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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:12:59 GMT -8
Lance is an uncommon name nowadays. But in medieval times people were named Lance a lot.
What Would Jesus Do? MAGA's Don't Care
Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.
In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told him disturbing stories about their congregants being upset when they read from the famous "Sermon on the Mount" in which Christ espoused the principles of forgiveness and mercy as central to Christian doctrine.
"Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — 'turn the other cheek' — [and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'" Moore revealed. "And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.'"
Moore, who has been an outspoken critic of many evangelicals' embrace of Trump, argues that this has led him to conclude that American evangelical Christianity is now in crisis.
"When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis," he said.
Note to Evangelicals: When You Dance with the Devil ...
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:15:28 GMT -8
Uncle Thomas Is Even More Corrupt Than We Thought (If That is Possible)During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to far-flung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood. Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include: At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast. This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount. Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:17:17 GMT -8
Who Wants Good Teachers? Not Idaho.
Karen Lauritzen, who was named as Idaho's "Teacher of the Year" last year by a Republican administration, has now been chased out of the state by angry right-wing parents.
The Boston Globe reports that, shortly after receiving her award for excellence in teaching, Lauritzen became the target of a right-wing media campaign that flagged her social media posts expressing support for LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
This led to parents angrily demanding to see her lesson plans, despite the fact that there was no suggestion she ever brought her personal politics into the classroom.
However, parents nonetheless objected to teaching students about other cultures around the world and even teaching them about the United Nations on the grounds that the parents said they "don't believe" in the institution.
“I should have felt celebrated and should have felt like this is a great year, and honestly it was one of the toughest years I have ever had teaching, not only with my community but with parents questioning every decision I made as well,” Lauritzen told the Globe. “Even after 21 years of teaching, my professional judgment was called into question more this year than it ever has in the past.”
The longtime Idaho teacher has since left the state and the Globe reports she is now "takingher talents to a university in Illinois, a long-considered career move hastened by the experience."
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:20:22 GMT -8
Plagerize! Plagerize! Let No One Else's Words Ever Evade Your Eyes (Note: This title is a direct quote, that I am plagerizing without giving credit to the writer.)
Right-wing Florida Republican congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini is not afraid to trumpet his resume, including his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, where—according to his LinkedIn, Legistorm, Wikipedia, law firm, and Timeshare Information Center bios—he graduated with honors, magna cum laude.
But Sabatini’s honors thesis—a 2012 treatise on the political legacy of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, titled “A Profound Logic of The Blood”—is wildly plagiarized.
The Daily Beast’s review of the paper found that Sabatini lifted an astonishing amount of content verbatim from other sources. Worse, Sabatini—who double-majored in history and philosophy before being admitted to law school, also at the University of Florida—frequently pulls his passages from Wikipedia, and presents them without the required quotation marks or any clear attribution whatsoever.
In some instances, Sabatini injected slightly different words here and there—ripples in the streams of the thoughts, ideas, and words of other people, which he arrogated as his own. And in places where Sabatini does reference a secondary source, those references themselves frequently appear to be incorrect and, often, according to a plagiarism expert, entirely made up.
In fact, the very first sentence is plagiarized.
“The twentieth century has seen countless appropriations of the ideas of the philosopher Freidrich [sic] Nietzsche for cultural and political ends, yet nowhere have these attempts been more frequent or important than in Germany,” Sabatini wrote at the outset of his thesis. (The honors student misspells “Friedrich” as “Freidrich” throughout the paper.)
A near-verbatim version of that same sentence first appeared 20 years earlier. “The twentieth century has seen countless attempts to appropriate the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche for diverse cultural and political ends, but nowhere have these efforts been more sustained and of greater consequence than in Germany,” according to an abstract for an academic book from the University of California Press titled, “The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990” (Aschheim, 1992).
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:24:15 GMT -8
It's Not About TIme. It's About Religious Bigortry
Malaysia’s government said Thursday that all Swatch products that contain lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer elements — including watches, wrappers and boxes — were banned, warning that anyone found with one could be jailed for up to three years.
The ban has been published in the Federal Gazette — which makes it official — as part of a printing law that includes distribution and possession, citing concerns that such products were detrimental to the nation’s morality.
Malaysia, which is predominantly Muslim, already criminalizes same-sex relationships, with punishments ranging from caning under Islamic laws to 20 years in prison for sodomy under colonial-era civil laws.
In May, authorities raided Swatch stores and confiscated more than 160 watches from its Pride Collection. Some of the watches have rainbow colors while others are in a choice of six single colors that correlate to the gay pride flag, with two rainbow loops on their straps.
Swatch contested allegations that the watches were harmful, saying they carried a message of peace and love. The Swiss watchmaking company has sued the government for damages and for the return of the watches.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:27:24 GMT -8
Why Does the QOP Keep Trying to Elect Democrats?
Even as Biden hopscotches the country talking of factory openings and bridge repairs, abortion politics has become a rare consistent source of electoral victories for his party over the past year. The result in Ohio, coming after voters in other Republican-leaning states like Kentucky and Kansas also rejected GOP efforts to restrict abortion, underscores how the issue has already reshaped the political landscape for 2024, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said.
Democrats also hope the push for abortion rights helps them minimize losses in the Senate, where they hold a narrow 51-49 majority with several vulnerable incumbents. Among them are Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jacky Rosen (Nev.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), all of whom could now step up their focus on abortion rights.
Democrats are strategizing on the best way to sustain the energy that led them to the 14-point victory in Ohio. The vote came nine months after strong midterm results in places like Michigan, where a constitutional measure to protect abortion rights propelled Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to reelection and helped her party win control of both the state House and Senate for the first time in nearly four decades.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:34:21 GMT -8
We Miss You Robbie
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:37:34 GMT -8
Why Should This Surprise Anyone?
Former Vice President Mike Pence is being mocked online for a minute-long video of him pretending to pump gas into his pickup truck as he criticized President Joe Biden.
"Hey, everybody, Mike Pence here," he said in the video, grabbing a gas pump nozzle. The campaign clip was posted on Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, and has been viewed over 3.2 million times.
"Remember $2 a gallon gas? I do. And then Joe Biden became president of the United States and launched his war on energy," Pence said, slotting the nozzle into the fuel inlet of a red pickup truck.
Hand on his hip, Pence spoke about surging energy prices, and his plan to lower those consumer costs that would "reclaim America's role as the leading producer of energy in the world" by 2040.
He urged people to visit his 2024 presidential campaign website and support his run for the White House.
But throughout the ad, Pence never squeezed the pump handle.
People commenting on his video also noted that Pence neither paid for his gas nor selected the fuel he wanted. Additionally, the truck's gas cover was, mysteriously, already open, some added.
"You do know you have to actually squeeze the handle, right Mike?" one person wrote.
"I remember when we had to pay for the gas at the pump before we started pumping. This has a 'crudité' moment beeping all over it," wrote another user, referencing Mehmet Oz's senate campaign gaffe, where he incorrectly identified the grocery store where he was filming a video.
"What gas station doesn't ask you to choose the grade of gas you were buying?" another person wrote. "Pretty strange. I'll ignore the fact that you didn't offer a credit card, as your very small cult will claim you were about to go in and pay cash."
He's Only Pretending to Run For President.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:39:16 GMT -8
Oligarchs, Terrorists and Criminals, Oh My!
The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.
The long-awaited rule is expected to require that real estate professionals such as title insurers report the identities of the beneficial owners of companies buying real estate in cash to the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
FinCEN is slated to propose the rule sometime this month, according to its regulatory agenda, though the timeline could slip, said two people briefed on the developments. Anti-corruption advocates and lawmakers have been pushing for the rule, which will replace the current patchwork reporting system.
Criminals have for decades anonymously hidden ill-gotten gains in real estate, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in March, adding that as much as $2.3 billion was laundered through U.S. real estate between 2015 and 2020.
"That's why FinCEN is taking this important step to put something officially on the books that would root out money laundering through the sector once and for all," said Erica Hanichak, government affairs director of advocacy group the FACT Coalition.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 10, 2023 8:41:59 GMT -8
Shoot or Get Off the Pot: No Longer the Law
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that a decades-old law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from owning firearms was unconstitutional as applied to the case of a marijuana user, the latest fallout from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the federal law violated a Mississippi man's right to "keep and bear arms" under the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.
The man, Patrick Daniels, had been convicted under that law after law enforcement found a pistol and a semi-automatic rifle in his vehicle during a traffic stop along with marijuana cigarette butts.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration did not administer a drug test, though Daniels admitted he sometimes smoked marijuana, which federal law prohibits. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
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Post by gainsborough on Aug 10, 2023 9:38:56 GMT -8
"Plagerize! Plagerize! Let No One Else's Words Ever Evade Your Eyes"
But remember always to call it.... ahem.... "research"
More here:
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hasben
Resident Member
Posts: 1,047
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Post by hasben on Aug 10, 2023 14:27:29 GMT -8
Shoot or Get Off the Pot: No Longer the Law
Good decision in that case. The guy wasn't arrested for having a gun in the car. He was arrested for having marijuana butts in his ashtray. Ridiculous 4 yr sentence.
If that law was enforced half the guns in America would have to be confiscated from corporate executives, white collar workers, lawyers, politicians etc and some law enforcement who occasionally smoke pot or sniff coke.
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 11, 2023 8:07:24 GMT -8
"Plagerize! Plagerize! Let No One Else's Words Ever Evade Your Eyes" But remember always to call it.... ahem.... "research" More here: Damn! You exposed my plagerism! |
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