I Kind Of Voted Today

The wife and I went in to vote early. Only because of tremors I have had since the 1980s, I needed the wife to fill out the form and mark the ballot.

Gone are the days when I could afford to vote for 3rd party candidates. Those days are in the past because of the current corruption and insanity of the Republican Party. Conservative parties do not need to be insane like today's Republican Party. But what we see now is the result of authoritarianism infecting the party and revolving around a leader who needs serious help, not power. Trump is, like his hero, Vlad Putin, not facing reality. Only Putin has much more intelligence and a better hold on reality than Trump. But one of the tragedies of our time is found in the fact that as either leader gets more militarily aggressive, the closer mankind comes to experiencing mutually assured destruction as warned against in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (click here for the source). 

Of course the Democratic Party is no prize. Run by a bought out DNC, the Democratic Party is responsible for making Trump and his cohort seem like the only rational choice to many Americans. I have run into some of those American Trump voters and though that group is not a monolith, one characteristic they have in common is ignorance spurred by taking up residence in a small information bubble.

The short of it is that in almost every single federal, state, and local election, a vote for a Republican is a vote that helps enable the Trump's agenda. It is a vote for recreating America in Russia's image. And, finally, it is a vote for Vlad Putin. Neoliberalism has taken over much of the world and its logical consequence are corrupt oligarchies like the one that rules over Russia. And though we should vote for the Dems here, a vote for them is not necessarily a vote against Neoliberalism. In most cases, it is simply a vote that slows down Neoliberalism to a crawl at best. But at least electing Dems will protect the free speech rights of those who oppose Neoliberalism.

May Day With The Dems

 Being a socialist, May Day has a bit of a different meaning for me than it does for many Democrats. For one thing, we socialists have been speaking up for immigrants far longer than the Dems though perhaps with too much of an edge. But that is because we have been aware of what immigrants have had to face long before both the Dems expressed concerned and Trump came to power.

However, not all of us socialists are the same. Some focus also on empowering workers at the workplace regardless of their ideologies while others are pushing an ideological agenda too hard. Stalinists are an example of the latter. 

Also, I got introduced to Antifa during a May Day event. I talked with them in person. Though Antifa can stand for being anti-fascist, there is an organized group called 'Antifa' some of whose members told me that they are reliving the street battles that communists were fighting in  Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

I was just celebrating my first May Day with the Dems and it was very laid back which was both good and bad. While the socialists I've celebrated May Day with have too much of an edge, the Dems have too little of one. 

Plus, the Dems have a more narrow view of the workers' needs than socialists do. What socialists see that Dems don't is that workers need to have power in the workplace in addition to unionizing which allows them to enter into collective bargaining to negotiate for both better pay and working conditions. And so unions are there to help prevent businesses from exploiting and abusing workers.

A protest sign at May Day rally. The quote is from the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. It is response to King Arthur when he identifies himself as the King of England to a couple of peasants.

The Dems approach is to portray themselves as vanguards for workers. That means that the Dems will represent the demands and needs of the workers in government in exchange for their support. But it also means that the Dems are not empowering workers in the workplace. In addition, the Dems are heavily influenced by money from corporations. The result is that the Dems can have a conflict of interest when representing workers.

Socialists enable workers in multiple ways. Not only do socialists work to represent the concerns of workers, they also seek to empower them.  Socialists want workers to go beyond what unions do by adding to their collective bargaining rights, positions of power both in businesses and the government. An example of workers gaining power in the work place can be seen in Germany's codetermination laws that allow for a percentage of workers to be placed on a business's executive  boards depending on the number of employees a business has.

Without those positions of power, workers have no partial ownership of the businesses that employ them. Such workers have no say in how a business operates and treats its other stakeholders. Workers have no say as to the direction a business will take and where it locates or relocates. And unless workers are also included in Congress, they have less to say as to what regulations, which would protect people and the environment, will be written and passed. 

And so the approach taken by the Dems, who are already compromised by corporate money, cannot represent workers like socialists could if socialists were given a chance.

In addition, socialists have justice concerns that extend beyond the borders of their own nations. Socialists are concerned about the injustices that come with American imperialism. Unfortunately, some socialists are so focussed and American imperialism that they let the injustices practiced by other nations, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fly in under the radar. The same occurs with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where some socialists are so focussed on the injustices practiced by the Israeli government that they give hall passes to Palestinian terrorism. On the other hand, while, for the most part, the Dems are rightly reacting and responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many of them overlook both the injustices that come with American imperialism and with those practiced by the Israeli government.

And so there is a difference between celebrating May Day with my fellow socialists than with the Dems. Both groups have contributions to make and faults to change. But if the Dems want to present a more contrasting and positive alternative to the Repubs, they will refuse to be influenced by corporate money and will keep what they rightly doing  while moving closer to how socialists analyze and approach problems and injustices.

In the eyes of many of my fellow socialists, I am slumming it when protesting with the Dems. That is because of the differences, some of which were mentioned above, that exist between socialists and the Dems. I agree with my fellow socialists that we feel significantly offended when the Repubs call the Dems 'Marxists' or 'socialists.' Obviously, the Repubs like to oversimplify life by overlooking the significant differences that exist between socialists and the Dems. The Repubs tendency to over simply things appeal to many of its followers. 

At the same time, we socialists will be promoting injustices if we believe, as how Martin Luther King Jr. described the West, while speaking against the Vietnam War, when he said that it believe it had everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. And so we socialists, and we are a very diverse group,  need to look for what we can learn from the Dems, the traditional Repubs, and even from the Trump's Repubs if we wish to avoid being narrow-minded ideologues with very small audiences. Narrow-minded ideologies ming appeal to those of us who embrace authoritarianism, but it also sabotages our efforts to bring change.

Opportunism Followed By Manipulation

 One of the skills that successful lawyers who argue in court must have is the ability to persuade people. The practice of being able to persuade people causes some to make compromises with facts and truth. But then again, lawyers are paid to win their cases.

The same can said of politicians, especially those who become incumbents. They must be able to persuade people even though politicians can also depend on votes based on the political party loyalty. In addition, a large part of persuading people is to make associations between one's positions or one experiences with positive outcomes while making negative associations with the positions or experiences of one's opponents.

Trump is a case in point here. He partially succeeded in associating increases in crime with Mexican illegal immigrants while associating an improving economy solely with his policies. And so a significant part of persuading people is to be successful at making the associations one wants to make while avoiding unwanted associations with oneself. Note here that facts and truth are not as important in successfully persuading people as being able to make desirable associations while avoiding undesirable associations.

Of course the ability to make the associations that one want to make while avoiding unwanted associations depends on what one's audience wants to believe. And this is where opportunism can be followed by manipulation. If an audience is already angry with or biased against a politician or political party, then  associating negative outcomes with what that person or group believes or practices becomes easier. The opposite happens when one wants to associate negative outcomes with a group that an audience is sympathetic with or loyal to.

For example, Trumpublicans wanted to blame the Democrats for the inflation that followed our recovery from the pandemic. That is despite the fact that as we were emerging out of the pandemic, methods of providing the supply of goods, like fuel, lagged behind spikes in demand. In addition, the global price of oil was significantly affected by Russia's invasion into the Ukraine. And of course, the maximizing profits for shareholders  effect on our economy has also played a role as high profits for some oil companies strongly suggest. But none of these factors were mentioned by Trumpublicans.

Another example can be found in the Trumpublican response to Trump's refusal to return classified documents and the subsequent raid. Already being upset with the "Deep State," Trumpublican supporters saw the FBI raid on Trump's Mara Lago estate as a violation of Trump's rights and saw no problem with him having those documents. In addition they are charging that the disparity in how the discovery Biden's not securely keeping documents with how Trump were treated as proof of hypocrisy by the media, law enforcement, and the Democratic Party. And they make that charge despite the vast disparities in the two situations. But remember that the key to being successful in making the associations one want to make often depends more on the the beliefs and sentiments of one's target audience instead of the facts and truth involved.

So our sentiments and beliefs can make us easy prey for those who are only seeking to persuade us while not caring about adequately informing us. And while both of our two major political parties sacrifice truth and facts for the ability to persuade, the Trumpublicans are excelling in caring more about merely being convincing than on helping us understand why we should believe them. And the more that what we can be convinced of depends on our sentiments and established beliefs rather than on being disciplined in seeking the facts and following the rules of logic, the more political opportunists will emerge on the scene will be able to manipulate us.

While the January 6th Insurrection failed as did the Redwave in the 2022 election, we see in the House of Representatives the same spirit of opportunism resulting in manipulation alive and kicking. Our only protection against being hijacked by political opportunists from either party is being well informed. And being well informed depends on our ability discern what is factually true from what is false. And ability to recognize what is factually true is to reduce our personal biases, both biases for and against, as much as possible.

So it is up to us to avoid being manipulated by opportunists. The more we are willing to let go of past biases and examine claims by checking facts and applying logic, the more we are immune to the efforts of opportunists. And that is very important now because the failures of the January 6th insurrection and of the Redwave in the 2022 Midterms have not dampened the spirits and efforts of the Trumpublicans. And while, at this time, the attempts to manipulate the American people are for the most part being made by Trumpublicans, the Democrats have a history of being just as manipulative. Should the Trumpublicans find disfavor by a vast majority of the Republicans, we can expect the Democrats be more manipulative than they are now.

The 3rd Day After

  Friday's posts are usually a review of a Christian article. But today's post will be different because of the recent elections.

Today is the 3rd day after the Midterm elections and there is hope in one sense. Those election deniers who were in league with Trump did not perform as well as feared or expected. As of the writing of this article, it looks like the Republicans will flip the House while it is way too close to call the Senate results. And thus, while the Dems are not worth bragging about, they are still the lesser of two evils.

But the news is not all terrible because of the plight of the many election deniers who ran for their state's governor's office or Secretary of State office. And that gives hope for the 2024 election. The hope it gives is that if a Democrat wins the 2024 Presidential election, we have a better chance of not ending up with a Constitutional crisis.

However, we are not out of the woods yet. Though the good news is that it appears that Trump's personal power over the Republican Party might be diminishing, Trumpublicanism in the form of other Republicans who share his agenda might still be alive and kicking.

Trumpublicanism, in the form of MAGA, that chants the America First mantra, is Climate Change denying, is pandemic denying and being skeptical of medical science, is denying the existence of systemic racism, promotes the domestic side of neoliberal capitalism, and passionately embraces authoritarian rule might have more life than Trump's personal political power. As mentioned before in a previous blog article (click here for the article), DeSantis could be the new front runner and figure head for Trumpublicanism. And for those who voted blue to protect democracy,  DeSantis could be a more ominous and formidable foe than Trump.

DeSantis has already proven that he can do an adequate job as governor, which is an executive position--that is if we don't count his political agenda as a criteria. Though not without blemish, DeSantis does not the PR baggage that Trump has. But there is one characteristic which DeSantis has displayed to a comparable level with Trump: authoritarian rule. That authoritarian rule can be seen the vengeance he is currently seeking on Disney World for their public opposition to one of his proposals on LGBT and education. In addition, he has waged war on wokism both in the public and private sectors by trying to censor certain perspectives of racism in America from being taught. Though the courts struck down his efforts to prohibit wokism from being taught in the private sector, he has succeeded in prohibiting them from being taught in schools.

It's not that DeSantis is free from PR problems. His recent stunt that lured undocumented people to fly to Massachusetts could have legal consequences on him personally. And his recent advertisement claiming that God created him on the 8th day as a fighter to protect the people from Florida could, and should, turn off religiously conservative Christians who have an adequate amount of religious education. Even for those without any serious religious education, such an ad should remind them of the pathological level of narcissism that we saw in Trump.

So as John Oliver would ask at this point: What can we do now or where do we go from here? What we can do is to first encourage the establishment Republicans to split from the Trumpublicans even if Trump's political power is starting to wane. The spirit of Trumpublicanism is still alive in the Republican Party. DeSantis is an example of the influence of Trumpublicanism. The splitting of the party would become a lethal blow to Trumpublicanism regardless of Trump's political prowess. Of course, the split would also hurt establishment Republicans so their splitting the party up would make them into political kamikazes. We have already seen that Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. 

As for the Dems, they need to initiate contact with and eagerly work with establishment Republicans to first collaborate as a general principle, and to repair the prestige of the establishment Republicans. That would make establishment Republicans more competitive among conservative voters.

While the Democratic Party must become more progressive in terms of defending and protecting the marginalized in society and protecting the environment from pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases, they need to learn the lesson the lesson that Vlad Lenin learned all to late. The Dems have to temper the speed at which they promote the progressive agenda so that it does not bring too fast of a change for people to take. That means that progressives themselves will have to be patient with measures that either morally or practically require immediate action and resolution.

From the Marxist perspective, we need to empower workers both at the workplace, especially in publicly owned businesses, and in government. Currently many workers favor the GOP; but they do so because of culture war concerns. In the meantime, their contribution to the workplace remains reduced to just production and only rewarded with pay. Workers are given little to no opportunity to influence the decisions and direction of the businesses they work in on a large scale. 

And since The Constitution prevents us from having a governmental structure that allows Americans to be represented by vocation, the Biden Administration must make extra efforts to incorporate input from workers of all stripes so as to empower them in government. But an even better suggestion than that is for the Biden Administration to push an American version of Germany's codetermination laws. Those laws require businesses to have a certain percentage of workers on their executive boards based on the total number of workers in the company.

We must continue to battle the Big Lie that says that Biden was elected because of fraud. Even though Big Lie candidates didn't do that well, the Big Lie's promoters and apologists will be diligent at persevering. And that lie could take off if the nation's economy takes a major hit or there is some other major crisis that makes people feel desperate.

Finally, the Democratic Party must open to welcoming balanced pro-life supporters into their party. Besides for the moral reasons, a practical reason would be that doing so would reduce the Republican Party's exploitation of religiously conservative Christians.

Are there other actions to be taken. Yes, but I will quit here because I am out of time and ideas.

The Political Storm Clouds On The Horizon And The Infrastructure Bills

 Because of the corporate owned duopoly that is much of our two-party political system, we are facing an ominous future. Yes, Trump was defeated in the 2020 election, but for the Biden Administration to successfully pass anything in the Senate, it will have to rely on strict political party voting or it has to compromise some of its expectations by collaborating with the Republicans. 

By referring to Republicans, I did not mean the Trumpublicans. They form the storm clouds on our horizon. The Trumpublicans just might be the biggest current threat to the nation. For not only do the Trumpublicans have a different agenda from the rest of us, their agenda is fueled by a fiercely persistent break from reality.

I would not have necessarily considered the Trumpublicans to be a serious threat to the well-being of our nation; but then there was the  January 6 rebellion against The Constitution. And not only that, there is their response to the Covid-19 pandemic that relied on mis/disinformation and including their resistance to the vaccines, the mandates, their conspiracy theories, and their overly eager acceptance of unproven medicines. In short, their eagerness to passionately embrace breaks with reality and their enforcement of double standards.

Even some Republicans, not including the Trumpublicans, have casted their lot with the delusional views of those who have been rejecting what solid scientific research has been telling us.  That is that there are Republicans who do not support Trump but who believe, for example, that the vaccinations are simply a tactic to gain more government control of society. Well, like any other situation that is considered a national emergency, the government will take on a few powers that they did not have or exercised  before. But because their man is not in control, their suspicions against the ruling party emerge those are eagerly spread by the Trumpublicans and fearfully believed by some regular Republican voters. That has put our nation is in a tailspin because the breaks with reality being promoted by the Trumpublicans are triggering phobic reactions among regular Republicans. We can call these reactions phobic because there is a real fear of making distinctions between what is real and what they fear among those smitten. Again, such victims of the Trumpublican driven phobias are afraid to distinguish between the government simply taking actions in the face of a deadly pandemic from a power hungry government that has delusions of totalitarianism dancing in their heads.

Another phobic reaction is seen in how some are reading Biden's infrastructure bills. Some, again, see those bills as a Democratic Party's attempt to usher in a USSR Socialist government. And because Republicans believe, that are having phobic reactions to Biden's infrastructure bills,  Thus, trying to dismiss their fears with facts has become fruitless.

Besides the flat earth beliefs of the Trumpublicans regarding climate change, systemic racism, the election, and the pandemic, we have the January 6th attempted insurrection/coup. Certainly not all participants in the pro-Trump rally supported all that went on inside the Capitol building. In fact, I would venture a guess that on January 6th, most people at the Trump rally who walked down to the Capitol did not knew what was going on inside the building. But the actions that did take place paint an ominous picture for the future of our nation. For if those were the actions taken by those out of power, what would they do or demand if they regain power.

We can't delude ourselves into thinking that because of the 2020 election, the threat posed by Trump and the Trumpublicans is dead. It is far from that. And history provides a guide here. The Bolshevik and the Nazi take over of their respective nations tells us that often, the seizing of power by dangerous radical groups does not at first succeed. Rather, their success is because they tried, tried again. 

We will have the Trumpublican threat with us for the foreseeable future. And for as long as that threat is viable, we need Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans to find ways to work together and collaborate on legislation. For unless they can find ways to work together, because the Republican Party is still heavily influenced by Trump and the duopoly of our current two-party system, the Trumpublicans will find their way back into positions of power. And, again, considering what they did, as demonstrated on January 6th, while not in power, just think of what they will be willing to do once they regain power.

The State Of American Politics

 Already we are hearing about one possible presidential candidate in 2024.  Of course that would be Donald Trump. His followers don't realize what a disaster his presidency was. His presidency, like that of George W. Bush's, left our nation in shambles. Yes, it got an assist from the Covid-19 virus. But still, Trump's judgment during the time he was in office was very suspect. 

From the beginning Trump was either enthralled or intimidated by strongman leaders. Even if we don't include Putin in the mix, he expressed jealousy over China's Jinping's maneuvering to become President for life, he was impressed by Erdogan, he congratulated  Duterte for how he handled the Philippines drug problem, and from I read from one of Woodward's book on Trump, he seemed intimidated by Jung-un of North Korea.

Trump's reelection hopes always relied on his immigration policies and the nation's economy. Moral shortcuts were seen in the Trump Administration's treatment of those who were detained though it should be mentioned that there were some similarities with how Obama's Administration also treated undocumented people. But Obama was able to talk about unwanted immigrants without using racist descriptions. 

But let's face it, we will never solve our immigration problems until we make our foreign policies and trade agreements a significant part of our immigration policies. Why is that? It is because our foreign policies and trade agreements have been instrumental in driving up the demand for people wanting to emigrate to this nation. Our foreign policies have a history of increasing the rate of violence in a nation even for the long term. There is something about supporting regime changes where the incoming ruler acts as a tyrannical dictator that can tend to make a nation more violent. As for our trade agreements, they have been partially responsible for increasing poverty in some of our trade agreement partners as the targeted beneficiary of those agreements are often corporations. That is what we saw with NAFTA.

As for our economy, Trump took shortcuts there to ramp up, or actually partially ride the coattails of his predecessor's, success. Here Trump cut environmental regulations that increased short term profits while endangering our future both with respect to climate change and environmental concerns outside of climate change. In fact, Trump did all he could to show the world that he refused to believe that climate change even existed. 

Trump's tax cuts targeted the wealthy. That and his spikes in the military budget again put America's future at risk as the they resulted in unnecessary spikes in the deficit. Many of us didn't notice this because we were convinced that Obama left the military in shambles--something that is kind of hard to do since even under Obama we were spending more money on the military than the next 8 nations combined. But as one old rock song mentioned: 'Paranoia strikes deep.'

And while we weren't watching, Trump restarted the US in a new arms race with Russia.

But what do we get with Biden? Certainly he is an authoritarian at heart though not to the degree that Trump is. He claimed that he could work with the Republicans but has yet to show that. Having floated his recovery plans earlier in the year, some non-Trump Republicans met with him to see if they could strike a deal. But Biden refused to compromise with them. As a result, Biden's infrastructure plans will have no Republican support. In fact, some of Republicans are thinking about letting America default on its loans and shutting down the government, a step that will hurt many of us.

And then there is Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Certainly we needed to withdraw because we were in an unwinnable conflict with those who hosted those who attacked us on 9-11. Our troubles from Afghanistan started when Carter signed off on assistance with the predecessors of the Taliban, the Mujahideen. Here we should note that, like the Taliban, the Mujahideen strongly opposed the social reforms that the Soviet friendly Communist government was trying to continue and even add to that included an improved standing for women. Thus we have another success story for employing binary logic in a world full of continuous values.

Certainly, any withdraw from Afghanistan was going to be messy. But Biden showed insufficient effort to minimize that messiness. And he has still failed to acknowledge that he could have done a better job.

Yes, Biden has some success early in his tenure as President. But will his performance hurt the Dems chances of keeping control of at least one chamber of Congress let alone both Such is an important question because the Republican Party is still under the control of Trump. Their denial of reality, seen with Climate Change during Trump's Administration has leaped tall buildings in a single bound with their reactions and responses to the Covid crises. And they plan to center the 2022 midterms on the ludicrous accusation that the Dems are Marxist socialists--such is an insult to many of us who lean to varying degrees toward Marx. But such is the state of the Republican Party because of the deliberate ignorance possessed by many of its registered voters.

And though we could go one about the government, we should note that, in many cases, a nation's politicians are only a reflection of its people. Here, we can realistically blame Trump for spiking the political polarization we see. This polarization is the result of tribalism, a tribalism that is built on the practice of canonizing one's own views and leaders and stoking fear by demonizing one's opponents. And many of us just go along with that.

If this article seems pessimistic to you, then good. I really don't see anyway out of the mess that the whole nation, including its politicians and its people, have made for itself.

ONIM For August 20, 2018

10 Best Fact Checking Sites Found Here.

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.

Christian News

• Of Calvin, Social Justice, And The Theology Of The Cross -- Heidelblog
• God Plans To Prosper Us -- Felix Culpa
• How Pervasive Is The Prosperity Gospel? -- Cranach
• The Power Of Healing Through Forgiveness -- Jim Erwin
• Report Reveals Widespread Sexual Abuse By Over 300 Priests In Pennsylvania -- NPR
• Even Before Recent Revelations, U.S. Catholics Gave Pope Francis Declining Ratings On Sex Abuse Scandal -- Pew Research Center
• Capitalism And The Gospel Of Love -- Imaginative Conservative 

World News

• Teen Girl Slammed Unconscious During Arrest By San Francisco Police, Witnesses Say -- San Francisco Chronicle
• Woman Says Her Job Application Was Denied Because Her Name Is Too 'Ghetto' -- Yahoo
• Nearly A Year After Maria, Puerto Rico Officials Claim Power Is Totally Restored -- NPR
• Thousands Sign Petition Calling For Lebron James To Replace Betsy DeVos As Education Secretary -- CBC News
• Mystery Russian's Satellite's Behaviour Raises Alarm In US -- BBC
• Naval Base Kitsap Spills 80,000 Gallons Of Sewage Into Puget Sound, 'No Contact' Advisory Issued -- Q13 Fox
• College Students Who Don't Use Opioids Suffer Too, Penn State Study Suggests -- Philadelphia Inquirer
• The Corbyn Wreath 'Scandal' Is Just An Exercise In Hypocrisy -- Guardian
• Australian Military Licenses To Saudi Arabia Have Quietly Quadrupled -- New Matilda
• When Aretha Franklin Offered To Post Bail For Angela Davis -- Quartzy
• How Women In Zimbabwe Overcame A Culture Of Fear To Build A Culture Of Resistance -- Waging Nonviolence
• How International Travel Is Changing The Narrative On Violence In Chicago -- Waging Nonviolence
• Why Anti-Authoritarian Doctors Are So Rare -- ZNet
• A New Film Examines Sexual Violence And The Bakken Oil Boom -- ZNet
• UK Refuses To Back UNK Inquiry Into Saudi 'War Crimes' Amid Fears It Will Damage Trade -- Independent
• Most Americans Accept Genetic Engineering Of Animals That Benefits Human Health, But Many Oppose Other Uses -- Pew Research Center
• As Midterms Near, Democrats Are More Politically Active Than Republicans -- Pew Research Center
• How Emotional Abuse Takes Its Toll -- Truthdig
• Yemeni Refugee On Escaping War And Life On South Korea's Jeju -- Aljazeera
• Italy Bridge Collapse: Three More Bodies Found Under The Rubble -- Aljazeera
• Chart: 'CEOs Make 312 Times More Than Typical Workers' -- Yahoo News

Israel-Palestine News

• Israel Detains Prominent Jewish-American Critic At Airport -- Fox News
• African Migrants Reel As Israeli Law Cuts Into Salaries -- San Francisco Chronicle
• Palestinian Succession Talk Heats Up As PLO Council Convenes -- Bloomberg
• Israel Proposes Gaza Cancer Patients Be Treated In West Bank, Where Treatment Is Unavailable -- Haaretz
• Israel Is 'Becoming A Full-Blown Police State,' Reza Azlan Says After Interrogation At Border -- Mondoweiss
• Sacha Baron Cohen's Col. Erran Morad Another Sign Of Israel's Growing Isolation -- Mondoweiss
• Netanyahu Receives Visit From Police Over Corruption Allegations --Fox News
• Palestinians Can't Keep Living Like This -- Bloomberg

Donald Trump News

• If Omarosa Did Sign An NDA, Trump Might've Broken The Law -- Huffington Post
• Analysis: One Year On, Trump Still Fuels Racial Divide -- AP News
• Don Lemon Reveals The Sad Reality About Trump's Alleged 'N-Word' Tape -- Huffington Post
• Trump's Military Parade Is Now Estimated To Cost $92 Million--$80 Million More Than Earlier Estimate -- CNBC
• Trump Cancels Military Parade, Blames D.C. Officials For High Cost -- NBC News
• 'You've Embarrassed Us In The Eyes Of Our Children': Navy SEAL Who Oversaw The Osama Bin Laden Raid Rebukes Trump -- Business Insider
• Criticized For Racism, Trump Goes After Black Former National Security Advisor -- Huffington Post
• What Those Joint Editorials Denouncing Trump Conveniently Left Out -- Truthdig
• Trump Warnings Grow From Forgotten Republicans -- AP News

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On The NFL, 'BlackkKlansman' And The Summer Movie As Protest Song -- Hollywood Reporter
• Billionaires Reach For The Stars While World Suffers -- CNN
• Stagnating Salries: Real US Wages Are Essentially Back At 1974 Levels, Pew Reports -- USA Today
• Texas Opens Investigation Into Reported Death Of Child After Leaving ICE Custody -- ABC News
• Report: Blue Lives Matter Rebuff Jets Offer, Cites Anthem Protests: Player Issues Are 'Made Up' -- Yahoo News
• Naturalized Americans Could Lose Their Citizenship With Thousands Of Cases Under Review -- McClatchy
• Oatmeal, Breakfast Foods Contain Unsafe Amounts Of Cancer-Linked Weed Killer, Report Says -- USA Today
• Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change -- New York Times
• Foster Care System Is One Of The Paths To Murdered And Missing Indigenous Women -- CBC News
• Forgotten Women: The Conversation Of Murdered And Missing Native Women Is Not One North America Wants To Have--But It Must -- Independent
• Chicago Police Are 14 Times More Likely To Use Force Against Young Black Men Than Against Whites -- Intercept
• "A Complete Disaster" -- Z Magazine
• Kerala Floods: Thousands Await Rescue As Death Toll Crosses 200 -- Aljazeera

Just For Fun 

• Customer Walks Into Liquor Store--Without Noticing Bear Standing Right Next To Him, Video Show -- Miami Herald
• Pence Calls Space Force Necessary To Protect Us From Gay Aliens -- Borowitz Report
• Trump Says White House Is No Place For Lying Lowlife From Reality Show -- Borowitz Report
• Ditching Tight Pants Improves Sperm Count -- Onion
• Google Admits Your Phone Will Track You Even If You Leave It At Home -- Babylonian Bee
• Extremists On Left, Right Eliminate Each Other In Violent Clash, Nation's Problems Finally Over -- Babylonian Bee
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

References

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ONIM For June 4, 2018

10 Best Fact Checking Sites Found Here.

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.


Christian News

• Evangelism In A Skeptical Age -- Gospel Coalition
• Employees Quit American Bible Society Over Sex And Marriage Rules -- Religion News Service
• Attendance Trends And Our Need For Revitalization -- Jim Erwin, A PostModern Pastor In A Digital World
• A Big Win For Religious Liberty In Canada -- Between 2 Kingdoms
•  Literalism And Inerrancy: Both Need Careful Definition -- Biblical Words And World

World News

• Heroin Is Driving A Sinister Trend In Afghanistan -- Business Insider
• Paris 'Spider-Man' Saves Young Boy. Cue Debate On Migrants --  New York Times
• What Unites And Divides Urban, Suburban And Rural Communities -- Pew Research Center
• New Swamp: Ex-Perry Adviser Lobbies For Energy Firm Bailout -- AP News
• Fearing Extremist Violence, Egypt Silences 20,000 Storefront Mosques -- Religion News Service
• Teaching 'Les Misérables' In Prison -- Truthdig
• Cuba To Update Soviet-Era Constitution -- Trughdig
• Canada Buys Controversial Oil Pipeline, Ensures Its Expansion -- NPR
• Cynthia Nixon Doesn't Get A Mic At State Democratic Convention -- New York Post
• Prominent Russian Journalist Who Criticized Kremlin Shot Dead In Kiev -- Reuters
• Pompeo Vows US Will 'Not Standby As Spectators' On Abuses Of Religious Freedom -- CNN
• Study On Hurricane Casualties Fuels Talk Of Statehood for Puerto Rico -- Yahoo News
• 'Roseanne' Shows What The Media Got Wrong About Trump Voters -- Yahoo News
• Body Cam Video Shows What Happened Before A Cop Punched A Woman During A Beach Arrest -- USA Today
• Guatemalan Farmers Occupy Plantation Formerly Owned By Drug Traffickers -- Waging Nonviolence
• International Resistance Builds To Save Sudanese Teen From Death Penalty -- Waging Nonviolence
• The Rise Of Resistance And Resilience To Tear Gas -- Waging Nonviolence
• Crackdown On Immigrants Takes A Toll On Federal Judge. 'I Have Presided Over A Process That Destroys Families' -- Los Angeles Times
• Are 'Man Camps' That House Pipeline Construction Workers A Menace To Indigenous Women? -- MacLean's
• Hungary: Bill Makes Aiding Migrants A Crime -- Human Rights Watch
• Government Set To Borrow Nearly $1 Trillion This Year, An 84 Percent Jump From Last Year -- Chicago Tribune
• Avoiding Meat And Dairy Is 'Single Biggest Way' To Reduce Your Impact On Earth -- Guardian
• India Police Officers Abused Online For Saving Muslim Man From Mob -- BBC
• The American Flag, National Anthem, Football Player Kneelers, And Me -- East Meets West Social Worker With Kim Parker
• Amid 'Russiagate' Hysteria, What Are The Facts? -- Nation
• American History For Truthdiggers: Liberty Vs. Order (1796-1800) -- Truthdig
• Needed Now: A Real And Radical Left -- Truthdig
• A Growing Movement Against Low Pay And Precarious Work -- ZNet
• Spain's New Laws Turn Peaceful Protesters Into Terrorists -- ZNet

Israel-Palestine News

• A Palestinian Vineyard Annihilated With Chainsaws, With A Chilling Message In Hebrew -- Haaretz
• Israel Bill To Ban Filming Soldiers On Duty Condemned -- Aljazeera
• Israel Begins Building Marine Barrier Along Gaza Border -- Aljazeera
• U.S. Thwarted In Bid To Change U.N. Rights Council's Approach To Israel -- Foreign Policy
• Gaza's Hamas Rulers Say Cease-Fire Reached With Israel -- AP News
• US Vows UN Security Council Veto Of Proposal On Palestinians -- US News And World Report
• U.S. Vetoes U.N. Resolution Denouncing Violence Against Palestinians -- Reuters
• Israeli Army Kills Palestinian Nurse In Gaza Border Protest: Medics -- US News And World Report
• A Woman Dedicated To Saving Lives Loses Hers In Gaza Violence -- New York Times
• U.N. Sets Up Human Rights Probe Into Gaza Killings, To Israel's Fury -- Reuters
• "Sympathy Is Not Enough" -- ZNet 

Donald Trump News

• Trump Ignores Court Ruling That He Can't Block Twitter Critics -- Newsweek
• Michael Cohen And The End Stage Of The Trump Presidency -- New Yorker
• America's Poor Becoming More Destitute Under Trump--U.N. Expert -- Reuters

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• ICE Plans To Start Destroying Records Of Immigrant Abuse, Including Sexual Assault And Deaths In Custody -- ACLU
• The Shocking Health Effects Of Agent Orange Now A Legacy Of Military Death -- Forbes
• "The Workplace Is Killing People And Nobody Cares" -- Stanford Business
• Border Patrol Kicked, Punched Migrant Children, Threatened Some With Sexual Assault, ACLU Alleges -- Newsweek
• White American Racial Resentment Is The Real Impetus For Welfare Cuts, Study Says -- San Francisco Chronicle
• 'Black Lives Don't Matter,' Lawyer Says After Jury Awards $4 In Police Killing -- CNN
• Egypt: Activists Arrested In Dawn Raids -- Human Rights Watch
• How For-Profit Prisons Have Become The Biggest Lobby No One Is Talking About -- Washington Post
• Poor People's Campaign Asks America To Face The Injustices Keeping Millions In Poverty -- PBS
• Racism Keeps Rearing Its Ugly Head -- Truthdig 

 
Just For Fun

• Trump Makes Pence Watch Him Issue Pardons To See How It's Done-- Borowitz Report 
• Trump Addresses Rally Of Ambien Users -- Borowitz Report
• Trump Boys Construct Fake Melania For Lonely Father To Spend Time With -- Onion
• Local Charismatic Declares The Gift Of Discernment Has Ceased -- Babylon Bee
• LeBron James Suffers Herniated Disc While Carrying Entire Team On His Back -- Babylon Bee 

ONIM For July 17, 2017

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.


Christian News

•  How A Christian Charity Is Reaching Out To Thousands In Desperate Need In Mosul -- Christian Today (UK)
• Christian Churches Face Summer Activity Shutdown In Egypt After New Terror Threat -- Christian Today (UK)
• Prominent Christian Human Rights Activist Released From Jail In China But Fears Grow For Imprisoned Pastor -- Christian Today (UK)
• Wait Upon The Drop -- Christianity Today
• Actually, Eugene Peterson Does Not Support Same-Sex Marriage -- Christianity Today
• It's Official: Fewer Persecuted Christians Find Refuge In America Under Trump -- Christianity Today
• "All You Talk About Is Race"; Five Responses To A Frustrating Comment -- Reformed African American Network
• Mike Pence Will Be The Most Powerful Christian Supremacist In U.S. History -- Intercept
• Why Are Atheists Steamrolling Our Students? -- Troubler Of Israel
• The Practical Application Of Suffering -- Preventing Grace
• Make Worship Great Again: Petition CCLI to Remove Donald Trump's "Worship" Song -- Ponder Anew
• A Conservative Christian Battle Over Gender -- Atlantic
• Marriage Isn't About Your Happiness -- Relevant
• In First Months Of Trump Presidency, Christians Account For Growing Share Of U.S. Refugee Arrivals -- Pew Research Center
• Is Evangelicalism Fading? Is So, Here's Why -- Horatio
• Love At The Edge -- First Things
• Confidant Of Pope Francis Offers Scathing Critique Of Trump's Religious Supporters -- Washington Post 

World News

• The End Of Capitalism -- Guardian
• Duncan Spends Campaign Funds Freely On Family -- Nashville Post
• The CEO Of Sears Fails His Company By Believing In Ayn Rand And The Invisible Hand -- Evonomics
• Here's Why Washington Hawks Love This Cultish Iranian Exile Group -- Intercept
• Detroit Is Booming Again. You Have To Be Rich And Powerful To Notice, Though -- Guardian
• Award-Winning Journalist Amy Wilentz On Just How Little Jared Kushner Knows About Foreign Politics -- Democracy Now
• Rooftop Solar Dims Under Pressure From Utility Lobbyists -- New York Times
• Islamophobes Are Attacking Me Because I 'm Their Worst Nightmare -- Washington Post
• 'We Will Not Be Intimidate': Organizers Announce Women's March Against NRA -- Moyers & Company
• In A Lawsuit Affidavit, NSA Whistleblower William Binney Confirms U.S. Government Spies On Citizens -- Truthdig
• Seattle City Council Approves Income Tax On The Rich, But Quick Legal Challenge Likely -- Seattle Times
• Former FCC Commissioner On How Greater Media Consolidation Is A Threat To Democracy And Free Speech -- Democracy Now
• Redneck Revolt: The Armed Left-Winged Group That Wants To Stamp Out Fascism -- Guardian
• Facebook's Tough-On-Terror Talk Overlooks White Extremists -- Intercept
• I'm A Climate Scientist. And I Am Not Letting Trickle-Down Ignorance Win -- Washington Post
• G20 Violence Prompts Calls For New Curbs On Anti-Capitalist Militants -- Guardian 
• Ending The Ronald Reagan Lie -- Boston Globe
• Trump-Russia Investigators Probe Jared Kushner-Run Digital Operation -- McClatchy 
• Why Socialism Was A Big Deal -- Socialist Worker
• Jimenez: Texas' Growing Hispanic Population Should Gain Political Clout -- El Paso Times
• Government Refuses To Release Report On Saudi Arabia's Funding Of Islamist Extremism In UK -- Independent
• Just 100 Companies Responsible For 71% Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Report Says -- Independent
• Senate Begins Confirmation Hearings For Trump FBI Pick Tied To Torture, Gitmo -- Democracy Now
• In Arkansas, Women Will Need Permission From Men To Get Abortions -- Huffington Post
•  NJ Citizens Allowed To Defend Themselves Against Police Brutality, Courts Rule -- New Jersey 101.5
• Brand New Macron, Same Old Colonialism -- Guardian
• Seattle Taxing The Rich -- ZNet
• Cost Of Massive Airstrike Campaign -- ZNet
• Democrats Are Doubling Down On The Same Vanilla Centrism That Helped Give Us President Trump -- Los Angeles Times
• Teleportation: Photon Particles Today, Humans Tomorrow? -- BBC
• The Calibri Font Is Threatening To Bring Down Pakistan's Government -- Haaretz
• Bizarre Black Holes Revealed By New Space-Time Ripples -- National Geographic
• Online Harassment 2017 -- Pew Research Center
• In Asia-Pacific Countries, Many Are Concerned About North Korea's Nuclear Program -- Pew Research Center
• Antarctic Iceberg Quarter The Size Of Wales Splits From Ice Shelf -- Independent
• Drilling Rig Owned By UK Fracking Firm Caudrilla 'Seriously Vandalized' -- Guardian
• A Further Blow To Democracy In Brazil? Glenn Greenwald On Conviction Of Lula Ahead Of 2018 Election -- Democracy Now
• Senator, (Un)Interrupted: Kamala Harri's Rise Among Democrats -- New York Times
• Trudeau Tells US Governors To Ditch 'America First' -- BBC
• Democratic 'Resistance Summer' Becomes Protest Against Democrats -- Popular Resistance

Health Care News

• Nation "Too Broke" To Spend On Universal Healthcare To Spend $406 Billion More On F-35 -- Guardian
• GOP Lawmakers Bought Health-Insurance Stocks While Advancing Trumpcare -- New York Magazine
• How The Health Care Struggle Is Building A Broad Anti-Trump Resistance -- Waging Nonviolence
• Senate Republicans Exempt Own Health Coverage From Part Of Latest Proposal -- Vox
• Health Reporters: Secrecy, Speed, And Twitter Changed Coverage Of GOP Bill -- Columbia Journalism Review
• Teen Abortions Surge In Texas After Republicans Defund Planned Parenthood -- Huffington Post 

Donald Jr. News

• Trump's Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information On Clinton -- New York Times
• Trump Jr. Was Told In Email Of Russian Effort To Aid Campaign -- New York Times
• An Absolutely Damning Paragraph About Donald Trump Jr.'s Russia Meeting -- CNN
• 'I Love It': Donald Trump Jr. Posts Emails From Russia Offering Material On Clinton -- Guardian
• Russian Dirt On Clinton? 'I Love It' Donald Trump Jr. Said -- New York Times
• Glenn Greenwald: Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Are Not A "Smoking Gun" Or Evidence Of Criminal Collusion -- Democracy Now
•  Ex-Soviet Military Officer Joined Trump Jr.'s Meeting With Russian Lawyer: Reports -- Huffington Post

Israel-Palestine News

• This Palestinian Village Had Solar Power--Until Israeli Soldiers Took It Away -- Washington Post
• With No Electricity In Gaza To Run Sewage Plant, Israel Bans Swimming As Waste Spews Onto Beaches -- Mondoweiss
• Israel Should Stop Trying To Wall Out Its Critics -- Los Angeles Times
• London's Palestine Expo Defies Smear Campaign Attracting More Than 15,000 -- Mondoweiss
• Palestine Remains 'The Greatest Moral Issue Of Our Time' -- Truthdig
• Soros, Bannon, And The Anti-Semitism Of Israel's Prime Minister -- +972 Magazine 
• Gaza's Last Power Plant Just Shut Down, Plunging The Strip Into Darkness -- Haaretz
• 'But Sir, It's An American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' When Israel Attacked The USS Liberty -- Haaretz
• Israel's Ever -More Sadistic Reprisals -- ZNet
• Why They Fear The Truth -- Mondoweiss
• Canada Order Stores To Deshelve Settler Wines With 'Made In Israel' Label -- Mondoweiss
• U.N. Warns Gaza Strip "Unlivable" Under Israeli Blockade -- Democracy Now

Donald Sr. News

• For Trump, The 'Cloud' Just Grew That Much Darker -- New York Times
• Trump Aids Recruited Businessmen To Devise Options For Afghanistan -- New York Times
• The Deep Industry Ties Of Trump's Deregulation Teams -- New York Times
• Trump Allies Reportedly Planning To Defend Trump Jr. By Digging Up Dirt On Reporters -- Huffington Post
• Donald Trump Defends Son's Meeting With Russian Lawyer As 'Very Standard' -- Huffington Post
• President Trump, Melting Under Criticism -- New York Times
• Trump Blasts Report On Obstruction Of Justice Probe -- Reuters

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• The Uninhabitable Earth -- New York Magazine
• This Arkansas Bill Would Force Rape Survivors To Notify Their Attacker If They Need An Abortion -- Bustle
• The Painful And Liberating Practice Of Facing My Own Racism -- On Being
• Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event Underway, Scientists Warn -- Guardian
• Earth Faces "Biological Annihilation" In Sixth Mass Extinction, Scientists Warn -- CBS News
• Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently: Syrian Citizen Journalists Document A City Under Siege -- Democracy Now
• Devastation In Mosul: Iraq Seizes City From ISIS, But Battle Left Thousands Dead & 700,000 Displaced -- Democracy Now
• At Night On Skid Row, Nearly 2,000 Homeless People Share Just 9 Toilets -- Guardian
• Turkey: Hundreds Of Thousands Protest Against Erdogan Gov't At Istanbul Rally -- Democracy Now
• The State Of Hate In America -- USA Today
• Aboriginal Woman Raped To Death Bu White Suspects Yet To Face Trial Five Years Later -- Independent
• Minnesota Cop Punches Handcuffed Native American 14-Year-Old Girl In The Face, Then Claims Self-Defense -- The Indigenous American
• Why Indigenous Civil Resistance Has Unique Power -- Waging Nonviolence
• The Hijacked American Presidency -- New York Times
• Environmental Defenders Being Killed In Record Numbers, New Research Reveals -- Guardian
• Whistleblowers Shouldn't Be Prosecuted Like Spies: Greenwald On Alleged NSA Leaker Reality Winner -- Democracy Now
• U.N. Warned "We Should All Feel Deeply Guilty" As Yemenis Die -- CBS News
• Climate Change In The American Mind: May 2017 -- Yale Program On Climate Change Communication
• Florida Drinking Water Ranks Among Nation's Worst, Study Finds -- Miami Herald
• Exclusive: The Secret Documents That Help Explain The Qatar Crisis -- CNN
• Home Care Workers Have Our Lives In Their Hands. They're Paid Only $10 An Hour -- Guardian
• A Rabbi, A Reverend And An Imam Have A Plan For Peace In Middle America -- CNN
• California: Bakersfield Teen Assaulted By Police, Mauled By K9 Dog -- Democracy Now
• Dakota Access Company Cozied Up To Ohio Officials. Then A Pollution Nightmare Began -- Huffington Pos