Louisiana Requires Ten Commandments

THOU SHALT NOT: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public classroom in the state, making it the only state to do so and reigniting the debate about the separation of church and state.

 The American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation vowed to sue, calling the law “blatantly unconstitutional.” Landry said at a Republican fund-raiser in Nashville, “I can’t wait to be sued,” according to The Tennessean. Yesterday when he signed the law Landry said, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”

  Moses was not a signatory to the US Constitution.

  The law is part of the conservative movement to inject religion, specifically Christian religion, into public life and government.  Christians are also trying to slide in the commandments saying it’s an historical document, not just a religious, one, with influence on American law.

  The mandate includes public college classrooms. The posters must be no less than 11 by 14 inches and the commandments must be “the central focus of the poster” and “in a large, easily readable font.”

  Religion was cast out of public schools when the Supreme Court declared teacher-led prayer to be unconstitutional in 1962. A coalition of organizations issued a statement on the Louisiana law saying, “Our public schools are not Sunday schools and students of all faiths, or no faith, should feel welcome in them.”

HEAVY WEATHER: It’s a week of heat, wind, and fire. That massive heat dome still hangs over much of the country with temperatures today in the upper 80s and 90s from Texas to Illinois and Florida to Maine. 

  Tropical storm Alberto brought heavy rain to south Texas as it moved directly west to hit the gulf coast of Mexico. The storm had sustained winds of 40 mph.

  In New Mexico, wildfires have burned 1400 structures and thousands of acres.

  And over in Saudi Arabia, dozens of people have died in the heat on the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. With temperatures expected to top 113 degrees Saudi officials have issued warnings of the danger.

MOST FOUL: The Boston area is focused on the tabloid murder trial of Karen Read, who is accused of backing her SUV into her police officer boyfriend and leaving him to die in the snow one January night in 2022.

  The cocktail circuit is divided on what story to believe.

  The 44-year-old Read is accused of hitting John O’Keefe after dropping him off outside a housefollowing a night of bar-hopping. She left, returned hours later, and found O’Keefe’s snow-covered body on the front lawn. First responders say she repeatedly shouted, “I hit him.” 

  One police officer testified that Read said, “This is all my fault. This is all my fault. I did this.”

  Now her defense is telling a different story. Her lawyers say she’s being framed, that O’Keefe entered the home owned at the time by a fellow Boston officer who’d been out with the couple and was having a party. They claim that O’Keefe was beaten to death in the basement before his body was moved to the lawn. They also posit that he may have been bitten by a dog inside the house, but no canine DNA was found.

  Read told investigators that she did a three-point turn after dropping off O’Keefe, but she has no idea how her tail light was damaged. Forensic investigators have a good idea how. Pieces of glass and tail light plastic were found near O’Keefe’s body and a hair sample was also recovered from the bumper.

  One friend of Read’s who saw the body removed said O’Keefe’s phone was under his snow-covered body “and it was grass” in the area where he’d been lying. “He was on his back,” the woman said. “He had blood coming out of his nose and his mouth, and his right eye … looked like a golf ball.” 

  The trial and the tales continue.

THE OBIT PAGE: French actress Anouk Aimée, who broke into fame and became an international sex symbol as the sensual star of Claude Lelouch’s 1966 romance, “A Man and a Woman,” died at her home in Paris. She was 92.

  Her refined jawline and sultry eyes defined sensuality. Aimée had already appeared in Federico Fellini’s 1960 “La Dolce Vita,” in which she played a sex-hungry Italian socialite, and Fellini’s 1963 “8 ½”, in which she played a jealous but patient wife. But she was nominated for an Oscar for “A Man and a Woman,”

  Aimée was born as Nicole Françoise Sorya Dreyfus, the daughter of a French actor. She married and divorced four times, her longest and last marriage from 1970 to 1978 to the British actor Albert Finney. 

THE SPIN RACK: Fresh off a grand Soviet style welcome in North Korea, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in North Vietnam firming up ties with another totalitarian government. — New York’s Legislature has passed a bill that will ban social media platforms from using “addictive” recommendation algorithms for child users of computers and cellphones. It’s part of a growing effort to fight cellphone addiction in children. — Two climate activists from the group Just Stop Oil were arrested at the pre-historic Stonehenge in England after spraying orange paint on the stones. “Continuing to burn coal, oil and gas will result in the death of millions,” the group said in a statement. They said the paint is made of corn flour and will wash away.

BELOW THE FOLD: A Republican member of Vermont’s House of Representatives has been caught after repeatedly pouring water into the tote bag of a Democratic colleague. She admitted that her behavior was “most unbecoming” of her position.

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It's Been Said

"Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."

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