Glenn Thrush and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: Tonight I watched a gunman in New York City terrorize several young children who fell to the ground writhing in fear as he shot at them again and again before running off. Luckily, this creep was such a bad shot he did not injury the children although he did shoot one man in the back. As of 4 days ago there had been 272 mass shootings so far this year. The American gun psychosis is completely out of control, a lethal social insanity. And the Republican Party is doing everything in its power to make it worse; this report proves what I am saying.
Missouri Republican Governor Mike Parson, supporter of gun insanity and mass death
Missouri has become the latest state to throw down a broad challenge to the enforcement of federal firearms laws, as Republican-controlled state legislatures intensify their fierce political counterattack against President Biden’s gun control proposals.
A bill signed by Gov. Mike Parson over the weekend — at a gun store called Frontier Justice — threatens a penalty of $50,000 against any local police agency that enforces certain federal gun laws and regulations that constitute “infringements” of Second Amendment gun rights.
At least eight other states — Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — have taken similar action this year, passing laws of varying strength that discourage or prohibit the enforcement of federal gun statutes by state and local agents and officers.
The new law “is about protecting law-abiding Missourians against government overreach and unconstitutional federal mandates,” Mr. Parson and the attorney general, Eric Schmitt, said in a letter defending the law on Thursday to the U.S. Justice Department. They said the state would “reject any attempt […]
Stephan: If urban human habitation is to continue in the American Southwest, there is going to have to be a major redesign and construction of an infrastructure suited to the climate reality. Within five years, if temperatures continue as projected, I think there will be mass movement out cities like Phoenix which will have maybe a third of the days with temperatures 100°F or above. Added to that will be the water problems. This report gives a good description of that.
Lake Mead
The Hoover Dam is seeing record-low water levels, a significant and scary development with major implications for water and climate in the entire American Southwest.
Amid drought conditions, Lake Mead’s level last week reached an all-time low of 1,071.56 feet above sea level, leaving it just 37 percent full.
The body of water’s level has been declining since 2000, and has fallen about 140 feet over the past two decades. It comes amid a drought in the Southwest that is the worst in two decades, according to a New York Times analysis.
Long-standing water issues in the West are heightening the challenges posed by more recent effects of climate change.
The Colorado River, which feeds the reservoir, is severely over-allocated, with the demand for its water exceeding the actual flow of the river, according to Kathryn Sorensen, a member of the board of advisors at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute. Scientists have projected the river’s flow may diminish by up to 25 percent in the future, she noted.
Seven states are located in the river’s basin and affected by the Colorado River […]
Stephan: This is a very strange and stupid trend. Even though Pope Francis has told them not to do it, the U.S. bishops, a right-wing group of men who did not stop the molestation catastrophe that has plagued the church, but who want to make a political statement by denying President Biden a devout catholic from communion because he supports a woman's right to choose. If they do this, there will be an enormous pushback, including from Roman Catholics as the church becomes increasingly divided. Church attendance is already dropping sharply, and it will be interesting to see how the Pope responds.
President and Dr. Biden during a Roman Catholic church service
The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft guidance on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights.
The decision, made public on Friday afternoon, is aimed at the nation’s second Catholic president, perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief since Jimmy Carter, and exposes bitter divisions in American Catholicism. It capped three days of contentious debate at a virtual June meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The measure was approved by a vote of 73 percent in favor and 24 percent opposed.
The Eucharist, or holy communion, is one of the most sacred rituals in Christianity, and bishops have grown worried in recent years about declining Mass attendance and misunderstanding of the importance of the sacrament to Catholic life.
But the move to target a president, who regularly attends Mass and has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian […]
Jemar Tisby, Deputy Director of Narrative and Advocacy at the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. - Boston Globe
Stephan: The first time I recognized that ordinary people could create social change that fostered wellbeing was as a teenager when I became involved in the civil rights movement. The Juneteenth landmark signed by President Biden yesterday may not seem like a big deal to some but, in my view, it is a very big deal. I see it as a first acknowledgment of slavery, the racial cancer that has afflicted American society since the colonial period. We cannot fix what we have not acknowledged. Not just racial equality but the reality that slavery shaped this nation from its inception. I see it as the first step toward healing but recognize that there are also dangers to making this a national holiday, and those don't get discussed much.
I have read a dozen articles about what happened yesterday and listened to all the networks talk about it. Of that lot, this is the piece that stood out for me.
Solwazi Browne-Vargas, 7, of Boston, gives his mother a thumbs-up after Black legislators raised the Juneteenth flag on Wednesday to commemorate Massachusetts’ first observation of the holiday. Credit: Christina Botic/Boston Globe
On Wednesday, the House followed the Senate in passing a bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday. President Biden signed it into law Thursday afternoon. After a century and a half, the oldest celebration of Black emancipation is now a federal holiday.
Juneteenth is an occasion we should all commemorate, but what are the risks of taking the celebration of Black freedom mainstream? As more organizations and communities across the nation recognize Juneteenth, there may be some unintended consequences that make it harder for people to recognize the significance of the occasion.
The long effort to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday nearly became a reality in 2020 with momentum from historic protests for racial justice. A single lawmaker, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, opposed the effort, and other GOP officials moved on to other matters.
William Rivers Pitt, Senior Editor and Lead Columnist - truthout
Stephan: As this article makes clear on the basis of facts, not politics the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over. As I write 601,000 have died, and there are 33.5 million cases. But something very weird is going on. Because of political disinformation, the pandemic is going from national to region or state. There is a direct correlation between political views and vaccination rates. We are witnessing a phenomenon rarely seen in history. A segment of Americans are holding a world view against all facts, and even though it may cost them their lives.
Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers gather at Indiana University’s Sample Gates to protest against mandatory COVID vaccinations that the university is requiring for students, staff and faculty during the upcoming fall semester on June 10, 2021. Credit: Jeremy Hogan/SOPA/Lightrocket/Getty
Great Britain had great plans for June 21. English citizens had been calling it “Freedom Day,” the day that nation’s COVID restrictions would be lifted after the pandemic’s long siege. A well-managed vaccine rollout has more than half the population fully inoculated, and everything appeared to be moving in the right direction.
Upon the emergence of the COVID-19 variant dubbed “Delta,” however, the U.K.’s plans have changed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has delayed “Freedom Day” for another four weeks, with a potential for more if the variant is not better contained.
The Delta variant of COVID first emerged from the coronavirus wave that subsumed much of India earlier this spring. Reports strongly suggest that it is far more contagious than the original version of the virus, and is doing more damage to those who become infected. It took four weeks for Delta to become […]
