The eve of destruction?

Donald Trump’s increasingly outrageous statements that seem aimed at deliberately alienating, Mexicans, Hispanics, women, the disabled, Jews, Muslims, Asians, and god knows who else (it is hard to keep score), is now leading Republicans to increasingly distance themselves from him. The chorus of Republican condemnations of Trump is steadily increasing in volume. Mike Fernandez, a wealthy Miami patron of the Republican party and Jeb Bush supporter, has said that he would vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump and is running ads against him. Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, has said that there is not a chance that he will support Trump if he is the party’s nominee.
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Jon Stewart back on The Daily Show

He returns to plug one of the issues that he is passionate about and that is to obtain appropriate health care for those 9/11 emergency first responders who got sick breathing in all the dust from the collapsed building as they went about trying to rescue people. He is trying to shame senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other legislators into doing the right thing.
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This is definitely good news for Donald Trump

Almost the entire political establishment, including almost all his Republican rivals for the nomination and even war criminal Dick Cheney, has attacked Donald Trump’s most recent statement that no Muslims should be allowed to enter the US for the foreseeable future, with Jeb Bush going so far as to call it “unhinged”. Trump, predictably, has brushed off the criticisms.
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The curious opposition to inclusivity

There are so many offensive things that people say and do that are reported in the news that I often do not bother to comment on them because to respond to each and every one would become pretty much a full time job. For example, this time of year brings out those who feel that anything other than overtly Christian messages and symbols are an affront and the attempts to make the holidays more inclusive are a sign of discrimination against Christians. This faux war on the nonexistent war on Christmas has reached such a meta-level that it threatens to create a black hole of phoniness.
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Two welcome decisions by the US Supreme Court

The foes of the right to abortions have used the heavily and misleadingly edited videos produced by a group called the Center for Medical Progress to fuel anger at Planned Parenthood and other women’s health groups that conduct abortions as part of their services. Carly Fiorina was one of those who further embellished what she had purportedly seen on the videos, claiming to have seen things that were not there. These actions have led to a spike in threats of violent actions against abortion providers.
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The heckler’s veto

As the election season gets into full gear, we are seeing more and more hecklers at rallies and meetings. How to deal with hecklers poses a tricky issue for democracies that value free speech and the right to demonstrate. If a person is speaking at a public event, to what extent does that person have a right to be allowed to speak undisturbed? To what extent do those who disagree with the speaker have the right to make their protest heard?
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The abuse of the elections process

The Citizens United ruling by the US Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money playing a huge role in US elections through groups known as SuperPACs that could collect unlimited amounts and spend it is support of candidates. There were supposed to be some limits still remaining, such as that the SuperPACs were not supposed to coordinate with the campaigns. But Stephen Colbert on his old show brilliantly demonstrated how easy it was to get around that, winning an EMMY award for his expose.
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Iceland’s rise in popularity of ancient Sumerian religion

The fastest growing religion group in Iceland is Zuism, that has already outstripped the number of Muslims in that country. What is Zuism?

Zuism is based on ancient Sumeran texts and the Sumeran religion is one of the world’s oldest religions, believed to be the basis of the world’s religions. It survived for instance in the mythologies and religions of ancient cultures such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hurrians, Akkadians, Egyptians, Romans and other culture groups.

According to Sumerian mythology, the primordial union of An and Ki produced Enlil, who became leader of the Sumerian pantheon. After the deities banished Enlil from the home of the Gods, Dilmun for raping the goddess Ninlil, she had a child, Nanna, god of the moon, Nanna and Ningal gave birth to Inanna, the goddess of war and fertility and to Utu, the god of the sun.

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