I posted about this last December, but I am posting this again since part of Trump's insane expansionism is based upon a continued reliance on fossil fuels. Energy independence makes more sense if we are talking about national security than relying on fossil fuels coming from other nations.
And Uruguay proves it can be done.
OK, time for a change from Palestine. And a bit of good news at that since this is indeed true. On the other hand, the US politicians and media are so in the pocket of big money that you wouldn't know this.
Fact check this if you don't believe me.
My question for the people who want to say that the Democratic Party is in anyway "Socialist":
Why didn't they run Bernie Sanders in 2016 (and 2020)?Seriously. They fact that they went with Hillary Clinton, and, even worse, ran JOE BIDEN should show that the Democratic party is in no way Socialist.
I liked AOC at first since she said she was a Berner, but she went with the Democratic Party. And now she is doing things like this. I'll let this person dissect her and the Democratic party, but the Democratic Party is not in any way a left leaning party.
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Wow, you would think the people at Fox News would glom onto this like flies on shit, but no...
Yes, indeed, RBG was like all the other pigs on SCOTUS and at the trough. The problem is that anyone familiar with the court knows that they do shit that would get them impeached or at least hit with an ethics violation. But they get away with it.
Just imagine what the Supreme Court might be like if it weren't (1) Political or (2) corrupt.
Oh, and I would welcome the legal circus that I would make if you decide to come after me: especially since you know I am right. And so do a lot of other people.
Do you really want this coming to light? A little late: https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/why-doesnt-the-supreme-court-have-a-formal-code-of-ethics/
What do you think the ABA will do?
Bye, Bye Red States. This is what you get for climate change denial!!!
This map is the climate resilience screening index map, which is a map of the climate resilience screening index, which is designed to be sensitive to changes in the natural environment, built
environment, governance, and social structure and vulnerability or risk
to climate events.
CRSI has been used to develop an index score for climate resilience at
the county level (scalable both upward and downward spatially) the
represents both the vulnerability of the entity to multiple climate
events and the potential recoverability of these entities from climate
events. The approach uses five domains (natural environment, built
environment, governance, social structures and risk) and 20 indicators
related to the domains. CRSI characterizes holistic climate resilience
throughout the US at the county level (2000-2015); ascertains the
relationships among those domains and indicators; and, provide
information regarding how that resilience score is constructed and the
actions a community/county can take to improve their climate resilience.
The short form: it's how badly you are screwed when the effects of climate change start becoming even more obvious. And hard to remediate: as in forget electric cars--you're gonna need a bike, or to walk.
The basic gist of it is that the town of Newtok, Alaska is the first North American settlement to move because of climate change. Ok, there are only 400 people who live there and they are Yup'ik, but this is not an isolated incident. South Pacific Islanders are seeing their countries since into the ocean.
So, if you don't trust the US government, in particular DoD and NOAA, maybe you might listen to a Yup'ik person tell you that climate change is real.
But don't trust me, as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration points out: NOAA Knows Climate. I would also point out that the Pentagon has made it clear that Climate Change is a national security threat. https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Tackling-the-Climate-Crisis/
Fox can call AOC and idiot, but it's hard to argue that NOAA and the US Department of Defence are ignorant on this issue.
On the other hand, "Kennedy" said something along the lines of if AOC is for clean power, she should be all in for Nuclear.
Who is calling whom an idiot? Does Kennedy know about Chernobyl? Fukushima? Does she understand why people were worried when the Russians occupied the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant? Three Mile Island? I'm sure there are more reasons that people who know anything about nuclear power would never make a comment like that.
Jesus.
Personally, I would trust NOAA and DoD long before I would trust most of the clowns on Fox.
But the idiots at Fox News will probably be wearing scuba gear to take the subway before they might admit climate change is real. This is because they are either too (1) stupid, (2) dishonest, or (3) both to admit that climate change is real.
Tucker Carlson may have been the best thing on Fox News, but he is now free from their editorial bullshit.
NOAA Link: https://www.noaa.gov/noaa-wildfire/wildfire-climate-connection
I find it interesting that to hear about Hunter Biden and his laptop one has to dig for that information in the US media. On the other hand, I was saying "WHOA!" when I heard about the Bidens and Ukraine. Lots of other things going on which have me wondering, but the silence is bothersome. Particularly from my co-bloggers.
There are lots of ways to rig an election, one of which is to control the information. It's one thing to call Fox News viewers misinformed. Especially if one doesn't get good information from their news source: and US media is terribly untrustworthy.
My first reaction to Fox News was to want to turn the Television to the window and take a walk the way Poles did during martial law in the 1980s. I feel that way toward US media as a whole now. Fortunately, I don't have to watch it, but I am curious as to how Joe Biden can manage to maintain power given his obvious flaws. There are too many questions, but one is labelled a conspiracy theorist if they mention them.
If I have any influence from the Soviet Bloc, it is to question the party line. Especially if that party line is left unchallenged. Add in that the people who question are persecuted for airing the opinions. It's nice that the internet allows for the publication of opposing viewpoints, but whether those viewpoints are seen is another matter.
The reality is that there may be another sham election where a weak candidate may end winning against a much stronger opposition. Where districts which should be impossible to win are won.
One doesn't need to be a conspiracy theorist to question that.
Despite what the one right wing Pennsylvania Representative says: The Green New Deal is not an off switch for the economy. If anything, energy independence is a necessity.
And clean energy is the path to independence. That's GREEN energy for the Fox News Pundits and other right wingers who need to do a twelve step on their energy reliance.
The article that relates to the picture to the left points this out: https://investorplace.com/hypergrowthinvesting/2022/03/clean-energy-is-the-way-to-independence-and-huge-gains/
As someone who should have looked toward a career relating to the environment, I can tell you that the fossil fuel industry is already working to transition to clean energy. Note the amount of ethanol in your petrol the next time you are at the pump.
I've put my money where my mouth is and invested in solar panels.
Hillary Clinton should have said that failure to make the transition to clean energy will put a lot of coal miners out of work. People need to start looking to jobs in the clean energy sector.
But the above article points out something that the fossil fuel junkies miss:
Why the huge outperformance in clean energy stocks? The Russian invasion of Ukraine underscores the world’s need for energy independence. And clean energy offers the only viable pathway to TRUE energy independence.
It’s inarguable that energy independence is the ultimate goal for every country. No government wants their energy supply to be reliant upon another country – especially if said country is Russia, which provides about 40% of Europe’s natural gas supply.
At the end of the day, every country wants to produce its own energy. It’s cheaper. It’s more reliable and creates more jobs. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s safer.
I can go in depth about how Russia's best weapon against the west is its reliance on fossil fuels since
Maybe if the likes of Greg Gutfeld would shut the fuck up with their ignorance and learn something we might have a decent discussion here. But knocking something without any real knowledge of the topic is dangerous.
It's also the American way.
It's long past time for change.
I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Gutfeld. He says some things which are bang on sometimes. He also says some things that are a little off. I used to think I would get into a fight if we got together. Then, I realised he likes to shock the way I do.
His monologue cuts to the heart of the matter here in that blacks are victims, which leaves out a lot. Given that one of the "Buffalo Soldiers" main tasks was to help control the Native Americans of the Plain, the concept that blacks are without sin in the "race game" is something which needs to be seriously examined.
If I am guilty for slavery as a white person, then aren't blacks guilty of ethnically cleansing the native American population?
A significant number of blacks left the south after the Civil War to make lives in other parts of the US. And quite a few of them joined the US Military.
And Idi Amin was one of the most notorious racists EVER. Even though Idi Amin may have been Ugandan, but ask an Asian who was deported from Uganda during the 1970s how well they were treated by his government. And wasn't that the beginning of the "taking a knee" thing?
Yes, blacks can be racist too.
And let's close with some Russell Brand on the Democrats:
 |
| Seriously? |
Both Fox and Hannity invited a torrent of criticism for a report on 16 May that Rich, a 27-year-old staffer at the DNC, had been in contact with the website WikiLeaks prior to his fatal shooting in Washington in July of 2016. The unsubstantiated report was published and promoted on both Fox News, most heavily on Hannity’s primetime show, and the network’s local Washington affiliate, WTTG-TV.Sean Hannity wasn't totally giving up, but said this about his dropping the story:
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Fox News said the article in question “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting”.
“Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed,” the statement read. “We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.”
“Out of respect for the [Rich] family’s wishes, for now, I am not discussing this matter at this time,” Hannity said.I've got to admit this sounds a bit fishy to me, but maybe Fox is going to change with the passing of Roger Ailes.
Even so, the characteristically bombastic anchor blamed what he dubbed as “liberal fascism” amid a campaign targeting Hannity’s advertisers in the wake of his promotion of the false report.
“I promise you I am not going to stop doing my job,” Hannity said. “I am not going to stop trying to find the truth.”
"If women are going to wear low cut dresses that show cleavage don't be harassed when we men look. Or should we sue for sexual arousal?"Apparently Reagan never got the memo or the upbringing that men and women are each of us responsible for our own feelings and reactions, and especially for unacceptable behavior. The issue here is that unacceptable behavior, including unprofessional conduct.
..on The Red Pill made by one of Fisher’s alleged usernames in 2008 reads, “rape isn’t an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot. I think he’d say it’s quite good, really.”This is conservatism in the 21st Century. Those who do not share these deplorable and repugnant views in how they conduct themselves are however far too willing to include in their party and their politics those who do act and think like this in devaluing and demeaning women. This is the GOP that accepted TRump as a candidate and support him in his presidency. This thinking is where the racist and the sexism in policy originates on the right. And the Evangelical Right is smack in the middle of it, as are the far right white supremacists and other people Hillary Clinton correctly identified as deplorables. Just as Racism drove right wing hatred of Obama for being bi-racial, this misogyny drove the hatred of Hillary Clinton. Neither was rational or objective. No one repudiates it on the right, no one drives out these people on the right.
...The Red Pill frequently normalizes rape, diminishes female intelligence and discusses the best ways to pick up women, including “negging,” a tactic in which men say backhanded compliments to women in order to lower their confidence and make them more open to sexual advances.
Mourdock, a Tea Party-backed candidate who beat longtime moderate Senator Richard Lugar in the state's Republican nominating contest earlier this year, expressed his view that "life begins at conception" and that he would only allow abortions in circumstances in which the mother's life was in danger.His assertion, lacking internal logic, that nothing happens without the will of God would then presumably extend as well to murder or crimes against humanity. Because nothing can happen without God's will making it so -- which should include abortion, giving the majority of conceptions do not implant or otherwise naturally terminate, so.......approved by God. This is the same mindset that gives rapists custody of their children conceived from criminal acts, and the same mindset in other parts of the world that see no crime in rape, if the victim subsequently marries the rapist, because then "all good".
...Republican candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen,"
Remember when....... pick one.......the state of (blank) passed laws banning Sharia law? There's more coming.A panel of local Muslims last week denounced the state’s ban on a foreign law designed to bar Sharia or Islamic law.
“Folks were in this hysteria thinking that the minority Muslim Community here in North Carolina could somehow impose our laws, laws taken from the Sharia,” Imam Khalid Griggs of Community Mosque said at a forum on the subject held Tuesday, Jan. 27 at the Polo Recreation CenterThe right is wrong, and has been wrong since Barry Goldwater said this:
...Proponents of the bans say they protect the Constitution, but many disagree. Muslim groups have been joined by Jewish organizations in their opposition to the bans. The Anti-Defamation League in Florida opposed that state’s foreign law ban, which passed last year, for fear of its potential effects on alimony, child custody and even the ability to remarry for Jews who divorce in Israel."
But Goldwater was correct when he noted, as an ardent opponent of the religious right:I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Ironically, both quotes are from Goldwater's presidential nomination acceptance speech in San Francisco waaaaay back in 1964.Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.
We have plenty of hate, by the right, from the right, riling up people with purely evil right wing propaganda full of lies.
A new law to ban Sharia law is being introduced in Montana, following passage in other states, and of course the overturning of such a ban after Oklahoma passed one. From another apparent Islamophobe/ bigot, in the Examiner:A grand jury indicted a North Carolina man on Monday for the shooting deaths of a newlywed Muslim couple and the wife's sister last week, a court official said.
Craig Hicks, 46, of Chapel Hill, was charged by a grand jury with three counts of first-degree murder and one of discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling, said Angela Kelly, an assistant clerk of the Durham County Superior Court.
Investigators have said initial findings indicate a dispute over parking prompted the shooting, but they are looking into whether Hicks was motivated by hatred toward the victims because they were Muslim.
Of course, the islamophobe bigots CLAIM, wrongly, that they support the U.S. Constitution as well as their state constitutions. They just forget that we have the supremacy clause, which establishes that where there is a conflict between Federal and State law, Federal law 'wins' aka usually supersedes state law.Montana's Senate Bill 199–also called the Primacy of Montana Law–would prohibit the state from abiding by foreign religious customs and foreign laws within the court system. Well there's an idea! A United States that follows United States laws. I'm getting excited already. Maybe we'll even follow the Constitution one day. Janna Taylor, a Republican state senator in Montana, said that the bill is modeled after a similar anti-Sharia law that has been passed by Republicans in three other states so far: Tennessee, Kansas and Louisiana.
There is NO case, whatsoever, ANYWHERE in the United States, its possessions or territories, at any time, that any religious law, Sharia, Halacha, or Canon law, has been used to override American law.At least individual states are finally taking matters into their own hands to stop the travesty of Sharia law in America. The Christian Action Network noted on its website that Sharia law, also called Islamic law, has been used in United States courts multiple times to override America's law under the guise of Freedom of Religion. Of course! Freedom of Religion is suddenly important when it involves catering to the violent religion of Islam. However, if you take your Bible to the public square you better have on a bullet proof vest and when you demand protection from your President against foreign and domestic threats you get psycho-babble about the Crusades.
The Christian Action Network site went on to say: “Montana may be on the brink of accomplishing what Congress, the federal court system and all but three other states could not: Banning Islamic Shariah law from being used in state courts.”
This is a right wing lie; no one has succeeded in using such a defense, nor is it a defense attempt unique to one religion. The closest we have come to a problem with a religious law interfering with the function of civil and criminal secular law was the abuse by the Roman Catholic church in conducting their own investigations under Canon Law instead of immediately reporting all accusations of sex crimes. This led to priests being protected by the Church from legal action, including prosecution under cover of priests being subject to Canon Law rather than civil and criminal secular law, as we see in the findings of subsequent law suits and investigative reports by journalists.Lawmakers in Mississippi are proposing legislation that would ban Sharia law from the state."I think we need to make a stand and a statement that we are not going to allow it to be used in our court system," state Rep. John Moore, R-Brandon, said.More than two dozen states have considered similar bans on the laws followed in Muslim nations.A group of Muslims in northern Texas has created what may be the first official Sharia law system in the United States.The Sharia tribunal in Irving, Texas, said they're not planning to follow the type of Sharia practiced in Muslim countries, where severe punishments are handed out for even small crimes, women have very few rights, and blasphemy against Mohammed can result in a death sentence.But in Mississippi, Rep. Moore recently introduced a meaure that blocks any foreign laws from being enforced or applied in the state and country.He made clear that Sharia law is a big concern and wants to make sure it never gets argued in a Mississippi courtroom.He said a Muslim defendent could try to use Sharia law as a defense against a U.S. criminal case.
GIGO - in computers, garbage in, garbage out. Or in the case of conservatives, we could fairly refer to it as garbage information [results in] garbage opinions.“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”I would argue this is exactly what the President did in his comments at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, references conservatives are trying equally to eliminate from our AP history coursework and our public discourse.
― Elie Wiesel
"We see faith driving us to do right. We also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge, or worse sometimes used as a weapon."
Washington was tried for murder in Waco, in a courtroom filled with furious locals. He entered a guilty plea and was quickly sentenced to death. After his sentence was pronounced, he was dragged out of the court by observers and lynched in front of Waco's city hall. Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere at the event, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob castrated Washington, cut off his fingers, and hung him over a bonfire. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town and parts of his body were sold as souvenirs. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco.
charred corpse of Jesse Washington
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a significant number of lynchings occurred in the Southeastern United States, primarily of African Americans in the states of Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Between 1890 and 1920, about 3,000 African Americans were killed by lynch mobs, usually after whites were the victims of crimes purportedly committed by blacks. Supporters of lynching justified the practice as a way to assert dominance over African Americans, to whom they attributed a criminal nature.While this marked a beginning of a change in public opinion about lynching, lynchings continued well after 1916 in this country. Burning as part of lynching was not unique.
...A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building.[24] Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hung from the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground.[27] Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals.[24] The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death. German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering.[28] Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers.[29] The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain.[24] One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia;[30] a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs. By the time that the fire was extinguished, parts of Washington's arms and legs had been burned off and his torso and head were charred. His body was removed from the tree and dragged behind a horse throughout the town. Washington's remains were transported to Robinson, where they were publicly displayed until a constable obtained the body late in the day and buried it.[24] The lynching drew a large crowd, including the mayor and the chief of police, although lynching was illegal in Texas.[31] Sheriff Fleming told his deputies not to stop the lynching, and no one was arrested after the event.[32]
The same year, Julie Armstrong of the University of South Florida argued that Washington was probably innocent of both charges.[95] Bernstein notes that Washington's motives have never been established. She also states that his confession could have been coerced, and that the murder weapon—perhaps the strongest evidence against him—could have been planted by authorities.[96]
Bernstein states that Washington's lynching was a unique event because it occurred in a city with a reputation for progressiveness, but was attended by thousands of people who were excited by the brutal torture. Similar acts of mob violence typically occurred in smaller towns with fewer spectators.[97] William Carrigan of Rowan University argues that the culture of central Texas had glorified retributive mob violence for decades before Washington's lynching, maintaining that this culture of violence explains how such a brutal attack could be publicly celebrated.[98] Hale posits that Washington's death signaled a transition in the practice of lynching, demonstrating its acceptance in modernized, 20th-century cities.[36
Christian Soldiers
In a new report, the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative documents nearly 4,000 lynchings of black people in 12 Southern states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia—between 1877 and 1950, which the group notes is “at least 700 more lynchings in these states than previously reported.”
The lynching and torture of blacks in the Jim Crow South weren’t just acts of racism. They were religious rituals.
...More savage was the lynching of Mary Turner and her unborn child, killed for protesting her husband’s murder. “[B]efore a crowd that included women and children,” writes Dray, “Mary was stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground, gave a cry, and was stomped to death.”
These lynchings weren’t just vigilante punishments or, as the Equal Justice Initiative notes, “celebratory acts of racial control and domination.” They were rituals. And specifically, they were rituals of Southern evangelicalism and its then-dogma of purity, literalism, and white supremacy. “Christianity was the primary lens through which most southerners conceptualized and made sense of suffering and death of any sort,” writes historian Amy Louise Wood in Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940. “It would be inconceivable that they could inflict pain and torment on the bodies of black men without imagining that violence as a religious act, laden with Christian symbolism and significance.”
