This letter from a property manager, Link Llewellyn, requests tenants at Llewellyn Properties in Columbus Ohio to refrain from any overt signage or any other communication anywhere in or on the rental properties in opposition to or support of Pride Month. Why does he request this? Because (i) he is a Catholic, (ii) June is the month that Catholics reflect on the love of Christ "for all human beings without exception", (iii) the bible says that pride is the root of the human sin that rejects His love, and (iv) promoting Pride Month conflicts with Link's religious beliefs and allegedly with Apostolic Magisterium (AM) teachings.
This attack on the LGBQT community feels like it very likely was written by a Catholic lawyer, not by Link. This kind of Christian attack reflects the increasing intrusion of aggressive fundamentalist Christian theocratic dogma in all aspects of life, not just government.
Here, Link asserts that his personal and AM's version of Catholic religious beliefs stand above the beliefs of others. Not only can people not speak to support Pride Month, they cannot speak to oppose it either. Link's personal religious beliefs trump free speech in commerce. This reflects the Supreme Court's decisions in recent years that are elevating religious belief and practice above all other rights and liberties as it keeps pushing the US toward an anti-democratic theocracy-dictatorship.
There is subtle insidiousness in this letter's Christian aggression. Link quotes the bible three times in support of his arguments (see the footnotes). Link does not care what non-Christians and non-religious people believe or would like to say. That is irrelevant. Here all that counts is what Link says his Christian God approve and disapproves of by way of the Apostolic Magisterium** and Link's religious beliefs. This is Christian Sharia theocracy speaking loud, clear and undeniable.
** Wikipedia: "The magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, the task of interpretation is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops."
What is the interpretation of the word of God? That's clear as mud. The bible is often rationally incomprehensible and loaded with self-contradiction. Therefore, interpretation and tradition are whatever the pope or bishops say it is.
Remember the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that killed Roe v. Wade and abortion rights? Its reasoning was based on (i) abortion not being explicitly allowed in the Constitution, and (ii) a new test the radical Christian theocrats on the court dreamed up. The new test looked to see if abortion was "deeply rooted" in the history and traditions of the American people. The justices did not define what "deeply rooted", "traditions" or "history" meant, e.g., a "tradition" can be practiced among a small group or family, and "history" includes biblical and more ancient times. The Christian theocrats on the court just told us what their cherry-picked version history and traditions were and abortion was not "deeply rooted". From that, they concluded there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. It was just like the Apostolic Magisterium interpreting the bible. It is fun, easy and always leads to comfortable conclusions that accord with the controlling dogma. THAT IS THEOCRACY. IT IS NOT DEMOCRACY.
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From the House of Representatives Chaos Files: Now that extremist Republicans have settled in, chaos and slop have descended on the House. The NYT writes about some chaos:
House Is Paralyzed as Far-Right RebelsContinue Mutiny Against McCarthy
Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus refused to surrender control of the floor, forcing G.O.P. leaders to scrap votes for the week and leaving the speaker facing what he conceded was “chaos”
Mr. McCarthy, who enraged ultraconservative Republicans by striking a compromise with President Biden to suspend the debt limit, has yet to face a bid to depose him, as some hard-right members have threatened. But the rebellion has left him, at least for now, as speaker in name only, deprived of a governing majority.
“House Leadership couldn’t Hold the Line,” Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a leader of the rebellion, tweeted on Wednesday. “Now we Hold the Floor.”
Great! Jackass Republican extremists like Gaetz hold the floor. The House is broken. MAGA!!
A two-day stalemate between hard-right Republicans and GOP leaders has effectively frozen the House from considering any legislation for the foreseeable future, as both groups failed to find a resolution to the standoff that would allow the majority to vote on bills.
Just past 6 p.m. Wednesday, after GOP leaders gave up on resolving the impasse this week and canceled the remaining votes for the week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) addressed reporters and explained that part of the ongoing frustration is the hard-line faction’s inability to articulate their demands.
“This is the difficult thing,” he said. “Some of these members, they don’t know what to ask for.”
Great! Jackass Republican extremists like Gaetz don't know what they want. The House is broken. MAGA!!
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From the cruel kleptocracy files: The innate human urge to be corrupt and a kleptocrat is a major aspect of the human condition. The urge is always there. Kleptocrats are almost always authoritarian, brutal and shockingly heartless. While in power, they do not care if their people live or die a miserable death, e.g., by starvation. Kleptocrats always go after two things, wealth and power. The WaPo writes about the human misery that kleptocratic Ethiopian central and regional government has caused:
USAID cuts food aid supporting millions of Ethiopiansamid charges of massive government theftThe U.S. government is suspending food aid to Ethiopia after an investigation uncovered a widespread scheme to steal donated food, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said Thursday, a move that will affect millions of the world’s poorest people. Leaked documents given to donors and shared with The Washington Post indicate that the scheme was coordinated by elements within both the federal and regional governments.“Extensive monitoring indicates this diversion of donor-funded food assistance is a coordinated and criminal scheme, which has prevented life-saving assistance from reaching the most vulnerable,” said a report by the Humanitarian Resilience Development Donor Group, an organization of donors briefed by USAID. “The scheme appears to be orchestrated by federal and regional Government of Ethiopia (GoE) entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance.”
An aid worker with knowledge of the program said it appeared that local officials responsible for creating lists of beneficiaries had inflated the number of households in need and prevented food from reaching hungry families.
In my opinion, the most important reason the US never had a ghost of a chance of making any meaningful difference in Afghanistan was due to the fact that it was an entrenched kleptocracy. Corruption among Afghan elites sabotaged literally everything the US tried to do. Sometimes, the US government itself knowingly fed cash and arms to known local kleptocrats. In view of its staggering governmental arrogance and incompetence, the US was doomed to failure from the moment the first aircraft hit the first building in the 9/11 attacks.
What did we get? Just look at the Dark Ages thugs and thieves who run Afghanistan now. They look very much like the Dark Ages thugs and thieves who run Ethiopia now. Iraq looks to be about the same.
Bummer.
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