Stephan: I have been doing so many articles about Republican behavior, even though I notice readership has gone down slightly because I am seriously concerned that we have a race party that is actively trying to sabotage American democracy and is having an unconscionable level of success. On the one hand there is racial voter suppression, on the other did you notice that every single Republican voted against President Biden's wellbeing fostering social legislation. Basically, a bunch of rich White racist millionaires looked at what was going on in the U.S. and decided, who cares about middle-class and poor people.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Credit: Senate Television/AP
When every Senate Republican voted against President Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue package over the weekend, it revived a question that analysts have asked about the modern GOP for decades: Why do so many conservative Americans vote against their own economic interests?
A new analysis by three leading political scientists theorizes this question in a fresh way: by comprehensively analyzing the political economy of red states, relative to that of blue ones. In so doing, they have captured some striking truths about this political moment.
Its key finding: We’re in the grip of a paradox. Even as areas that vote Republican continue falling behind blue America economically — helping widen those oft-discussed regional inequalities between cosmopolitan and outlying areas — GOP elites everywhere are growing more committed to an increasingly uniform and regressive agenda that does little to address the problem.
“Red America is falling farther behind, but the politicians who represent it at all levels have gotten more unified on an economic agenda that hurts the […]
Stephan: The infiltration of law enforcement and the military by MAGA racists is something that should concern all of us. This is straight out of the Nazis playbook, and since 1860, and the civil war, this has never before been a serious issue. However, the number of active duty and veteran police and military in the 6th January insurrection, in my opinion, should be seen as a wake-up call, warning us about what is happening. Along with the transition of the civilian Republican party, this incursion of MAGA racists into the police and military threatens the democracy that has historically been the foundation of America.
The agency’s San Antonio branch said right-wing extremists sought to join law enforcement and the military in an effort to ‘further’ their ideologies
Their findings were based on investigations from 2016 to 2020 and were first reported by ABC who had access to a leaked copy of the report
The February 25 report says white supremacists would ‘likely seek affiliation with military and law enforcement entities in furtherance of’ their ideas
FBI Director Christopher Wray has labeled the Capitol riot ‘domestic terrorism’
He said the number of arrests of white supremacists has almost tripled
A Pentagon report released last Tuesday also warned that domestic extremist groups pose a serious threat to the military
That said they seek to recruit service members into their ranks and, in some cases, join the military to acquire combat experience
White supremacists are trying to join the ranks of law enforcement and the military so they can ‘terrorize minorities’ and ‘initiate a collapse of society’, the FBI has warned.
The agency’s San Antonio branch said right-wing extremists sought to join the two in an effort to ‘further’ their ideologies.
Their findings were based on investigations from 2016 to 2020 […]
Stephan: The other big trend that concerns me is the transformation of Christianity from a religion in which adherents sought to live by Jesus' guidance into a cult that talks Bible, but actually personifies White Supremacist fascism. Were Jesus to actually come back he would find American White Christianity to be everything he preached against.
Then Vice President Mike Pence delivers remarks at the Christians United for Israel Washington Summit in Washington, D.C. Monday, July 8, 2019. Credit: D. Myles Cullen/Official White House
The findings in the report titled, “Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World,” were compiled by authors Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry. While they noted that race does have a significant impact on the attitude toward vaccinations, they emphasized that race may be a secondary issue compared to the “modern-day anti-vaccine movement.”
“We propose that a particular ideological view unites many of these patterns to shape contemporary anti-vaccination (often called anti-vaxx) sentiment in the United States,” they wrote. In the assessment, they offered a breakdown of the anti-vaccine skepticism and how it relates to Americans with vetted interests and beliefs in Christianity, conservative politics, and antiscience.
“Although the anti-vaccine skepticism of racial minorities has its own unique sources in the historical abuses suffered […]
Stephan: I have been writing about this since the 1990s, and the migrations it will produce. No country is propering preparing for this. Last year I wrote a chapter for a book, City Preparedness for the Climate Crisis about this, if you're interested in my thinking about climate change and migration you can go to Academia.edu or Researchgate.com and search on my name, then search on "migration". This is going to become an enormous problem all over the world, and we are not properly preparing.
Research was centered on latitudes found between 20 degrees north, a line that cuts throughMexico, Libya and India, to 20 degrees south. Credit: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty
Should governments fail to curb global heating to 1.5C above the pre-industrial era, areas in the tropical band that stretches either side of the equator risk changing into a new environment that will hit “the limit of human adaptation”, the study warns.
Humans’ ability to regulate their body heat is dependent upon the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air. We have a core body temperature that stays relatively stable at 37C (98.6F), while our skin is cooler to allow heat to flow away from the inner body. But should the wet-bulb temperature – a measure of air temperature and humidity – […]
Stephan: Good news. Another of Biden's Trump reversals, this one will save millions of birds. Bravo. But the position of the corporations who sought the Trump position should not be forgotten. This regulation is needed to control the greed and unconsciousness of individuals and corporations, and they haven't changed.
The Biden administration delayed a rule that gutted protections for migratory birds from taking effect last month, and the Interior Department says it will issue a new proposal “in the coming days” to revoke the Trump rule altogether. Credit: Danny Lehman/Getty
The Biden administration on Monday scrapped a controversial Trump-era legal opinion that gutted protections for hundreds of species of migratory birds.
In December 2017, Daniel Jorjani, then the top lawyer at the Department of the Interior and a former longtime adviser to the fossil fuel mogul Koch brothers, issued an interpretation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) that effectively legalized all unintentional migratory bird deaths, including those caused by chemical spills, oil and gas operations, power lines and wind turbines.
Jorjani argued that the law was only meant to prohibit the intentional hunting, capturing or killing of bird species, and that as long as a company or individual does not mean to kill birds, they are protected from prosecution.
The move broke from decades of legal precedent, opened the door for gross negligence and dropped incentives for the industry to proactively mitigate […]
