Heavily armed civilians with a group known as the Oath Keepers arrive in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 11, 2015. The far-right anti-government activists, largely consists of past and present members of the military, first responders and police officers.
Credit: Jeff Roberson/AP
Sheriff Nick Finch let a pistol-packing local man out of the Liberty County, Florida, jail shortly after taking office, a decision that brought him admiration, donations, and speaking requests from anti-government activists across the country. It put him at odds with state authorities, who charged him with a crime, but also thrust him into the vanguard of a radical and growing movement among sheriffs in rural communities who assert they can ignore state and federal laws they decide are unconstitutional.
The Florida episode began in […]
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Tuesday, April 19th, 2016
Alex Marshall, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: If you were reading SR in 2013, and an amazing number of you were, you will remember the stories I did on the radical course shift taken by Uruguay in relation to drugs. This has not been an easy change for a conservative Catholic culture and government, and it has taken longer than anyone thought it would, but it is happening, and here is the latest.
Uruguay's decision to get the government into the marijuana business, I see, as an example of an unusual but wellness-oriented approach to an essentially universal social issue. Just as I look at social outcome data of states, I search it out about countries around the world. I predict that Uruguay in a few years will report that their approach is cheaper, more efficient, more effective, more enduring, and more productive of wellness than the policies that proceeded the present approach.
Uruguay during 2013 campaign Credit: AFP
For a Latin American narcotics kingpin, Guillermo Delmonte cuts a low key figure. The 29-year-old Uruguayan has never smoked cannabis in his life. He’s never smoked a cigarette either, and he barely drinks. When asked if he has any vices, he has to pause to think. “I’m addicted to orange juice. Perhaps,” he eventually says with a bemused laugh.
Sitting in his minimalist office overlooking Montevideo’s main square, and wearing an open-necked Ralph Lauren shirt and expensive blue jeans, he looks every bit the fitness-obsessed executive.
But as the United Nations prepares to discuss its failed “war on drugs” in New York this week, Delmonte is under intense scrutiny as the CEO of International Cannabis Corp, one of two firms now legally growing dope on behalf of the Uruguayan government.
At a small farm just down the road from Libertad prison, an hour’s drive from the capital Montevideo, Delmonte’s company has 3,000 marijuana plants growing under lights and constant police guard. It is expecting to add […]
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Tuesday, April 19th, 2016
Sarah K. Burris, - The Raw Story
Stephan: One of the features of the Great Schism Trend is that increasingly the sides are sealed worlds. We are re-tribalizing and as a result there is very little in the mainstream corporate media about the "Christian" fanaticism which, if it were Islamic would excite all manner of comment. This is a story of that world and I am publishing it because I think it is important that people not part of that world still have some insight into it.
I do not think we are all going to come together in a Cumbaya moment. I think the challenge is going to be how to peacefully manage tribal differences. Looking at the data it is easy for me to see how the U.S. could maintain its Federal system for some things but allow states to become the dominate political power. As time goes on Washington will have less and less to say to Mississippi and vice versa, and their social policies will be so radically different they will become different countries. They already are but the meme is not embedded in the collective yet.
The Church Militant
People are quickly losing interest in “the church” as an institution. Young people and the millennial generation, in particular, are the least religious of any generation in America today, according to a Pew survey. Is this because many right-wing churches are driving away people as they become more accepting of progressive policies? Did the sex abuse scandal scare off Catholic parents who want to protect their children? Is it even, as the right-wing has proposed, a downfall in family values? No, according to “Church Militant,” altar Girls and “feminized kids” are the culprits.
Co-host Michael Voris begins the segment by talking about mothers who want their daughters to participate in the church and thus want their daughters to be altar girls along with altar boys. “You know, what young guy, what’s the connection there for any young male who’s 13, 14, 15? He wants nothing to do with that,” he explained. “There’s nothing appealing whatsoever about the faith to a 12, 14-year-old kid and you can see it. […]
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Malik Jalal, - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan: If you saw yesterday's edition you saw the piece I ran on drones. Here now is an account of what it is like to live in the world of drones. I don't think anything else we are doing is breeding hate for American more effectively than this.
There have been 255 drone strikes on Pakistan since 2004
Credit: AP
I am in the strange position of knowing that I am on the ‘Kill List’. I know this because I have been told, and I know because I have been targeted for death over and over again. Four times missiles have been fired at me. I am extraordinarily fortunate to be alive.
I don’t want to end up a “Bugsplat” – the ugly word that is used for what remains of a human being after being blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. More importantly, I don’t want my family to become victims, or even to live with the droning engines overhead, knowing that at any moment they could be vaporized.
I am in England this week because I decided that if Westerners wanted to kill me without bothering to come to speak with me first, perhaps I should come to speak to them instead. I’ll tell […]
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