Tuesday, April 30th, 2019
DANIEL MORITZ-RABSON , - Newsweek
Stephan: Here is the ugly truth about supposedly Christian, but actually christofascist, churches and organizations. They use the words of Christianity to express their racism, hate, fear, and judgment.
White nationalist demonstrators walk into Lee park surrounded by counter demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va.,
Credit: Steve Helber/AP
The nation’s eighth-largest nonprofit donated $56.1 million to a series of organizations identified as hate groups from 2015 to 2017, according to a report from Sludge.
National Christian Foundation, which identifies itself as the largest Christian grant maker and one of the largest donor-advised funds in the nation, has served as a vehicle for individuals trying to anonymously send money. (emphasis added)
Donor-advised funds allow individuals sending the tax deductible contributions to remain anonymous from the IRS and instruct where they want the payments to be sent. For those donating via NCF, this meant sending money to 23 organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled hate groups. Most of the hate organizations that received money from the NCF opposed LGBT rights. The report also found that the NCF donated to anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant organizations.
Organizations receiving the most funds from NCF included the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has advocated for sterilizing transgender […]
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2019
Tina Casey , - CleanTechnica
Stephan: Here is some good news about coal. Even West Virginia, a state notable for its willfully ignorant politicians and voters, is finally beginning to understand that coal is doomed.
Coal mining with mountaintop removal
The iconic Appalachian coal producing state of West Virginia has soldiered through the most intense series of bombings in US history. The dust has not settled yet, but the winner is…maybe solar power? That’s a mighty big maybe, but state policy makers are finally beginning to realize that mining for coal by flattening hundreds of pristine mountaintops with explosives is perhaps not the best strategy for long term economic growth.
Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
It’s been a while since mountaintop removal coal mining has crossed the CleanTechnica radar. The practice — literally, blowing the tops off virgin mountains to reach coal seams close to the surface — was relatively uncommon until recent years.
The Obama administration tried to clamp down on mountaintop mining, partly through new Department of the Interior rules that would prevent miners from using adjacent streams and valleys to dump the rubble from mountaintop removal. However, the rules weren’t finalized until 2017. That was just in time for the newly minted Commander-in-Chief* to sign new legislation reverting the status quo back […]
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2019
The Editorial Board, - The Washington Post
Stephan: Even if he weren't president I would think of Trump as a vulgar, vile, and disgusting person. But he is president and the fact that the President of the United States is documented to be a compulsive racist liar has diminished America's stature around the world. In my opinion, history is going to treat Donald Trump as a 21st century Caligula (37-41 CE), who is generally recognized by historians as the worst Roman emperor.
As President Trump zoomed past a lowly personal milestone — his 10,000th false or misleading statement in his 27-month-old presidency, according to The Post Fact Checker — he let fly a series of whoppers on a subject that logic would suggest he’d be better off leaving unremarked: family separation. The president, whose own administration imposed and then rescinded a systematic policy of wrenching migrant children from their parents, with no protocol in place to reunite them, now poses as a paragon of compassion that ended cruel laws in place before he took office. This is false.
During an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Mr. Trump suggested that his heartless policy had continued practices in place under the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, among others. In contrast to his predecessors, Mr. Trump said, “we’ve been on a humane basis . . . we go out and stop the separations,” he said. “The problem is you have 10 times as many people coming up with their families. It’s like Disneyland now.”
In fact, the “zero tolerance” policy was formulated (with White House approval) by Mr. Trump’s then- attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The policy mandated automatic imprisonment […]
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Tuesday, April 30th, 2019
Stephan: First the Roman church, then Protestants churches, then the Mormons. And now the Boy Scouts. All embroiled in sexual dysfunctionality and molestation of children. What should we conclude? I think all this is telling us that our views on sexuality, particularly when they are linked with religion virtually assure molestation of children, and they need to change.
According to a researcher hired by the Boy Scouts of America to review internal files, more than 12,000 children have been sexually assaulted while participating in its programs.
Credit: Tony Gutierrez/AP
The Boy Scouts of America’s own records show that more than 12,000 children have been sexually assaulted while participating in the organization’s programs. The documents came to light through court testimony given by a researcher whom the Scouts had hired to do an internal review. The records reveal allegations against thousands of Scout leaders — allegations that date from the 1940s.
With such a huge number of victims, the organization could be facing multiple lawsuits and, as a result, bankruptcy.
The research also revealed significantly more abusers than previously thought. The names of Scout leaders deemed ineligible because of “reasonable allegations of child sexual abuse” were entered into the Boy Scouts of America’s files, and those leaders were subsequently excluded from working with children.
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David A. Graham, Staff Writer - The Atlantic
Stephan: Here is some good news about gerrymandering, and once again it is the courts not the executive or legislative branches that are making this correction possible. But, as this report lays out, we won't know the real outcome until the Supreme Court rules. This is yet another example illustrating why Mitch McConnell is trying to pack the courts with christofascists as quickly as he can before the 2020 election occurs. The effects of his program are going to haunt us for a generation, even if the Senate turns Democratic.
The Michigan Capitol building is pictured in Lansing, Michigan,
Credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook
A panel of federal judges in Michigan on Thursday unanimously struck down nearly 30 of the state’s U.S. House and state legislative districts as unconstitutional. Furthermore, the court ordered special early elections for several state-Senate seats—an unusual and aggressive remedy. It’s the latest in a string of rulings that show federal courts are more open to claims that partisan gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution, and more willing to employ strong measures to halt it.
It will be impossible to assess the full impact of the Michigan ruling until the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling on a pair of partisan-gerrymandering cases that it heard in March from Maryland and North Carolina. The high court has approached partisan-gerrymandering cases cautiously, punting a Wisconsin case back to a lower court to determine whether the plaintiffs had standing.
But while the justices hesitate, partisan gerrymandering has become a major issue in lower courts. Most of these cases spring from redistricting conducted after the 2010 census. That […]
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