Day: June 9, 2024

Donald Trump at Las Vegas rally: No more taxation of income from tips  USA TODAY

The week in climate policy: 4 updates you need to know  GreenBiz

Manama, Bahrain — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit an Antigua- and Barbuda-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, the latest assault on shipping in the region.

The missile hit the ship’s forward station late Saturday, starting a fire that those on board later put out, the private security firm Ambrey said. A second missile fired at the ship missed and people “on board small boats in the vicinity opened fire on the ship during the incident,” Ambrey added, though no one was hurt onboard.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center similarly reported the attack and fire in the same area off Aden, saying “damage control is underway.”

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attack in a prerecorded video message Sunday, saying the vessel had been targeted with both missiles and drones. He identified the vessel as the Norderney, a ship that tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed was still in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday afternoon.

Saree also claimed unreported attacks on a warship and another vessel in the Arabian Sea, without providing any evidence to support his claim. The Houthis have exaggerated some of their attacks since launching their campaign.

The Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. They say the attacks are aimed at stopping the war and supporting the Palestinians, though the attacks often target vessels that have nothing to do with the conflict.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians there, while hundreds of others have been killed in Israeli operations in the West Bank. It began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage.

The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, killed three sailors, seized one vessel and sunk another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration. A U.S.-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.

But while gaining more attention internationally, the secretive group has cracked down on dissent at home. Eleven Yemeni employees of United Nations agencies and others working for aid groups have been detained by the Houthis under unclear circumstances, as the rebels face increasing financial pressure and airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition. The rebels also recently sentenced 44 people to death.

As many of you know by now, I went down the evangelical road when I was a teenager and stayed there until my late twenties. From there I swung to virulent atheism for a while. The pendulum finally came to a rest at agnosticism. I just don’t know. Having studied physics and mathematics in college, I acknowledge that there is a magnificent beauty and subtlety to the universe that sometimes suggests to me a vast intelligence behind it all. If I could be said to have a religion it would be of the Einstein variety, a sort of awestruck deism, where I am willing to acknowledge that God started things but after that stayed completely out of human affairs.

That’s why it’s Sunday morning (as I write this) and I’m staying home. Just like convicted felon Donald Trump. I won’t be going to church and neither will he. But unlike Trump I’m honest about my philosophical underpinnings. Trump is not. Trump claims to be a Christian. Trump is in fact an atheist, and a recent Fox & Friends interview threw that disparity into sharp relief.

“What’s your relationship with God like, and how do you pray?” a viewer from Alabama wanted to know. “Okay, I think it’s good,” Trump began, “I do very well with the evangelicals — I love the evangelicals — and I have more people saying they pray for me. I can’t even believe it.” And so on. The usual Trump Gallop of word salad bullshit followed. I ended that particular quote with the revealing phrase, “I can’t even believe it.” Because he can’t.

It comes as no surprise to me that most evangelical supporters of Trump believe he’s a Christian. In my day, I was witness to fellow evangelicals who believed dumber things than that — but not by much. In their simple stupidity many of today’s evangelicals think Trump is a Christian because they desperately need him to be one. Besides, he says he is, more or less, and in their protected little worldview they actually think the convicted felon never lies.

In his memoir “Disloyal,” Michael Cohen tells a story of a time during the 2016 presidential campaign when Trump was visited by a contingent of evangelicals. After they “laid hands” on Trump, prayed for him and left, Trump turned to Cohen and said, “I can’t believe they actually believe that bullshit.”

Like I said, Trump is an atheist. The only time he’s ever inside a church is for political reasons, though I can’t think of a single time he ever did even that. I do recall the famous photo op with an upside down Bible he struck outside a church across from the White House in Lafayette Square, after having George Floyd protesters gassed and kicked away by the national guard.

Sundays are long run days for me, just as they are golf days for Trump. It doesn’t matter if you agree with his atheism or not. You tell the truth about it, I tell the truth about it, Trump lies.

I wonder what evangelicals would do if they knew — I mean REALLY knew — that convicted felon Donald Trump is an atheist. I suspect the answer is that most of them would go ahead and vote for him anyway. They would say that God can “still work through him.” They would have hope that one day he would see the Light. They would continue to pray for him.

I know their fantasy world from experience. I know that evangelicals never let reality get in the way of their delusions. That’s the intractable ignorance we face, and the only way to defeat them is at the polls. If there is a God, maybe just this once he’ll make an exception and help us out. Against ignorance like that we need all the help we can get. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post Rude awakening for MAGA evangelicals appeared first on Palmer Report.

Republicans grill Fauci about COVID-19 origins and pandemic response  WUNC

Five convicted in $250 million COVID relief scheme  KFOR Oklahoma City

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