guillaumeb
guillaumeb's Journal'Alarm' over climate change in US doubles in five years
From the article:
The decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of the Paris climate deal has fired up his base, while opponents have championed a “Green New Deal” that seeks to virtually eliminate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions within a decade.
To read more:
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/02/12/alarm-over-climate-change-in-us-doubles-in-five-years.html
On one side, we have the GOP, which prefers to ignore the issue, or trivialize it.
And the Democrats are trying to deal with reality in the face of GOP refusal.
'Brewery church' is the latest in craft of luring folks to church
From the article:
With a church development grant from the Florida-Bahamas Synod and other fundraising, they secured a spot for the brewery in a diverse neighborhood near Orlando’s airport.
Since it opened in October, the community of about 50 has been meeting each Sunday at 11:11 a.m. for worship in the brewery’s beer garden, using apps on their smartphones in lieu of hymnals. Afterward they enjoy some frothy fellowship....
Christian communities in the U.S. have long used unorthodox means of reaching people who aren’t likely to come to a church to find God. “Churches have long used sports ministry, movies and entertainment, music and other pop culture to target a non-Christian audience,” said Annie Blazer, associate professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary.
To read more:
https://religionnews.com/2019/02/12/brewery-church-is-the-latest-in-craft-of-luring-folks-to-church/
A Green New Deal is unaffordable. It is a question of priorities.
The US spends more on its war budget than the next 10 countries. The Pentagon cannot even audit the money it receives, nor can it say how much is wasted. War spending is so high that the spending is spread among multiple Agencies to disguise the true amount that is spent.
Few in the media ever question if war spending is affordable, and few question the necessity for the war spending. The spending is excused as necessary for "the defense", and that shuts down most critics, who are accused of wanting to weaken the country.
But politicians can always find more money to waste on the war budget.
The rich are now richer than ever before in US history. Because of the SCOTUS, money is now called speech, and the rich use that money/speech to buy politicians. The purchased politicians write the tax laws tat determine how we are taxed, and at what levels.
But politicians can always find reasons to justify more tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich.
The healthcare industry is hugely profitable. US citizens pay more, for less care, than citizens in every other developed democracy. Millions have little or no access to healthcare, especially dental care. Pharmaceutical companies charge US citizens high prices for drugs that sell for much less in other countries. Drugs that are often developed with taxpayer dollars.
But politicians can always find reasons to say that single payer is unaffordable.
As if to say the current, dysfunctional system is affordable.
Now, with many Democrats talking about a Green New Deal, the usual group of well compensated, mainly conservative pundits are saying that this idea is unaffordable. And the US corporate media echoes and amplifies these mainly conservative pundits by pointing out the supposed unaffordable price tag for what we all know must be done if we are to leave a habitable planet to our children and grandchildren.
So it is really a question of what we prioritize.
If we value profit over people, we wil continue on our present course, while pretending to be concerned about what truly is an existential issue. The health of the planet.
Guill
Trump Wants Socialism for the Rich, Brutal Capitalism for the Rest of Us
From the article:
In the conservative mind, socialism means getting something for doing nothing. That pretty much describes the $21 billion saved by the nation’s largest banks last year thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, some of which went into massive bonuses for bank executives. On the other hand, more than 4,000 lower-level bank employees got a big dose of harsh capitalism. They lost their jobs....
When he was in business, Trump perfected the art of using bankruptcy to shield himself from the consequences of bad decisions – socialism for the rich at its worst – while leaving employees twisting in the wind.
Now, all over America, executives who run their companies into the ground are getting gold-plated exit packages while their workers get pink slips.
Sears is doling out $25 million to the executives who stripped its remaining assets and drove it into bankruptcy, but has no money for the thousands of workers it laid off.
To read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/12/trump-wants-socialism-rich-brutal-capitalism-rest-us?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=Trump%20Wants%20Socialism%20for%20the%20Rich%2C%20Brutal%20Capitalism%20for%20the%20Rest
How can strength and intelligence be magically transformed from good things to bad things?
Everyone admires a strong leader. Everyone admires intelligence, and attitude, in a leader.
So how can these positive qualities magically transform into negatives in a leader, and in a political candidate?
The easiest way that these positives can become negatives is if the candidate in question happens to be female.
The first example is, of course, HRC.
Second, Elizabeth Warren.
And if the female happens to be non-white, the negatives are, of course, magnified many times over.
And this misogyny, coupled with the ever present racism, will govern how every female candidate on the Democratic side is treated by the corporate, conservative media.
Thoughts?
Kamala Harris Says She Has Smoked Pot, and She 'Did Inhale'
From the article:
“I have,” she said, after host Charlamagne Tha God asked if she had ever smoked. “And I did inhale,” she added, joking about former President Bill Clinton’s famous line in 1992 that he smoked marijuana in college but “didn’t inhale.”
To read more:
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/02/11/kamala-harris-says-she-has-smoked-pot-and-she-did-inhale.html
It is high time that this nation accept that marijuana needs to be legalized yesterday.
Booker focuses on race relations in initial 2020 White House swing
From the article:
Booker’s focus was an overture to the coalition of young, diverse voters that twice elected former Democratic President Barack Obama, while also differentiating his style from that of the first black U.S. president, who rarely discussed race during his campaign....
Diane Lemker, 64, attended the Marshalltown brewery event and plans to participate in next year’s Democratic nominating caucuses for the first time. She liked Booker’s message of unity and inclusivity.
“Obama won the caucus in Iowa in 2008 and that’s what set him off – people couldn’t believe that a primarily white state would launch his candidacy and it did,” Lemker told Reuters.
To read more:
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/02/11/booker-2020.html
So many good prospective candidates.
And the GOP has Trump.
'If you care about democratic society, fight anti-Semitism'
From the article:
The Anti-Defamation League found that the number of anti-Semitic incidents committed in the United States rose nearly 60 percent in 2017 over 2016, the largest single-year increase on record and the second highest number reported since ADL started tracking incident data in the 1970s.....
The new book is structured as an exchange of letters between two composite characters — a Jewish college student and a non-Jewish law professor — and Lipstadt, who answers their questions about the recent scourge and how to think of it.
To read more:
https://religionnews.com/2019/02/08/if-you-care-about-democratic-society-fight-anti-semitism/
40 miles of bad road by Albert Lee
One of my favorite guitarists. Miles beyond Clapton in my opinion. And he is so clean, as well as fast.
'Disgusting' razor wire must go, say U.S. border city residents
From the article:
“They’re turning our town into a military base. It’s like the front lines of some kind of war zone,” Nixon, 68, told the Nogales City Council on Wednesday night. “Please take a stand and at least have them get rid of the razor wire. It’s a public nuisance, it’s lethal.”
Minutes later, the council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of the concertina wire as an indiscriminate use of lethal force normally reserved for battlefields and high-security prisons.
To read more:
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/02/08/disgusting-razor-wire-must-go-say-u-s-border-city-residents.html
Surrounding the entire country with walls and razor wire to appease the fearful, FOX watching racists.
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