankly the fiscal note is, I guess we could say, hogwash,” Shane said. “There are just some pure fallacies.”
Heather Braum, senior policy adviser for Kansas Action for Children, said the additional layers of government red tape contemplated in the Senate bill would disproportionately harm children. She said the reform was introduced at a time when nearly 20% of Kansas children didn’t know where their next meal would come from and about 50,000 children lacked health insurance.
“Bottom line,” Braum said, “this bill will result in families losing Medicaid and SNAP. Families will be unable to afford their child’s medical care and kids will have less food to eat in their homes.”
Braum urged the Legislature to work toward streamlining the process of applying for aid. She said House and Senate members need a good understanding of how parents, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and the elderly navigated the Medicaid and SNAP application processes.
Erica Andrade, president and CEO of El Centro, said the state’s plan to spend more on eligibility checks would result in loss of benefits by people qualified to receive aid.
“From El Centro’s perspective,” she said, “the most troubling aspect of SB 363 is that it prioritizes bureaucracy over people.”
The Rev. Jessica Williams, a Merriam Baptist minister with the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice, testified on behalf of Kansas Interfaith Action. She said Interfaith Action opposed federal SNAP and Medicaid reform signed in 2025 by President Donald Trump and likewise objected to SB 363.
She said the legislation weaponized the bureaucracy to dismantle the Medicaid and SNAP safety nets. She said paperwork traps embedded in the bill were “certainly counter to God’s law.”
“In my faith tradition we regularly pray the only prayer that Jesus taught, which says, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ ” Williams said. “This prayer is not an abstract nicety, but a concrete demand for survival and an indictment of unjust systems which withhold food from families.”
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TOPEKA — Local government leaders want more details about how to enforce a “bathroom bill” passed by the Legislature that some city officials say could cost taxpayers “millions of dollars.”
Senate Bill 244, which is awaiting Gov. Laura Kelly’s signature, forces people to use facilities matching their biological sex at birth in government buildings.
Kelly has a 10-day deadline once receiving a bill to veto it. That deadline is Friday for SB 244, a spokesperson said. Kelly is expected to veto the bill, which passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities.
The bill says local governing bodies should take reasonable steps to ensure people use restrooms, locker rooms and other private spaces tied to their biological sex at birth, said Jay Hall, deputy director and general counsel for the Kansas Association of Counties.
The phrase that concerns Hall is “every reasonable step.”
“That’s really where our questions start,” he said. “What’s the expectation of local governments, and how are they supposed to handle the enforcement? That’s not something that we know at this point.”
Spencer Duncan, Topeka mayor and government affairs director for the League of Kansas Municipalities, said his organization is exploring what the bill means for its members. Initial determinations of changing signage and other steps could cost millions of dollars, some city leaders told him.
Duncan expressed frustration with the process that eliminated opportunity for public input when SB 244 was passed out of committee. The bill, originally House Bill 2426, addressed gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates, which would stop the state’s practice of allowing transgender individuals to change their sex on those documents and would roll back markers that were previously changed.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee added the bathroom portion of the bill and then amended SB 244 by overwriting it with HB 2426, a process called “gut and go.” That allowed the Senate, which had already approved the unrelated version of SB 244, to concur with changes rather than hold hearings on the bill.
The only public hearing was in the House Judiciary Committee regarding gender markers — which received opposition from more than 200 people. During floor debate in the House, Democratic legislators spent more than five hours trying to add amendments that were repeatedly defeated. The bill passed along party lines, with one Republican, Emporia Rep. Mark Schreiber, voting against it.
The process meant no fiscal note was put on the bill for the bathroom portion, which concerned Democrats during the House debate and also worried Duncan and Hall.
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The video from the scene showed that the ICE gang thugs lied and made false claims about the shooting of the woman. However the woman still had hospital bills and a damaged car she had to pay. These gang thugs wanted to kill a Hispanic person, wanted to remove a brown person from society. They faked a story, clearly they narrated a story that was not happening at the time so they would have an excuse to attack a person. Hugs
Is every agency of the tRump admin totally screwed up and useless? But I want to point out the Nazi like states used such as defend the homeland. These Nazi wannabee white supremacists are so desperate to have the Nazi ideology forced on the public that they slip it into every aspect of the current administration. Hugs
I have to ask why the republicans are against counting every vote of people entitled to vote by law. Why do they work so hard to restrict voter options and confine voting to a time and place where only their majority supporters tend to vote? Because they are not interested in representing the will of the people, they demand the right to rule over the public. The country better wake up because think of the right wing head explosions if the left was trying to restrict right wing voting areas. The right wants a single party rule like in China onely with them in charge. Hugs
Written by Matthew Russell
Beneath the icy stillness of the Arctic, where sunlight barely filters through thick sea ice, jellyfish are rewriting the rules of survival. For years, scientists assumed these delicate creatures could not withstand the region’s brutal winters. But that assumption shattered when researchers discovered adult Chrysaora melanaster jellyfish drifting under the frozen Chukchi Sea, tentacles trailing through near-freezing water.
The findings stunned marine biologists. Footage captured by Columbia University researchers using underwater vehicles revealed dozens of fully grown jellyfish gliding along the shallow seafloor. Their bells stretched nearly 24 inches across, and their tentacles extended up to 10 feet long. These jellyfish weren’t dormant, dying, or clinging to survival. They were alive and active, defying decades of assumptions about Arctic marine life, Live Science reports.
Arctic jellyfish are surviving the winter in their adult stage.
To capture this rare glimpse, researchers rode snowmobiles across miles of frozen ocean and drilled through four feet of ice. Cameras dropped into the water below revealed not only jellyfish but a surprising abundance of other life — from algae to crustaceans. What stunned scientists most was that these jellyfish appeared healthy and fully developed, in the medusa stage, not the dormant polyp form previously believed to be their only means of winter survival, according to Columbia Climate School.
The cold helps them. It slows their metabolism, allowing them to conserve energy. And the ice above shields them from turbulent winter storms.
As Columbia biologist Andy Juhl put it, “Life under sea ice is like living in a refrigerator — everything slows down.” This slow-paced existence may help these jellyfish survive for years, not just months as once assumed.
Scientists found jellyfish living under four feet of Arctic ice.
Jellyfish don’t just surprise us in the north. Thousands of miles south, in the icy waters of Antarctica, researchers aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s expedition recently filmed one of the rarest marine animals ever seen — the ghost jellyfish. This deep-sea giant (*Stygiomedusa gigantea*) spans over three feet wide, with flowing oral arms stretching more than 30 feet. It drifts silently through the dark, catching prey without the aid of tentacles. It was filmed at 1,300 meters depth in a region only accessible because a massive iceberg had recently broken free, the Stewartville Star reports.
Ghost jellies are rarely seen — only 120 sightings have ever been recorded since their discovery in 1899. Their immense size and unusual feeding methods set them apart, but it’s their reproduction that draws perhaps the most curiosity. Unlike most jellyfish, ghost jellies give birth to live young. The juveniles emerge directly from the parent’s mouth after developing inside its bell, a trait called viviparity, according to Live Science.
These jellyfish were once believed to die off each winter.
While ghost jellies are deep-sea dwellers, some were filmed at surprisingly shallow depths — just 260 feet in Antarctic waters. Researchers suggest that in polar regions, shifts in sunlight and prey behavior may draw these jellies closer to the surface.
Both Arctic and Antarctic jellyfish species show how adaptable these animals can be. In the Arctic, jellyfish once assumed to vanish in winter now appear to thrive, aided by the very cold that was thought to be their limit. In Antarctica, a creature thought to be relegated to unreachable depths rises when opportunity allows, providing rare glimpses of life in Earth’s most extreme waters.
What unites them isn’t just their beauty or rarity. It’s their resilience — silent drifters shaped by pressure, cold, and darkness, yet still pulsing through the oceans, undeterred.
Ghost jellyfish in Antarctica can grow over 30 feet long.
Despite their resilience, these jellyfish may face new threats. According to Columbia Climate School, arctic species like *C. melanaster* rely on thick sea ice for shelter. As climate change causes rapid ice loss, these jellyfish — and many creatures that depend on sea ice — may see their habitats disappear. At the same time, jellyfish in warmer parts of the world are thriving, even swarming, in response to warming waters and fewer predators.
In the far north, though, it may be the opposite. With less ice, cold-adapted jellies could decline. In the case of these jellyfish, warming may simply mean vanishing.
Still, these discoveries are a reminder of how much we have yet to understand. The creatures beneath the ice and beyond the reach of sunlight continue to defy expectations, reminding us that the ocean — even in its coldest corners — is alive with mystery.
OK MS Now has like 35 or 40 of these clips. They are difficult to stomach, but I am going to post a couple. MS Now posted clips of her attacking every democrat who had time at the hearings, so if you want to see the questions asked and her outright disrespect and trashing of the entire system in her performance for tRump all with the republicans on the committee’s approval. I sincerely hope the republicans remember how they acted when the democrats take power this fall and I hope democrats reamin strong enough to pay back the republicans in kind. Hugs
If you watch only one watch this one below. It has all the worst interactions. She acted like a spoiled bratty Karen. She came ready to accuse the democratic congress people of crimes instead of answering questions. She is a bitter entitled woman. Hugs
So yesterday I posted about being disconnected from reality. I am sorry I did not get to any comments today I will do it tomorrow I promise. Last night I tossed and turned and got up and simply walked the house. I did not have a plan nor go online. I simply paced every room in the house mindlessly. Let me explain it is worse than that.
I went to bed feeling exhausted, too tired to stay up, after making sure the cat got his medications and food, and then after an hour I was awake. I tried every mind trick to keep my emotions at bay but nothing was working and I couldn’t sleep. But then something strange happened, not normal to me.
I got up and went to the computers … and couldn’t focus on them. I did not put ear buds in to listen to anything. It was like my mind shut down and my body was on autopilot. For hours I walked the house, room to room to room. At 2:30 am my time Ron texted me a bit worried I had not responded to his texts, but I did not respond, I just paced around the house. It would have been normal for me if I had had my ear buds in and sounds in my head, but I did not. I simply walked the house and every room in it over and over and over again for several hours. Then I sat at the computer, tried to do something, gave up and went to bed. As close as I can figure I got two or maybe three hours of sleep.
But the lack of sleep is not the point. What was happening in my mind that caused me to walk like that? I normally cannot go 20 seconds or more without exsternal imput into my mind. But last night I had none of that and I don’t know why. Looking back it was like I was possessed. When I got up I knew I did it, but not why. My mind was blank.
Ron has often in the last decade forced me awake because I was crying out or struggling in my sleep. Some of those he said sounded so strangled like I was trying to cry out while my throat was being closed off. Ron was not here last night. I was alone. My queston is did my mind force me out of the bed and walk because there was no other way to help me from what I was remembering in my sleep?
All day today I have been off trying to get my normal posts done. I have failed. No other way to put it, I am failing at my posting job. But I would love to hear what you guys think happened to me last night. Because it is terrifying if I am just going to mind shut down and walk around. What else might I do? Hugs
Experts Watched Pam Bondi’s Viral Hearing Clip On Repeat. They All Saw The Same Thing.
A now-viral clip shows Pam Bondi pointing, name-calling during her House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Read in HuffPost: https://apple.news/AicAikrO2SbOZuItgsg5P7g
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
The meme below was during the Covid shutdown of 2020. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 