Alex Samuels and Neil Lewis Jr., Politics Reporter | Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University and the Division of General Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine - FiveThirtyEight
Stephan: One of the driving forces powering the Republican cult, what Trump recognized and used, is the conviction amongst Republican Whites, male or female, but particularly male, that as Whites they are being discriminated against. This grievance is central to Replacement Theory or Critical Race Theory. The fact that it is so wrong as to be absurd doesn't matter. This is about feelings, not rational thought, and it is particular to Republicans.
On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois, was elected the first Black president of the United States. His election was seen as a hopeful moment in America and ushered in lots of think pieces and reporting that his presidency was the start of a new “post-racial” society. At long last — in the eyes of many, at least — there was hope that the racial wounds that have long divided Black and white Americans would heal.
That, of course, never happened. Even at the time, certain white voters refused to vote for Obama because of his race, and a rise in hate crimes followed his win. Moreover, in the lead up to Obama’s first election, some polls showed that only about one-third of white Americans (38 percent) thought Obama would help race relations, compared with 60 percent of Black Americans. Moreover, a plurality of white Americans thought (or, perhaps, hoped) that his candidacy would have no […]
Stephan: It looks like Trump's invincibility armor is about to be tested finally. This story explains what is happening. Hee's my take: Alan Weisselberg is an older man. He is not going to spend the rest of his life in prison if there is an option. And ratting Trump out is the option. In terms of legal chess this is a very sophisticated move.
Donald Trump, left, stands in front of Allen Weisselberg, right, his chief financial officer, at a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Jan. 11, 2017. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP
The Manhattan district attorney’s fraud case against Donald Trump’s family real estate business and its long-serving bookkeeper should move forward, prosecutors urged a judge in lengthy court filing Monday.
“This case, at its core, is ordinary,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Solomon Shinerock. “It arises from the fact that Allen Weisselberg violated the basic imperative that all New Yorkers faithfully report and pay tax on their income.”
Weisselberg’s lawyers have argued charges against him stem from evidence provided by Trump’s convicted former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has an ax to grind because of Weisselberg’s […]
Stephan: The schism between the Democratic worldview and that of the cult is so great that few American from either side have much exposure to the media of the other. Here's an example. You've probably never heard of Stella Immanuel. If you lived in MAGAt world you would be hearing a lot of commentary about this woman and what she says. She is, after all, supported by Trump.
Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, Stella Immanuel. Do you see a pattern?
Dr. Stella Immanual Credit: Screen cap / YouTube
During a speech at the ReAwaken America tour, which was described in the press as the “the start of QAnon 2.0,” the Houston doctor who infamously pushed hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for Covid and said that “demons” are the cause of most illnesses, now says she’s not entirely sure that President Joe Biden and other public figures are even alive.
“Until we start realizing we are dealing with creatures that are not human — you keep thinking people like [Nancy Pelosi] and Biden are human, I don’t know where their human selves are, but the Bible says the Devil will deceive the people of this world to create these images,” Dr. Stella Immanuel said.
“The Devil will deceive them that if you die, you’re gonna live forever,” she continued. “That we’ll clone you and download your brain to the internet of things and then we’re gonna upload your brain back into that clone and you live forever — it’s a deception.”
Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias, National Religious Correspondent | Religious Reporter - The New York Times
Stephan: There is a very strong linkage between male clergy, male dominance, and inappropriate sexuality. Everyone knows it, but you never read or hear about clerical authorities doing anything in their training about it. The Roman Catholic Church has been notoriously guilty of priests who can't keep their hands out of the shorts of little boys or the panties of little girls, and in the last several decades has paid out billions of dollars to victims of clerical lust. To a point where certain dioceses have been bankrupted by the payments. But as has become clear, and this report is the latest such account, this clerical predatory sexuality is hardly limited to Roman Catholics. Today a report that arose in response to a growing outcry in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, makes it clear that there is little difference between Baptist clergy and staff, and Roman Catholic clergy when it comes to sexual abuse.
Even more disgusting the report also makes it certain that the Southern Baptist leadership, seeing what happened to the Roman Catholic Church, consciously and deliberately suppressed reports of inappropriate Baptist clerical sexual abuse fearing what it would cost them if the stories ever got out and they were held accountable.
A session of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Nashville, in June 2021. Credit: Mark Humphrey/Associated Press
National leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention suppressed reports of sexual abuse and resisted proposals for reform over the course of two decades, according to a third-party investigation published by the convention Sunday. The report also said that a former president of the denomination was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2010, an accusation the report described as “credible.”
Sexual abuse allegations, and the church’s handling of them, have roiled the convention for years. After mounting pressure from survivors of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist settings, delegates at the denomination’s annual meeting last summer voted overwhelmingly to commission the report, and demanded that its 86-member executive committee hand over confidential documents in cooperation. The report covers abuse reports from women and children against male pastors, church employees and officials from the year 2000 to the present.
The reckoning in the Baptist denomination comes after the larger, long-running sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has affected thousands of […]
Jake Johnson, Staff Writer - truthout / Common Dreams
Stephan: The other day I told you that based on my analysis that contrary to all the Republican misinformation the shortage of baby formula has nothing to do with the Biden administration or Joe Biden himself and, instead, was due entirely to corporate greed. Today I watched as military personnel, at who knows what taxpayer cost, unloaded from military planes baby formula from Switzerland. How, I thought, is it possible that the richest nation on earth doesn't have enough baby formula to feed American infants. A shortage so great that babies have actually died as a result. well, here is the confirmatory evidence of my personal assessment. It is indeed vampire capitalism because in the United States nothing is more important than greed. As Michael Douglas said in the movie, American corporate officers all believe "Greed is good." I see it as yet another example of the lack of morality and ethics that defines American Culture.
Katie Wussler, a program coordinator at Mother & Child Education Center, throws away recalled Similac baby formula on May 12, 2022, in Portland, Oregon. Credit: Nathan Howard / Getty
Financial documents and whistleblower testimony spotlighted by The Guardian on Friday show that the U.S.-based baby formula producer Abbott used the massive windfall profits it accumulated between 2019 and 2021 to enrich shareholders, even amid a deadly bacteria outbreak that has triggered nationwide outrage and contributed to a formula shortage.
“Abbott detected bacteria eight times as its net profits soared by 94% between 2019 and 2021,” The Guardian’s Tom Perkins reported. “And just as its tainted formula allegedly began sickening a number of babies, with two deaths reported, the company increased dividends to shareholders by over 25% while announcing a stock buyback program worth $5 billion.”
Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, told the newspaper that “Abbott chose to prioritize shareholders by issuing billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of making productive investments.”
“It’s important that we have high standards for something as vital as baby formula,” Mabud added.
