Stephan: Few in corporate media, or on the cable news talk about what is happening in the rest of the world in terms of how America is viewed. Perhaps that's because it is not a very flattering picture, rather the opposite. Der Spiegel is one of those most important news outlets in Germany, here's what they are saying. American voters are paying a fearsome price because they voted out of hate and fear.
Credit: Der Spiegel/DPA
The man who has found himself on the United States president’s bad side this week bears the quaint name of William Horsley Orrick, a 63-year-old who — in his frameless glasses and side part — has the classic look of a civil servant. Orrick is a District Court judge in San Francisco and on Tuesday, he blocked Donald Trump from penalizing those cities that provide immigrants special protections, such as making it more difficult for them to be deported. Trump had ordered that federal funding be withheld from these so-called “sanctuary cities.” But with his ruling, Orrick has slapped a temporary stay on the order.
It was just the most recent defeat in the courts for the president, following the suspension of his travel ban targeting the citizens of several Muslim-majority countries — and it didn’t take long before the president went public with his rage. The ruling, Trump wrote in one of his early morning Twitter eruptions, is “ridiculous.” He added: “See you in the Supreme Court!”
Colin Campbell, Reporter - News-Observer (Raleigh)
Stephan: There is a nastiness, a lack of concern about human life, that has become one of the hallmarks of the Republican Party. You could see it in the horrible "healthcare" bill that passed the House today. If that is not enough here is another example of why I say this.
A protester raises his fists in the air after he and other protesters were able to block Interstate 277 in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, September 22, 2016. Credit: Jeff Siner
RALEIGH — Drivers who hit a protester who’s blocking the road couldn’t be sued for injuries if they “exercise due care,” under a bill that passed the N.C. House on Thursday.
House Bill 330, approved in a 67-48 vote, comes in response to protests last fall in Charlotte. Protesters upset about the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott blocked interstate highways and other roads in the city.
“These people are nuts to run in front of cars like they do … and say, ‘me and my buddy here are going to stop this two-and-a-half-ton vehicle,’” said Rep. Michael Speciale, a New Bern Republican and a supporter of the bill. “If somebody does bump somebody, why should they be held liable?”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Justin Burr of Albemarle, said drivers wouldn’t be allowed to deliberately run over protesters.
Stephan: Here is yet another example of what I mean about the fundamental nastiness and lack of compassion that so clearly defines what the Republican Party is about today. I just don't know how a person can get to this place in their own mind and still think of themselves as honorable.
I think we should take Jesus' teaching in Matthew 22:40 and Galatians 5:14 very seriously.
Ben Carson
As secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson has been traveling throughout the U.S. for a number of weeks on a listening tour for low-income citizens relying on the government for assistance. Only, to some, the tour was more of a photo-op than an integral conversation with a powerful government official.
“It was staged. It was so fast,” said 87-year-old Alzene Munnerlyn, according to the New York Times. Carson paid a visit to her apartment complex in Columbus, Ohio, on the second day of his tour. After she was priced out of her apartment, Munneryln now lives in senior housing, paid in part with a voucher.
“There needs to be a forum where you can just sit and talk with him, and he could ask you how you feel and then you could express yourself,” she said, frowning, according to the Times. Munnerlyn was upset and she felt as if she was used, as Carson and many other local housing officials took pictures in her living room.
Charles Ornstein, Senior Reporter - ProPublica/npr
Stephan: This report gives us yet another insight into the toxic dynamic of the pharmaceutical industry one of the most evil sectors of American society.
Credit: Shutterstock
When teaching hospitals put pharmaceutical sales representatives on a shorter leash, their doctors tended to order fewer promoted brand-name drugs and used more generic versions instead, a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows.
The results were significant compared to doctors who did not work at hospitals that limited sales reps from freely walking their halls or providing meals or gifts, according to research by Ian Larkin, an assistant professor of strategy at the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, and colleagues.
Conflicts of interest in medicine have been ubiquitous for many years, but a string of lawsuits, coupled with a crackdown by academic medical centers and public disclosure of industry payments, have brought renewed focus on how these relationships affect prescribing.
Stephan: More good news about the transition out of carbon energy. Even with Trump in the White House, and his zombies heading agencies, citizen action is moving the country into a new world.
Cattle graze in a pasture against a backdrop of wind turbines which are part of the 155 turbine Smoky Hill Wind Farm near Vesper, Kan. Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP
Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.
While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.
One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
“We’re in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future,” Liebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New York on Tuesday. “Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at all.”
Here’s what’s shaping power markets, in six charts from BNEF:
