Thom Hartmann, - Independent Media Institute /Raw Story
Stephan: Apparently, I am not the only one who sees the parallels with the Roman Empire. Here is Thom Hartmann's take on this. Thanks to the calculating spinelessness of the Democrats, the corruption of the Republicans, and the failure of a large percentage of citizens to stand up for integrity we stand on the brink of seeing the substance of American democracy dissipate leaving empty powerless forms.
The Roman Senate
credit: ThingLink
The American republic could die, just like Rome.
Wavering for some time on the verge of becoming a complete oligarchy, America is on the verge of flipping from a democratic republic to a strongman or autocratic form of government, something that’s happened to dozens of democracies in the past few decades, but never before here. It’s possible we won’t recover from it.
The death of a republic is different from the death of a nation; Rome was a nation for nearly 2,000 years, but its period of being a republic was only around 300 years long. For the rest, it was a brutal empire with a small but wealthy and corrupt ruling class and a thin patina of democracy-for-show. (emphasis added)
Trump is openly defying the norms and laws of our republic, while calling for the imprisonment of both his political enemies and members of the very law enforcement agencies that might hold him to account. And he’s only able to do it because billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, with Fox News, and the […]
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Bill Moyers, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Bill Moyers in this speech lays it out. What climate change requires is a coordinated multi-nation single-minded plan. The kind of response that occurred in the U.S. under Roosevelt when the Second World War began, and after it ended with the Marshall Plan; a completely different approach to governance than the corrupted partisanship of today.
And it needs to start now.
Today marks the official launch of Covering Climate Now, a project co-sponsored by The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. Joined by The Guardian and others partners to be announced, Covering Climate Now will bring journalists and news outlets together to dramatically improve how the media as a whole covers the climate crisis and its solutions.
The following is an abridged version of the conference keynote speech by iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers, as prepared for delivery. A video version of the speech is available here. See here for more about the Covering Climate Now project.
I have been asked to bring this gathering to a close by summing up how we can do better at covering the possible “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world,” to quote the noted environmentalist David Attenborough, speaking at the recent United Nations climate summit in Poland.
I don’t come with a silver bullet. And I’m no expert on the topic. Like you, I am just a journalist whose craft calls for us to explain things we don’t understand. […]
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David Badash , - Alternet
Stephan: This is how far christofascist Alabama mired as it is in sexual dysfunction, is willing to go about same-sex marriages; it is truly amazing.
Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey
Credit: Melanie Rodgers Cox
Lawmakers in the Alabama House and Senate have just passed legislation that would end the state’s legal requirement for couples to obtain a license and even to have a wedding in order for them to be considered married. (emphasis added)
Behind the move is a desire among conservatives to “protect” probate judges, whose job it is to issue marriage licenses, from having to issue them to same-sex couples. Current law says they “may” issue, but does not require them to. Some have refused, even after the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell ruling. As of last June at least eight Alabama counties were not issuing marriage licenses at all, according to AL.com.
Should Governor Kay Ivey sign the bill in to law, couples will only need to file an affidavit stating “they meet the legal requirements of marriage and the probate judge would record that as the official marriage document,” AL.com reports.
“I think it’s far less about good governance and more […]
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Bob Brigham , - Raw Story
Stephan: Here is the latest on the most extreme manifestation of the Great Schism Trend, They want an anti-Semitic, White Supremacist, submissive woman christofascist state, essentially the christofascist version of the Isis caliphate. Far fetched but, as they admit, a potential source of real social violence.
Composite image of Liberty State via www.LibertyState.org and Republican state Rep. Matt Shea
Credit: Twitter
The far-right gathered in Spokane Valley, Washington to push for the creation of Liberty State, a 51st US state that is intended to be something of a wildlife sanctuary for Christian conservatives, the Spokesman-Review reported Friday.
“The Liberty State Gala drew about 200 people to the CenterPlace Regional Event Center in Spokane Valley. Supporters of the new Christian conservative state – which would span parts of Washington and Oregon as well as Idaho, Montana and Wyoming – raised money by auctioning pies and other desserts,” the newspaper reported.
One of the speakers was notorious far-right Republican state Rep. Matt Shea. Shea published a “biblical war” manifesto last fall.
In April, Shea was caught conspiring to far-right extremists to commit acts of violence against liberal activists. In response, Shea quoted an anti-Semitic website to lash out at the journalist who exposed him.
Shea was not the only elected official to attend the […]
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Alanna Mitchell, - The New York Times
Stephan: The further we get into climate change, the further the ecosystems of earth are disturbed from their historic patterns. Earthworms like bees normally live their life patterns with little awareness by the bulk of humanity. Most people rarely think of them or have any appreciation of their importance. We are about to learn to our peril.
The world’s boreal forests have been largely earthworm-free since the last Ice Age. But as invaders arrive and burrow into the leaf litter, they free up carbon and may accelerate climate change.
Credit: Cristina Gonzalez Sevilleja
Cindy Shaw, a carbon-research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, studies the boreal forest — the world’s most northerly forest, which circles the top of the globe like a ring of hair around a balding head.
A few years ago, while conducting a study in northern Alberta to see how the forest floor was recovering after oil and gas activity, she saw something she had never seen there before: earthworms.
“I was amazed,” she said. “At the very first plot, there was a lot of evidence of earthworm activity.”
Native earthworms disappeared from most of northern North America 10,000 years ago, during the ice age. Now invasive earthworm species from southern Europe — survivors of that frozen epoch, and introduced to this continent by European settlers centuries ago — are making their way […]
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