Bill McKibben, - The New Yorker / Reader Support News
Stephan:
Bill McKibben has written a very good essay on Christian Nationalism, which is what Christianity in the United States has become. It uses the traditional language of Christianity but, in fact, has very little to do with Christianity as Jesus taught it, anymore than the Taliban version of Islam represents what Mohammed taught.
A supporter of then-president Donald Trump prays outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington. Credit: Reuters
The private building that’s closest to the U.S. Capitol—indeed, the only nongovernmental building on Capitol Hill proper—belongs to the United Methodist Church. The corner lot—near where the Supreme Court now resides—was a muddy hole when the Reverend Clarence True Wilson spotted it, in 1917, and decided it would be the ideal location for the denomination’s political efforts, especially its campaign for Prohibition. By 1922, built with donations as small as fifteen cents from churchgoers across the country, the five-story Italian Renaissance structure, made of Indiana limestone, was christened as the headquarters for Methodism’s Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals.
We’re used to thinking of Prohibition as a regressive failure, an attempt to legislate morals. It was a failure, and it was an attempt to legislate morals, but it wasn’t regressive. It was led, in large part, by women demanding a better life for their sisters in a country where domestic violence, usually linked to […]
TIMOTHY CAMA and HANNAH NORTHEY, - E&E News Greenwire
Stephan:
In this report, you see exactly how the corruption of the U.S. Congress works. It is almost impossible to get wellbeing fostering bills passed because the hundreds of millions spent on corruption just completely skews what Congress can do.
More than 30 of those companies retained lobbying firms for the first time since President Joe Biden took office. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP
The Biden administration’s climate change agenda has spurred a lobbying boom driven by mineral and battery companies seeking a share of billions in federal incentives.
More than 30 of those companies retained lobbying firms for the first time since President Joe Biden took office, POLITICO’s E&E News found through an analysis of disclosure records. Other companies and industry groups have boosted their lobbying staffs or spending.
The National Mining Association, which had reduced its spending amid a downturn in the coal industry, more than doubled its federal lobbying expenditures from 2020 to 2022, when it reached $2.2 million.
The rush to influence lawmakers and agencies is evidence of the challenges and opportunities involved in meeting the president’s goal of seeing zero-emission vehicles make up half of new car and truck sales by 2030. Along with that target, the administration and Congress are pushing for a vast expansion of North America’s ability to provide the minerals and batteries for […]
Sarah Huckabee has been a disaster as a governor, typical MAGAt, not very bright, ignorant, not interested in fostering wellbeing for the people of her state. But making child labor legal is really despicable. And she is not alone. The Republican Party is pushing child labor in many of the states they control. This story is just an example of the trend.
MAGAt Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law this week making it easier to employ kids under 16. Credit:Al Drago/Pool/Getty
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law this week rolling back requirements that the state verify the ages of workers under 16 and provide them with work certificates permitting them to work.
Effectively, the new law signed by the Republican governor applies to those who are 14 and 15 years old because in most cases Arkansas businesses can’t employ those under 14.
EditSign, children under 16 don’t have to get the Division of Labor’s permission to be employed. The state also no longer has to verify the age of those under 16 before they take a job. The law doesn’t change the hours or kinds of jobs kids can work.
“The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but this permit was an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job,” Sanders’ communications director Alexa Henning said in a […]
Tara Parker-Pope and Caitlin Gilbert, WellBeing editor | Wellbeing Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
Yesterday I did two stories on the new trend I see emerging in the United States about the ill health, increasing mortality at all ages, and shortening lifespan of American males. It is a worldwide trend, but particularly notable in the richest country in the world. I think this is telling us something very important about the growing toxicity of American society, and the increasing dysfunctionality of the American Illness Profit System. If you are a boy or man in a Red state, or the father of a male child you need to help him eat correctly, exercise regularly, and sleep properly. His life may depend on this.
A silent crisis in men’s health is shortening the life spans of fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.
For years, the conventional wisdom has been that a lack of sex-specific health research mainly hurts women and gender minorities. While those concerns are real, a closer look at longevity data tells a more complicated story.
Across the life span — from infancy to the teen years, midlife and old age — the risk of death at every age is higher for boys and men than for girls and women.
The result is a growing longevity gap between men and women. In the United States, life expectancy in 2021 was 79.1 years for women and 73.2 years for men. That 5.9-year difference is the largest gap in a quarter-century. (The data aren’t parsed to include differences among nonbinary and trans people.)
“Men are advantaged in every aspect of our society, yet we have worse health outcomes for most of the things that will kill you,” said Derek Griffith, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity in the […]
Clarence Thomas I see as a kind of tumour on the body politic. If he had any integrity he would resign as Abe Fortus did. But I don’t think he will and since The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to impeach federal officials, and makes the Senate the sole court for the actual impeachment trials, I do not think it probable that the Republican-controlled House would issue his impeachment
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The Supreme Court keeps tripping over its own robes. Last week, ProPublica revealed that a conservative megadonor has been secretly subsidizing the lifestyle of Justice Clarence Thomas. In a rare public statement, the justice claims he asked others on the Court and in the judiciary, who assured him he need not disclose such beneficence.
It’s not clear which is worse: if this is true, or if it isn’t.
Thomas said all this merely involved “personal hospitality” from a friend (albeit a billionaire who befriended Thomas only after he was appointed to the Court). That might evoke a dinner party or a weekend at a friend’s lake house. Hardly: Thomas frolicked on Harlan Crow’s superyacht, flew on his personal jet, vacationed at his private resort, and traveled with him to Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat in California. According to ProPublica, the largesse was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Thomas claimed to want to avoid chichi vacations. “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart […]
