Hannah Gais and Michael Edison Hayden, - Southern Poverty Law Center
Stephan: Day by day it becomes clearer and more explicit that the Republican Party has become an anti-democratic christofascist racist cult. It is amazing to me that this sort of thing is going on and it has become normal. It gets reported like a sports event, then the news show breaks for commercials and it goes to some drug advertisement. How can Marjorie Taylor Greene, make a speech glorifying violence, then call it sarcasm, and then go back to the House and no representative says boo. This is America in the second decade of the 21st century.
The white nationalists of VDARE snap a selfie with Steve Bannon at the NYYRC gala on Dec. 10. From left to right: Peter Brimelow, Steve Bannon, Lydia Brimelow. Credit: Michael Edison Hayden
A collection of radical right figures including white nationalists and ultranationalist European leaders gathered in Manhattan for the New York Young Republicans Club’s (NYYRC) annual gala Saturday night, where that group’s president declared “total war” on perceived enemies.
“We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets,” NYYRC president Gavin Wax declared to a room full of supporters at 538 Park Ave., an event venue on New York’s Upper East side.
“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” Wax added.
“Then Jan. 6 happened. And next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon,” Greene said, referring to allegations that she had led reconnaissance tours of the Capitol for soon-to-be insurrectionists in the days prior to the violence.
Stephan: Trump is the source of the magnification of racism in the United States, but again there is no outrage; quite the contrary, about a third of the country supports MAGAt world. That ought to be an alarm bell ringing in everyone's ear, producing awareness of a national crisis, but it doesn't. It's just the latest headline from Trump world. Ho Humm.
Criminal Trump is now openly racist
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday was photographed with a QAnon conspiracy theorist in Mar-a-Lago, weeks after the widely condemned dinner he hosted at his Florida home for Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Liz Crokin shared a post including the pictures on her Truth Social account following a fundraiser hosted at the former president’s Florida club.
“Tonight I had the privilege and honor to speak at America’s Future fundraiser to combat child trafficking at Mar-A-Lago,” she wrote, adding that part of her speech at the event focused on “Pizzagate.”
The debunked conspiracy theory alleges that Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong harbored a child sex trafficking ring operated by former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and her then-campaign chairman, John Podesta.
Crokin said she brought up the controversy surrounding fashion brand Balenciaga — around their contentious holiday ad campaign displaying children with BDSM accessories — and what she described as the Trump administration’s efforts to […]
Stephan: The U.S. Supreme Court uniquely compared with U.S. federal lower courts, and the equivalents to the Supreme Court in other countries has no official ethical standards. Think about that for a minute. Over the last several years it has become clear that the Supreme Court is as corrupt as the Congress. This article paints the picture. Corruption has become one of the defining characteristics of the American government.
Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Rev. Rob Schenck was once deeply involved in the Christian right movement and white evangelical efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the evangelical Protestant minister has grown increasingly critical of the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement that he was once a part of.
Moreover, he is speaking out against the Christian right’s campaign to lobby Supreme Court justices in the 2014 case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.
Schenck alleges that evangelical Christian fundamentalists knew what the High Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby would be before that decision was publicly announced, and that the leak came from either Justice Samuel Alito or his wife — an allegation that Justice Alito has vehemently denied. And Schenck discussed that allegation when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, December 8.
The Independent’s Alex Woodward, reporting on Schenck’s testimony, explains, “An evangelical minister and former longtime anti-abortion activist told […]
Stephan: I had dinner tonight with a woman friend who is a physician with decades in a medical practice specializing in what I would call sexual wellbeing. I asked her what she thought of the MAGAt world's obsession over the LGBTQ community and particularly drag shows. She said something very interesting. She said she thought the MAGAt resistance and hate stemmed from the fact that for them it is largely about men deliberatively choosing to be or behave like women, which meant a degradation of men because, in their minds, women are not equal to men.
Drag queen story hour Credit: Shutterstock
“I woke up like this.” So sayeth the 2013 Beyoncé anthem “Flawless,” a song that also features a speech by feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. When it was released, the lyric caused some grumbling among feminists who took it literally, but in my experience, fans understand it how Beyoncé almost certainly meant it, as an ironic joke. We do not wake up like this. Feminine presentation, in particular, can be a lot of work, with heavy investment in hair, makeup and clothes. Plenty of folks feel like genderless puffbags when they wake up, until they groom and doll themselves up.
In other words, Beyoncé boiled down reams of Judith Butler-style feminist theory for the masses: Gender is a performance. It’s an idea that caused much angsty academic debate for years. But when you put it like Beyoncé does, it starts to sound more like common sense.
“Flawless” has been rattling around in my head for months now, drawn out of my subconscious as reaction to months of
Stephan: As they phase out, petroleum technologies, and nuclear fission waste, are both leaving polluting cancers scattered across America that are going to take decades to heal. Abandoned oil wells. When did you last hear someone on cable news talking about that? You never have? Neither have I. Which is part of what is wrong with mainstream electronic media
An abandoned well in Texas
From upstate New York to southern California, abandoned oil and gas wells are a big, largely undocumented problem. But thanks to last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, states are finally trying to account for just how big of a cleanup job they have ahead.
When oil and gas companies abandon wells without plugging them, they can pose a big risk to human and environmental health. Toxic substances like arsenic, formaldehyde and benzene can pollute the surrounding air — potentially worsening asthma symptoms for those living near wells. And they can also emit methane — a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — further worsening global warming.
Last year, states reported they’d tracked 81,000 abandoned wells in need of cleanup. But after the U.S. Interior Department announced it would award $1.15 billion for plugging wells, states got serious about mapping the problem. They’ve now tracked 120,000 orphaned wells, according to a new analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund and McGill University.
And that number is likely to only grow, as some estimates say there could beas many as […]
