Edward Helmore / Associated Press ? Agence France-Presse, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
Peace amongst the developed Democratic nations has prevailed for 75 years since NATO was founded on 4 April 1949. But it is now under threat from criminal Trump. It began when he was President he worked against what is arguably one of the most important peace and mutual security treaties in history. He is actively trying to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin whom, I think he envies and models himself on. Sadly, the MAGAt world, most of whom have never lived except under the security of NATO do not seem to understand just how evil and dangerous to our national wellbeing Trump is.
Criminal Trump has been trying for years to damage NATO Credit: The Globe and Mail
Donald Trump has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any of the US’s Nato allies whom he considers to have not met their financial obligations.
The Joe Biden White House immediately rebuked the former president’s comments, saying in a statement: “Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home.”
Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, also lambasted Trump’s comments. “Nato remains ready and able to defend all allies,” Stoltenberg said in a statement.
“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk. I expect that regardless of who wins the presidential election the US will remain a strong and committed Nato ally.”
On the other hand, former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he thought it was “right for a president to say to a Nato […]
Evangelical religiosity in the United States has nothing to do with Christianity except the forms of the meetings, and the words they use. It is a racist fascist political cult that sees, criminal Trump as a new King David. It has nothing to do with Jesus, indeed, it violates almost every one of his teachings. The hypocrisy is so overwhelming that should make an actual Christian nauseous. As this article describes this is the most dangerous threat to democracy today.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson / The Daily Beast / Getty
I have watched every Donald Trump rally, interview, and speech since he left the White House in Jan. 2021.
It’s certainly been interesting to observe the evolution of his political messaging over that time—as he went from desperately trying to resuscitate his political image and career in 2021 following the Jan. 6 attack, to reclaiming his role of Republican kingmaker through his use of primary endorsements in 2022, to crafting his rally speeches and policy positions in 2023 in preparation for another presidential run while fending off indictments and financially crippling civil lawsuits.
Perhaps most interesting to me, though, is how his messaging with evangelical voters has changed so dramatically from his first campaign in 2016.
Trump’s rallies over the past year have followed a familiar pattern. After flying into the area on his 757, he makes a prearranged stop at a local diner, fast food restaurant, or pizza joint where a group of rabid Trump supporters arranged by his advance […]
Because of the Republican Party healthcare for women in the United States is third rate. We have the worst maternal mortality, the worst infant mortality in the developed world. If you are a woman in a Republican-controlled state just standard gynecological care can get tricky, and if you are pregnant your life may be at risk. What I don’t understand, and there is very little discussion about it in media, is how any woman can vote for Republicans, knowing she is potentially putting her life in danger. And yet they do by the millions.
Abortion rights activist Rachel Bailey (C) chants during an International Women’s Day abortion rights demonstration at the Texas State Capitol on March 08, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Credit: Brandon Bell / Getty
In 2023, a woman walked into a health centre in Houston trailing an IV pole. She was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum — essentially, an extreme form of morning sickness. The woman was vomiting constantly, could not retain food or fluids, and was being kept alive by being fed through a drip.
“She had been to the ER so many times,” family medicine provider and physician Bhavik Kumar told openDemocracy, “and she was so frail and thin that the ER sent her home with an IV pole. I’d never seen that before.”
The patient asked for an abortion, which affords rapid relief from hyperemesis gravidarum. Before the fall of Roe v Wade, which constitutionally protected the right to abortion, in 2022, Kumar could have provided that care in his outpatient clinic. But because Texas’s new near-total ban, he couldn’t help.
When asked what happened to the woman with the […]
ADAM KOTSKO, Professosr Shimer Great Books School at North Central College - Slate
Stephan:
For the past week after several weeks of research, I have been writing a research paper on the growing illiteracy of Americans. Here is some data from my paper:
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022
54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level
45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level
44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year
This is also the core of MAGAt world. America is becoming a shockingly ill-educated, illiterate, innumerate nation. Am I exaggerating? Here is what a college professor has to say on the subject.
Credit: Yuri Arcurs / iStock / Getty
Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling any text with “woke” themes from classrooms and library shelves. Though the results sometimes seem farcical, as with the banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus due to its inclusion of “cuss words” and explicit rodent nudity, the book-banning agenda is no laughing matter. Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more. But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies. That is already beginning to happen in many places, and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.
If and when that happens, however, we will not be able to declare victory quite yet. Defeating the open conspiracy to deprive students of physical access to books will do little to counteract the more diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving […]
Brett Wilkins , Staff Writer - truthout / Common Dreams
Stephan:
As the world centers on genocide in Gaza, and criminal invasion in Ukraine, climate change is gaining momentum and we are about to see major changes like the collapse of the Atlantic Current System, as this article describes. The United States, particularly, has been derelict in its response to the danger.
This image shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. Credit: NASA
A study published Friday warned that a systemic collapse of the Atlantic Ocean currents driving warm water from the tropics toward Europe could be more likely than researchers previously estimated — an event that would send temperatures plummeting in much of the continent.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream, could be headed for a relatively sudden shutdown that René Van Western, who led the Dutch study published in Science Advances, called “cliff-like.”
For many millennia, the Gulf Stream has carried warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico northward along the eastern North American seaboard and across the Atlantic to Europe. As human-caused global heating melts the Greenland ice sheet, massive quantities of fresh water are released into the North Atlantic, cooling the AMOC — which delivers the bulk of the Gulf Stream’s heat — toward a “tipping point” that could stop the current in its tracks.
An AMOC shutdown would cause temperatures to rise in the Southern […]
