Politics

The Israeli-Palestinian issue goes back nearly a century when Britain, during World War I, pledged to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine under the Balfour Declaration. British troops took control of the territory from the Ottoman Empire at the end of October 1917. Large-scale Jewish migration to Palestine began, accelerated by Jewish…

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In 1845, Congress designated the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as Election Day for presidential elections by federal law. Today, we invite you to explore the history of elections in America with resources from the Gilder Lehrman Institute archives! Go HERE for Voting and Election Laws and History. Election Day resources Why the 1876 election was…

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The Happiness Lab [I took this class on Coursera and loved it. Learned a lot, too.] Truth Be Told 70 Over 70 [from an NYTimes article about talking with our elders] Come Through With Rebecca Carroll Hidden Brain [also program on NPR] Sooo Many White Guys This American Life Black Girl Songbook [So good] Fresh Air Resilient Black Women…

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The sovereign citizen movement is a loose grouping of primarily American litigants, activists, tax protesters, financial scheme promoters, and conspiracy theorists, who claim to be answerable only to their particular interpretations of the common law and to not be subject to any government statutes or proceedings unless they consent to them. The sovereign citizen movement is one of the main contemporary…

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“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer – a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.“   Frederick Douglass Every year on this day I make an assessment, from my own perspective, of how much…

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Expert conversations to catch up on from The Brookings Brief Inflation hits a 40-year high. New Consumer Price Index data show that inflation rose to a whopping 8.6% in May. On Twitter Spaces, David Wessel, Justin Wolfers, Jason Furman, and Wendy Edelberg discuss the latest numbers and what might come next. Prefer to read? This summary outlines five key points from the speakers. …

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BY SUSAN FREDERICK-GRAY   JUNE 6, 2022 [Are you a UU? Let me know…] The Public Religion Research Institute recently highlighted an important statistic: nearly all Unitarian Universalists (97 percent) support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQIA+ people. It’s a similar story for reproductive rights—according to the Pew Research Center, 90 percent of Unitarian Universalists (UUs) support keeping abortion legal in all or…

Read More TRANSPHOBIC AND ANTI-ABORTION POLICIES ARE A DIRECT THREAT TO MY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM