Stephan: The Republican MAGAt Party amongst its endless list of failings and perversions has decided to make a real campaign to keep students ignorant by banning books. Book banning is something straight out of the Nazis' playbook. It also is an expression of the perverted sexual obsessions that are a foundation of the MAGAt world. This is part of the MAGAt's drive to dismantle public education in the United States because they know that the more educated and tolerant a person becomes the more likely they are to vote Democratic.
Attempts to ban books are accelerating across the country at a rate never seen since tracking began more than 20 years ago, according to a new report from the American Library Association.
So far in 2022, there have been attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 different titles, the group found, up from challenges to 1,597 books in 2021, the year with the highest number of complaints since the group began documenting book challenges decades ago.
Book banning efforts have grown rapidly in number and become much more organized, divisive and vitriolic over the past two years, splitting communities, causing bitter rifts on school and library boards, and spreading across the country through social media and political campaigns.
Public libraries have been threatened by politicians and community members with a loss of funding for their refusal to remove books. Members of the Proud Boys, an extremist right-wing group, showed up at a school board meeting in Illinois, where book access was on the agenda, and at a drag queen story hour in California. Librarians have been accused of promoting […]
Stephan: There are two parts to the water trend as climate change goes on. Too much water, or too little water. When you change the ecosystem you change the world we live in. We have got to make wellbeing our society's first priority. Anything less produces developments like this.
This summer, the Rio Grande disappeared entirely from Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, pictured on May 29, 2022. Visitors gawked at the conspicuous absence of the river whose arching path gave the region its name. Credit: Dylan Baddour
This summer, the Rio Grande dried up in places that it never had before. For more than 100 miles through wild and scenic country, its snaking, sandy bed cradled only a series of warm, stagnant pools.
In the canyons of Big Bend National Park, visitors gawked at the conspicuous absence of the Great River whose arching path gives this rugged region its name.
Out here in the quiet desert, it’s easy to forget this meek waterway supports 6 million people in two countries. Vast distances hide the relationships at play.
Go 150 miles upstream from the canyons of Big Bend, up with Rio Conchos and you’ll find the sprawling orchards of Chihuahua State, Mexico, population 3.7 million.
Go 500 miles downstream and you’ll hit the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, with 46 bustling cities and towns, a billion-dollar agricultural sector […]
Stephan: From the data I have seen I think this increase in cancer among adults under 50 is the result of the increased toxins in the environment, and increased toxins from various kinds of processing in people's food, and in developed nations, increasingly sedentary behaviors patterns. All of this is human-inflicted.
The study is published in the journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.
Credit: Stock.adobe.com
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS —Over the past three decades, a troubling trend has emerged regarding cancer diagnosis rates on a global scale. More and more adults under the age of 50 are developing various forms of cancer. Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital report the incidence of early onset cancers (cancers detected in individuals younger than 50) all over the world has increased “dramatically” since around 1990.
More specifically, cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, and pancreas have all seen upticks in early onset diagnoses.
In an effort to better understand why this is happening, study authors conducted an extensive set of analyses using data gathered from various sources, including information pertaining to early life encounters that may have influenced this trend.
“From our data, we observed something called the birth cohort effect. This effect shows that each successive group of people born at a later time (e.g., decade-later) have a higher risk of developing cancer later in life, likely due to risk factors they were exposed to at a young […]
Stephan: Just as Trump created the 6th January insurrection he is signaling the MAGAts to gear up for civil violence should he be indicted. I interpret Trump's words that he is becoming frightened that he will be indicted. I think we should prepare for increasing civil violence. I also think we have reached a point of criminality on the part of Trump and those who serve him where indictments are necessary because the alternative is that there is a person or class of people who are above the law.
Trump said that “I would have no prohibition against running,” when he asked whether he would still run for office with an indictment.
“I think, if it happened, you’d have problems in this country the likes of which, perhaps, you have ever seen before,” said Trump. “I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.”
When Hewitt asked Trump to elaborate, he said, “Big problems.”
“I just don’t think they’d stand for it,” he added. “They will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes.”
Additionally, Trump defended some aspects of his allies’ plot to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, one of the key issues under investigation by the Justice Department, by claiming that it is “very common” for states to have a competing slate of “alternate” electors claiming the other candidate won. This is not true.
Stephan: Here we have another MAGAt Republican promoting civil disorder. I think it is time to set behavior standards for members of Congress. Christofascists like Boebert are actively trying to end democracy in the U.S. and turn our country into a White supremacist, male dominant, christofascist, anocracy, and I believe they must be held to account for their seditious words and behavior. What do you think?
U.S. Representative. Republican MAGAt Lauren Boebert speaks at a Truth and Liberty Coalition event hosted by far-right Christian leader Andrew Wommack in Woodland Park on Sept. 9, 2022. Credit: Screenshot
In a raucous speech at a Christian conference in Woodland Park on Friday, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert called for conservative churchgoers to put “God back at the center of our country” and defeat “the enemy” that she said is destroying it from within.
“God is on our side. The blood has been applied,” Boebert told the crowd at Charis Bible College in an hour-long speech that quoted heavily from scripture. “We are going straight into victory. You are all more than conquerers through God, through Christ who strengthens you every step of the way.”
Boebert and other speakers addressed a three-day conference held by the Truth and Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit started by Charis founder and far-right preacher Andrew Wommack, which aims to erase boundaries between religion and politics. “We see a Church unengaged in the public square because we have been conditioned to believe there […]
