Stephan: In Canada, in contrast to the U.S., there are 722 deaths annually by gun fire, less than eight days of gun death in the U.S., and 77% of them are suicides. Mass shootings in Canada are so rare that the country goes years between such events, and when they happen, they do something about it, as this report describes.
Canadian mass shooting site
Credit: The Globe and Mail
After a mass shooting left three people dead, including the shooter, in Toronto on Sunday, the city’s conservative mayor backed a proposal that even the most liberal American politicians wouldn’t dare support ― a total ban on all handgun sales.
“Why does anyone in this city need to have a gun at all?” Mayor John Tory asked at a city council meeting on Monday.
Tory spoke a day after 29-year-old Faisal Hussain opened fire with a handgun on a busy avenue in the city, killing two females and injuring 13 other people. The incident left Torontonians in fear and mourning and prompted the city council to vote on Tuesday night to ask the federal government to ban the sale of handguns within city limits.
Alternate reality
The city’s motion, which passed 41-4, both calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government to outlaw the sale of handguns and urges the provincial government to ban […]
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Thursday, July 26th, 2018
JAMIE ROSS, - Daily Beast
Stephan: The fog of corruption and lies spewed out by Trump, his administration, and his congressional quislings has so befuddled America that almost everything else is lost in the toxic mist. But this story from the U.K. should not go unremarked. It now seems certain that the BREXIT divorce that will affect the lives of everyone in the U.K. was a rigged deal. Here is the story.
Credit: www.funds-europe.com
The official campaign that campaigned for people in Britain to vote to leave the European Union broke the law, according to the country’s election watchdog, which has now referred the matter to police.
With Theresa May’s government teetering on the brink of collapse as the pro- and anti-EU factions within her party go to war, the announcement from the Electoral Commission that the campaign group fronted by Boris Johnsoncheated is bringing Brexit tensions to boiling point, with some lawmakers urging a re-run of the vote.
The group—known as Vote Leave—was chosen as the official campaign group for the June 2016 referendum. The Electoral Commission says it funneled money into a sister campaign to get around spending limits, meaning that it exceeded the £7 million ($9.2 million) maximum by £500,000 ($660,000)
Vote Leave has been fined £61,000 ($80,000) while Darren Grimes, the
founder of sister campaign group BeLeave, was fined £20,000 ($26,000). Grimes and Vote Leave official David Halsall have both been reported to police.
The investigation from the Electoral Commission found that BeLeave […]
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Thursday, July 26th, 2018
Stephan: The thing about the "little people" that Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand is that they see you as you are. And, in the case of Trump, it is a very ugly picture. This is a very interesting example of this truth.
Beck Dorey-Stein
A White House stenographer says she resigned over the Trump administration’s lack of respect for her office after President Trumpreduced the roles of the White House position.
Beck Dorey-Stein, who worked as a stenographer for the White House during the second half of the Obama administration, told CNN’s New Day on Wednesday that Trump’s refusal to allow stenographers in the room for meetings and interviews with some journalists crossed a line.
“I quit because I couldn’t be proud of where I worked anymore,” Dorey-Stein said. “I felt like President Trump was lying to the American people, and also … not even trying to tell the truth. He wasn’t even going the extra mile to have the stenographers in the room” (emphasis added)
In an op-ed for The New […]
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Wednesday, July 25th, 2018
Stephanie McCrummen, National Enterprise Reporter - Washington Post
Stephan: This is the best report I have read on the thinking of the White christofascist community that is the core of Trump supporters. What it tells me is that when you get to the lick log all of this is predicated on their belief that America is a White Christian nation and that this must be defended no matter what. This is why Trump could shoot a Muslim on 5th Avenue in New York, and not have to fear any rejection from them.
White evangelicals
Credit: Michael S. Williamson
LUVERNE, ALABAMA — Clay Crum opened his Bible to Exodus Chapter 20 and read verse 14 one more time.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” it said.
He prayed about what he was going to do. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church in the town of Luverne, Ala., which meant he was the moral leader of a congregation that overwhelmingly supported a president who was an alleged adulterer. For the past six weeks, Crum had been preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and now it was time for number seven.
It was summer, and all over the Bible Belt, support for President Trump was rising among voters who had traditionally proclaimed the importance of Christian character in leaders and warned of the slippery slope of moral compromise. In Crenshaw County, where Luverne is located, Trump had won 72 percent of the vote. Recent national polls showed the president’s approval among white evangelical Christians at a high of 77 percent. One survey indicated that his […]
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