Stephan: In preparing today's edition I read three pieces about how the Founders were all Christians (by which was meant the fundamentalist sect that has stolen Jesus). This is grotesque nonsense, and the fact the interviewers never seem to know or care enough to ask the relevant question: On what basis do you make that statement? led me to search out something that actually provided some data.
Nobody can deny the fact that Christianity has played a huge role in our history. From the first Thanksgiving to the ideas of Jesus Christ that are embroidered in our culture today, Christianity and the Bible is responsible a big part of our heritage.
However, many conservatives will take this fact way out of context. They’ll think that you have to be a Christian to be patriotic, which is simply not true. Following the more secular teachings of Jesus Christ (being charitable, loving one another, treating strangers with kindness) is what the men who founded this country were for.
I don’t want to waste my time listing all these obscurant far-right arguments, so instead I’ll list the facts straight from our forefathers.
‘If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”
– George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)
‘Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if […]
No Comments
EMILY ATKIN, - Think Progress
Stephan: I don't know, maybe it is something in the water, but the stupid trend in Red value states seems to be taking over. It is hard to believe that a public official would be this willfully ignorant, and that the citizens of his state would tolerate it.
Nine states are joining forces with a prominent climate denier and coal company owner to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over its new regulations on carbon emissions from coal plants, arguing that the EPA has no authority to make the rule.
Filing a brief with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, the nine states – West Virginia, Wyoming, South Carolina, Ohio, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alaska, Alabama, and Kentucky – argued that the EPA is not allowed to regulate carbon from existing coal plants, and is attempting to impose ‘double regulations” on coal plants everywhere. The states are seeking to join a lawsuit recently filed by Murray Energy Corp., the largest independently-owned coal company in the country, which is asking the court to put an immediate stop to the ‘disastrous” rule.
Murray Energy’s lawsuit was spearheaded by company owner Robert Murray, who originally threatened to sue the EPA over its carbon regulations in early June. The reason he wanted to sue, he said, was that climate change is fake, that the EPA was lying about its existence, and that the earth was actually cooling.
A few weeks later, Murray made good on that promise and sued – though the lawsuit did not include […]
No Comments
Stephan: Once again, to my great pleasure, I have been invited to cruise on a friend's boat in Alaskan and Northern Canadian waters. This is the one time a year I am offline. Today's edition will be the last until 17th July. I hope you had a great 4th, and are all having a wonderful summer. I will see you again on the 17th.
-- Stephan
No Comments
Stephan: Thanks to the five Rightists on the Supreme Court money is speech, and corporations have religion. This is where the Red value part of the country is headed. Ultimately I think this is all part of the Great Schism Trend.
On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the controversial Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case, ruling for the first time that for-profit businesses can hold religious views and that they can use said views to get out of providing birth control coverage to their employees. Depending on which team you play for in the culture wars, the ruling was either a tragic affront to democracy, healthcare, and civil rights, or a rare win for freedom and religious liberty. For the Green family, the billionaire evangelicals who ‘closely hold” the Hobby Lobby corporation, it was obviously the latter. But it was also an auspicious beginning, an early victory in a larger fight to persuade America that it is a Christian nation bound by the literal truths of the Bible.
Although relatively unknown among unbelievers until the Supreme Court case, Hobby Lobby and its devout owners have long been a powerful force on the Christian right. The Green family is basically to American Christendom what George Soros is to progressive causes, or, perhaps more appropriately, what the Koch brothers are for the Tea Party. David Green, Hobby Lobby’s self-made founder, is worth roughly $5.1 billion, according to Forbes, which […]
No Comments
DANIEL WALLIS, - Reuters/The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is some excellent news. What is going on in Colorado is completely discrediting the Prohibitionist's arguments. It is getting only a fraction of the attention it should, which is an interesting trend in itself. But what is happening in Colorado I think is going to change the Blue value states. This is going to become the model.
Washington, I am afraid, is making a much more muddled job of it. And greed and a desire to sabotage on the part of some combined and resulted in over-taxing, which may price legal cannabis out of the market, and perpetuate a grey market. But legalization itself has become a kind of non-issue.
DENVER — At the Native Roots Apothecary, a discreet marijuana shop in a grand old building in Denver’s busy 16th street shopping mall, business is so brisk that customers are given a number before taking a seat to wait their turn.
There are young men in ball caps, nervous-looking professionals in suits, and the frail and elderly. Staff say customers have been flocking to their outlets since Colorado voted to allow recreational pot use for adults from January.
Six months on, Colorado’s marijuana shops are mushrooming, with support from local consumers, weed tourists and federal government taking a wait-and-see attitude.
Tax dollars are pouring in, crime is down in Denver, and few of the early concerns about social breakdown have materialized – at least so far.
‘The sky hasn’t fallen, but we’re a long way from knowing the unintended consequences,” said Andrew Freeman, director of marijuana coordination for Colorado. ‘This is a huge social and economic question.”
Denver, dubbed the ‘Mile High” city, now has about 340 recreational and medicinal pot shops. They tout the relaxing, powerful or introspective attributes of the crystal-encased buds with names like Jilly Bean, Sour Diesel and Silverback Kush.
In the first four months, marijuana sales amounted to more than $202 […]
No Comments
