Verdict
Category: USA
Can President Joe Biden mend a torn America?
Joe Biden wants to unite Americans, but that won’t be easy when disgust at Trump’s actions matches disbelief at liberal attempts to censor opponents via Silicon Valley. Can there be any return to real liberal values and a sense of normality?
BY THOMAS FRANK
It is the ‘duty’ of American citizens, President Joe Biden announced in his inaugural address last week, to ‘defend the truth and to defeat the lies’. Much of Biden’s speech was an unremarkable stringing-together of patriotic platitudes, but this call for a great truth crusade stood out for its audacity. America is, after all, the homeland of the public relations industry, of televangelism, of Madison Avenue, of PT Barnum. Our leading scholars worship at the shrine of post-structuralism; our brightest college graduates go on to work for the CIA; our best newspapers dynamite the barrier between reporting and opinion; our greatest political practitioners are consultants who ‘spin’ the facts this way or that.
Continue reading “Can President Joe Biden mend a torn America?”
Where Were They Radicalized? No Answer is Complete Without Addressing Evangelical Churches and Schooling
BY CHRISSY STROOP
As the United States prepares for the end of a nightmarish one-term presidency that seemed to drag on forever, Americans continue to unpack the January 6 insurrection that now even soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admits was “provoked” by President Donald Trump. On January 16, NBC political analyst Mehdi Hasan tweeted, “#whereweretheyradicalized is a question we’re going to be asking of GOP lawmakers at federal and state/local levels for many, many years to come, sadly,” adding that the answer would lie primarily in “a combo of Fox/OANN/Newsmax and Facebook.”
As I like to say, however, the Christian Right has been doing “alternative facts” since before it was cool. It would be remiss of us to approach the “where were they radicalized” question without addressing how the Christian schooling and homeschooling movement, along with many white churches and other evangelical, LDS, and ‘trad’ Catholic institutions, fostered the subcultures that created the demand for hyper-partisan “news” outlets like Fox News.
Biden kicks off presidency with wave of executive orders, including halt on border wall funding
After being sworn in as US President, Joe Biden kicked off his presidency signing a wave of executive orders on top priority matters. One of these is immigration, with Joe Biden taking palpable steps to dismantle key Donald Trump policies, including an 8-year path to citizenship for immigrants without legal status known as the “Dreamers”. He also halted the funding of the border wall with Mexico, as well as putting an end to the “Muslim travel ban”.
Four long years of skyrocketing downward are ending today
From Donald Trump, Dec 8, 2020.
Sr. Simone: National Reconciliation Requires Impeachment
Sister Simone Campbell, SSS, Executive Director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice said:
“Vice President Pence and the Cabinet have failed to exercise their duty to protect our nation from a leader who is a threat to our democracy. Impeachment is the only way forward to hold our seditionist President responsible for inciting a mob of white supremacists to lay siege to the Capitol.
“To all of those asking to avoid this step of impeachment and just ‘move on,’ let me tell you what my Catholic faith teaches about reconciliation. Reconciliation and absolution requires contrition, confession, and penance. Until those responsible for this insurrection accept that their actions were sinful, confess their crimes, and are held accountable, we cannot move forward with integrity.
“The cracks in our nation’s foundational values have been blown wide open by President Trump and his enablers. They spread lies rejecting an election that they lost. As a result, their sins of racism, hatred, and division have exploded into violence. This is a spiritual crisis. We have a model for national healing. The President will not accept responsibility and resign, therefore impeachment is required. He must be banned from holding federal office ever again.”
Source: Catholic Lobby: National Reconciliation Requires Impeachment – NETWORK Lobby
Pas De Merde 