The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.

No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this.

Specifically, during the first 100 days, Congress must pass a legislative agenda that includes:

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing it to median wage growth thereafter.

A path toward Medicare-for-all. The Medicare-for-all bill widely supported in the Senate has a four-year phase-in period on the way to guaranteeing health care for every man, woman and child. Over the first year, it would lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, cover dental, hearing and vision care for seniors, provide health care to every young person in the United States and lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Bold action to combat climate change.

Fixing our broken criminal-justice system.

Comprehensive immigration reform

Progressive tax reform

A $1 trillion infrastructure plan

Lowering the price of prescription drugs.

Making public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reducing student debt.

Expanding Social Security.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-need-a-bold-agenda-heres-what-they-should-do-in-the-first-100-days-of-congress/2018/11/21/dc80ddd6-ed07-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html

Over the last four years, Republicans ruled Maine through control of its state Senate and governor, Paul LePage, who has described his style as “Trump before there was Trump.” Conflicts with the Democrat-controlled House and attorney general led to lawsuits flying nearly every month and, eventually, a government shutdown when there was no budget — all amid LePage’s stream of provocative name-calling that garnered national headlines.

But on Tuesday, in the greatest shift in partisan makeup of a state government in the United States this year, voters chose Democrat Janet Mills to replace a term-limited LePage and gave her party control of both chambers.

A contest over the future of Christianity in Ukraine goes to the heart of Moscow's ambitions.

CHRISTOPHER STROOP SEPTEMBER 10, 2018



On Aug. 27, one of the strangest targets yet of Russian hacking was revealed, when The Associated Press broke the news that Fancy Bear—the group infamously entangled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election hacks—had also targeted the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Bearded clerics might seem like an odd choice for a group that usually goes after liberal politicians or Russian dissidents. Unknown to most Westerners, though, a global struggle is playing out within the politics of Eastern Orthodoxy, which commands about 300 million believers worldwide. That struggle pits the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church against Constantinople and its apparent support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

With its claim to 150 million members, the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of the 14 mutually recognized Orthodox churches, and its leadership is highly conscious of the church’s imperial past and the fact that it is the only Orthodox church backed by considerable state power today.

Poll: 48% of white evangelicals would support Kavanaugh even if the allegations against him were true

A Marist poll illustrates how white evangelical culture minimizes the seriousness of assault.