You don't get to acquire new wealthy friends

Kos of Daily Kos wrote about Russell Moore, formerly a top official at the Southern Baptist Convention. He’s former because the denomination’s support of the nasty guy did not match his own religious beliefs. His own congregation considers Jesus as too liberal. As Moore explained on the show Main Character of the Day on NPR, which Kos quoted:

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

Yeah, we’re to the point where a whole Christian denomination is rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ, the supposed reason why they exist. They’re more interested in power and domination. Kos also commented on Moore’s discussion of why many, perhaps most, people go to church. It’s for the community. A generation ago the structure of the week was defined by the community. COVID made a big mess of that. And so is a church worshiping the nasty guy, dismissing climate change, and dumping on LGBTQ people. The membership of the SBC is down about 20% since their peak in 2006, from 16.3 million to 13.2 million today. Scott Detrow of NPR spoke with Russell Moore about his new book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America. Some of it repeats the NPR article quoted above. It also adds a few more points. To change the Evangelical church one can’t fight the national institution. One mus start small and local, do something different, show a different way. All movements begin this way. Moore uses the example of C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia. He was an atheist and antagonistic to Christianity, then he converted and became a strong voice for the faith. The next leader of the church may not be Christian yet. Moore appreciated Lewis wasn’t trying to market Moore or to mobilize Moore. He was only saying this is the truth I found. With all the warring tribes in America there are many who feel they don’t fit in. They feel homeless. Moore thinks this tribalism is not sustainable. Moore paraphrased a passage of the Bible: “Beware, if you bite and scratch at one another, that you do not devour one another.” And America is realizing we’re devouring one another. But the church should not be that way. The church should be about reconciling with each other. Since it isn’t we must rethink what church is. In a ProPublica article posted on Kos Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski discussed more research done into the corruption of Clarence Thomas. This is a long article and I’ll try for the highlights. I had written before that Harlan Crow was a sugar daddy to Thomas, providing luxury vacations. But Crow wasn’t the only one providing them. There was also Tony Novelly, Wayne Huitenga, and David Sokol. All four of them met Thomas after he was confirmed to the Supremes.

Don Fox, the former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the senior ethics official in the executive branch, said, “It’s just the height of hypocrisy to wear the robes and live the lifestyle of a billionaire.” Taxpayers, he added, have the right to expect that Supreme Court justices are not living on the dime of others. Fox, who worked under both Democrat and Republican administrations, said he advised every new political appointee the same thing: Your wealthy friends are the ones you had before you were appointed. “You don’t get to acquire any new ones,” he told them. ... Thomas, however, is apparently an extreme outlier for the volume and frequency of all the undisclosed vacations he’s received. He once complained that he sacrificed wealth to sit on the court, though he depicted the choice as a matter of conscience. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay,” he told the bar association in Savannah, Georgia, in 2001, “but it is worth doing for the principle.” To track Thomas’ relationships and travel, ProPublica examined flight data, emails from airport and university officials, security detail records, tax court filings, meeting minutes and a trove of photographs from personal albums, including cards that Thomas’ wife, Ginni, sent to friends. In addition, reporters interviewed more than 100 eyewitnesses and other sources: jet and helicopter pilots, flight attendants, airport workers, yacht crew members, security guards, photographers, waitresses, caterers, chefs, drivers, river rafting guides and C-suite executives. ProPublica has not identified any legal cases that Huizenga, Sokol or Novelly had at the Supreme Court during their documented relationships with Thomas, although they all work in industries significantly impacted by the court’s decisions.

The article then described a trip that Sokol gave to Thomas and his wife Ginni. There were skybox seats at a University of Nebraska football game. Then to his private ranch with wonderful views of the Tetons. Novelly took them to fishing trips through the Caribbean on one of his yachts. Huizinga made his fleet of aircraft available to Thomas, plus parties at his private hangar and golf course – the kind of course that has a helipad. In all these trips Thomas has plenty of opportunity to get to know other rich people. Thomas met Huizinga through the Horatio Alger Society. Thomas did his part by hosting society events within the Supreme Court Great Hall. Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer, called that an abuse of power. Wealthy donors shouldn’t be able to pay big bucks to visit a justice inside the courthouse walls. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Daniel McGraw of The Bulwark. He talked to Ohio voters on why they voted no on the Republican attempt to raise the threshold to approve constitutional amendments.

“It’s not that I expect them to act all nice and friendly while they are attempting to stab people in the back,” she told me. “But in this case, the feeling I am getting is that they thought most people were too dumb to figure out anything and that they could just walk all over all of us as if that is just how this world of politics works.” ... Hardly anyone said they were mainly there to vote because of abortion rights or being anti-Trump. Almost all indicated they felt that Issue 1 was an overreach of the highest order. One guy told me that “this is one of the lowest below-the-belt actions I’ve seen in politics ever.”

Dworkin also included a tweet by Philip Bump. It includes a chart showing that nearly every county in states that had votes to protect abortion rights in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and now Ohio, the support for abortion outpaces support for Biden in 2020. In the comments are a couple good cartoons. Jack Ohman of Tribune Content Agency has one showing the Thomas’s RV – yes, they really have one and frequently use it (when they’re not out on a yacht). Ohman pointed out some unusual features: A political baggage rack, a red carpet, civil rights brakes, a 1950s rearview mirror, and more. Separate from the roundup Clay Jones posted a cartoon in Kos comics that shows Thomas in his RV with a bunch of cigar smokers in the back. He pulls up along side another RV and says, “I’m a common man of the people too... How many billionaire sugar daddies can your RV hold?” In a second roundup Jesse Duquette has a cartoon with Thomas in a fur coat and briefcases full of cash saying, “Ginny, Where’d you park the dark money yacht?” Duquette added the caption, “Clarence Thomas doesn’t have a price, Clarence Thomas is the price.” Back to the first pundit roundup. Way down in the comments is one by Christopher Weyant. A little girl holding a stuffed bear comes into hear parent’s bedroom. Father says, “The planet is on fire, the oceans are boiling, democracy is hanging by a thread, and Trump is still running for president. What kind of scary monsters do you have under your bed?” A couple days ago Walter Einenkel of Kos posted photos of the wildfire devastation of Lahaina, Hawaii. The historic town has burnt to the ground. Reports today, such as this one from the Associated Press posted on Kos say at least 80 people have died. The winds were so strong (a hurricane passing to the south) and the fire spread so quickly many people didn’t have time to evacuate. Biden has declared it a major disaster.