Your vote tells us you want to hurt others

Radsci of the Daily Kos community wrote a message to his MAGA brother. It lays out several faults of the MAGA movement, though in a way that is likely to bring a defensive reaction rather than a reconciliation. Here’s a summary of some of what he said with a quote of the conclusion. If you voted for the massive surge of ICE goons and the harm they have done to people and families, you are not a Christian. If you are OK with a Russian asset in the White House who is hurting democracy, you are not a patriot. If you reject science over conspiracies, you are not a critical thinker. If you cheer hollowing out the institutions that counter fraud, you are not a conservative. If you don’t want a woman to pursue a professional life and make her own medical decisions, you are not a man.

The lies you are willing to accept make you a danger to yourself and everyone around you. Thus, you should not be surprised that we don’t want to be around you. That is unlikely to change, because now we know that your biases are even more dangerous than we previously understood. Those biases make you a target. The people stealing from you know how to exploit those biases and thereby manipulate you. Your problems were not caused by (insert name of favorite minority here). They were caused by the people you have been supporting with your votes. A vote for the current regime and its allies goes far beyond “politics”. It tells us that you want to hurt others. It tells us you are OK with destroying a 250-year-old democracy if that means you can hurt even more people who might not look or play like you do. And the entire world knows that this is where at least one third of the U.S. population, a solid core, now stands. That is the real MAGA legacy. Unfortunately, MAGA cruelty is a legacy that will diminish all of us, along with the nation we have cherished, long after the current regime is gone.

The comments to this post include stories of MAGA relatives that are no longer in their lives. I also think this comment got it right. It is from Larks Tongues in Aspic:

The fact that Trump makes you angry and disgusted enough to write this is all the validation your brother needs. His privilege is protected, the people he doesn’t like are getting punished, and liberals are having a sad. He’s getting exactly what he voted for.

Also on a rant is Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos. Bill responded to an article by Tyler Hassen, defined by Bill as a “DOGE Bro” and former “Houston Oil Executive” – the quote marks are by Bill. Hassen’s article defends what DOGE did, though admits it fell short. Bill opens his rant with:

I read your little sob story the other day. The one about how oh boo-hoo-hoo nobody understands what our mission of nobility and patriotic righteousness was when Elon Musk got us all together to streamline efficiencies and blah blah blah.

Bill included excerpts of Hassen’s article that discuss a bit of what didn’t work – things a regular person would have recognized before all the cutting began as not being able to work. These mistakes cost a great deal of money, far different from the claims of saving money. A tweet from Julie Roys caught my interest:

White supremacy doesn’t become Christian just because you attach Bible verses to it. Yet a growing group of pastors are doing exactly that, preaching racism and antisemitism to disaffected young men, building large online audiences, and monetizing the resulting outrage.

The tweet included a link to an article in the Roys Report, which has the tagline, “Reporting the Truth, Restoring the Church.” I went to the article, The rise of the Jim Crow theobros, written by Bob Smietana, a reporter for Religion News Service. The article introduces four of these men. I’m not so interested in who they are and what they say – like the tweet says, they are using the Bible to justify racism, even slavery. They also have requests for donations, subscriptions, and to buy their merch. They do reasonably well in hauling in the cash. I am interested in how, the why, and the consequences. These men have...

wedded old-school segregationist theology from the Jim Crow-era South with the hypermasculinity of the manosphere and the savvy of the attention economy to preach white supremacy, antisemitism and patriarchy, mostly to disillusioned young men on the internet. And along the way, they are turning outrage into cash.

Women engage with social media more than man do. The exception is extreme views. If a guy can attract angry, disaffected men – “they are hyper-tribal, hyper-loyal, they share and engage consistently” – one can build a following. But it is one that needs a constant stream of outrage, increasing bits of red meat. Samuel Sey, a black Christian blogger born in Ghana, says these theobros, as Smietana wrote...

chose ambition and controversy over preaching Christianity. To quote the Bible, he said in a reference to a New Testament passage, they want to gain the world but are losing their souls.

And Sey said:

You can’t keep saying all these things, and therefore there not to be a violent consequence at some point.

Smietana included comments by Jemar Tisby, the New York Times bestselling author of The Color of Compromise. Tisby said:

Redemption is a Bible word that means restoring a people to right relationship with God. But in the hands of white supremacists, redemption meant taking back the country for white people. That’s essentially what this resurgence of racism is about.

Tisby also said the people who believe it are becoming more vocal about it, but they’re unlikely to convince large numbers of people. They’re not effective evangelists of their ideology. Hunter Baker of the First Liberty Institute said for these pastors creating outrage is “almost like a fun activity.” They have a “pre-Christian identity,” rejecting the teachings of Jesus. When I was in high school here in Michigan the big card game was euchre. I don’t remember playing in much in college, but it was a standard game at my big corporate job. The department was all computer programmers (a term replaced with the more trivial “coder”) so at some point someone asked whether the winning partners were because they had been dealt better cards. Someone wrote a program to randomly assign cards to players, their “hands,” and save the assignments so several games with different teams could be played from the same combinations of cards. We showed that different players could have the same hands yet come up with different scores. The players did make a difference. Several years ago I visited a cousin in North Carolina. He attended the same high school I did and frequently played euchre with me and my nephews. He and I tried to teach his son and daughter, then in middle school, how to play. The game didn’t catch on. Part of it was euchre has some mighty strange rules. And part of it I was trying to avoid one particular word. Avoiding it just created confusion. Peter Olandt of the Kos community says many card games, like euchre, bridge, pinochle, hearts, and many more, are based on the idea that each player plays a card in turn, the cards are evaluated, and the person who played the card ranked the highest wins the round or “takes the trick.” More rounds are played until all the cards have been played. Many of these games have a way of declaring one suit – clubs, diamonds, etc. – to rank higher than the other suits. The word for that suit is used across many of these trick taking games. But using that word in this particular political climate can make some people (like me) uncomfortable. So what to call it? Olandt says the word may have come from “triumph” and that could be used. There is also “prestige” or “top.” Commenters proposed: “Prime,” but that has associations with Amazon. There is the Cajun word “atout.” And commenter raboof delights in bidding “no trump.” And with that this post to my blog is the 800th to be tagged with the nasty guy.

I will myself to be happy, therefore I am

My Sunday movie was Indian Horse. It is the story of Saul Indian Horse, an indigenous man. The story opens in 1959 when the Canadian residential school system is still going strong. A similar school system was still in use in the US. At age six Saul’s family tries to protect him from being abducted and sent to a school. But their protection fails. A good chunk of the movie is about the cruelty of the priests and nuns who ran this particular school and all like it – a case of using God to justify oppression. A younger priest suggests building a hockey rink for the older boys. Saul is entranced by the game. He’s given the chore of maintaining the rink and secretly teaches himself to skate and handle a hockey stick. Though he’s not allowed to play because he’s too young, he soon shows he’s as good or better than the older boys. At one point Saul says the only thing they really teach at the school is how to endure. Hockey is how he endures. He’s good enough he is allowed to leave the school and be part of a small town league, then a minor league team with a chance at the majors. There he finds that too many white people think the game is theirs and shouldn’t be open to a native. They makes sure he knows that. This can be a difficult story to watch, but it’s an important one. The actors, including the kids, do a fine job. Overall, it’s a good movie. A few days ago I wrote about a post by Kos of Daily Kos who speculated that Republicans are sufficiently annoyed and tired of the nasty guy that enough would vote to remove him after the Democratic led House impeached him. My friend and debate partner disagreed, saying the chance of Republicans going along with this is “probably zero.” He wrote:

If [removal] did happen, it could accelerate the administration's march to fascism. Otherwise his toadies and sycophants (who lack immunity) face prison. Trump got this boulder rolling; but removing him still leaves it in motion. We need determined, steady effort to brake and break up this horror. That will take teaching and time.

I agree with my friend. Removing the nasty guy puts the vice nasty in power and many have said he is more fascist. At the very least the nasty guy isn’t very smart and is guided by his need to constantly prop up his ego, but the vice nasty is reasonably smart and would be more purposeful in working towards fascist goals. Also, removing just the nasty guy does nothing to curb the power of the billionaires and their hold over the Republican – and Democratic – parties. We’re not out of this threat until their power is neutralized.

The work ahead is for Congress and allies to denounce, investigate, impede, litigate and legislate to contain Trump and his fascists, fiscally starve their programs, slow and reverse the damage and assert a new American devotion to the Constitution, the rule of law, freedom and democracy.

The legislate part faces the nasty guy’s veto. As for the rest so far Democrats haven’t shown much spine in actually doing those things. I hope that when Democrats take over the House (hopefully the Senate too!) they begin the work on all those other things. But that will require a change in party leadership, sidelining all those beholden to billionaires. Will enough progressives be elected to force the issue? That means the breaking up of this horror and the teaching required to do so will have to be done by us. My friend and debate partner ended with:

I'm thinking the $5,000 "promise" is either fraud or bribery. Both are federal felonies. Since the "promise" was made to about 270 million adult US citizens, this amounts to 270 million felonies -- surely a world record! (CNN is my source for the 270 million figure.)

Ooh! I like that reasoning! The phrase “Live, Laugh, Love” now appears on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. NPR's Juana Summers talked with Kristin Kobez Du Mez about her new book Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. The meaning behind the phrase both serves and harms women. The phrase goes back to 1875 and the book The Christian's Secret Of A Happy Life by Hannah Whithall Smith. Essentially, if one aligns their will with the will of God, believes and doesn’t doubt and keeps a positive attitude, then one will become holy and happiness will follow. For women, at least white women, aligning their will with the will of God means totally submitting to the men around them – their husband and their pastor. That will lead to happiness. That didn’t work for Smith either. She had to redefine happiness from an emotion to an act of will, “I will myself to be happy, therefore, I am.” Millions of women are taught they must trust the men, obey, even sacrifice their own well-being. God requires it and they will be blessed. They are taught to defend the authority of those God place over them. That means they have a hard time identifying abuse and certainly won’t speak out against it. The victims that complain tend to get pushed out of the community. This is why they vote conservatively. They are taught to uphold power structures, including authoritarian power. This seems contradictory when these women are immersed in a culture of love and positivity. The logic is that the pure feminine innocence must be protected from evil. That may require violence, but it will be righteous violence. Du Mez also talked about the compassionate conservatism that was popular during the Bush II reign. In the last 10-15 years that has been replaced with the idea that compassion should not be shown to the disobedient to the Christian or American project. We’re not surprised that includes LGBTQ people and immigrants. This ideology is absorbed more readily if women are teaching it. So, women can be out in public and involved in politics, even religion, as long as they stay within the ideology. I listened to this and thought about how women are taught to uphold the hierarchy – with themselves in a lower position – by telling them that God requires it. The God of love is being used to oppress, which is never love. I’ve written many times about Matthew, chapter 25, in the Bible that talks about what God requires of us – love and care for your neighbor as yourself and even the stranger is your neighbor. That’s it. As part of a discussion with my sister I realized Christians are very good at redefining what God wants – obedience and holiness are just a couple of diversions – so that we can avoid caring for our neighbor and still claim to be on the right side of God. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos discussed the nasty guy’s offer to pay $5,000 to every adult if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate.

But I do have a few questions, Mr. President. When you say “every adult citizen”… Does that include the Dumocrats? Does that include the sex criminals? ... Does that include the woke? The LGBTQ? The feminists and pagans? Does that include men with low testosterone and women with their original hair and faces? Does that include Republicans who vote Democrat? Does that include Jimmy Kimmel?

The list includes many more people and categories. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Mitch McConnell made an appearance at the Senate after three months of people wondering whether he had died. The response was mild, though he did fuel a lot of memes. In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a campaign ad from James Talarico, the Democrat trying to win the Senate seat in Texas. He essentially says a member of Congress is supposed to serve the people, not themselves. In the comments rugbymom posted a tweet by the Adam Hamilton campaign. He is a liberal United Methodist pastor (I’ve read at least one of his books) running as a Democrat for the Senate from Kansas and just might flip the seat. The tweet contains a video of Hamilton’s closing argument at a debate at the Kansas state fair against Roger Marshall. The characters of The Wizard of Oz want a heart, a brain, and courage. These are three things Republicans don’t have – their votes show they don’t have a heart, they don’t talk to constituents and don’t understand them showing they don’t have a brain, and they don’t have the courage to stand up to the nasty guy. Hamilton puts his preacher training to good use to lay all this out. In the comments of today’s roundup are a few good tweets and memes. A tweet from Andy Craig:

Great system where the body with the power to declare, fund, and authorize wars can repeatedly vote "we don't approve of this war, stop it" and it has no effect.

A meme posted by exlrrp and from Call to Activism:

The entire Republican Party just let the president try and undermine our Constitution and prevent eligible voters from making their voices heard in this election. The Supreme Court said No F---ing Way. Corruption lost and the law won!

Also posted by exlrrp is a campaign sign:

TRUMP $20.28 per gallon

Three profound misunderstandings in one small Bible verse

Yesterday I wrote about an episode of Rachel Maddow’s show in which she talked about how election deniers who are now election clerks are planning to refuse to certify their county’s election, thus throwing the whole thing into chaos. newusername, the author of the Daily Kos post with the video of Maddow’s show provided an update. Part of the update is that there are groups that are working on this, including Democracy Docket and ACLU. Both need donations. The author provided a link to a post by chloris creator with other ways we can help: Work to win and win big. Also win the Senate and especially the House so that Hakeem Jeffries and not Mike Johnson is Speaker by certification day. Be careful not to vote for election deniers. This post links to a list of those to avoid. In Michigan Voters Not Politicians (the group that brought independent redistricting to the state) is pointedly asking every candidate in every race they can whether they will abide by the results of the election. Be seen and heard before the election with signs and merch. The more such displays are seen the harder it is to buy into the idea the nasty guy won. Speak up against election deniers. If a person denies the election integrity say that we have one of the safest election systems in the world. Offer support to your city, county, and state election officials. Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson talked about being threatened after the 2020 election and how much citizen support meant to her. If you can, be an election worker or a poll watcher. In addition to the ACLU and Democracy Docket donate to State’s United Democracy Center. One of their videos is at the end of this post (alas, it is 50 minutes). Mark Sumner of Kos reported on an interview between the nasty guy and Laura Ingraham of Fox News to explain what he meant when he said we won’t have to vote anymore. It’s quite something when Fox News recognizes a statement’s difficulties and tries to hand a person a ladder to climb out of a hole. It’s also quite something when that person rejects the ladder and digs deeper. I’ve mentioned many times Project 2025, the conservative playbook to turn America from a democracy into an authoritarian state run by them. Thankfully, news about Project 2025 is now being distributed widely. The more people hear about it the less they like it. Even Between the Lines and Pridesource have an article about Project 2025. This one is by Sarah Bricker Hunt and talks about how it calls to get rid of transgender rights, same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian rights, and DEI programs. Hunt reported on other goals in Project 2025: Abolish the Department of Education and severely harm public education in general. End student loan relief. Privatize the weather service, abolish Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, privatize the Transportation Security Administration. Severely restrict Abortion. Leave the Paris Climate Agreement and refuse to do anything about the climate emergency. Overhaul the Department of Justice and FBI to be tools of conservative retribution. Alter the tax structure so the poor pay more and the rich pay less. Cut Medicaid and Medicare and other parts of the social safety net. Describe China as a “totalitarian enemy” to prompt pulling out of World Health Organization and United Nations agencies. Kos of Kos reported that news of Project 2025 is getting such bad press, people were finding so repulsive, that its sponsor, The Heritage Foundation, is shutting down the project. Project 2025 director Paul Dans is resigning. The nasty guy disavowed it a long time ago, though Vance is praising Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for having the foresight to create Project 2025. Kos says don’t believe it. Project 2025 is a blueprint or a roadmap. One doesn’t “shut down” something like that. Also, there is another component, a database of 20,000 conservative minions eager to implement it. That is most definitely not getting shut down. Michael Harriot has a thread in Threadreader about a passage from the Bible that is a warning from God that has long been used as a weapon of hate and a justification for MAGA and similar efforts. The passage is in the Old Testament and found at 2 Chronicles 7:14. Harriot quoted the King James version:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

When Reagan was sworn in as governor of California his Bible was open to that passage. When Pence became the vice nasty he wanted the same Bible opened to that same passage. It was cited in 1793 when a yellow fever pandemic broke out in Philadelphia. The pandemic was blamed on abolitionists and free black people. It was cited as payback when the Confederate Army surrendered and a week later Lincoln was shot. Also shortly after that Confederates loaded 1,800 Union POWs in a steamship. It exploded. It is still the deadliest maritime disaster in US history. It is used to explain segregation, mass shootings, the anti-abortion movement, the anti-LGBTQ movement, and why some church leaders say a second civil war is coming. And a lot more. I got to be thinking about the assumptions that prompt this passage to be so misused. I’m pretty sure the author of this passage (written originally in Hebrew about 3000 years ago) meant by “my people” was especially the country’s leadership, both religious and governmental. Americans see that and assume two things. First is that America is is ordained by God for greatness (all that Manifest Destiny garbage) so “my people” refers to the whole country. Second, they assume that God is not calling themselves to repent. God is calling the rest of the country, everyone but themselves, to repent. This passage (at least by itself) does not define “wicked ways,” so they say they get to. And they define it as those don’t follow their religious teachings, those who permit abortion, and those they label “sexual deviants.” They assume God has ordained a social hierarchy (with themselves at the top) and a wicket person is one that doesn’t uphold that hierarchy or one who refuses their “proper” place low in the hierarchy (see that bit about free black people). Since they defined “wicked” their way I’m going to define it my way – a person who believes in retribution and oppression instead of the love that Jesus teaches and demonstrates, one who works to uphold and enforce a social hierarchy that Jesus consistently teaches we should ignore, undermine, and subvert. The passage says that if people turn away from their wicked ways God will heal the land. It does not say that if people remain wicked God will smite them. So when a ship explodes and kills 1,800 people it should not be interpreted as an action of God against the wicked. It is not payback. I understand the interpretation (though also disagree) that if wicked people are still about then God will withhold his healing and we as a country won’t be as great as it can be. But the passage talks about converting and forgiving, not about killing off. Wow. Three profound misunderstandings in one small Bible verse.

A modern Moses ready for a Red Sea moment

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Daily Kos discussed a congressional hearing held on Tuesday on impeaching President Biden. Democrat Rep. Joe Neguse tried to get Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler to name Biden’s crime. He could not. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley admitted there is no evidence. Peter Doocy of Fox News admited there is no evidence. So, of course: An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the House, on a 221-212 party line vote, authorized an impeachment inquiry. Those Republicans in swing districts voted for it after being assured a vote for an impeachment inquiry is not the same as a vote for impeachment. Democrats were unified in their opposition to the bill. They concede that Hunter Biden has made mistakes, but he is a private citizen and the justice system is already dealing with him (though likely more harshly than they would were he not the president’s son). Kerry Eleveld of Kos wrote:

This impeachment should be embarrassing to Republicans, and yet the bubble of far-right politics has given them the courage of their fact-free convictions. Democrats should thank them. After months of polling showing a tight 2024 presidential contest with whiffs of sagging Democratic enthusiasm for Biden's reelection, Republicans have handed Democrats a base-energizer. Democratic voters will be rightfully outraged that Republicans would launch an inquiry when they have zero supporting evidence despite a year-long investigation into Biden’s supposed misdeeds that turned up squat.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Charles Blow of the New York Times:

Confidence in many of our major institutions — including schools, big business, the news media — is at or near its lowest point in the past half-century, in part because of the Donald Trump-led right-wing project to depress it. Indeed, according to a July Gallup report, Republicans’ confidence in 10 of the 16 institutions measured was lower than Democrats’. Three institutions in which Republicans’ confidence exceeded Democrats’ were the Supreme Court, organized religion and the police. And as people lose faith in these institutions — many being central to maintaining the social contract that democracies offer — they can lose faith in democracy itself. People then lose their fear of a candidate like Trump — who tried to overturn the previous presidential election and recently said that if he’s elected next time, he won’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1” — when they believe democracy is already broken. In fact, some welcome the prospect of breaking it completely and starting anew with something different, possibly a version of our political system from a time when it was less democratic — before we expanded the pool of participants.

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that Russia needs Republicans in order to win. Sumner then reviewed all the things pundits are saying to show Russia will win (so Ukraine should cede that territory and end the war). He also showed why those same things mean Russia isn’t winning. A US Intelligence report says that 315,000 Russian soldiers have died or been injured. That’s 90% of the troops it had when the war started (of course, poorly trained conscripts). Between the personnel (including generals) and equipment losses Russia will spend a generation recovering. Putin has steeply increased the military budget and the draft. He’s doing this only because he refuses to admit defeat. Russia’s capacity to rebuild its military is well below the rate of loss. And it seems Ukraine is better at innovating with drones than Russia is. Even some Russians see there is no victory on the current path. A popular blog suggests Russia freeze the war (though continue to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure) to take two years to rebuild the army, then go after the rest of Ukraine. So don’t believe the claims of Putin – or Republicans. And this is why Putin is investing so heavily in those Republicans. I wrote about the departure of George Santos and Kevin McCarthy from the House. As I did so I wrote about Republicans down to a two-vote margin. I probably didn’t explain it well or accurately. David Nir of Kos Elections has a more complete and better explanation. With Santos gone Republicans have 221 members and Democrats have 213. When all are present and voting if four Republicans don’t support the Speaker then there is a 217-217 tie, which is a loss. When McCarthy leaves that’s 220 to 213 and still four Republican defections mean a loss. Nir works through a few more scenarios – a Democrat who says he’s resigning, another Republican leaving, and Santos likely replaced by a Democrat. If all that happens Republicans can afford two desertions, but not three. John Cole tweeted a cartoon that includes this limerick:

Well, Speaker McCarthy was tryin’ To handle the GOP lion He went for a ride On the lion’s inside With the bones of Boehner and Ryan.

Pennyfarthing wrote that Speaker Mike Johnson is calling himself a modern Moses ready to lead the country through a “Red Sea moment.”

In a recent speech before the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, Johnson said God woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him it was His plan all along to publicly humiliate His faithful servants Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and Steve Scalise so House Republicans would finally be exhausted enough to accept Mike Johnson as their leader. ... Of course, pretending you talk to God is one of the slickest grifts there is, because no one can ever check.

Pennyfarthing then reviews the story of Pharaoh chasing after the Israelites, formerly slaves, Moses parts the Red Sea and the Israelites flee to safety, then the Sea flows together again to drown Pharaoh’s army.

In other words, in Mike Johnson’s parochial, Bible-besotted worldview, lots of bad people need to suffer and die before God delivers his promised “Handmaid’s Tale” utopia. Making Kevin McCarthy look like a drowning Red Sea ferret for nine months was all part of the plan. ... But have no doubt: Johnson and his ilk are deadly serious about remaking America in the idiosyncratic image of their god.

An abortion story has been playing out in Texas over the last week. A Texas Tribune story posted on Kos from a week ago tells the start. Kate Cox was pregnant and at 20 weeks learned the fetus had a chromosomal abnormality that is almost always fatal. But her doctors said Texas law prevented them from doing an abortion. Cox and her husband went to the Center for Reproductive Rights and they sued. Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled that Cox could have that abortion and issued an order allowing her to seek it at a Houston hospital. Sumner took up the story. Immediately after the ruling Texas Attorney General Kex Paxton sent letters to Houston hospitals threatening penalties if they did the abortion. Then Paxton appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. And...

On Monday evening, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision allowing Kate Cox—a woman carrying a nonviable fetus in a life-threatening pregnancy—to seek an abortion. The ruling makes it clear that Texas’ anti-abortion legislation is working as intended, and that no court can provide relief from the inherent cruelty and dehumanization of the Texas law. ... Hours before the ruling was handed down, the Center for Reproductive Rights announced that Cox had left Texas to seek a surgical abortion in another state. Details are intentionally being withheld, out of concern for Cox and her family.

Cox left before the ruling was given because she was running out of time.

The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling shows that Paxton’s inhumanity and malice are not an aberration: They are the intentional result of legislation passed in Texas. The Texas decision calls into question the value of any provision that supposedly extends the option of an abortion to protect the life or health of the woman. It’s now clear that such provisions can be thwarted by intrusive Republican attorneys general arguing that the woman’s life is not under enough threat. The Texas courts have agreed with Paxton. No doctor is going to feel able to provide an abortion, even in an emergency, under these conditions. That a woman should be required to risk her life and her family’s future in carrying to term a child that cannot survive and will live any brief life in abject misery is just what Republicans intended. This is Texas law working as designed. This is what “pro-life” activists celebrated when Roe v. Wade was overturned. This is just what they wanted.

No one elected Elon Musk

Remember in 2015-16 when the media did more than 600 straight days of stories about “her emails”? Of course, you do. And I don’t have to say who I’m referring to. So Mark Sumner of Daily Kos has the 2023-24 version of that: “He’s 80.” Media outlets are pushing that little detail into every story and every headline they can. Sumner wrote:

Biden’s age is a big concern. How do we know this? Because every publication on the planet appears set on telling us it’s a concern. Repeatedly. Biden’s age is the “but her emails” of 2024—the story that the press has decided to make the center of their hand-wringing, sad-faced, deeply somber expressions of apprehension.

There are also polls charting the concern about his age. But they don’t ask if people are concerned that he’s Catholic or he’s a liberal. They ask about his age. And when articles don’t mention his age they do such things as remark about how few events Biden has after 6pm, implying he needs to go to bed real early. Have you heard that Biden is 80? Over the last 18 months of the Ukraine war we’ve heard a lot about General Mud, who can grind action to a standstill in the spring and fall. Well, we’re approaching fall again. And Kos of Kos wrote mud season won’t be much of an issue for the counteroffensive. Mud slows the heavy armor the most. But Ukraine isn’t relying so much on heavy armor and with the pace of the attack the heavy armor can keep up. Another factor is the weather along the southern front, the area to the east of the dried up reservoir where Ukraine is pushing the hardest, doesn’t get as muddy. A third factor is the use of drones and missiles that Ukraine is using to shape the battlefield by destroying Russian equipment. They’re not affected by mud. Sumner discussed the latest about Elon Musk. As background he described how Musk disrupted the auto industry and the space industry, though he had nothing to do with actual designing and building. His SpaceX company disrupted the moribund space industry – and industry little changed since 1962 – by dropping the cost of a launch from $38,800/kg to $2,600/kg. That price differential helped Musk to become rich. It also gave him the opportunity of doing something in space that people wouldn’t consider until the price was 1/15 of what it had been. And what Musk did with that is send up a network of 4,500 satellites to provide high speed internet access to every person on earth, no matter the location, to create Starlink. And we learned what can happen when such an important service is in the hands of one man.

Last week, we learned that Musk personally intervened to cut off communications to areas in Ukraine to thwart an attack that was intended to sink Russian warships docked off occupied Crimea. That attack could have played a significant role in determining the outcome of the war. On Friday, Musk admitted that he took direct action to prevent communications in the area of the attack, which reportedly left Ukrainian drone ships floating helplessly. Some of those ships washed ashore near the Russian fleet and were studied by Russian authorities eager to block future attacks. ... Musk pretends that by preventing Ukraine from using the communications gear they had mostly purchased, that he was refusing to play a role in a military attack. But he played a role. He chose sides. He chose to protect the Russian warships because, he claims, he believed Russian propaganda about a nuclear threat. Musk chose to put his own opinion over not just the strategy, but the lives of Ukrainians. They are still paying for his decision—in blood.

Two months after Musk intervened he announced a Starshield service, featuring additional encryption for classified payloads. But after he showed his willingness to be a one-man arbiter in a war who will trust him? Now that he has close to monopolistic control of space will he also decide which countries he’ll allow into space?

The designs aren’t from Musk, but the ego and the willingness to create chaos certainly is. Right now, his actions have an outsized effect on labor, the environment, government policy, and national defense—for the U.S. as well as Ukraine. He represents a larger threat to national stability, the future of the nation, and to the whole planet than anyone seems willing to realize.

He’s also “a bigoted, racist, transphobic, antisemitic jackass.” In a pundit network for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post:

It is unacceptable that the world’s richest man can, at a whim, turn on and off such a vital communications network. I don’t know what Musk thinks about the possibility that Chinese President Xi Jinping will launch an invasion of Taiwan — though I do know that China is the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles and that Musk is trying awfully hard to sell Tesla automobiles there. I don’t know what he thinks about China’s border dispute with Pakistan or what he thinks about the Middle East. I really shouldn’t have to care. ... Putting men on the moon was an epic national quest, in which we were all invested. Landing humans on Mars is being outsourced to the billionaires. How to deal with the gravest threat to peace and security in Europe since the end of World War II should be a matter for our elected officials. No one elected Elon Musk.

Down in the comments are several cartoons commemorating the 9/11 attacks that happened 22 years ago on Monday. A cartoon by Dave Granlund shows a character with a long beard and rifle and hat that says “Osama.” He is holding a newspaper with the words, “US News...Hate Crimes...Book Burnings...Intolerance.” The character says, “9-11 worked as planned... They act more like us every day!!” Another cartoon, one by Bill Bramhall, fits in with my first topic. It shows the nasty guy holding the sign, “91 felony counts” and Biden holding the sign, “80 years old” and a red hat guy between them pointing to Biden and saying “Unfit for office!” Rachel Martin of NPR has been doing extended discussions on belief in a series she calls Enlighten Me. This past Sunday she had a 15 minute discussion with Perry Bacon. He’s a black man who wrote an opinion piece for WaPo about leaving organized religion and searching for a way back to it. What prompted him to leave was realizing the church he was attending had anti-gay policies. He hosted a small men’s group and one of them explained he could be a member but was not allowed to be a group leader because he was gay. Bacon, who is not gay, figured if a church talked about the importance of Black Lives Matter, that church would also welcome gay people. Bacon checked out a church online and saw nothing. Then he asked the pastor and was told we welcome everyone but won’t do a same-sex weddings. But why was the webiste obscure? Bacon is looking for a place to fit in. He wants a place that doesn’t say much about the theology, instead focuses on being compassionate and caring people. Until he does he takes his daughter to the local farmer’s market every Saturday. They don’t go to shop, but to meet and talk to the same people every week. The people have taken an interest in his daughter and he in their children. He has found a community, though not a church.

Whether the price of these advances was far too dear or a bargain

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported on the latest study into the use of guns. This one is from Rutgers University and shows that

lax gun safety laws leads to more gun violence. ... An increase in concealed carry licenses led to an increase in the number of gun-related deaths the following year.

That means people aren’t using concealed guns to thwart homicides. Rather more guns lead to higher homicide numbers. An increasingly armed society does not make us safer.

Fortunately, more gun-related data became available to researchers after the federal government resumed funding gun-violence research in 2019, over decades-long opposition from right-wing Republicans. The studies all show what was obvious to most of us: Lax gun safety laws and more guns on the streets leads to more gun violence. This proof is what Republicans and Second Amendment fetishists like the NRA want to avoid as they continue to actively try and stop federal funding for these studies.

William Melhado of the Texas Tribune in an article posted on Kos wrote that Baylor University of Texas received an exemption from the US Department of Education over keeping LGBTQ students free from harassment. They argued the university was exempt because otherwise the rules were inconsistent with the university’s religious tenets. Student Veronica Penales was harassed because the is lesbian. She filed a discrimination complaint against the university. The university responded saying because it is a religious university it is exempt from parts of civil rights laws.

“This statement tells me that Baylor cares more about its right to discriminate against queer and other students than it does about the health and safety of its queer and other students,” Penales wrote in her declaration for the discrimination complaint.

Two years later Baylor received notice that its religious exemption includes exemption from sexual harassment prohibitions. Interesting that “in the history of Title IX no other university has requested such an exemption.” Not even Brigham Young in Utah? Hmm. An Associated Press article posted on Kos begins:

Young environmental activists scored what experts described as a ground-breaking legal victory Monday when a Montana judge said state agencies were violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by allowing fossil fuel development. The ruling in this first-of-its- kind trial in the U.S. adds to a small number of legal decisions around the world that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.

From further down the article:

The state argued that even if Montana completely stopped producing C02, it would have no effect on a global scale because states and countries around the world contribute to the amount of C02 in the atmosphere. A remedy has to offer relief, the state said, or it’s not a remedy at all.

Doesn’t Montana mine a significant amount of coal? The judge rejected the idea that Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions are insignificant and that renewables could replace 80% of the state’s fossil fuel use by 2030. Yeah, it will be appealed. Also...

However, it’s up to the Montana Legislature to determine how to bring the state's policies into compliance. That leaves slim chances for prompt changes in a fossil fuel-friendly state where Republicans dominate the statehouse.

My last update of the war in Ukraine must have been at least ten days ago. I say that because I have an article from nine days ago. As I read it again there isn’t much to comment on. In the article Kos of Kos reported that Ukraine took out a couple bridges that connect Crimea to mainland Ukraine. With the damaged bridge between Crimea and Russia this further reduced the amount of military equipment and supplies Russia can get into its occupied territory and to the battlefront. From four days ago Kos, in a post labeled Ukraine update, discussed the Wagner group in Africa. The Wagner Group, under leader Yevgeny Progozhin, led that coup in Russia several weeks ago. They’ve been in Africa quite a long time and their exploits there paid for their efforts in Ukraine. And those exploits?

Before Russia’s Wagner mercenary group became famous in Ukraine, capturing Bakhmut by throwing wave after wave of prisoners against Ukrainian defenses, it was best known for war criming in Africa, violently propping up the most repressive regimes in exchange for mineral gold and diamond rights. With yet another African government falling to a Russian-backed military coup, a regional armed war in Western Africa may soon break out.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the coup in Niger. This reporting adds the deposed leader was one of the good guys and the coup was supported by the Wagner Group.

Russia may be struggling in Ukraine, but Africa has proven fertile ground to advance its interests. And as much as Russia plays on the West’s colonial history, it is Russia that now wants to plunder the African continent’s riches for itself, just as it’s trying to do in Ukraine.

Yesterday, Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that Ukrainian troops are close to pushing Russia out of the villages of Robotyne, Urozhaine, and Pryyutne.

At any moment, there may be an official announcement that these locations have been liberated. But they won’t be—not in any way that makes sense. There is no one living in these villages. There are few if any buildings still standing in any of these locations. ... No one is being saved in Robotyne. No one is going to line the streets to greet Ukrainian soldiers in Urozhaine. There won’t be many scenes of flags being raised over city buildings. But that doesn’t mean this fight is for nothing. Because it’s for everything. ... Ukraine has sacrificed large numbers of both men and equipment to capture Robotyne. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. Not for Robotyne. But if in taking Robotyne, Ukraine has significantly degraded the Russian army and positioned itself to advance on the defensive lines that prevent rapid movement to the south, then sure. It probably was worth those lost tanks, lost fighting vehicles, and even the irreplaceable men and women who died to make that tiny advance. We don’t really know if it was worth it at this point. Ukraine probably doesn’t know, either. What happens next will tell us whether the price of these advances was far too dear or a bargain.

Showed how his beliefs were built upon hate and misinformation

Hunter of Daily Kos reported it isn’t easy writing an obituary for Pat Robertson. And yes, an obituary is appropriate – Robertson died at the age of 93. It isn’t easy because by cultural convention obituaries tread lightly on the worst things a person has done. Thankfully, Hunter didn’t follow that convention. Hunter did note there are no real claims that Robertson was a deeply spiritual man. Which is accurate, because though his Christian Broadcasting Network he was a political voice. So let’s look at the damage. Robertson was the one who turned television into a weapon. After 9/11 he and Jerry Falwell used Robertson’s 700 Club to blame the attack on a long list of progressives, including LGBT people. Robertson also laid blame on Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.

He was a political figure through and through and through. God's enemies were conservatism's enemies were Republicanism's enemies, and that was all there was to it. So when a disaster struck, there was never talk that it was because God was angry at the greed of those who had cut poverty programs to give private jet owners slightly better tax treatment. God never smote those who pressed for less aid to poor children, or towns that treated immigrants with contempt. And when hurricanes hit places where hurricanes usually hit, it was never because God had gotten good and tired of a state's racist gerrymanderings or gun policies. Conservatism's enemies were all the same to him; he could not be bothered to suss out any difference.

Robertson was a bully who as fully in support of keeping straight white Christian men at the top of the social hierarchy. Even worse, he claimed his bullying was at God’s direction. LA Knightlock tweeted a cartoon (creator not identified) with the caption “Freedom of Religion in action.” It shows a person wearing a shirt saying “God loves me not you” and cramming a Bible into the mouth of another.. Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos showing Jesus at the Last Supper. A bit of explanation for my non Christian readers. This is his Passover meal, his last meal before he was arrested, tried, and executed. In the original scene in the Bible Jesus says one of his twelve disciples will betray him, telling authorities a place where they can arrest Jesus. In Luckovich’s version Jesus says:

By your cruelty to LGBTQ+ members, one of you will betray me...

David Hayward tweeted a cartoon showing Jesus saying, “Let’s go love everybody!” and the disciples all thinking “Everybody??” Well, look at that, something not at all surprising... Charles Jay of the Kos community reported Harlan Crow, the sugar daddy for Justice Clarence Thomas, has also been making strategic buys of members of Congress. Crow and colleagues donated to Sens, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the big blocks of Biden’s progressive agenda in the Senate. He also donated to the Unbreakable Nine, Democratic members of the House who were instrumental in sinking Biden’s Build Back Better bill. SemDem of the Kos community discussed New College in Florida and why that appears to be a particular target of DeathSantis. I’ve mentioned the way DeathSantis has been attacking everything that has even a hint of “woke” about it, including education. SemDem also documents how much DeathSantis is doing this for white supremacists. This is his base. And he has been doing a lot. He has banned teaching about race and LGBTQ issues with laws vague enough that teachers self-censure. That came with book bans. Voters approved a measure to restore voting rights to felons, yet the policy repeatedly gets roadblocks (hint: most ex-felons are black). He threatened public universities that have anything associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which is an attack on marginalized communities. A moment now for another Luckovich cartoon. At a press conference there is this exchange between DeathSantis and a reporter:

I’m waging a war on woke because woke is broke and I will make woke croak, no joke... But my question was about climate change...

Back to SemDem’s story. In addition to all that, there have been actual Nazi rallies, complete with swastikas. When asked about it DeathSantis deflects the question. But New College has been under particular attack. He installed six of his cronies on the board, people who had no education experience. They ousted the president. The new prez, a DeathSantis guy, is now being paid close to triple what the last prez got. The board abolished programs that supported minorities, and denied tenure to progressive professors (and since New College is progressive…). Why? It all revolves around Derek Black. He’s the son of Don Black, the grand wizard of the KKK and founder of Stormfront (the website that radicalized Dylan Roof, who murdered nine black victims in a South Carolina Church). Derek is also the son of David Duke. Derek grew up in this stuff and was nicknamed “the heir,” destined to inherit his dad’s empire. And he was all for it, giving speeches just as fiery as his dadn’s. The lad popularized the term “white genocide,” a term that implied if minorities outnumbered whites, “white culture” would be destroyed. Derek wanted to go to college to study medieval history in the belief it would prove European superiority. He convinced his parents to let him go to New College, where one can design their own plan of study in whatever one wants. Yeah, the supremacist heir chose the progressive school. Derek tried to hide his beliefs, but a quick search told other students who he was. They demanded his expulsion. The college refused. A progressive Jewish organization invited Derek to their weekly Shabbat services. Being otherwise isolated, he accepted the offer. And just by being friendly with him he saw the terrible things he had said about Jews weren’t true. Allison Gornick, a fellow student and a Jew who once refused to be in the same room with him, decided to talk to him.

They had similar interests, which they bonded over, and eventually she confronted him about his ideology. She went through point by point to demonstrate how his beliefs were built upon hate and misinformation. She would send academic studies to refute his many beliefs that minorities were inferior due to everything from IQ scores to crime. Through the fights, they forged a strong friendship, and eventually, a romance. ... In 2013, Derek sent a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center that rocked the white supremacist movement to the core, and outraged the hate communities in Florida. The key phrase was this: “I do not believe advocacy against ‘oppression of whites’ exists in any form but an entrenched desire to preserve white power at the expense of others. I am sorry for the damage done by my actions and my past endorsement of white nationalism.” The diversity of the college and their willingness to challenge his ingrained beliefs wound up saving him from a lifetime of hatred. But suddenly his complete denunciation of white supremacy was the top discussion on hate radio and hate chat sites. Instantly, his father banished him from his home. The callers to his radio program were beside themselves with rage. The man they had groomed to be their leader had been “brainwashed” by the libs at New College. Derek, for his part, did not disagree that New College changed him. ... The attack on New College is not just another piece of fodder on DeSantis’ culture war, or another attempt to “own the libs.” It was a deliberate assault on an institution that wounded the white supremacist movement.

Rooting for that economic catastrophe

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has written a letter to Congress saying because of the debt limit the federal government may not be able to pay its bills maybe as soon as June 1 (as in about four weeks from now). House Republicans have passed a bill saying they’ll crash the economy either by not raising the limit or by cutting so much government spending we fall into a recession. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos explored the question of whether Republicans are rooting for that economic catastrophe. So far their election efforts aren’t going as expected. Their policies of banning abortions and books are widely unpopular. Their anti-woke and anti-crime efforts aren’t working. Their presidential front runner is a serial criminal, beholden to Putin, and was soundly rejected last time. Their potential runner-up, DeathSantis, is crashing and burning. There are still painfully frequent mass shootings. And Biden’s reelection rollout was strong, and the war in Ukraine is going well for Biden and the West. Republicans have little to work with. So Eleveld looked at the crashing the economy thing from two sides. From the democracy side, they can pin a crashed economy on Biden to boost their chances in the election. From the authoritarian side a crashed economy is a “shock event” that, if chaotic enough, will make people more willing for an autocrat to step in with an offer of stability. House Republicans have been declaring their intent to hold the economy hostage since January. There was talk back then of a way Democrats could bypass the Republican leadership with a “discharge petition.” Since this process takes a lot of time there was talk that Democrats had better get started. Joan McCarter of Kos reported they did get started and did so very quietly. They are at the point where they need five Republicans to sign on. This still may not work because they don’t yet have any Republicans willing to sign on – the caucus is holding firm – and the rules say a certain amount of time must pass from when they get those signatures. They may not get it done by the time the debt limit is reached. At the end of March Eleveld reported on a new AP/NORC poll that showed 60% of Americans say the government spends too much. But when asked about individual program respondents say the government is spending too little. The top programs, and the percent who say the government spends to little, are: Social Security (62%) and Medicare (58%), health care (63%), education (65%), and infrastructure (62%). That’s more than half of the federal budget. They like cutting in theory, but not in specifics. And certainly not in things that could make a difference in the deficit. I had mentioned something about a Texas law that would mandate displaying a poster of the Ten Commandments in every public and charter school classroom. It’s still only a bill, though it passed the Texas Senate. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported it’s now before a House Committee and they held a discussion about the bill. Republican Rep. Candy Noble is for it. Democratic Rep James Talarico had some important disagreements. Some of his points: The Texas Legislature isn’t following the Ten Commandments – they violate “Thou Shall Not Kill” by continuing to allow the death penalty. And probably several members violate the commandment about not committing adultery. The proposed bill is idolatrous – it prompts people to worship the commandments and not the god behind the commandments. If the Ten Commandments are a foundational document, let’s add the Code of Hammurabi or the Magna Carta. The bill is exclusionary and arrogant – Jesus called those who pray on the street hypocrites. Instead of a bill that will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick, we have a bill to put up a poster. Don’t let the law get in the way of loving your neighbor. And loving your neighbor is the most important law. Does this bill love the Hindu and Budddhist students? Since this bill does not love those students too, it is not a Christian bill. Two weeks ago Mike Stanfill of Raging Pencils tweeted a cartoon of Marjorie Taylor Greene spouting off about what God said. So the cartoon puts up a microphone to hear what God has to say about MTG. He concludes, “And there you have it, because we can pretend Got says stuff too.” Editorial and Political Cartoons tweeted one of a man labeled “GLBT Civil Rights” is being nailed to a cross. The man with the hammer says, “Quit squirming! You’re oppressing our religious freedom!” David Hayward tweeted a cartoon of one person using a Bible to bludgeon another, saying “It’s not me, it’s God’s word!” Hayward added:

People use the Bible and their beliefs to hurt you. They don't think they're being cruel. They think they're being righteous. They think they must sanctify you. But I believe some people love hurting you and they've found a holy excuse to do so. Have you experienced this?

An AP story posted on Kos reported Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey instituted an emergency rule saying any transgender person, adults and children, had to undergo at least 18 months of therapy plus several other requirements before receiving gender-affirming care. Thankfully, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo issued a temporary restraining order to block the rule and scheduled a hearing over the lawsuit challenging the rule. She said the rule was proposed without fact-finding or evidence. Patients would be subjected to immediate loss and damage if the rule was implemented because their care would be interrupted for an indefinite length of time. This rule is different in that it also targets adults. It was also enacted without the legislature debating and passing a law. Anosognosiogenesis tweeted a thread:

The thing about most hate crimes is that the people doing em are 95% of the way to doing them at all times. They don't even notice their level of hate, it's normal to them. A group of guys beating the s--- out of a trans person, could have been stopped with *one* "not cool man"

And that coming from one of the members. But they mostly don’t. The more normalized queer attacks – and sexual assault and racist attacks – become the closer a group of guys gets to the threshold of beating a stranger, and the less effective a simple “knock it off” becomes. The group of guys becomes a timebomb, a coinflip from whether they attack. When it gets to this point there isn’t time for one of them to deescalate. There is time now for one in the group to call off an attack. They rarely do. As the hatred grows by next year there may not be time to call off the attack. In honor of Labor Day, which was Monday for everywhere besides America, Leah McElrath tweeted:

If you support workers, stop using the term “regulations.” That’s the capitalist’s perspective. Refer instead to “protections”—because that’s what they are for the rest of us. We need and deserve worker, consumer, and environmental protections.

Since I have written about regulations as worker and consumer protections I will attempt to comply.

All along the way people handed him the boots and straps

I finished the book I’m Possible, a Story of Survival, a Tuba, and the Small Miracle of a Big Dream by Richard Antoine White. This is the autobiography of the first black man to get a doctorate in tuba performance. White begins his story as a four year old living with his alcoholic mother on the streets of Baltimore. Many times his day starts by searching for where his mother is. He has a list of places he checks. The story shifts when he does that search in a blizzard and his various relatives see this isn’t sustainable. He moves in with his grandparents as his mama gives the usual litany of promises of getting her life together that never happen. It takes a while to realize he’ll be in this house tomorrow, these people will still be here tomorrow, I’ll have plenty of food tomorrow. In elementary school he and a buddy start to play the trumpet. He soon realizes why be the 15th trumpeter out of 25 when he can be the only one on sousaphone. He gets into the Baltimore School of the Arts where sousaphone has to give way to tuba. It takes him a while to figure out there really is benefit in practicing. And once he does – and once he hears the tuba player in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra – he becomes determined to become a tuba player in an orchestra and willing to put in the work to get there. Part of the book is his education, including learning what is involved in winning the audition for an orchestra job. The rest of the book is dealing with being a black man and learning about black history. And once in the School of the Arts, it is being a black man in places were most people are white. At the end of the book White is encouraging black kids to put in the work to escape poverty and be what they want to be. He wrote:

People often hear by story and comment that I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. That’s part of the American myth, after all. But we have to acknowledge that not everyone has boots and straps to pull.

I expected him to add that he pulled himself up by his bootstraps because all along the way people handed him the boots and straps. Though he didn’t say it that way explicitly, he did say it throughout the text: His grandparents took him in, which gave him a family, a secure home, and the chance of better schools. Teachers saw the potential in him and gave him the desire and chance to learn. People helped him buy the next higher quality tuba. People paid for him to go across country to do an audition, though it took several of these before he figured out what he needed to do to get beyond the cattle call. Time and again people gave him the bootstraps, gave him the opportunity to take the next step. Yes, he spent long hours in the practice room and that drive came from within himself. But he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did without the community supporting him. Those who demand we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps also were handed boots and straps at important points in their lives. So let’s make sure people get the bootstraps they need and let’s stop using that myth. I recommend this one. On Wednesday the nasty guy announced a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT was coming. It came on Thursday and Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported on it and the response. What the nasty guy revealed was rather pathetic. It’s a series of trading cards depicting him as various superheroes. They’re sold only as digital images. And only $99! Twitter, of course had a lot of fun with that. My favorite is:

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! My official Myrna Tellingheusen Digital Trading Card collection is here! These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my life & career as executive secretary to Stanley Bogenshoots at Hughes Aircraft! Only $99 each! Would make a Christmas gift.

Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community added that this grift is so obvious and so silly the nasty guy’s own fan base can see it for what it is. Then Pennyfarthing added:

But another part of the announcement should start all our grift-detection antennae a-tinglin’. It’s the bit where he offers one “lucky” worthless-thing purchaser a chance to have dinner with the Real Trump.

The prize appears to be only dinner. The guy who claims to be worth ten billion dollars won’t be paying for travel and lodging. And, “Selling fake e-cards online for $99 a pop is totally billionaire behavior.” As for the dinner... The nasty guy has offered such a prize a few times before. But journalists are never able to get a photo of the winner actually with the nasty guy, never mind eating dinner. One would think the nasty guy would definitely want to publicize the winner. So it is likely the dinner never happened and the prize is a mirage. Fits with what a grifter would do. In a report from the end of November Joan McCarter of Kos discussed the leak from the Supreme Court before the anti-abortion ruling last spring. There is now news of a leak before the 2014 ruling that says a corporation doesn’t have to include abortion care in the health insurance they offer employees. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson are starting to investigate. Which led to this:

The court’s lawyer refused to answer any of the question posed by the lawmakers regarding ethics inquiries in the court that are ongoing or potential, or whether or which justice might have received gifts from their friends in the forced birth group. Instead, he tersely restated Alito’s denial of the allegations and a conflict of interest. “There is nothing to suggest that Justice Alito’s actions violated ethical standards,” Torrey wrote. That’s technically true. Because there is no code of ethical standards that governs the behavior of SCOTUS justices to violate.

Also from the end of November Laurence Tribe of Slate tweeted a link to an article with this:

“Wealthy religious zealots paid big money to pray and socialize with and extract priceless personal favors from Supreme Court justices.” That some justices undisputedly welcomed such outrageous behavior is a huge problem. The leak is the least of it.

Earlier this week Laura Clawson of Kos reported that after the Supremes overturned the right to abortion there would be an effort to overturn the right to contraception. And the road to that has begun.

Alexander Deanda, the plaintiff in Deanda v. Becerra, is “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage,” so he’s arguing that the availability of federally funded family planning services tramples on his rights as a father to control his daughters’ sexuality.

Natthew Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in Texas appointed by the nasty guy, is open to this argument. He hasn’t ruled in Deanda’s favor, but has asked what they want to happen next.

Vox’s Ian Millhiser lays out a litany of problems with Kacsmaryk’s decision here, starting with standing: Deanda is trying to block funding on the argument that his daughters might someday, maybe, possibly seek out these services, knowing they would never get their father’s permission. But since the Supreme Court just heard a case in which a web designer claimed she was being oppressed because of the possibility that if she ever started designing wedding websites, she might be subject to anti-discrimination policies preventing her from refusing to work with LGBTQ couples, “my daughters might someday do something I disapprove of” no longer looks so far-fetched as a legal argument.

Of course, the losing side will appeal. Pennyfarthing discussed a story from Politico saying Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was spotted at a holiday party hosted by CPAC chair Matt Schlapp and attended by many Republican bigwigs. Yes, partying with conservative activists with a vested interest in his decisions is at least ethically questionable. But this behavior appears to be practiced by more than Kavanaugh. Wealthy volunteers were recruited to dine with and entertain conservative justices while pushing conservative positions on abortion, gay rights, gun rights, and other issues. Not surprising the Court’s approval rating is so low. Chitown Kev, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Robin Givhan’s review of the exhibit “Spirit in the Dark: Religion in Black Music, Activism and Popular Culture” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture written for the Washington Post. Here’s part of that quote:

Some religious folks move with breathtaking certainty to fight for laws and rules that always seems to involve making someone else feel less welcome in their school, in their community, in this world. They claim to have the answers to impossible questions. They aren’t so much interested in understanding the nuances and contradictions of theology as they are in carving out a how-to guide for a certain kind of life. They are focused on judgment more than mercy and when they talk about loving the sinner but hating the sin, it’s just a way to excuse themselves for doling out punishment and vitriol and calling it Christianity.

But why are they upset? What right of theirs is under attack? There’s a national Christmas tree, lit for the 100th time, and even the Jewish Second Gentleman attended it’s lighting. There is no war on Christianity, though some Christians claim they’re on the losing side.

People turn to religion seeking comfort and guidance. And surely it provides both. It also helps people find common ground, not by agreeing on everything but recognizing the fuzzy, tenuous nature of our existence — that endless search for meaning that everyone is slowly, plodding toward. “Spirit in the Dark” highlights all the tensions, contradictions and questions religion fosters, many of which have led to some of the country’s most provocative and profound creativity and activism.

In honor of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday, which was yesterday, here’s a 2012 flashmob version of his Ode to Joy, from the end of his 9th Symphony. The orchestra even wheeled a pair of timpani into the town square. Whoever planned this also planned the camera people quite well. Half the fun is watching the crowd – especially the kids – getting into it.

Who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle

Back in 2019 progressives, centrists, and traditionalist of the United Methodist Church met with a professional negotiator to come up with a proposal for splitting the denomination. The main reason for splitting was how LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ pastors, were to be treated. The negotiating team did a pretty good job of creating a plan they all agreed to. Towards the end February 2020 I attended a program put on by the Reconciling Ministries Network, the main group pushing for LGBTQ inclusion, that explained the plan and talked about how it would be presented in May of that year to General Conference, the denomination’s worldwide legislative session that happens every four years. Yeah, GC didn’t happen in 2020. It was postponed to 2022 – and won’t happen. It has been postponed again, essentially combining with the regularly scheduled 2024 GC. Of course, life doesn’t stand still, even in a pandemic. The plan was to allow the progressive side to keep the United Methodist name and the traditional side to create a Global Methodist Church. Individual congregations could decide whether to stay with the UMC or go with the GMC through a defined process. I got word today that RMN said they are withdrawing their support for the separation plan. Their reason is the plan offered a way for the GMC to get started and a particular path for congregations to leave. However, the GMC has already started and congregations are already leaving. That prompted me to review recent articles from the blog Hacking Christianity, hosted and mostly written by Rev. Jeremy Smith. That blog had been quiet for a while, though several articles were written as the starting date of the GMC came close and has now passed. Here is one written by Smith discussing the history of how what became the GMC got started. One bit of this history caught my attention. Back in the 1939 various branches of Methodism reunited. They had split by the Civil War and the question of whether the church should or should not approve of owning slaves. In 1940 the segregationists split to from the Southern Methodist Church. That new denomination didn’t fare so well. So in the 1960s Rev. Charles Keysor started pushing to make the Methodist Church, which became the United Methodist Church in 1968, more conservative. Smith wrote:

Keysor found that rather than separate like the Southern Methodist Church, claiming “minority status” and staying inside the larger organization was a much stronger organizing principle for white people feeling vulnerable after the racial justice efforts of the 1960s. This call for minority empowerment of white men, however, required constant criticism of actual minorities: those of other races and genders.

Keysor decried minority mania in which various minorities understood and proclaimed their faith from the perspective of their minority identity. Smith described the traditionalists creating parallel denominational resources, such as its own publishing house, which siphoned the evangelical spirit from the UMC. Even with their parallel network, the traditionalists pushed the denomination to the right. As in the traditional wing of the UMC, which is becoming the GMC, those on the political right have claimed persecuted minority status. They see white people will commit themselves and their money to any organization that allows them to scapegoat other minorities. An anonymous commenter added that the conservative African congregations will quite likely jump to the GMC. And the GMC, created to draw racist white people, will be dominated by Africans. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported something Republicans don’t want mentioned, that urban areas aren’t the hellholes of gun violence they’re made out to be, that they’re safer than rural areas. When talking about regulating guns, someone will say, “What about Chicago?” This is a claim made because Illinois has gun regulations yet Chicago has this reputation for being awash in guns. A lot of the guns in Chicago come from Indiana – just across the border. Even so, Chicago has a firearm mortality of 13 per 100K. Yeah, that’s higher than the Illinois average of 10.8, but it is lower than St. Clair County, IL which is near 20. And the rates for Louisiana and Mississippi are over 25. New York state just enacted more gun regulations and its mortality rate is 5.3.

Why would that be? Because the rate of gun ownership in New York is 20%, while in both Louisiana and Mississippi, the number is greater than 50%. Illinois is in the middle with 28%. More guns, more deaths by gun.

So why are big cities, like Chicago, thought of as deadly? Cop shows. When talking about Chicago there is usually a reference to “black on black” crime. But gun deaths are more of a white on white crime – a resident of Caspar, Wyoming is more likely to die by gun than a resident of Chicago. The gun violence in cities tends to be more homicides, but in rural areas more die from suicide. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos also looked at the stats for rates of death by guns. He noted the six states most affected by gun violence – Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Alabama, and Alaska are also high in the percentage of adults who live in a household with at least one gun. At the other end of the list: Hawaii with 3.4 gun deaths per 100K and with 8% of adults living in a house with at least one gun. Also, Hawaii has strict gun control laws. Hawaii has a big advantage that Chicago doesn’t have – it’s out by itself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And a long way from Indiana. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that, surprising no one except maybe Senate Democrats, Republicans are making sure the negotiations on stricter gun laws are going nowhere. It seems Republicans aren’t even talking about guns anymore, they’re talking about mental health. Thomas Lecaque, a historian who studies the nexus of apocalyptic religion and political violence, tweeted a gun company has made a gun named the Crusader and has Psalm 144:1 stamped on it. In case you don’t remember your 12th and 13th century history, a crusade is a call to a holy war, and thus a call to murder. And I looked up Psalm 144:1, which says “Blessed be the LORD, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.” I would think it is really strange for a gun company to do that, but they must know their customers. There is a 12-18 month waiting period for this gun. Lecaque added:

But sure the problem isn't the guns it's the lack of Christianity in society... wait. Anyway we should be really worried about how weird people are getting about AR-15 like weapons in this country and the creepy religious language used with them. ... It's the little things too. A company deciding to choose the name "Templar Rifle Company." A black powder manufacturer whose website says everything they do is for God's glory. It's the bullet rosaries sold on Etsy and the comments on them. This stuff is everywhere. ... Once you have decided that guns are the appropriate solution for Christian Nationalism's views on the nation's problems... This is radicalization. And for every "lone wolf" narrative that gets word vomited out every time there is a politically and religiously motivated mass shooting by a white far right Christian in this country, we know better. There is an entire apparatus pushing hate and violence.

He wonders why aren’t we treating this as a call for religious terrorism? Steve Inskeep of NPR discussed the view that Texans need their guns to protect against the drugs and guns being smuggled in from Mexico and carried by refugees. Inskeep talked to Ioan Grillo, a journalist based in Mexico City. Yes, drugs are coming into the US from Mexico. But not guns. The guns are being smuggled from the US into Mexico. And the numbers on both sides are huge. The number of guns may be 200,000 a year or two million in ten years. This quantity of guns fuels the violence in Mexico. A flood of guns into Latin America means the weaker governments can’t handle the violence. That increases the number of refugees. So while guns may not defend against refugees, the guns are causing the refugees. The US has all these guns counterbalanced by a too aggressive law enforcement system. Lalo Alcaraz of the Kos community created a cartoon of a police officer in full gear with several guns in a backpack talking to a frightened teacher gingerly holding a gun. The police officer says “Active shooter is over there. Good luck, teacher!” Sumner has been reporting on COVID ever since it appeared and long before it hit America. In that first deadly wave of the pandemic black communities were hit hardest. That’s because of the usual reasons of health care being less available and of lower quality. Also hit hard were native and immigrant communities for the same reasons. Then the vaccine came out. Black communities struggled to get their members protected. Native communities did too. And it was a struggle. And many white communities rejected the vaccine. Now a New York Times article reports that over the last year the death rate for white Americans has been 14% higher than the black rate and 72% higher than the Latino rate. Sumner concluded:

White Republicans have been worrying about some kind of conspiracy to replace them with Black people or immigrants. It turns out there is such a conspiracy. And white Republicans are running it.

No one is coming to save us

In mid November I wrote about Pastor Craig Duke of Newburgh United Methodist Church in Evansville, Indiana who took part in a drag show as part of the HBO series We’re Here. Though I saw a follow up post three weeks ago I didn’t write about it. Another post brought it to mind (and provided a link). Marissa Higgins of Daily Kos reported that alas, after the episode featuring Duke appeared he was “relieved of his pastoral duties.” His wife resigned as youth pastor. He is living off donations to his GoFundMe page. Higgins reported there was discontent in the 400 person congregation when the episode was recorded in July. Though the congregation seems divided the discontent continued and the church leadership relieved him of duties. He wasn’t exactly fired, though will have to move out of the church supplied house by the end of February. Duke isn’t interested in another pastoral role and is considering building an inclusive camp for youth. Higgins wrote:

Folks connected to the show are calling out the cruelty in action. Shangela [one of the hosts], for example, summed up the situation as Duke basically being “bullied” out of his job because “he is a person who believes in love and acceptance and faith and inclusion.”

On to the good news that prompted me to go back to this bad news. Higgins reported that gay pastor (already a good thing) Aaron Musser of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Chicago did an Advent children’s sermon in drag. He called it “A Dress Rehearsal for Joy.” Higgins wrote:

In a video clip of the service as shared by the Post Millennial, Musser encourages children to gather around before he begins to read from Joy. “Have any of you ever seen a drag queen?” Musser asks the children. “No? So, is it everybody’s first time ever seeing a drag queen? Well, hello. I am also a boy most of the time when I’m here, but today, I’m a girl.” Thankfully, people are heard clapping and making murmurs of affirmation in the background. ... “Today, we consider what it might be like to have a dress rehearsal for the kind of joy awaiting us on the other side of Advent,” Musser wrote following the event, in which he wore a long white dress and a wig. “It’s been so hard to know what that joy will be, because it’s been so long since some of us have been joyful. It’s been a difficult and tiring couple of years,” Musser wrote in a Facebook post following the sermon. “And I decided instead of telling you, ‘This is how I want you to be joyful,’ as we prepare for this dress rehearsal,” he continued. “I figured I would instead put on a dress as so many who have inspired me have done. I decided to follow their example, showing that liberation from oppressive laws clears a path for joy.” Musser added that allowing yourself to feel joy can be “scary,” and that he wasn’t sure how people would react to him in drag.

Comments from the congregation to that Facebook post were mostly supportive. Alas, there were so many trolls he closed comments. Chrislove of Kos, who hosts a monthly discussion of LGBTQ books, wrote that today’s installment was only to ask for writer’s for the coming year. However, he did include a four minute video from Posten Norway titled “When Harry Met Santa.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa died this weekend at the age of 90. A Martinez of NPR spoke to Rev. Michael Battle, director of the Desmond Tutu Center at General Theological Seminary in New York. Some of what Battle said:

Well, I think one of the key things for him was that you have to understand what it means to be human. And he's famous for this concept called ubuntu, which means I am because you are, and because you are, I am. And he understood that just - not just for those that - people that he loved, but he understood that about his enemies, that his enemies are also a part of his identity. And I think Tutu is going to be well-known for that concept of ubuntu and his spirituality. He's going to be well-known for chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, giving the distinction between retributive justice and restorative justice. He's going to be well-known for ecumenism, or inter-religious dialogue, as one of his best friends was His Holiness the Dalai Lama. There's just so many things, I think, that are so profound about the arch. ... Well, you know, apartheid really is a religious worldview. It was a worldview that those who were from the Afrikaner ethnicity understood God was on their side. And so Tutu's brilliance and his genius was to tap into the core of spirituality, that God is not against anyone. And he helped to argue against apartheid spirituality and to get them to see, especially through ubuntu, that they cannot be sufficient human beings without those who - that he - they consider their enemies, as well.

Several news reports have said “the arch” is the common reference to the Archbishop. Back in 2017 I wrote about ubuntu as part of a discussion of the book Sundowner Ubuntu by Anthony Bidulka. It is part of a series that features private investigator Russell Quant of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In this book clues take him to South Africa. While visiting a township a case of camera lenses is stolen. It is ubuntu that prompts the return of the case. Ubuntu means there is an emphasis on community, that we are a part of each other. Community is more important than a position in the social hierarchy. Stealing from the community cannot work. Cleaning out old tabs... Grorgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Barton Gellman of The Atlantic, who wrote that American democracy has a serious risk of ending in 2024 and urgent action isn’t happening.

For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party’s national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.

John Stoehr, as part of an introduction to an article on his Editorial Board, quoted Don Moynihan, a professor at Georgetown University:

The partisan Covid gap is worsening. Research using careful causal designs show that media messaging, in the form of Fox News, is leading Republicans to take the pandemic less seriously, resist vaccines, get sick and die.

Stoehr added:

The midterms are going to be decided by swing voters who can’t or won’t figure out for themselves that the GOP is knowingly killing GOP voters for the purpose of prolonging the pandemic in order to blame the damage done on the Democrats.

I add that the weak response by Democrats at the federal level (Biden) and state level (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan) is making that claim all too plausible. Moynihan’s full thread traced why messaging from Fox News is a big part of the problem.

It's bad that a lot of Americans are dying because they trust the bad public health messaging of Fox and other elites. Even if you don't care about Fox viewers, the nature of the pandemic means we are all in the same boat. Its just that some people are trying to sink it.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

If the GOP—now an overtly white supremacist fascist cult—wrests full control of the United States government, no one is coming to save us. The UK is also at risk. The EU lacks the power, as do states in the Global South. Russia will celebrate. China will exploit the opportunity. We’ve become overly accustomed to analogies involving Nazism and the Third Reich and—implicit in those analogies even if unconsciously so—is a belief that such a force for evil will eventually be defeated within a relatively short time span. That’s simply not the case. None of us can know the future. But I caution against the normalcy bias that has continually served to hasten us along this road as people have denied what is happening before them only to begin to speak out when it might be too late. We are living in an historical flex point.

I’ve been thinking a bit about that short time span. Nazis fell in 12 years. But the dictatorship in the Soviet Union lasted 70 years. And the one party rule in China has lasted 70 years and is tightening its hold (see: Hong Kong). Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, the hosts of NPR’s history podcast Throughline talked to Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project that researches how slavery has affected American History. The year in the title is when slaves were first brought to this country. I was going to quote a bunch of the dialogue, but it was about one host proposing a framework for looking at the Revolutionary War and Hannah-Jones saying that isn’t quite right. So instead of getting the wrong idea stuck in your head, here’s a bit of what she said:

For a long time, historians didn't even deal with slavery in a revolution that was largely led by slaveholders. But you have - for the last 40 years, have had historians who are really trying to excavate the role of slavery. And they have come up with scholarship that says that slavery played a prominent role.

To get more detail one would have to read the book that resulted from the project. Or wait for further research.