David Badash, Senior Editor - New Civil Rights Movement
Stephan:
I wonder what it is going to take before MAGAt world voters wake up to the fact that the people they are committed to do not want democracy to continue in the United States. We have a Speaker of the House who is a liar, and a christofascist. He knows what he is saying is not true, and he knows that you cannot have an operational democracy in the United States without a fair and honorable DOJ. He doesn’t care about that as he himself says. What he wants is the world criminal Trump describes. Is that what you want?
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson publicly stating he wants to dismantle American democracy.
The embattled Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is vowing to use the arsenal of tools at his disposal, including defunding, to target the U.S. Dept. of Justice after ex-president Donald Trump was convicted in a New York State prosecution on 34 felony charges last week.
In a Tuesday meeting behind closed doors with his House Republican conference members, Johnson said “he will do everything he can to go after the Department of Justice,” CNN reported, “and said the verdict has ignited support for the former president, two sources familiar with the comments told CNN.”
The Speaker “presented a three-pronged approach of oversight, funding and legislation,” and “specifically walked through the funding cuts that House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan has proposed to the Appropriations Committee, the sources added.”
Just as U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz did Tuesday morning in a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland, Speaker Johnson conflated the State of New York’s prosecution with the federal cases against […]
This is the best most meticulous research paper I have seen about religion in the United States. The one thing that stands out for me is the perversion of Christianity into christofascism by the evangelical fundamentalist movement.
Executive Summary
America encompasses a rich diversity of faith traditions, and “religious churning” is very common. In 2023, PRRI surveyed more than 5,600 adults across the United States about their experiences with religion. This report examines how well major faith traditions retain their members, the reasons people disaffiliate, and the reasons people attend religious services. Additionally, this report considers how atheists and agnostics differ from those who say they are “nothing in particular.” Finally, it analyzes the prevalence of charismatic elements as well as prophecy and prosperity theology in American churches and the role of charismatic Christianity in today’s Republican Party.
“Unaffiliated” is the only major religious category experiencing growth.
Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%).
While the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as “nothing in particular” is similar to a decade ago (16% in 2013 to 17% in 2023), the numbers of […]
Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, Reporters - ProPublica
Stephan:
If Michael Cohen went to prison for three years for serving Felon Trump’s interests in the Stormy Daniels episode, shouldn’t the boss, the man who has now been convicted for setting the whole scheme up also go to prison for the same thing? I certainly think so.
Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.
The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.
These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.
Significant changes to a staffer’s work situation, such as bonuses, pay raises, firings or promotions, can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business. To prove witness tampering, […]
As this article describes climate change is going to have all kinds of effects that no one except a few medical researchers has even thought about. Yet still American politicians, with a few exceptions, blather away endlessly over political disinformation so they can stay in power and rig the government to serve the interests of corporations, and oligarchs to whom they are whoring themselves, as well as to serve the interests of Felon Trump.
Primary Source
Lancet Neurology
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowSisodiya SM, et al “Climate change and disorders of the nervous system” Lancet Neurol 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(24)00087-5.
Secondary Source
Lancet Neurology
Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowJunck L, et al “Neurology and climate change” Lancet Neurol 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(24)00144-3.
Human Brain Credit: Med Page Today
“The scale of potential effects of climate change on neurological diseases is likely to be substantial,” wrote epilepsy researcher Sanjay Sisodiya, PhD, of University College London, and co-authors in a Lancet Neurologyopens in a new tab or window essay.
In a review of 332 articles that spanned several decades, Sisodiya and colleagues found that the incidence, prevalence, and severity of many neurologic conditions were affected by climate change.
In some countries, including the U.S. and South Korea, rising temperatures and humidity extremes were associated with higher ischemic stroke incidence, they reported. In other countries, cold periods upped the risk of intracerebral hemorrhage.
Multiple sclerosis patients reported worse symptoms when temperatures were higher than the long-term average, they added. Migraine admissions to the emergency department rose when days were hotter. Regional climate-related conditions have been associated with tick-borne encephalitis and mosquito-borne infections, and in several countries, Alzheimer’s- and dementia-related hospital admissions increased when temperatures climbed.
Climate shifts that affected neurologic disorders included both low […]
Summer Said and Benoit Faucon, Reporters - Microsoft Start / The Wall Street Journal
Stephan:
Expect your cost of gasoline to go up; where we live it is now over $5 a gallon. OPEC+, as this article describes, wants to feed their greed by cutting back on production. I also think that the Saudis, who have given Felon Trump’s family billions of dollars, also want the price of gas to go up so that it hurts Biden’s chance of being re-elected.
OPEC+ Agrees to Extend Production Cuts in Bid to Boost Oil Prices. Credit: The Wall Street Journal
OPEC+ on Sunday agreed to extend all production curbs into next year, a deal that likely signals oil prices will remain elevated through the U.S. presidential election.
The agreement comes on the same day the group’s kingpin, Saudi Arabia, launched a giant sale of shares in its national oil champion that will yield billions to help fund the kingdom’s economic transformation.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, together known as OPEC+, agreed to keep collective curbs through next year. The group has longstanding official reductions of 3.66 million barrels a day.
The new deal includes the United Arab Emirates securing another upgrade to its official production quota, by 300,000 barrels a day. The UAE’s new official quota will be gradually phased in starting in January and stand at 3.519 million barrels a day by September 2025.
Eight top producers in the group also agreed to continue voluntary cuts separately into 2025, currently around 2.2 million barrels […]
