The Boundaries of Responsibility and Accountability on Constitutional Rights

California Dad Kills Kids Over Q-Anon Conspiracy Theory

My knowledge of, respect for and interpretation of the Contstitution's Bill of Rights came from my sixth grade teacher, Edna Smith.  There are some teachers who leave lasting impressions on their students and she was one of them.  She had been raised in South Carolina, before the Civil Rights movement had integrated schools and opened up voting rights to African Americans.  She was one of those people who saw injustice and, because of the circumstances and influences in her life, determined to do something about it.  The nine week long unit in Sixth grade social studies on the Bill of Rights was one of the most memorable school experiences I've ever had.  

From Miss Smith came the concepts of personal responsibility, respect for the rights of others and being accountable for your words and actions, all accompanied by personal life experiences.  Not only did she demonstrate that in the way she operated her classroom, but she impressed it upon us from her personal convictions and life experience.  I learned, not only from her words but also from experience, that earning the respect of others because of the respect and responsibility demonstrated toward them is very beneficial and valuable, and is a key component in realizing your goals and ambitions.  It is "free speech"  exactly the way the founding fathers imagined and intended.   

What our teacher emphasized to us was that having a healthy respect for the rights of others, being thoughtful and taciturn, rather than loud and boisterous, and exhibiting a quality of character that included being honest, was what it meant to be responsible when it came to the exercise of our right to free speech and expression.  Recognizing that everyone else around us, regardless of their race, ethnicity, social status, family income or the size of their house, has exactly the same rights as I have, and respecting their freedom of expression was the principle she passed on to us.  And she told us that if we took that message to heart, and lived by it, it would earn us a measure of respect that would contribute to our success.  She was exactly right.  

So it becomes extremely difficult to put feelings into words when I first read this news story about a California father who took his two children to Mexico and then stabbed them to death, because he believed a lie that came from Q-Anon. Specifically, he believed that his wife had passed along "serpent DNA" to both children, known as the "lizard people conspiracy."  Frankly, the only way I can understand a father doing something like that to his children is that his mental capacity and stability broke down somewhere, because if it wasn't something like that, and he really was acting on a conspiracy theory, then I can't be respectful in expressing my contempt for what he did. And I'm angry about it.  I don't even know them, but there are four lives ruined by stupidity and by some politically motivated idiot who didn't know them either.  Someone should be paying for that kind of callous disregard for the lives of others.    

Contempt for the Intelligence of Those Who Become Your Followers and Supporters

The fact that there are adults who actually believe the lizard people conspiracy, or that Democrats in politics are covering up a vast child-abduction and trafficking ring and are exploiting those they abduct, in some cases committing canibalism by eating their bodies, would be a gigantic joke if not for the fact that there are those who act as if they believe this garbage is true, and their actions put other people in danger.  Anthony Quinn Warner, the guy who detonated a bomb in his RV in the heart of downtown Nashville on Christmas day 2020 was a firm believer in Q-Anon conspiracies.  The consequences of his suicide, which he determined would make him a man that Nashville would always remember, included eight injuries and millions of dollars of structural damage, business closures, lost jobs and wages.  And had he chosen another day and time for his demonstration, the loss of life could have been staggering. 

Many of those who have committed mass shootings in recent years have left behind plenty of evidence of their dabbling in conspiracy theories.  The only evidence left behind to help figure out what are otherwise senseless actions is the fact that most of the perpetrators believed implicitly in some dark, demented conspiracy theory about how mankind is doomed, or that there are humans whose bodies have been taken over by aliens in order to control the world.  The theories almost always have a right-wing perspective, with the behavior of those on the political left, the progressives and liberals, being the ones whose bodies have been occupied by serpents, evil spirits or space aliens.  How convenient is that? 

It is entirely possible that the sources of all of this trash actually do believe what they promote.  But what I find more plausible and reasonable is that this is pure manipulation.  Those who push this, particularly the Q-Anon idiocy, have political power as their goal.  They are counting on the fact that there is little legal accountability for their lies, distortions of the truth and "alternative facts" and that there is a vast audience of people who are gullible, ignorant, and either uneducated, or grossly undereducated, glued to their phone screens and lacking in common sense, incapable of critical thinking.  So those who are behind the conspiracy theories must have a very low opinion of their own followers.  

I don't see this on the political left, among progressives, moderates and liberals, and I have looked for evidence of it.  Q-Anon is clearly built on attacking Democrats and appeals almost exclusively to right wingers.  My theory is that since the political right has offered nothing but obstruction or trickle down nothingness for more than a decade now, this is becoming a necessity in order to motivate their voters. Consipracy theories aimed at people who don't know any better and won't make any effort to find out the truth, and that emphasize being a victim and feeling persecuted for "not thinking like the government wants you to think" have some success in getting people to the polls.  

The Gap Created by Ignorance Fills with Conspiracy Theories

Watching some of the interviews of those who are now facing the consequence of prison time and job loss as a result of their poor decision to participate in the January 6th Trump Insurrection, one of the most common threads in their comments is an almost total lack of understanding of anything having to do with government, the Constitution and its guarantees of individual rights, along with a complete lack of any personal responsibility or accountability.  Even a basic, grade school understanding of how these things work seems to be completely missing. 

The ignorance expressed by virtually all of these individuals is appalling.  We're not talking about people who are mentally incapacitated, or psychologically impaired, we're talking about reasonably intelligent people who live and work all around us.  The proliferation of media and technology has incapacitated the development of common sense in many people.  And it is obvious that most of them missed the point of the part of their education devoted to their history, heritage, and civics.  They don't know what democracy is, or what tyranny means.  And it's completely selfish.  There is absolutely no consideration whatsoever that other people, who hold different perspectives, have the same constitutionally guaranteed rights.  Selfishness is the enemy of democracy.  

We've failed, as a nation, to educate our people in how our particular form of democratic government works.  We've had leaders in both politics and education for most of our history who realized that an educated and informed electorate was the key to the success of democratic government and who have worked to put in place systems which would lead to the achievement of that end.  But here, in the twenty-first century, we seem to have experienced at least partial failure of those systems, enough to create circumstances that have put democracy at risk.  

The gap created by ignorance and lack of education is filled with conspiracy theories. 

Lessons Learned from History

I'm a firm believer in free speech and free expression as essential elements of the human spirit.  So when I see a father murder his children because he got some idea in his head that he couldn't control, or a man who commits suicide and takes the better portion of the center of a city with him, it is difficult to reconcile where the boundaries exist.  Most of them, which we know from experience, depend on most people being reasonable, well informed, able to think critically and most importantly, respectful of the rights of other people.  

It takes generations to change the patterns of ideas.  Racial and ethnic differences are, from my perspective, the most difficult ideas to change.  The law can change behavior, and it provides a measure of accountability.  The father who murdered his children will spend decades in prison, the consequece of his actions.  Those who were the worst offenders on January 6th will also pay for their crimes.  Some are experiencing genuine remorse, and some sort of "awakening" or realization that their thinking was skewed and their actions offensive but most are defending what they did as consistent with being a "patriotic American," because they can't see the truth through the conspiracy theories.  

These people, the January 6th crowd that's being called to account for their crimes, doesn't have a clue about personal liberty and unalienable rights. All they know is what they want and that they think their rights mean that they should have it.  To them, the definition of tyranny is not getting what they want, and having to submit to their political opponents when they win elections and take control of the government.  They have absolutely no idea what tyranny is, so they selfishly apply it to themselves and leave everyone else out of it.  And they have no respect for the lives of anyone else.

Education will only address the information gap.  Common sense, rational behavior, criticcal thinking, these are all things that come from relationships we have with each other.  But with so many people having a closer relationship with their phone than with other human beings, including their parents, extended family and the influences in their lives with whom relationships teach common sense, it is sorely lacking.  That's a dark spirit that has already escaped from the box. 

But education is the one thing we can do something about.  History and Civics should be considered equally important to the skill subjects.  Every student in America should have a social studies class every day of every year they are in school, with four years required for graduation from high school.  And students should have enough working knowledge to interpret evidence which shows that an election was not stolen.  They should also know that defending the constitution as a patriotic American means guaranteeing the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.  That's a cornerstone of American democratic government and it is one of the most important responsibilities of a sitting President at the end of their term.  

Money is the Motive That Drives the Hatred We See in American Politics

Driving from Kentucky to Texas with a broken CD player in the car wasn't fun.  In the days before cell phones and the internet, that meant relying on the radio for entertainment in the car.  But towns large enough to support an FM radio station with decent music are few and far between in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri.  So I settled on an AM station in Poplar Bluff, hoping for Paul Harvey or some middle of the road music until I got closer to a larger place.  That's when I was first introduced to Rush Limbaugh.  

I had no idea who he was, nor did I know at the time that he was a network syndicate based in New York.  I thought he was some Arkansas or Missouri bumpkin who was just mad at the world because he didnt think he was getting his fair share of it.  It did not take long to decide that it was time to change stations.  Even in the early days, he was blaming all of America's problems on "the libs," the government elitists in both parties, but especially in the Democratic party, the women's liberation movement which he labelled with the affectionate term, "feminazis," violating journalistic principle.  He was openly racist, mocking African American accents, associating them with socialism and communism and claiming that any black civil rights move was intended to "take over" the government and turn it into an even bigger welfare state.  

But, you know, you can get away with that sort of thing under the first amendment.  

In an educated, civilized society that is heavily influenced by Protestant Christian values, someone like Limbaugh should have failed to gain enough of a following to attract enough advertisers to his program to pay the bills.  His audience was a niche, a group that, at its peak, numbered about a million and a half people over the course of his two hour daily broadcast.  But unfortunately, there are not quite enough educated, civilized, politically mature Americans to prevent it from generating income to sustain it and to profit its founder, taking him from being a broken-down deejay to a multi-millionaire.  

Unlike some of those in extremist right wing media, I believe Limbaugh really did believe the trash he talked.  His central theme, in virtually every broadcast he ever made, regardless of the political position he took, was hate directed toward those who disagreed.  Anyone who doesn't accept his view of politics is a "lib," and "libs" are the enemy.  That's not just a figure of speech, that's exactly the point he made for all of the years that he was on the air.  The "libs" are the enemy, and they include the "drive-by media," "femi-nazis," Democrats, Rinos, African American and Latino political activists, and the educated.  

And, according to Limbaugh, there can be no compromise with the enemy.  If the liberals aren't in the majority, then the objective is to shut them out and not consider any compromise that would avoid gridlock and bring about beneficial legislation.  In Limbaugh's mind, it was better not to get your own bill passed than it was to do it by compromising with the enemy.  He took every Republican from Bush I to Trump to task on that principle.  

Limbaugh was behind the January 6 insurrection as sure as Trump gave the speech that lit the match causing the isurrection.  No, he wasn't there, but his perspective on politics and his influtence within that far right, extremist fringe of Republicanism certainly was.  

The Prevailing Themes on Which He Build an Audience

What constitutes the defining aspects of being American, in Limbaugh's view, is the predominantly Caucasian society that has developed here as a result of colonization and displacement of the native population.  Of the genocide of Native Americans that resulted from white, European settlement, Limbaugh once said, "What are they complaining about?  They all own casinos."  

So to be an American, as far as Limbaugh was concerned, was to accept and assimilate into all of the aspects of white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant culture because that is the dominant culture in the United States.  America is a land of freedom and opportunity as long as everyone acknowledges that it is built on a Caucasian racial and cultural foundation.  

He saw the racial and social issues that characterize the African American community as their failure to accept and assimilate into the dominant white culture and not the result of literally hundreds of years of discrimination that denied the descendants of former slaves equal opportunity for success.  He claims that "liberal immigration policy" when it comes to allowing immigrants from Latin America into the country are a danger to the preservation of representative democracy, and the propensity for them to fall into old, cultural habits that lead to dicatorships increases as the number of Latin American immigrants increases. Can you believe that?  It was an ongoing theme of his. 

He saw liberals as enemies of representative democracy, believing, or at least widely dissemniating the idea, that they are connected to some sort of "new world order" that pushes racial and ethnic equality and is bent on removing the nationalist "qualities" of being American as a way to bring about this equality.  The "other side," those who are advocating for equal rights under the law, are "the enemy."  In Limbaugh's mind, they represent an illegitimate perspective that should not be protected by free speech, even though they are fellow Americans, and are all the beneficiaries of the same constititionally guaranteed rights. In his view, there can be no negotiation or compromise, because these people are out to destroy what he has defined as being American culture and values.  Limbaugh's America is not a land of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, it is a country where accepting the cultural domination of the majority race is a requirement to bring about a sense of unity as a nation.  In his view, unity can only be achieved when minority culture and political views submit to the majority and assimilate into the culture.  

But, if this really is the America that constitutionally protects individual freedom and believes that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," then acceptance of and assimilation into the majority culture is not only unnecessary, but would, by definition, also be un-American.  That's not liberty, it's a form of racial discrimination.

The Goal is Making Money, Not National Unity

Limbaugh, and the train of wannabee right wing media personalities that have followed along, made a personal fortune off peddling hatred.  It was to their personal benefit, not to the country's benefit, to keep people stirred up, behaving and specifically voting in a way that perpetuates this particular worldview.  As long as they have a following, and are listening to the broadcasts, advertisers are putting up money to keep it on the air.  And they have a paycheck and all the perks that go with it.  

How patriotic is that?  Continuing to foster divisiveness that has people at each other's throats, openly threatening Civil War, believing that fellow Americans are an enemy, instead of just exercising their rights as a citizen to voice a different view, which is the essence of American culture is unAmerican.  It is the ethnic and racial diversity of this country, the fact that people have brought their culture with them and in the United States, have the liberty to live as they choose, speak whatever language they choose and express themselves as they choose, that brings about true unity.  And it's what makes America the great country that it is.  

It is not in the best interests of the United States to keep the bigotry, prejudice and hatred going and growing. it seems to be in the best interests of most of the commentators and personalities of the extreme right wing media. And while you hear debate with facts and opinions from those in the media who are considered favorable to the left, they don't call their opponents enemies and they don't suggest that they shouldn't have the right to free speech or to express themselves by voting.

So How Do We Change This? 

As I said at the beginning, if we had a society in which most people were genuinely educated, in which they understood and practiced the true mission and purpose of their faith, and gathered facts before making decisions, this kind of media would have trouble gathering enough listeners to make a difference  Unfortunately we don't have it, and as long as so-called commentators can make a buck off misinformation and pandering to fear, extremists in the media will have an audience that generates revenue for them.  When Limbaugh started, he was more or less the only national outlet for right wing propaganda, and now he's been followed by several others who more or less have to share the same niche.  Some have not been able to make it financially, since the media outlets that they use also need to make money to stay in business, but it has also led to some of them becoming even more extreme, raising the level of their rhetoric and getting pretty far out there to keep the money rolling in.  That's the pitch that led to January 6th.  

Politically, this gets handled by the right the same way they handle the right to bear arms, taking it completely out of its constitutional context, which includes responsibility, and interpreting the second amendment to mean that you can own any gun you want, as many as you want.  Free speech means you can say anything you want. But inciting an insurrection is not protected free speech under any originalist interpretation of the constitution, and the first step in fighting this is to make sure that arrests, convictions and jail sentences continue to await those who participated in January 6th, along with all of those who promoted and supported it.  Those who were the primary organizers of it, like Steve Bannon and the former President, need to be convicted of the most severe crimes and jailed for long enough sentences to make the point.  A decade would not be long enough.  

There are multiple avenues for spreading falsehoods, conspiracy theories and the hatrred that goes with it.  Those should also be channels for countering it.  I wish I could remember the name of the journalist who used to come on one of the powerful, midwestern AM radio stations at night who picked up on Rush's falsehoods and lies, skewed facts and conspiracy theories, did his research, and countered everything he said with the truth.  I think there were also some "anti-Rush" broadcasts in some of the larger East Coast cities, and in Washington, DC.  It goes against the principles of progressives and liberals to design something that is completely biased, but that may be the only way to limit the effectiveness of for-profit political hate speech.  

Bring Back the  "Fairness Doctrine"

Somehow, the profit needs to be taken out of propaganda.  We're Americans and we should be very good at figuring out how to make propaganda much less profitable while rewarding journalism that is fair and balanced, without violating any free speech principles.  I've heard that a return to the Fairness Doctrine of "free and equal time" requirement that the FCC once had in place, which required broadcast stations to provide free and equal response time to any political statements or programs, would be a good way to accomplish this.  Limbaugh's ability to ramble on for two hours a day would never have been possible prior to the de-regulation of broadcast stations if his network outlets had been required to offer two hours of progressive, liberal programming at prime time as a balance to his show.  

Use friendly venues to promote truth.  California Governor Gavin Newsom made an appearance on The View December 6th and laid out the scientific facts about COVID, the omicron variant and the effectiveness of vaccinations.  From that appearance, news sources had information to cite, including the fact that California has the highest percentage of vaccinated adults in the nation, and as a result, the third lowest positivity rate, and a rapidly declining death rate.  That's a good place to start. The View is the most watched program on daytime television. 

The conservative right in this country constantly claims that it believes in the rule of law.  If that's the case, then the courts need to enforce it.  And that includes in cases where the boundary between responsible free speech and irresponsible subversion are clearly defined.  

Poll Shows Biden Job Approval in December at 50%, Democrats +7 in Generic Ballot Poll

 A Morning Consult poll released December 22 shows Joe Biden with a 50% job approval rating.  The poll was conducted December 2-6 and surveyed 2,200 adults.  An IPSOS poll conducted among I,000 adults December I5-I7 showed Biden with a narrower 48-46 approval lead, but the trend through all the polling data on the President's job approval rating in the month of December has been positive.  Even conservative-leaning polls are adjusting their numbers to within single digit  differences. 

A YouGov poll conducted between December I9-2I, 202I, showed the Democrats with a 43-36 lead over Republicans on the "Generic Ballot" for the 2022 mid-terms.  That poll was conducted among I,300 registered voters.  A John Zogby Strategies/EMI Solutions poll conducted on December I7 involving 777 registered voters, showed Democrats with a 44-40 margin. 

Two separate YouGov polls from December I9-2I showed Trump's unfavorability at 55% and 53% respectively, while his favorability average in both polls was 40%.  The two polls were conducted simultaneously, the first one among I,3I5 registered voters, the second among I,500 adults.  The percentage of both adults and registered voters with an unfavorable opinion of Trump continues to increase since the 2020 election, these two polls, with his unfavorability at +I3 and +I5 are their highest point since just after the January 6th insurrection.  

I did not hear any of this in mainstream media except a couple of references to the generic ballot on MSNBC and a reference to Stacy Abrams doing very well on a couple of the Saturday morning MSNBC programs. It got a spot in the electronic edition of The Washington Post.  Noting that the single, outlier poll last month that showed the President's job approval rating among about 700 adults in the single-day poll was 39%, but that made all three major networks and every commentator on CNN that evening, 

I'm just one blogger, but these are my headlines.  

I Have One Polling Question

Polls can sometimes be deceitful in the way they word the questions and people don't always catch the nuances.  I don't specifically approve of some of the things the Biden administration is doing at the moment.  I'd like to see the justice department get much tougher on the insurrectionists, revive the Mueller investigation and go after Trump on all of the obstruction of justice evidence that it turned up. But I will also vote a straight Democratic ticket on my 2022 ballot.  

My question is this.  We've seen everything there is to see about Donald Trump, including his incompetence, his mental instability, his lack of respect for constitutional law, his corruption, his living outside the law, and just this week, after President Biden acknowledged his role in getting the vaccination process started, he's demonstrated that his decisions are heavily influenced by having his ego stroked.  

Do you really want to elect anyone to public office who thinks that he should run again? 

Author's Note: 

The point here is that the news media has predictably and unsurprisingly grabbed on to what makes sensational, shocking headlines and that's what we see and hear.  Biden is still struggling with job approval ratings, partly because that's how the media works, and partly because his administration, and the Democratic party, are somehow disconnected from getting on top of their own narrative.  There are several media outlets like Fox and Newsmax, that don't follow journalistic principles, but are pro-Republican, anti-Democrat in their approach, in the Rush Limbaugh mold.  The major networks, and CNN, operate under some of the principles of "fair and balanced" journalism, but have to compete for commercial advertising dollars and are driven by extremes at times.  So the Democrats need to greatly expand their propaganda channels or lose support if they don't.   

There's nothing in this post that isn't carefully researched and documented.  It's all accurate.  It's just a very different perspective from the doom and gloom, "Democrats in disarray," falling poll numbers, party in power loses the mid-terms rhetoric that is not really accurate, but appears to be based on the selective choices made when it comes to the question of what to publish.  Those "Democrats in disarray" are just a month away from a cheerleading pep-rally in the house over the passage of bills they are getting through.  

I'm not sitting on my rear any more, watching, letting it happen and throwing up my hands in dismay.  I don't have much at my disposal, but it's all going toward doing everything I can to make sure this country is never faced with a menace like Donald J. Trump or any others of his ilk again.  

What "Tyranny" Is the Extreme Right Talking About?

I'm getting tired of hearing the rhetoric about "tyranny," and about how the Biden administration is "ruining the country."  That's all right wing extremist media hype being pushed by propaganda outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, USA Radio and a list of those diving in to divide up the extremist pie left after the demise of Rush Limbaugh.  \

Where's the Tyranny? 

I would like to see one example of "tyranny" that anyone in the United States has had to endure as a result of Trump's losing the election.  And he did lose it.  Even his own lackeys, the now infamous "cyber ninjas" who illegally gained access to Maricopa County, Arizona ballots bent on proving that Trump really won.  What they found was that there were Trump votes that couldn't be reconciled to the registration records, and that Biden actually won by a few hundred more votes in Maricopa County than were actually certified.  If the ballot boxes across the country were stuffed for Trump like that one county, that could add up to a lot of phony Trump votes across the country.  

Don't worry, I don't believe the Cyber Ninjas had anything to say worth considering.  What I do believe is what the 50 state officials across the country who certified their elections results said were the official ballot totals.  Trump lost, as he describes it, "a landslide."  Well, that's what he said when he won in 20I6 by the exact same electoral margin, though he was three million popular votes short of Hillary Clinton  He was eight million short of Joe Biden this time. 

But, let's get back to the original question.  Where's the tyranny?  What rights have been taken away from you as a result of the Biden Presidency?  And I need to see evidence of something that is on the same level as Americans endured under the British monarchy back in the I700's.  Talk of the infrastructure bill and the spending programs Biden has proposed do not constitute tyranny, by the way.  A majority of Americans are in favor of it, the financing works, we've gotten past the silly Republican arguments about "borrowing from the future," especially since their man in the White House beginning in 20I6 didn't seem to have any problem with it at all.  

So is it the COVID restrictions?  That's not tyranny.  That's common sense, or, in the case of those who think it's tyanny, lack of common sense.  It's an insult to those who did face tyranny and founded this country as a result of it to claim that is "violating my rights."  

The fact of the matter is that President Joe Biden is doing a pretty awesome job as chief executive right now, so much better than his predecessor, who was a total failure, that the contrast makes him look even better.  If you're not happy with the way things are, you will have an opportunity to make a change, in as soon as another year when it comes to Congress and in three years when it comes to the Presidency.  The fact that opportunity even exists is evidence that there is no tyranny happening to warrant any complaints, or threats of violence.  At least, not among Americans who understand how their government works and are genuinely patriotic when it comes to being good citizens.  

Oh, the Irony of It All

For the past three and a half years, my commute home took me west on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago.  Right past the point where it splits with I-94 heading north, there's a footbridge connecting two of the neighborhoods.  For the better part of the year leading up to the election, almost every afternoon during rush hour, a woman named Veronica Wolski, a Q-Anon conspiracy theorist and activist, would hang home-made signs with messages painted on sheets proclaiming some nut job conspiracy theory or another, or some pro-trumpie remark.  

I remember some of the signs.  "COVID-I9 is a HOAX,"  "AX the VAX".  There was something up there every day.  In January, 202I, she posted "Congrats, POTUS."  It was always such nonsense that I paid less attention until September, when I noticed she just wasn't there. Then I read a news feed announcing that protests were launched against Amita Resurrection Medical Center because Ms. Wolski was a patient there, with COVID pneumonia, and was demanding that doctors give her Ivermectin.  They, of course, because doing so was medically absurd, refused.  The signs never returned that September, since Ms. Wolski died in the ICU at Resurrection Medical Center from the effects of COVID-I9 pneumonia, in effect, from a virus she believed didn't exist.  

But there's something to be learned about what's happening in this country now, from a political perspective.  Veronica Wolski originally started her bridge sign campaign in support of Bernie Sanders, because of his stance against the richest I% of Americans literally controlling the economy and acquiring their wealth with government help, the exact sort of thing Trump was doing with his tax policy.  So how do you go from Sanders to Trump?  Figuring that out would be one of the most vital pieces of information the Democratic party could have, going into the 2022 Mid-term elections.  

Chicago "Bridge Lady" Veronica Wolski dies of COVID-I9

January 6th, and the Looming Possibility of Another Similar Event, is a Symptom of a Deeper Problem

The principles of our Constitutional Republic are not a guarantee against violent insurrection.  Historically, there are always those who don't get it, are not interested in getting it, and who put their personal interests and "rights" against those of everyone else.  America is the kind of place where you can isolate yourself, find a place where no one will bother you, or build a niche of other like-minded disgruntled, ignorant, selfish people and live as you please as long as you don't disturb the rights of other people.  

There were Americans who once defined "tyranny" as the taking away of their right to own slaves.  They gave absoutely no consideration whatsoever to the tyranny that their slaves were experiencing, because they did not see them as human beings.  They had to be separated from the wrongness of their thinking by a costly war that set the development of the country, and especially the Southern states, back three generations.  

Those same racist attitudes are still behind the problems we are experiencing now.  Reconstruction abruptly ended in a political deal in I876 when Republicans, desperate to save their White House dominance, were willing to negotiate enough electoral votes to elect Rutherford B. Hayes, the clear loser of the popular vote, by sacrificing all of the progress made toward assimilating five million former slaves into society.  With the legal framework of reconstruction gone, and the Southern states being admitted back into the Union, African Americans once again became second-class citizens unprotected by the constitution.  It would be a hundred years before many of them were allowed to vote.  Take a look at what's happening now and make a comparison.  Potential losers of elections figure that the way to win is to keep everyone from exercising their right to vote. 

In a country like ours, with protected free speech, it is likely that one of our foreign adversities, or even more than one for that matter, are behind at least some of the rhetoric and agitation.  There's plenty of evidence of Russian involvement and a lot of connections between known right wing extremists, white supremacists and white Christian nationalists and the Russian banks and gang bosses who provide financial assistance.  Russia is never mentioned as "the enemy" or even "the adversary" in the extremist right wing press, in fact, some of the Fox people (I won't call them "journalists' because, frankly, they're not) are given to calling Putin, "Vlad the Great."  That seems upside down, but which country in the world stands to gain the most from an America embroiled in a civil conflict, or an outright civil war?  

There was a time when our intellectual resources, including the education that we have provided for our citizens, would be capable of defending the Republic against potential violence and insurrection.  But not now.  Our educational system just hasn't been able to instill respect for government and social institutions like the churches.  There are those who see democracy as inefficient and ineffective and are interested in doing things differently, especially the money interests who now control virtually the entire economy.  

So let's see evidence of real tyranny, before we talk again, OK?  This is my country, and you're not going to trash it.

You Know It Is the Right Thing to Do: Go Get Vaccinated

There is no moral argument against getting a vaccination against COVID-I9.  

What we know about the coronavirus and its variants, the way it mutates and how it spreads does, however, support a moral argument against deliberate refusal to mitigate its spread, which includes refusing to wear a mask, and refusing to get vaccinated.  Those are actions which cannot be defended by the exercise of "constitutional rights" since the danger of COVID is known and the fact that it is significantly more deadly than any other contagious virus means that there is no "right" to claim that protects actions which impact the lives of others.  

Previous actions by government, especially states and municipalities, aimed at mitigating the spread of dangerous, contagious diseases have been upheld as constitutional by the courts, but frankly, if it takes passing laws and having them upheld by the courts to force people to behave in a way that is unselfish and considerate, what kind of morality is that?  This pandemic is a crisis, the evidence for that being that it has, in less than two years, taken the lives of 800,000 Americans, and millions of others around the world, lest we start talking like the only lives that matter are Americans.  

If this is a matter of conscience, which is a somewhat nebulous definition of "morality," then there are some questions that must be answered before individual rights can be determined.  What if someone who has determined that all this "Covid nonsense" is just a way for government to control people, and in their failure to follow protocols, take precautions, wear a mask and get vaccinated, they spread COVID to someone in their immediate family who dies from it?  Shouldn't that be a consideration?  And what if that anti-vaxxer spreads COVID within the community to the point where sick people fill up all the hospital beds, and a family member who needs immediate medical attention for something else dies because they cannot access life-saving medical care due to the hospitals being swamped?  

This pandemic cannot, in any way, be compared to an influenza outbreak or any other contagious, infectious disease.  It far surpasses all of that.  And being ignorant or stupid enough to think that COVID is just an exaggerated government control device doesn't relieve anyone of their moral obligation.  

There are some facts here, established by medical science, based on valid, credible research that has developed to the point where it is capable of informing our ability to mediate the effects of the pandemic.  We know that 

• being vaccinated slows down or prevents the spread of the virus, and that the vast majority of those who are vaccinated are immune.  Even among those who aren't the rates of infection and especially the fatality rates, are exponentially lower than among those who aren't vaccinated, which means that universal vaccination will lead to the eradication of the virus.  
• Wearing masks, combined with social distancing, diminishes the spread of the virus by over 90%. 

So those who wear masks, take precautions and get vaccinated are contributing to the slowing down and eventual eradication of coronavirus.  That's a good thing.  So tell me, then, what's the motivation for refusing to do good? 

Right Wing Political Resistance is Without Explanation or Justification

Selfishness is the exact opposite of Christian practice.  The Bible is full of statements which define the practice of faith as selfless consideration of the needs of others.  The narrative describing the establishment of the early Christian church in Jerusalem following the crucufixion and resurrection of Christ is full of selfless ministry and consideration of the needs of others, to the point where the members of the church sold their property and posessions to make sure that basic needs of food, clothing and shelter were met, especially among those who had the greatest need.  

In the Old Testament, the Levitical law is full of precautions to follow and instructions on what to do when contagious disease was encountered, everything from Leprosy and skin diseases to destructive, dangerous mildew in houses, which required tearing them down and special procedures for removing the remains far from the community to protect others.  

The Apostle Paul equates selfless humility to the attitude of Jesus himself, when he tells the Philippian church: 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...   Philippians 2:3-5, NRSV

There's no argument, except one from ignorance and that's not an acceptable argument, against the communal benefits of having most people vaccinated.  The distortion of the facts and the politicalization of the positions on getting vaccinated is a destructive, selfish evil.  I do not see any motivation behind actions that result in the destruction of human life except to accomplish an evil purpose.  The Christian experience is unselfish and life enhancing.  Vaccinations, and the knowledge required to make them and determine their effectiveness, are part of the common grace provided by God when he created humanity in his image. 

The selfless sacrifice of Christ for all human sin is the very core of Christian teaching.  There is no Christianity, and no church, without it, which makes these words from the Apostle James directly applicable to the current situation.  

As it is, you boast in your arrogance: all such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin."  James 4:I6-I7, NRSV 

I'm not going to make a collective, broad-brush statement since I do know some prominent Christians who are following the dictates of their conscience, based on their faith, and are taking a lead in setting an example and motivating others by reminding them that this is a testimony of faith.  Right wing politics is an obstacle that is defeated by genuine faith.  

Review of the Facts

Persons who are vaccinated against COVID-I9 are far less likely than those who are unvaccinated to come down with the symptoms of the illness.  Even with the newest variant, Omicron, now spreading like wildfire, the percentage of vaccinated individuals coming down with symptoms is less than 5%, as opposed to more than 95% of the cases being among the unvaccinated.  Having had a booster reduces the odds to less than I%.  Hospitalization and death are extremely rare among those who have been vaccinated.  

It is clear that the pathway out of the pandemic, and the eradication of coronavirus and all variants, is via vaccination.  There is research which has produced effective medications that moderate the symptoms and help people recover.  But I don't need to understand all of the nuances of the medical science to understand this:  If I get vaccinated, I am contributing to the greater good of everyone around me.  

Frankly, I don't see getting vaccinated as something that requires much of a personal sacrifice at all, and absolutely nothing that constitutes a violation of someones conscience or personal freedom.  Even if you're afraid of the needle, I still can't think of anything that's being "sacrificed" in the process.  The idea that it is a tyrannical violation of personal liberty is just extremist rhetoric.  It is less of a violation of that than being required to get an emissions inspection in order to renew your car's license plates, like Texas does and profits from, or of having to get a driver's license and have liability insurance in order to operate a motor vehicle.  

Stop being selfish.  Go get your vaccination.  

This is the Rallying Point for Democrats: Winning the Midterms is the New Priority

 I've read all of the political analysis about the 2020 election explaining why Democrats were less successful in some winnable Senate and House races than they were in gaining back the White House. A lot of Republican voters turned out to cast a ballot against Trump, and also voted for their party's candidates for Congress.  That's still hard to grasp in these politically polarized times but there's no question that Trump's inept incompetence, failure, lack of common sense and good judgement and depraved moral character combined to give him higher unfavorable ratings than any other candidate in history, and was the reason he was defeated.  January 6th was the nail that sealed any possibility of a Trump candidacy in 2024 in its coffin.  

The first ten months of the Biden Presidency have been more than we could have hoped for.  The economy is roaring back to life, more than half the country got vaccinated against COVID and legislative progress was made.  You wouldn't be able to discern that from media reports, with the possible exception of MSNBC and Pacifica, but the facts are there to see, though I don't understand why anyone should have to go looking for them. But experience is one thing, what people are talking about can be quite something else.  

I watched Chuck Todd on Meet the Press this morning, and that raised some real questions.  Here's an NBC news journalist who was acting more like a FOX news propagandist as he was almost giddy in pronoucning the end of the Biden administration.  Based on Joe Manchin's appearance on FOX news yesterday, declaring that he's a "No" vote on Build Back Better, the hour was a defeatist disappointment, especially given that he had four guests lined up--Democrats--who he was able to lead and string along to his narrative, even though a couple of them tried to get out of the loop they were in.  

Even though he has been a Trump critic, and lets on like he disdains the GOP at times, taking this position is misleading and extreme.  Yeah, it's about viewers and ratings, which is a darn shame because that takes away from what should be a balanced journalistic approach.  Compared to any previous administration this century, or the last half of the previous one, Biden's first year is evidence of the leadership of a seasoned, accomplished politician who is thriving in the Presidency and under whom the country is measurably better off.  Focusing on what hasn't even become a legislative failure yet is the kind of sensationalism published in the New York Post, and is a disgrace to NBC's credibility.  

Mixed Messages But There Are Still Wake-up Calls

Maybe the mainstream media is engaging in a strategy that is aimed at motivating Democrats and moderate independents, finding ways to make sure that they don't stay home next Novermber.  If that's the case, there are multiple reasons to start thinking in terms of what has to be done to win a large enough majority to support the last two years of this Biden term, and make sure Republicans can't stop elections with bogus claims of fraud.  

To me, it seems that there is far too much widespread acceptance of the status quo, that the party in power in the White House loses seats in the mid-term elections.  First of all, that's a defeatist attitude that limits vision and progress and forces deadlines that wind up costing progress.  That happened with the Affordable Care Act under President Obama, a potential paradigm shift in health care reform that got whittled down and limited by Republican stonewalling and the fear of a mid-term election disaster, which, in spite of the fear, happened anyway.  Now we're seeing the same pattern with President Biden's signature legislation, something that is clearly favored by a majority of Americans across the board.  

I don't get it.  Last year, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won an eight-million vote majority in the 2020 election.  In spite of sputtering results elsewhere among Democrats, including disappointments in Maine and North Carolina, they gained a senate seat in Arizona and two in Georgia, pulling even.  They embarassed the GOP in repelling the effort to recall California governor Gavin Newsom, put a Democrat back in the state house in New Jersey for the first time after Democrats claimed the White House the prior November, and made progressive gains in big city mayor's contests.  

But there's the loss of the statewide offices and state house in Virginia, due to "lack of enthusiasm" among Democratic voters.  The margin of victory for the GOP was slimmer than slim, something that a few days of door to door precinct work might have resolved, but the party has let the media make this the centerpiece of their narrative.  But it was a wake-up call for Democrats, though I think the responsibility for the lack of enthusiasm there rests on Terry McAulliffe.  

The fact that two Democratic senators, Manchin and Sinema, have succumbed to a rush of right wing money that has come with  finding themselves as necessary votes to Democratic party success in the senate is also a wake up call.  Gee, what a surprise that someone who got into the senate as a Democrat is willing to undermine the party platform to feather their own nest with political contributions.  Sinema is discovering that the Democrats in her state have a little more power than she does, but Manchin has bowed to corporate interests in his state.  Neither of them are really a "wake up call" since they got word to the media shortly after the election and made their potential "resistance" to a more progressive Democratic agenda known in order to start reaping early benefits from it.  But it gives Democrats the ability to know what they're up against and time to figure out how to neutralize it.  

Gifts on Silver Platters

It's far too early to start setting up explanations about losing seats in 2022.  The January 6 investigation, which is the gift that keeps on giving, is moving forward nicely and represents what I think is one of the best opportunities Democrats have to expose Republican hypocrisy and duplicity, and achieve a unity of spirit that will win lots of new seats in 2022 for the party, not only in Congress, but in state houses and even in local elections.  Handle the messaging and the narrative well, and do this right, which means we get to watch Trump, Trump Jr, Eric and possibly Ivanka and Jared, along with Bannon, Meadows, Stone, Flynn and the whole gang get marched off to prison, preferably where someone can't break them out, like Guantanamo, and that will bring the kind of turnout among Democrats and independents that will swamp GOP efforts to gain control of Congress.  

Then there's COVID-I9.  Aren't you glad, with this crazy virus mutating and continuing to spike, because stupid idiots have made it political and won't get vaccinated, that Joe Biden is in the White House and not Donald Trump or some other denialist Republican idiot?  Don't count on enough unvaccinated Republicans dying to make a difference in the ballot count, though that could well be a factor in places like Florida, where the numbers of deaths are larger than Republican margins of victory in 2020.  Count on the continued scientific expertise of the people the White House has put in charge of managing this pandemic to achieve success.  And as that occurs, can we count on the media to accurately report and reflect the people's response?  

Count on Me

I continue to remain supportive and willing to do what is necessary to make sure that Democrats win across the board in 2022.  I contribute, having calculated the maximum amount I can give each month, and make sure that goes to the place where it will do the most good.  My senator and congressman, both Democrats, appear to be in good shape, though I keep a close eye on it, but that allows me to donate to those who are in places where they need a little more support.  As it gets closer to the next election, I will give time on weekends to walk streets and knock doors in precincts across the state line in Wisconsin, where the races tend to run closer.  The two precincts where my friends and I worked last year saw a I5% increase in Democratic voter turnout and we like to think we helped with that.  

This blog continues to support Democrats and Democratic causes, and I work to get it into circulation as much as possible.  Readers can help by sharing it to their social media accounts.  The stats show that we are averaging about I,500 hits a month, and while that's not "viral," of course.  If you cite or quote, just say you got it from The Signal Press, and link the url.  I'm not doing this for money or fame, but for a good and worthy cause.  

Still Celebrating Biden's Election Victory Every Single Day

I still remember exactly how I felt on that Saturday morning in November, following the election, when the news outlets made the call that Joe Biden had carried the state of Pennsylvania and had secured enough electoral votes at that point to win the White House.  

I had just walked into the living room where my wife was watching the NBC news coverage.  Of course we had a good idea by then that the news would be good, as Trump's election day ballot lead had dwindled and then evaporated in the tide of mail-in ballots that were slowly but surely being counted and adding up for Biden.  We had previously lived in Pennsylvania and I knew that, under its somewhat antiquated rule that mail-in ballots could not be opened and counted until the polls closed on election day, it would take a while to get the news.  I thought Arizona would announce first, but suddenly, there it was.  

After watching the coverage for a few minutes, seeing celebratory crowds materialize everywhere, and feeling exactly the same way, I cried.  Real tears came, the emotional outpouring of relief, of feeling that the country had been saved from what might have been an irreversible disaster.  That took me by surprise.  But the mood in the living room quickly turned celebratory, just like that among the thousands who were turning out everywhere.  Even in our apartment building, people were gathering with smiles on their faces.  

 Those Same Feelings Are There Every Single Day

The absolute horror of Trump's attempts to subvert the Constitution, bring down the American Republic and fight against what is a cornerstone of American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, has made the celebration since even more sweet.  I knew Trump was not mentally, emotionally or intellectually fit for the Presidency long before we learned that lesson the hard way.  But everything he did between the election and Biden's inauguration is proof that both he and his supporters are dangerous subversives, capable of ruining the country to hang on to power.  Thank God there were some real patriots who saw where it was headed and defeated every attempt Trump made to hang on to power he wasn't entitled to have.  

I get up every morning and thank God that Joe Biden is the President.  In the wake of what was the worst Presidency in all of American history, and the worst administration in the entire history of Democratic goverrnment, the fact that someone competent and knowledgeable of American history and principles with a public servant's heart and a record of service and experience in serving the people, is in charge of the Presidency gives me hope.  

President Biden was selected by President Obama as his running mate because of his experience and knowledge.  Obama observed, took notes and relied on Biden's expertise.  Biden never overshadowed or over-stepped.  And now, it's clear that Obama's approach of not over-reacting to sensational media or hysteria has been passed along.  

Unifying the Country

Joe Biden may be one of just a small handful of individuals with the expertise, knowledge and sense of how the federal government works to lead us out of the divisive, partisan hole into which we've fallen, the product of years of right wing extremism and propaganda from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the intellectually bankrupt automatons at Fox News like Hannity and Carlson, and all the wannabes who follow them with tissues and toilet paper.  There will always be those who thrive on opposition, who hate those who are different enough to want to limit their rights and who just don't know any better because American education doesn't do them any favors.  That kind of selfish bigotry was embodied by Trump who appealed to it and used it for his own political purposes.  It is also the opposite of true American values.  

Unifying the country means pulling together a group of people who know what a Democratic Republic looks like, how it operates and that it is a government "by the people."  Subversives like Trump and his followers will always be around, but they will never be the majority.  We now have leadership that understands this and while the wounds are deep, and will take a a long time to heal.  President Joe Biden is the man who can bring all of that about, over time.  People who understand what the country is all about will eventually get on board.  The selfish subversive Trumpies can either live with it or emigrate to Russia.  

Joe Biden is an old-school Democrat, one of those politicians who recognized the diversity of opinion that existed within government and was willing to work with the "opposition" to get things done.  He sees everyone as having a different perspective but on the same side.  And while there are a few Republicans who see it that way as well, Trump has suppressed and forced that kind of thinking under the table.  I think Biden realizes it would be nice to just go back to a time when you could work with Republicans, but that time isn't now and there are important priorities that need attention.  If anyone can get done what needs to be done, it's President Joe Biden.  And yes, he understands progressives and appreciates, and respects their supports. 

Republican Governors Acknowledge and Compliment Biden's Efforts to Unify the Country

Republican Governors like Greg Abbott in Texas, Rick DeSantis in Florida and the extremist Kristi Noem in South Dakota have all acknowledged the gracious, bi-partisanship leadership of President Biden.  These governors aren't much for words, at least, not on this subject, but--actions speak louder than words.  Each of these governors has affirmed Biden's leadership by accepting the funding coming their way in the infrastructure bill, and they each havev plans to spend the money in accordance with the President's wishes.  In so doing, they have complimented the President and by doing this they are, in their own unique way, acknowledging that his leadership is unifying the country.  

They must be hoping beyond hope that the voters in their state don't pick up on the fact that all of the jobs and benefits provided by this stimulus package are due directly to President Biden's signature pieces of legislation and that only their Democratic members of Congress supported it.  Of course, Biden is making public appearances to make sure that doesn't happen.  I watched Noem's attempt to try to tell her state legislature about how this bill had set South Dakota on its most sound financial footing ever, and what it would be used for without acknowledging that it was President Biden's initiative, or that no Republican vote supported it.  Unfortunately for her, there are several Democratic legislators who are making sure every South Dakota voter knows what Democrats, NOT Republicans, are doing for them.  

A Sense of Urgency

History is never wrapped up in nice packages with the outcome as smooth and certain as it appears after the fact.  When its happening, there is a lot of urgency and uncertainty, and that's why, from our perspective, we can claim that we would have avoided the pitfalls that happened in the past, because we can see what those who were living it at the time could not see.  It would be nice to get past the Trump disaster quickly, with all the problems resolved, the danger gone, the perpetrators, including Trump, in prison.  

There are deadlines, of course.  I, for one, am glad that Biden sets them for his administration.  It shows that he has a sense of urgency as well, though the way they set priorities prevents mis-steps.  The mid-terms are approaching, and with them, the sense of urgency created by the predictability of American politics, the fact that the party in power in the White House always loses seats in Congress in the mid-terms, is a major factor.  But I think that's going to be different this time around. 

In spite of all the doom and gloom, job approval ratings, and polling data, when it comes down to actually casting ballots, Trumpism is still going to be a factor.  Pay a little bit of attention to what's happening on the Republican right, and that may lend itself to the conclusion that it's not all going to slide to the right in 2022.  The most outstanding number in the polling data isn't Biden's job approval or the generic ballot (which, by the way, gives Democrats an overall 7% lead in the congressional races), it's Trump's favorability rating, or lack thereof.  Depending on the polling data, the solid average hovers just above the 60% mark in the "unfavorable" categories with a clear and strong 55% majority having a "strongly unfavorable" opinion.  So while there may be some politicians who see identifying with the orange headed buffoon as an asset, the fact of the matter is that number is going to lead to some defeats, not only in races they've decided to "primary," but in general elections.  The percentage of Republicans who don't view Trump favorably wavers between 12 and 15% consistently.  Losing that much of the party's vote, with the overall voter registration numbers for the GOP shrinking, will cost a lot of marginal Republicans their election.  

With Biden in the Presidency, I'm fully confident that justice will take the right course with regard to those who planned and conducted the January 6 Trump Insurrection, including Trump and members of the House and Senate who are implicated.  If he feels it needs to jump over to the DOJ track, he'll get it there. I am also confident that, for the first time in a while, the party in power in the White House will see its majorities in both houses of Congress grow as a result of the 2022 election.  

Can American Evangelical Christianity Survive Trumpism?

Religion News: America Growing More Secular Each Year.  

People are leaving churches and Christian denominations in significant numbers and there is evidence from research that many of them are doing so because they see churches and church leaders wrapped up in right wing politics and they see churches that seem to be more focused on political ends than on a mission and purpose derived from their theology.  The biggest declines in attendance and participation are among white, conservative Protestants, mostly Evangelicals, among whom attendance and membership has dropped by more than 10% in a decade, and Protestants now account for just under 40% of the total population, a substantial and significant decline since World War 2.  Mainline Protestants now outnumber their Evangelical counterparts, not because they have gained more membership, but because Evangelicals are declining more rapidly.  

RNS: White Mainline Protestants Outnumber Evangelicals

Is the political one-sidedness of many churches and church leaders responsible?  According to Dr. Dave Campbell, Professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame, "Many people turning away from religion do so because they think of religion as an expression of political conservativism, or as a wing of the Republican party.  That's especially true of white Americans.  The more religion is wrapped up in a political view, the more people who don't share that view say, 'That's not for me'."

There are indications in some research that some people who are leaving churches because they're too political are heading into churches that they perceive as being either less political, or where politics are outside the boundaries of the church's mission and purpose and are not inserted into the life of the congregation.  But overall, according to the Pew Survey study cited in the Religion News, the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation is 10 percent higher than it was just a decade ago.  And just for the sake of definition, "religious affiliation" includes all branches of Christian expression, plus Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and all other religions.  Almost 3 in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation at all.  

Membership Decline Among Conservative Protestants is "Significant" 

At one point, during the 1950's, 60% of Americans identified as members of a Protestant church.  In all its various branches and denominations, Protestant Christianity was the primary influence in American culture.  The fact that just under 40% of Americans today identify themselves as either Evangelical or Mainline Protestant, and that less than half of them attend church more than twice a month, is significant.  

The largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, has seen a staggering loss of membership over the past decade.  Southern Baptists went through a roaring, highly animated controversy over some doctrinal minutia, beginning in 1979, a battle ostensibly over belief that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, but in reality more over which faction within the denomination had the power to call the shots.  The real intention of the leadership of the "Conservative Resurgence," as it was labelled, was to bring the influence of the denomination into right wing politics on the side of the Republican party.  

The chief instrument for doing that was the "Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission," an organization led by Bush ally Richard Land initially, when Southern Baptists left the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty back in the early 1980's.  The ERLC leadership passed along to Russell Moore, when Land was booted.  Moore, who is a conservative traditionalist steeped in the culture of Southern Baptists, recognized that Trump was at polar opposite ends of the ethics and morals spectrum of Christian faith, and that Evangelicals would mark themselves as insincere hypocrites at best, for supporting his presidential candidacy. 

The leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, in its zeal to support Trump and the baggage of adultery, immorality, fraud, lying and corruption that goes along with him, became involved in behavior that sounds more like the Mob than a Christian denomination.  You can read about all of that here.

Southern Baptists do about as good a job of keeping track of their membership and statistics as any denomination in the country.  So it is that we know that at its peak, just about a decade ago, over 16 million people belonged to a Southern Baptist church somewhere in one of the 50 states.  And we know that number has declined to just over 14 million this past year, when the churches submitted their information and the count was finalized.  Somewhere, in the past decade, 2.3 million people have left the membership of a Southern Baptist church.  And the fact is, the figure is probably larger than that, because on any given Sunday, pre-COVID, only 5 million of those 14 million members actually attended a church service. 

More than 70% of this decline has occurred since 2016, each year the number drops by a larger figure than the previous year.  And in the quirky way that the membership is tracked, figures from churches that haven't reported for five years are carried over to the current year, just in case the clerk forgot to send the information.  Take out all the churches that haven't reported for five years, and the membership figure drops another 1.2 million.  

Yes, It's the Politics

RNS: McKissic Leads Church out of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention

CRT is just one example of where white Evangelicals are getting it wrong, and losing members as a result of politics.  In this interview with Dr. Dwight McKissic, pastor of the 1,500 member Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, is as clear and accurate definition of CRT as you will find.  What's being pushed among white Evangelicals, by white supremacist and white Christian nationalist groups, is a false, misleading and deliberately misinformed definition and analysis of CRT.  Like almost everything else in conservative politics these days, what's being pushed is a lie, and conservative Evangelical Christians are lying about it and tolerating those who lie.  

Oh, and there's a lot more evidence of the problem illustrated by some of the comments in that article.  It's very clear that the critical comments come from people who have bought the misleading and inaccurate interpretations of Critical Race Theory.  Not a single critical comment comes close to an accurate description of what CRT is or how it is applied.  Not one.  

From a Personal Perspective

I don't go to church to hear someone gripe about how America is going to hell in a handbasket and it is all the liberals' fault.  I got up in the middle of a sermon and walked out of a church four years ago after several openly political remarks were made against then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and a snide, racist statement was made about President Obama.  I was an active member there, so my presence was missed within a week, and I had the opportunity to lay everything out when I was approached about it.  Apparently, I was not the only one, because several former members of the same church were present in the worship services of the church I started attending afterward, and over the course of several months, the group of former members of the old church continued to grow. 

That's saying something about how intolerable the politics have become, because the traditions, style of worship and some of the beliefs of the church I now attend are much different than where I was before, and to see so many former members in the same place, along with "refugees" from other Evangelical churches around us is definitely a statement against politics in church.  I've had to adjust to the differences but it has been worth making the change.  

Moving Forward

When it comes to politics, I doubt very many minds will change at this point.  There's a segment of about 25% of the population that has been brainwashed with phony falsehoods and that seems to be the only way they can manage life and justify their lack of intelligence.  They are present in churches, but they miss most of the points and have turned Christianity into the faith they want it to be.  They are easily manipulated, confuse superstition with reality and are gullible to people who take advantage of them, not just politicians like Trump, but self-appointed leaders in the church, scam artists and people who are power hungry, and who are parasites off the prosperity that is generated by the church.  

Right wing extremism, including white supremacy and white Christian nationalism, have embedded themselves into conservative Evangelicalism and have replaced the gospel of Christ with a gospel that must accomplish its ends by political success.  So while Evangelical churches will very likely keep their political ambitions front and center, their numbers will dwindle as those who are looking for a spiritual experience go elsewhere to find it.  Few Gen X members are found in Evangelical churches these days, and the Millennials are even more scarce, less than 10% of the entire generation is church-affiliated.  In twenty years, you'll still find Evangelical churches, but they will be much smaller, much less prosperous and made up almost exclusively of elderly people.  

Within a generation, the missionary and evangelistic ministries that were rallying points for many denominations will whither, because the money won't be there to support it.  That's already occurring.  Southern Baptists have seen their number of foreign missionaries drop by more than 1,500 in less than a decade, partly because the mission board that oversees them is a financially ineffective operation that overpays executives and underpays missionaries, and partly because the giving is down by half of what it was twenty years ago.  

We are seeing, in Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters and fix the rules to move away from electing government officials, their realization that the power of their constituency is fading fast.  They've shot their own selves in the foot.  Churches with visionary leadership will survive, because that's what visionary churches, labelled as progressive and liberal by their conservative critics, do.  We know from the Biblical record what the "conservative" religious establishment of Judaism in Jesus' day thought of him. Those that pander to politics will decline, disband and die.  Those who remain faithful to a Christ centered mission and purpose, instead of a Republican centered, or Trump centered mission and purpose, will survive and even thrive.  

Using the Christian Faith as a Political Prop is an Insult to Christians

RNS: On Trump's Photo Op at St. John's Church

There's probably nothing from the four disastrous years of the Trump presidency that characterizes his contempt for Christians and disrespect for Christianity more than his walk across Lafayette Park after having it cleared of Black Lives Matter protesters following the George Floyd murder, then posing in front of St. John's Church with someone else's Bible for a photo op.  This story in Religion News Service, with excerpts from Mark Meadow's memoirs indicating the thought process behind the photo, and that it was Ivanka's idea, not only shows that the Trumps know absolutely nothing at all about the Christian faith, but that they have relegated it to a tool that they can use when they want for their own political benefit.  

Everything about the entire incident, from the tear-gassing and violent clearing of legitimate protesters exercising their first amendment rights to freedom of speech out of Lafayette Park between the church and the White House, to chasing Episcopal clergy, whose church was being used, off the property is insulting and disrespectful, denigrating the church's mission and purpose and using it, without the congregation's approval, as a secular political symbol.  Aside from the disparagement of the Christian faith, the move was also an affront to American history.  James Madison was the first President to attend services there, and every President who has served since, regardless of political affiliation, has attended at least one service there, to worship, not to campaign or use it to promote bigotry and racism.

An Unwelcome Visitor

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil.  Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few.  For dreams come with many cares, and a fool's voice with many words.  Ecclesiastes 5:1-3, NRSV. 

I just love the wisdom of Solomon.  This passage is actually inside the Bible that Ivanka pulled out of her purse and handed to Trump before the photo was taken.  It fits this particular situation so well, though there are nit-pickers who will take me to task for applying it here.  It's wisdom from a past time, written by a political leader too, a monarch who inherited his crown with God's blessing, according to the Biblical account.  I'll let the reader decide how and to whom to apply the word "fool." It seems rather obvious to me.

According to Meadow's account in the Religion News Service article, the intention was a stunt, aimed at rallying the Evangelical base of Trump supporters.  However, it did not go over well at all with the Christians who serve and worship in this particular church.  They were not asked if the President could use their church building as a backdrop for a political photo op.  When he crossed the street, the clergy that were on the property were removed, just like the protesters were removed from the park, against their will and their rights (sounds like tyranny to me). 

"The symbolism of (Trump) holding a Bible as a prop and standing in front of our church as a backdrop when everything he has said is antithetical to the teachings of our traditions and what we stand for as a church--I was horrified," said the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.  Rev. Budde had been organizing volunteers to give out water in support of the protesters, many of whom were Christians themselves, following their pastors and ministers to the protests.  

The Right Reverend Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, accused Trump of "using a church building and a Bible for partisan political purposes."  

More Than Just a Little Ironic

At some point during the protests, a fire was set in St. John's Church when someone broke a basement window and shoved a torch into the ceiling, setting a basement classroom on fire.  The fire was put out before doing major damage to the church.  The protesters were mostly peaceful, though as always, there are those who work their way in among a peaceful protest to take advantage of the situation to commit vandalism and looting. But there are also those who infiltrate and do things to undermine the purpose of the protests.  There were multiple arrests of right wingers during the Washington protests. It's perfectly reasonable to think that the fire at St. John's, which did get a lot of attention simply because the building itself is so historic, was set by right wing extremists.   

Episcopalians are not evangelicals, and while I haven't seen any specific information about how they fall politically, I know enough about them to know that only a small minority of them would likely be Trump supporters.  Clearly, the clergy who were involved directly with St. John's Church were distressed about this incident, not just because Trump didn't ask, and because he had their own clergy, who were giving refreshments to protesters, forced off the property, but because they wanted nothing to do with him or his politics and certainly did not want their church associated with him.

And most white Evangelicals, the type that tend to be Trumpies, consider the Episcopal church to be apostate, liberal and un-Christian.  Episcopalians do things that Evangelicals can't tolerate, like ordaining women, gays and lesbians to the clergy, being pro-active when it comes to social and racial justice--in other words, being "woke,"--and they believe climate change is real.  Of course, neither Trump nor Ivanka know enough about Evangelicals or about Christianity to know the difference between a liberal Episcopalian congregation in the heart of liberal Washington, DC or a conservative, Southern Baptist congregation in Mississippi.  

Nor did anyone apparently brief Trump about the translation of the Bible he decided to hold.  According to Meadows, his choice was more about "how it felt" than what it looked like.  But there, on the spine, below the gold "Holy Bible" are the words "Revised Standard Version."  For those of you not well versed in the nuances of Christianity's divisiveness, the intricacies of doctrinal and theological disagreements and the murky paths of heresy among the faithful, the Revised Standard Version is the most commonly used translation by liberal Protestants.  The RSV departs from the biases of the King James Version translators and renders the Greek and Aramaic text more literally, leaving the door open to more "liberal"--to use an overused term--interpretations.  

The fact that Trump did not have a Bible of his own to use speaks volumes to how he feels about the actual faith and practice of the Evangelicals he claims to "love" so much.  They believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible, and it is the sole foundation of their doctrine and theology.  For Trump not to even have a desk copy he could use for a photo op says an awful lot about what he doesn't read.  If it had come out that President Obama didn't have a Bible in his oval office desk, there are Evangelical leaders and right wing extremists in the media who would have claimed that to be evidence of his "secret Muslim faith."  For me, it's just another example of their blatant hypocrisy and it's good for a laugh.

So there's Trump, in a photo op with both racial and religious overtones, standing in front of a liberal, Protestant Episcopalian church, holding a liberal Protestant Bible translation.  Apparently, no one in his entourage noticed these things, or if they did, they were afraid to say anything about it.  

An Insider Knows

When I brought this up in casual conversation to a friend of mine who is both an Evangelical and a Trumpie (or MAGAts as they are now called) the reaction I got was stunned silence.  I could tell he was fishing for some kind of explanation. The initial reaction of dismissal as "liberal media" maneuvering gave way to genuine shock when I pointed out that St. John's Church is liberal, and falls on the left side of the very liberal Episcopalian denomination.  The silence came when we zoomed in on the photo of the Bible and he saw the name of the translation stamped on the spine.  I didn't have the heart to tell him, at that point, that George H.W. and Barbara Bush, and George W. and Laura Bush, regularly attended St. John's during their White House tenure, the latter specifically to hear, and congratulate the Rev. Gene Robinson, the first ordained gay Episcopalian bishop, who was a guest in the pulpit.

So this is sort of a mental speed-bump that probably won't change someone's mind, and it happened long enough in the past to be fading from memory.  I was convinced, long before then, that Trump's only interest in white, Evangelical Christians was how to get them to vote for him in spite of having a reputation and living a lifestyle that they would consider to be "debauchery", and in anyone else, a sign of personal, moral and spiritual depravity.  That they are willing to do what they would criticize anyone else for doing, simply to gain worldly, political power is a sign that, in spite of their rhetoric claiming their beliefs are superior to others who don't share them, they are prone to the same kind of hypocrisy and spiritual failure.  Trump treats them like he thinks they are mindless idiots, and that all he needs to do to tickle their ears is hold a rally and bash the libs.  

For the time is coming when when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.  2 Timothy 4:3-4, NRSV

Chris Hayes Says January 6 was a Coup and Lines Up the Evidence

Chris Hayes, MSNBC: "Yes, it was a Coup" 

Chris Hayes came up with what I consider an award winning piece of real journalism this past week with the story he did entitled, "A Step by Step Breakdown of the Trump Coup Attempt," adding the tag, "Yes, it was a Coup" following.  Hayes lays out the fact that Trump's remaining allies and administrative staff looked for a "link" in the chain of actions in the Constitution's procedures for the peaceful transfer of power to break, which would somehow, someway, allow Trump to remain in the Presidency and somehow, someway overturn the results of a legitimate election.  

They left a trail of documentation, including mountains of social media posts, transcripts of phone conversations, hidden video recordings of intimidation efforts on Trump's behalf by political allies, all pointing like a straight, fast arrow to Trump''s intentions and actions aimed at destruction of the Constitution and the Republic in order to remain in power.  Much of the evidence indicates that neither Trump, nor very many, if any, of his closest allies, believed for a moment that they had actually won the election.  They kept floating that lie out their for their mindless base, but their words and actions are a clear acknowledgement that Trump and his entourage knew they'd lost, big.  

So Where Do We Go From Here

Many Trump supporters are hopelessly blinded by ignorance and buried in false conspiracy theories.  Suffering from a stupor induced by personal prosperity and dulled by a barrage of electronic media entertainment, it could well be that there are not enough Americans concerned about the possibilities here to provide the kind of opposition necessary to support efforts at preventing this sort of thing from happening again.  There are a few Republicans who see what has happened to their party, and who are able to see this for what it is, recognizing that Trump has to be gone before they will recover politically.  If this continues to be put up front and center, it will tilt the balance of voters on the national level, and even in many states, toward Democrats.  

But this has to be an effort that has direction, planning and purpose.  Voter suppression laws that are popping up like sunflowers in the spring need to be nullified.  Voters have to be mobilized and moved to protect the Republic and nullify state laws that are intended to undermine candidates who are serving their constituents rather than demonstrating personal loyalty to a demagogue like Trump.  And it has to be done now. 

I can only imagine what might be in the White House documents that Trump wants to keep from seeing the light of day.  What Hayes put together, from evidence that is already known and has been uncovered, is devastating for Trump.  Those White House archives he is trying to protect by asserting executive privilege he no longer has must be pretty damning for him to go to the lengths to which he is going to try and protect them.  He won't succeed at that. 

Trump is No Patriot, and Neither Are Most of His Followers

There's no tyranny here.  Not by any definition of the term.  Most of Trump's base has been deluded into thinking that they're outsiders and outcasts by a group of right wing media propagandists, starting with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who were interested in lining their own pockets by finding some kind of "niche" market to get corporate dollars handed over to them through advertising.  There's no tyranny from the left, and in fact, given the way the left governs, accepts defeat and lives with it until they get another chance at the ballot box, and still has some old-fashioned notion that compromise is the way to political success, there never will be. 

This is America.  When the political opposition wins, those on the other side accept it and function as a minority.  It's not as complicated as rocket science to figure out how that works.  The other side is not an enemy, unless they make themselves into one and the moderate-to-left in American politics has absolutely never done that.  Tyranny is the restriction or denial of basic rights, in America, guaranteed by the Constitution.  Only the right seems bent on governing by those rules.

There is nothing that the political right can point to as evidence of any denial of rights.  In their imagination, though, in order to buck up what is obviously waning political power and to fight trends that have benefitted the Democrats, they've created conspiracies and made enemies.  They've created their own alternative reality and their propagandists, from Limbaugh to Carlson, have kept feeding the lie and stoking the hatred and bigotry.  Trump embodied it in the Presidency.  That, by definition, makes them subversives, not Patriots.  

With right wing media now becoming apologists for Vladimir Putin, it's not difficult to conclude that he may very well be behind Trump somewhere, and if that's not the case, there's still not much doubt he's figured out how to stroke Trump's fragile ego to get what he wants, which is a United States that is in political turmoil, confusion, and chaos.  His name comes up when the question about who benefits the most from the instability caused in the United States by disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.  Putin is the most powerful Marxist Socialist in the world at the moment, and it's not the left that is cozying up to him, nor is it the left-wing media that's calling him Vlad the Great" and puffing up his image.  

The Importance of Prosecuting The January 6th Perpetrators

You can't make this stuff up.  But it is so embedded in elements of the political right, that it is not likely it can ever be undone.  It's a danger that has to be dealt with and examples must be made of those who were responsible.  If those who are currently in power don't follow through, then they will be just as responsible for what happens as the liars and conspiracy theorists on the right, and the politicians who are more concerned about their political future than about the country or its Constitutional Republic.  There will always be those who hate, who are bigots, whose self-interest defeats patriotism, who think that the world is out to get them and who will follow those who tickle their ears and feed their hatred and fear.  But the will of the people, expressed in the rule of law, must exercise its power and do its job.  

Thank you, Mr. Hayes, for standing up, telling the truth and exposing the danger and evil of the Trump insurrection on January 6th.  Please keep uncovering the facts and telling the truth.  

An Ideological Paradox: Has Right Wing Media Shifted It's Support to Russian Oligarchy?

Washington Post, December 8 by Phillip Bump

It seems that former Communist, and still-Marxist Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has some friends and allies in strange places, namely Fox News "commentator" (sorry, use of the term here is open to interpretation) Tucker Carlson, along with the editorial board at Newsmax think that their buddy, "Vlad" is not all that bad of a guy.  He's just looking out for his own interests while thinking of invading Ukraine and having to run for re-election is tiresome and causes stress.  

That's not surprising since Trump now does most of their thinking for them and his love affair with all things Putin, including not having to worry about losing an election that expresses the will of the people, dictates their position.  So there they are, defending the autocratic, brutal, inhumane leader of Russia, whose political and economic policy is as Marxist as they come, a cutthroat former KGB agent who controls a nuclear arsenal mostly aimed at the United States.  

The Post commentary lays it all out.  

The fact that both Tucker Carlson and Newsmax have an audience at all is due to the appalling failure of our educational system to teach students what it means to be responsible citizens in a Democratic Republic.  It's a failure of social institutions, including the churches which are part of the major branches of Christianity that exist in the United States, to instill the moral values and personal ethics that are evidence of true faith, and the political parties to get their followers beyond personal interests to the greater good.  

Russia, along with China, represents one of the greatest threats in the entire world to the existence of the United States of America.  It is sickening to point out this pathetic drivel that comes from these pathetic, morally-depraved suck-ups who run after Trump with toilet paper and tissues, but at some point there has to be an awareness somewhere that these are subversives who thrive on the stupidity and ignorance of their audience.  

If there are Americans that admire Vladimir Putin, or Kim Jong Un or the Afghan Taliban, both of whom Trump thinks are "good people," then I say they are not American.