Theodore Shoebat and Walid Shoebat , - Shoebat
Stephan: I don't think most Americans, and probably most of my readers, really understand how detached from factual reality the Republican Party and its base have become. Nurtured by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter and a host of other media hucksters they live in a fact-free world of conspiracies, black helicopters, chem-trails, and other fantasies. To illustrate this point let me take the recent exchange between the Khans, a dignified middle aged Muslim couple whose son was killed in a combat action and Donald Trump. Here is what that looked like to the Theocratic Right.
The Muslim who attacked Donald Trump, Khizr Muazzam Khan, is a Muslim Brotherhood agent, working to bring Muslims into the United States. After reading what we discovered so far, it becomes obvious that Khan wanted to ‘trump’ Trump’s Muslim immigration policy of limiting Muslim immigration into the U.S.
But not so fast. Trump we have your back.
Khizr Muazzam Khan graduated in Punjab University Law College, as the New York Times confirms. He specialized in International Trade Law in Saudi Arabia. An interest lawyer for Islamic oil companies Khan wrote a paper, called In Defense of OPEC to defend the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an intergovernmental oil company consisting of mainly Islamic countries.
But more than this, Khan is a promoter of Islamic Sharia Law in the U.S. He was a co-founder of the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law (Islamic Sharia). Khan’s fascination with Islamic Sharia stems from his life in Saudi Arabia. During the eighties Khan wrote a paper titled Juristic Classification of Islamic [Sharia] Law. In it he elucidated on the system of Sharia law expressing his reverence for “The Sunnah [the works of Muhammad] — authentic tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon […]
1 Comment
Thursday, August 4th, 2016
Chris Mooney , Science and Environment Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: I just love good news, particularly about the environment, and this is good news. Bravo to the Obama Administration.
President Obama
Credit: Shutterstock
In the past several weeks alone, the Obama administration has made multiple new moves to fight climate change. The administration announced new steps to help fill U.S. roadways with electric vehicles. It ruled that greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft endanger human health and welfare. And on the international stage, it moved the world closer to a deal to phase out super-polluting HFCs, chemicals in refrigerants and other industrial substances that warm the climate.
But as Obama’s term dwindles, the act isn’t over — on Tuesday the White House released yet another policy to fight climate change, one with potentially far-reaching consequences. The White House’s chief environmental office, the Council on Environmental Quality, finalized a six-year process of shaping how the government’s agencies, across the board, will factor climate change into their decisions.
The council’s new guidance involves what activists and environmental lawyers know as “NEPA” — one of those exceedingly wonky policies that is nevertheless critical to how the modern federal government functions. NEPA is short for a […]
2 Comments
Thursday, August 4th, 2016
Ian Millhiser, - Think Progress
Stephan: To my dismay I have a number of socially progressive friends who continue to insist they are voting for third party candidates like Jill Stein. They cannot seem to understand that in a binary system voting third party is in essence a vote for Donald Trump. Here is why I think this.
Ralph Nader
Remember Ralph Nader?
In 2000, after the Supreme Court halted a recount that could have determined the real winner of the presidential election, official tallies showed Republican George W. Bush up by just 537 votes over Democrat Al Gore in the crucial state of Florida — with whoever won this crucial state slated to become the next president. Meanwhile, Nader racked up nearly 100,000 votes.
As political scientist Gerald Pomper explains, Nader’s margin was more than enough to hand the White House to the GOP. Exit polls showed that “approximately half (47 percent) of the Nader voters said they would choose Gore in a two-man race, a fifth (21 percent) would choose Bush, and a third (32 percent) would not vote.” Thus, had Nader not been in the race, “Gore would have achieved a net gain of 26,000 votes in Florida, far more than needed to carry the state easily.”
It’s a typical pattern that plays out in American elections where a third-party candidate makes a meaningful showing. Political […]
6 Comments
Thursday, August 4th, 2016
samantha allen, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: The thing about Theocratic Rightists is that they do not live in a world of facts, and have no trouble lying and cheating when it serves what they see as their higher calling. It is all part of the self-righteousness that is one of the hallmarks of conservative religiosity. Here is a clear example of what I mean. I find such behavior despicable.
The Supreme Court struck down key provisions of a Texas anti-abortion law in late June, but the Lone Star state still has plenty of tricks left up its sleeve.
First, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission quietly changed its rules to require that abortion providers bury or cremate fetal tissue instead of using standard medical waste disposal services.
And now, as the Texas Tribune reported Wednesday, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is planning a new version of A Woman’s Right to Know, a mandatory booklet that Texas women receive 24 hours before an abortion procedure that is riddled with lies. The revision also ignores recommendations made by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG), an OB/GYN professional association with over 57,000 members.
The Daily Beast reviewed both the original and revised versions of A Woman’s Right to Know, and found several inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions.
“This is a draft booklet,” DSHS spokeswoman Carrie Williams told The Daily Beast in response to […]
No Comments
Thursday, August 4th, 2016
Alan Pyke, - Think Progress
Stephan: Republican governance is always a failure because it is based on fantasies not facts, and no where is this more evident than in Kansas. Now even the conservatives of Kansas have had enough.
Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback
After giving Gov. Sam Brownback (R) a free hand to turn Kansas into a science lab for hard-right policy experiments for more than five disastrous years, voters finally yanked the leash Tuesday night. At least 11 separate conservative members of the legislature lost their primaries to more moderate Republicans in the state, with a number of contests still too close to call with confidence.
While the wave won’t unlock the statehouse doors for Democrats, who are dramatically outnumbered in both House and Senate, the primaries signal that voters share the frustration that some Kansas Republicans have begun to voice with Brownback’s unbreakable commitment to trickle-down economic policies that have left Kansas so insolvent it can’t pay for a basic public education system.
The change will be most sweeping in the 40-seat Senate, where there are currently four Republicans for every Democrat. A full quarter of seats there will be filled with a more moderate butt next year. Conservatives lost 10 out of the […]
No Comments
