And here is Tom Malinowski, former Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor (2014-2017) -- last year he reported that Putin had "charged that the U.S. government had interfered 'aggressively' in Russia's 2012 presidential vote," claiming that Washington had "gathered opposition forces and financed them." Putin, wrote Malinowski, "apparently got President Trump to agree to a mutual commitment that neither country would interfere in the other's elections."
"Is this moral equivalence fair?" Malinowski asked and answered: "In short, no. Russia's interference in the United States' 2016 election could not have been more different from what the United States does to promote democracy in other countries."
How do you satirize such officials and such high-school beliefs?
We also have the case of the US government agency, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which has interfered in more elections than the CIA or God. Indeed, the man who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, Allen Weinstein, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." On April 12, 2018 the presidents of two of NED's wings wrote: "A specious narrative has come back into circulation: that Moscow's campaign of political warfare is no different from U.S.-supported democracy assistance."
"Democracy assistance", you see, is what they call NED's election-interferences and government-overthrows. The authors continue: "This narrative is churned out by propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik [radio station]. " it is deployed by isolationists who propound a U.S. retreat from global leadership."
"Isolationists" is what conservatives call critics of US foreign policy whose arguments they can't easily dismiss, so they imply that such people just don't want the US to be involved in anything abroad.
And "global leadership" is what they call being first in election-interferences and government-overthrows.
What God giveth, Trump taketh away?The White House sends out a newsletter, "1600 daily", each day to subscribers about what's new in the marvelous world inhabited by Donald J. Trump. On July 25 it reported about the president's talk before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Missouri: "We don't apologize for America anymore. We stand up for America. And we stand up for our National Anthem," the President said to "a thundering ovation".
At the same time, the newsletter informed us that the State Department is bringing together religious leaders and others for the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. "The goal is simple," we are told, "to promote the God-given human right to believe what you choose."
Aha! I see. But what about those who believe that standing for the National Anthem implies support for America's racism or police brutality? Is it not a God-given human right to believe such a thing and "take a knee" in protest?
Or is it the devil that puts such evil ideas into our heads?
The weather all over is not just extreme " It's downright freakish.The argument I like to use when speaking to those who don't accept the idea that extreme weather phenomena are largely man-made is this:
Well, we can proceed in one of two ways:
- We can do our best to limit the greenhouse effect by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) into the atmosphere, and if it turns out that these emissions were not in fact a significant cause of the widespread extreme weather phenomena, then we've wasted a lot of time, effort and money (although other benefits to the ecosystem would still accrue).
- We can do nothing at all to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and if it turns out that these emissions were in fact the leading cause of all the extreme weather phenomena, then we've lost the earth and life as we know it.
So, are you a gambler?
Irony of ironies " Misfortune of misfortunes " We have a leader who has zero interest in such things; indeed, the man is unequivocally contemptuous of the very idea of the need to modify individual or social behavior for the sake of the environment. And one after another he's appointed his soulmates to head government agencies concerned with the environment.
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