Time to Capitalize on the Politics of the Day

The midterm elections are not that far off.  I've determined that there are circumstances that are beyond my control and I'm not going to waste my time worrying about them.  There are people who, no matter what kind of leadership comes from the President, are determined to be oppositional.  Thanks to the extreme right wing media imitators of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the principles that make a democracy work--things like negotiation, compromise, give and take, and independent thinking--have disappeared.  They've been replaced by hatred, mindless loyalty, "alternative facts" which is just a nice way of saying outright lying, and unjustified disrespect for people who hold different opinions and beliefs.  

But, those kinds of people, whom former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called "deplorables," are a definite minority of the population.  Their minds can't be changed, and that's the "base."  There are plenty of people in all of the conservative constituencies who do think for themselves most of the time, who are not driven by hatred or mindless loyalty, who are discerning when it comes to "alternative facts" and who see that democracy thrives on the give-and-take that is required for government to work.  Enough of them were horrified by the actions and words of former President 45 to step back and help President Biden get 80 million votes and win the White House.  

I'm convinced that there are enough of those kinds of people, who aren't on that hard right, to take the present circumstances into consideration before they cast their ballots in 2022, and realize that they can't put the Republicans back in charge.  I like to say this is an election that can be won "on the margins."  Eighty million people cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020, many of them Republicans and conservative independents who were objective enough to be concerned about the incompetence and corruption they'd seen.  January 6th just confirmed, for many of them, that they made the right choice.  

The "politics of the day" are in our favor and I am committed to doing everything I am able to do to help as many Democrats win elections in 2022 as I can.  First, I contribute regularly to the DNC and leave the contribution open to be used wherever they see the most need.  Second, I will use this blog, which gets anywhere from 1,300 to 2,500 hits every month, to promote Democrats running for office and encouraging people to turn out and vote for Democratic candidates.  Third, I already volunteer to make phone calls and help increase voter turnout in one of those "marginal" congressional districts across the state line.  My district, area and state are so blue, you can see the glow in the sky at night. 

So where can we capitalize and what are the issues that are lining things up for Democrats? 

• President Biden's foreign policy has been absolutely outstanding.  The intelligence provided about the attack on Ukraine was right on target, and broadcasting the exact information beforehand was a brilliant strategy that helped the US gain back all the trust that had been lost as a result of Trump's incompetence.  The sanctions are waging an even more effective war against Russia than Ukraine is at the moment.  And while the best news here would be that the Russians withdraw and leave Ukraine to develop into a prosperous European democracy, this  is something that can be used to turn voters out on those margins.  
• There is nothing more I can say about all of the gifts that January 6th keeps giving.  Prosecution of the cases by the justice department in the courts has the potential to eliminate a lot of potential Republican candidates for office, too late to replace or do anything about.  And having all of those crimes right back in front of the voters just in time for the election will be good for Democratic turnout. 
• The economy is booming, unemployment is dwindling, the economy is booming, unemployment is dwindling.  Yeah, there's inflation right now but we can see it starting to resolve as production ramps back up and things get back into place after the pandemic. 
• The infrastructure bill is already starting to produce results.  Even in conservative states, politicians are enjoying finding ways to spend that money.  I've never understood conservative attitudes toward tax dollars, this is our money and spending it on us benefits everyone, including private business.  
• The social issue harping about Critical Race Theory and all of the conspiracy theory garbage is base motivation for far right wing Republicans, but polling data shows that most of that agenda doesn't connect with about 70% of the electorate.  So what does it take to get those 70% to the polls to vote against the politicians who push it?

There are multiple other political issues that should turn voters on the margins toward the left.  There was a major student loan forgiveness that recently occurred, where is the allegedly "left sided" press on that one?  

Turnout wins elections, especially mid-terms and the politics are such that there is plenty for Democrats and Independents that should motivate enough turnout to keep control of Congress and keep moving back toward the liberty provided by our constitutional democracy.  The other side has nothing to offer except obstruction.  I'm going to work hard to make sure Democrats win big in 2022.  

Please join me.  If you read the Signal Press you will find that the themes of the posts here will be dedicated to factual commentary that promotes the candidacy of Democrats running for office at every level.  I'm just an independent blogger, so you can help when you find something here that may be useful in keeping people informed, post a link so that others can see it and we can spread the word.  The major themes will focus on the Biden Administration's achievements and the significant events of the President and Vice-President, their foreign policy, protection of the constitution and representative democracy, the booming economy, the Supreme Court nomination, the January 6th commission including pointing out the corrupt Republicans who were involved in the Trump Insurrection, arguments which are aimed at turning Evangelical and conservative Christians toward Democrats and away from the corrupt GOP, and debunking all of the social issue myths and misconceptions of the GOP and Evangelicals.  Here's the link.  The Signal Press

You will never see, on this blog, a statement conceding that "the party in power always loses seats in the midterm."  I'm committed to doing my part to change that.  

I also volunteer to help register Democratic voters in a marginal district across the state line in a battleground state, and I contribute as much as I can afford every month.  I will do whatever I can to secure a Democratic majority in Congress and to keep this administration moving forward and making progress.  Let's make a difference!

Not Walking Back: Real Presidential Leadership from a Real President

Sometimes it seems like the media in this country sounds like a bunch of chattering magpies.   They all use the same terminology, the same themes, and report the same news without much variation.  

After the President's Warsaw speech, in which he inserted nine words and made a clear, firm statement that expressed exactly how he feels about what Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine, the media terminology started to come out.  I heard "walking back" to describe Secretary of State Blinken's remarks attempting to explain exactly what President Biden meant by the remarks and I heard the word "gaffe" applied to the President's words themselves. 

Baloney. 

On MSNBC's Morning Joe program yesterday (3/29) Joe Scarborough really did a great job of putting the whole statement in its perspective.  He was one of a few journalists who took the President's remarks at face value.  Well, Scarborough has been around long enough, has enough experience and knows how bi-partisan politics work.  He's also been around for most of Joe Biden's career in politics and he knows him, who he is, how he operates, what he thinks.  And he thinks President Biden didn't mince any words in expressing himself.  

It was not a gaffe, certainly not one of the kind of "off the top of his head" remarks that Trump came up with every time he held a microphone in his hand, making himself look confused, contradicting what he'd said before and demonstrating his ignorance.  Nor was it the first time, looking back, as Scarborough pointed out, that a President of the United States has talked tough to Russia, or about Russia.  The President was sending a message.  And you can bet it was clearly received.  There's no need for anyone to try to walk this back and the President has made that very clear.  

So much for Republican talking points about this President being "weak."  

No NATO Alliance Without President Biden's Leadership

The support that President Biden has rebuilt among our NATO allies is the result of his years of experience in foreign policy, his grasp of the way things are right now, especially with Russia and Putin, and his reputation for his past work that the leaders of NATO countries have either seen first-hand, or know by reputation.  The involvement of the United States was crucial to getting sanctions at a level that has crippled and devastated the Russian economy in just a month.  The President's Warsaw speech, on top of everything else he has done, is the icing on the cake.  Those nine words say an awful lot, not only about how the President feels about what's happening, but they also put Republican criticism of his "weakness" in the trash bin.  This is neither a weak President, nor a demented one.  

And the same cannot be said about his predecessor.  

If Trump had remained in office, there would be no sanctions.  He wanted to throw out the ones that were in place from Putin's invasion of the Donbas and Crimea, but was prevented from doing so by constitutional limits on his powers.  The Europeans, who are much closer to the Russian threat than the United States, would very likely have gone ahead with sanctions of their own, but without the power of the world's largest economy behind them, would have not had anywhere near the devastating effect that they have produced.  Pulling this alliance back together is a critical move in preserving liberty and representative democracy in the world, and Trump wasn't interested in doing that at all.  The question wouldn't be one of Ukrainian resistance and survival, it would have been which Eastern European democracy was Putin going to destroy next.  

Putin Must Still Be Defeated in America

I haven't heard any of the media talking heads actually ask a Ukrainian, especially one of the refugees, what they think about the seditious Trump insurrection of January 6, 2021.  The answer might prove to be too embarrassing, especially with the images of the destruction occurring in Kharkiv, Kiyv, Mariupol, and other Ukrainian towns and cities.  Americans, who live in liberty, trying to subvert their own constitution and fighting against the votes and the will of the people, would not make sense to most Ukrainians, many of whom still remember what life was like under the Soviet Union.  

Putin's fingerprints were all over that January 6th Trump insurrection.  That violent insurrectionist mob was fighting against everything that the Ukrainians are now fighting for.  Maybe seeing the images of Ukraine's ruined cities, and the refugees flooding into Eastern Europe will get not only Democrats, but all Americans moving to make sure that everyone who was associated with the planning and conducting of that Trump insurrection is brought to justice.  We can't afford to be apathetic or indifferent, or afraid of the inflated balloon of "political consequences."  We're providing weapons and money to help the Ukrainians get Putin out of their country.  We need to provide the incentive and put the pressure on our politicians to get him out of ours.  

President Biden was right.

The "Freedom Convoy" Falls Apart; Accomplishes Nothing

https://www.politicususa.com/2022/03/27/dc-trucker-convoy-falls-apart-as-their-leader-runs-away.html

Here's a key quote from the article:

"The group has no leadership, no goal, and no plan for an actual protest.  They are a group of angry Trump supporters hanging out and marinating their resentments. The truckers should realize they have the freedom to go home. They have accomplished nothing but peeing themselves, assaulting bikers and driving in circles.

The protest that the Republicans thought would mobilize voter anger at Democrats and give them momentum heading into the midterms has been a dud." 

Peeing their pants?  Yep.  As you read that Politics USA article, click those links for explanations.  The tweets are very entertaining.  I think, in much of the rhetoric coming from the tweets and other social media comments of those involved, and some of their supporters, you can see exactly why the protest failed.  Ignorance reigns supreme among this group.  Driving in circles around the Capitol Beltway has not yet achieved their goal, whatever it was.  The numbers of truckers and vehicles necessary to achieve their goal, whatever it was, never materialized and now many of them, including the leader, are leaving.

They got the idea from the Canadian truckers who clogged up downtown Ottawa for a while and made a nuisance of themselves.  Of course, their protest did nothing except make a lot of people in Ottawa angry.  It did not get a single COVID mandate repealed.  It made Canada's Prime Minister even more popular, and conservatives less so.  

And politically, as the Politics USA article says, this has been "a dud."  I think there are several reasons for this.  First of all, the main reason given for this whole convoy idea was to protest COVID mandates.  Almost all of the mandates are from states, not the federal government, so trying to make that kind of change by clogging up traffic in Washington, DC is pointless.  None of them are permanent.  They are all aimed at reducing the death rate and the infection rates of a pandemic and as they have succeeded in doing so--and their success can't be denied factually and scientifically--and as the pandemic wanes, the mandates have been lifted.  Why protest something that has been successful and isn't in effect any more?  Unless you are too ignorant to understand how that works.  

But I think another reason is that there really aren't all that many people who think the mandates regarding COVID are all that bad.  Over 70% of the population has been vaccinated.  Most people realize that the rapid distribution of vaccinations has been one of the biggest mitigating factors in reducing the COVID pandemic in this country and elsewhere, and the scientific evidence proving the effectiveness of mask mandates is overwhelming.  All of the resistance and opposition was just Trumpian nonsense, and frankly, there aren't as many of those kinds of people around as he, or his supporters, want you to think. 

The venue they chose wasn't exactly prime country for an extremist right wing Trumpie rallying point either.  Even rural areas of Maryland are predominantly Democratic, and so are the counties of Northern Virginia.  In the city of Washington, the only Republicans are people from outside the city who live there and work for Republican legislators or think tanks or the GOP.  The city is overwhelmingly Democrat, and not just the African American population.  Maybe, in a place like Dothan, Alabama or Traveler's Rest, South Carolina, people might line the overpasses and cheer the Freedom Convoy on, but the few scattered supporters around the beltway got bored after just a couple of days of seeing trucks driving under, but not much of a protest or a traffic jam or a nuisance. 

A Mid-Term Rallying Point

If this was a rallying point for Republicans going into the mid-terms, then I wish for them the same level of enthusiasm and success as this trucker rally generated.  

Griping about "tyranny" and hollering about "freedom" while a million of their fellow Americans have died in just two years from this deadly virus is callous and uncaring, selfish and ignorant.  Continuing to gripe while real tyranny is forced on the Ukrainian people is even more of the same.  Is this what Trumpism stands for?  Then those of us who have committed to rooting it out by voting it out are doing the right thing. 

I would like for one of these anti-vax, anti-mask protesters to point to one constitutional right of theirs that has been interferred with as a result of COVID restrictions.  And if you're vaccinated for polio, or measles, or small pox, you have no argument. 

I'm one of those who holds the opinion that the Democrats are going to reverse the trend and actually gain seats in both houses during the mid-terms.  Yes, the President's job approval rating is still a shade south of 50%, but the Republicans are clearly running on all of this Trumpie social garbage, and none of it has anywhere close to 50% support. And if they're going to run on Trumpie social garbage, then it is worth noting that Trump's unfavorable number is a solid 65%.  Run on that, then, and see how that works out for you.  

The Functional Embrace of Worldly Ideologies and Practice

"Individuals of the [Conservative Baptist] Network's steering council noted in 2020 increasing concern among Baptists in the pew with what many have described as a progressive direction of the Southern Baptist Convention, citing more specifically a departure from long-held Baptist distinctives, capitulation to culture, and a functional embrace of worldly ideals and practices."--Sharayah Colter, CBN Press, February 14, 2022.  

The marriage of parts of the white, Evangelical Christian culture in the United States with extremist Trumpian right wing politics has changed the character of many churches and denominations, orienting them in a much more political fashion and away from characteristics that once distinguished them as Christian movements, rooted in Biblical theology and widely accepted Christian practice.  Recent events inside the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are an indication that things have changed considerably, though not in exactly the way they would describe them. 

This paragraph, cited at the top in italics from a "news journal" published by a group that calls themselves the "Conservative Baptist Network," characterizes some of those changes using language that describes their perceptions.  I'll use some of the same language as a reference point, but it will mean something quite different than most of those involved with this group can see from their perspective.  The Conservative Baptist Network is an organization that claims, contrary to any evidence, there is an "establishment" in the SBC which embraces Critical Race Theory and promotes theological "liberalism."  You can discern, from the attack blogs and tweets of its supporters, that it is more of a Trumpian political faction aimed at linking the SBC to Trump politics and values. 

A Functional Embrace of Worldly Ideals and Practices

I would suggest that the CBN steering committee look in the mirror before accusing SBC leadership of a "functional embrace of worldly ideals and practices."  Trump Junior recently addressed a youth gathering in Arizona, telling the participants that while Evangelical Christians are nice people and all that, their values and practices--things that Jesus taught like being meek and turning the other cheek--will not bring them the kind of worldly success after which they are seeking. 

"We've turned the other cheek and I understand--sort of--the Biblical reference--I understand the mentality," he said.  "But it's gotten us nothing."  

CBN has apparently determined that Trump Junior was right.  After last year's election of Alabama pastor Ed Litton to the SBC Presidency, on the second ballot, against Georgia pastor Mike Stone, who was the endorsed CBN candidate, Litton was bombarded with an avalanche of vicious attacks on his character.  Litton had used sermon material from the previous SBC President, J.D. Greear, who is a personal friend of his, with Greear's permission, but failed to give actual attribution in the sermons he preached while using the material.  

CBN's leadership maintained that the caustic and vicious attacks, which amounted to character assassination, were not coming from them, but it was pretty clear from the avalanche of tweets and attacks on blogs, along with insinuated accusations in CBN's blog and publicity, that they wanted to force him to step down.  The attacks were modeled after Trumpian political methodology, digging into the online database of Litton's Alabama congregation, claiming that multiple sermons were "plagiarized" without a shred of evidence.  They put short clips of sermons up where Litton quoted other pastors, authors and evangelists, deliberately leaving out the verbal attributions or the citation on the screen behind him.  

Litton followed Biblical directives when the critics attacked.  He acknowledged that he had not properly attributed credit to the original author, though he had been given permission to use it as he saw fit.  He apologized for the offense and asked for forgiveness.  Most of his critics, however, chose the worldly practice of continuing to assassinate his character and failed to follow Biblical practice and principle (Matthew 18:15-35).

The ulterior motive behind these attacks, which dripped with ungodly sinfulness, was political power, just like the blatant lies and character assassination common to Trumpian politics.  If Litton had been forced to step down, one of the CBN steering committee members, Lee Brand, an administrator at Mid-America Seminary, which has become "CBN Central", who was elected first vice president of the SBC, would get the SBC presidency and all of its appointive power.  While Litton determined not to put himself or his church through another round of false accusations, character assassination and attacks, and has decided not to run for a second term, the damage to the denomination's reputation has already been done.  

Worldly Ideologies and Practice in Attacks on the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

And if that wasn't enough ungodliness and sinful behavior, emulating Trump as a role model, the CBN candidate for SBC president, Mike Stone, decided to go one further in violating Biblical principle and the instructions of an apostle by filing a lawsuit against former ERLC Executive Director Russell Moore, because two letters Moore wrote that described Stone's actions when he was chair of the executive committee were leaked.  Stone felt that the information contained in the leaked letters, which he did not contest or deny, may have caused his defeat at the convention. 

Moore was under enormous pressure at the ERLC because he is a never-Trumper, openly opposed to the former President because of his worldly ideologies and practices, and the debauchery and immorality on which he proudly built his public image.  Stone, as president of the SBC's executive committee, launched investigations into the ERLC, based on unfounded and unproven accusations, a.k.a., "lies," with the intention of responding to pressure to try and force Moore out.  Now it's not really difficult for me to figure out here which side represents a Christian, Biblical approach and who is siding with the worldly ideology and practice.  

The Apostle Paul warns Christians against the use of the secular courts to settle disputes in his first epistle to the Corinthian church, 6:1-11, but there was a cataract of tweets, social media and blog posts explaining why Paul's words did not apply to Stone's lawsuit.  This is proof that even those who claim to believe in the Bible's inerrancy and infallibility can twist its words and make it fit with any worldly ideology or practice in which they desire to engage. 

Stone did eventually drop the lawsuit, whether by conviction, or because of mounting criticism for doing it which more than likely removed him as a possible candidate for SBC president again this June.  It may also still be a lingering reminder for messengers to avoid voting for CBN endorsees when Southern Baptists gather in Anaheim, California to elect new officers. 

A Clear Choice for Southern Baptists 

Embracing Trump because he occasionally tosses some scraps to his white, Evangelical supporters is to embrace his lifestyle, the means by which he built his reputation and fame, and by which he still operates.  That includes multiple adulterous affairs on all three of his wives, along with two divorces. fraudulent business dealings, incessant, pathological lying, his boasts about being able to grab women by the genitals because he's famous, owning and operating strip clubs and other vice-promoting businesses including casinos, and his open, public denial of needing to be forgiven for anything.  The Apostle Paul warns Christians not to embrace such a person, "Do not even eat with such a one."  And yes, that would apply to Trump, because he has been embraced and supported by many white, Evangelical leaders and even though he denies having a conversion experience, they claim him as one of their own.  They own his debauchery and by their support, they are endorsing it. 

It seems pretty clear that Southern Baptists who want to avoid embracing "worldly ideologies and practices" should first of all avoid Trump and Trumpism.  And in their own convention, that means avoiding candidates endorsed by CBN.  Their brand of "conservatism" involves embracing secular political practices that are clearly worldly, denying any Christian influences.  Already plagued by a massive sexual abuse scandal involving pastors, church staff members and even the SBC's executive committee, the SBC can ill afford picking up the Trump baggage, especially after having lost two million members of its churches in less than a decade.  

The "liberalism" and "wokeness" that CBN claims is now the reason why the SBC is declining doesn't really exist.  The SBC is as far away from being "woke" as Pluto is from the sun.  And the "liberalism" cited by CBN has nothing to do with theology or doctrine.  It is as conservative as it has ever been, in some aspects, to its own detriment.  The fact of the matter is that its churches need to figure out how to preach the gospel in a more effective and relevant way to reach people that they haven't been able to reach, even in the Southern heartland where most of their churches are found.  Aligning with a corrupt politician or trying to do spiritual work with worldly power isn't going to arrest the decline.  

And the Ignorance Just Goes On...and On...and On.......

Arizona Daily Star: Still Looking for Ballot Problems

The Arizona Senate is still stuck on the 2020 election.  In spite of an avalanche of evidence which shows that the final tally of Arizona's ballots, specifically those in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, was accurate, state senators keep insisting on issuing subpoenas and gathering evidence, based on phony conspiracy theories.  The Republicans in that senate just can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that this has been coming for a while and that Maricopa County, with 4.5 million people, the largest county in the state and fourth largest in the entire nation, no longer has a Republican majority.  

Since the 2020 election, in which President Biden's 11,000 vote margin of victory in Arizona was a result of his having carried the county by over 40,000 votes, the Arizona senate has been incapable of accepting the results.  They have specifically focused on Maricopa County, even though the county officials in charge of elections are all Republicans except one, and their whole election process has been subjected to two very thorough, professional audits, two recounts and the fraudulent imposters known as the Cyber Ninjas, hired by the Senate illegally and without authority to order a ballot audit.  

The Cyber Ninjas basically puttered around, displayed appalling ignorance in their inability to figure out how to access and use the county's voter database, mishandled ballots by leaving them laying around unattended and disorganized, exposed several of the counting machines which will need to be replaced, and found nothing of substance to indicate that the count was off due to "massive voter fraud."  But as the dutiful Trumpies that they were, underwritten by Trump campaign contributors, their report had to cast some doubt on something.  The Senate has gone ahead and taken the plunge into figuring out how to suppress the growing Democratic party presence in Arizona even though the evidence that was required from the Cyber Ninjas to support their contention that change was needed was never handed over to the Senate.  

There's a really good reason for that, according to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.  It doesn't exist.  

The state senate just this week voted down a bill that would give the state's attorney general more power and authority to "investigate" elections in Arizona as one Republican, who has seen this whole charade for the ridiculous lie that it is, voted with the Democrats to kill the bill.  Now another senator is claiming that there were over 200,000 ballots that were allowed through in spite of not passing the signature check and that has prompted yet another subpoena push, led by yet another hoodwinked senator, wasting the taxpayers money chasing down conspiracy theories.  The county's election officials have said repeatedly that these fraudulent claims have no basis in fact and have provided all of the evidence necessary to support that contention.  

No evidence at all has ever been produced that would support this new claim.  The Cyber Ninjas were repeatedly asked to provide evidence to the Senate that supported their report.  None has yet been provided, nor will it ever be, since they are gone and left nothing else behind.  

One More Reason for Arizona Democrats to Make the Effort in 2022

Arizona has gone from being one of the most reliably Republican states in the nation to being a purple state where Democrats are on the verge of capturing the executive and legislative branches of the state government in one election cycle.  The Republicans have just a one vote majority in the Senate, and two in the house.  There are several reasons for that.  

One is that the Latino population in Arizona is increasing rapidly, and here, Latinos tend to vote Democrat in higher percentages than in many other places in the United States.  Part of that is the result of a "get out the vote" effort in, you guessed it, Maricopa County where the notorious bigot Joe Arpaio was Sheriff.  Arpaio had an abysmal record, openly prejudiced against Hispanics which manifested itself in the treatment they got from his deputies.  Hispanic Arizonans whose families had been in the state for generations were subject to harassment, surveillance and false arrest.  Arpaio claimed to be a hard line "law and order" guy, though the crime rate in Maricopa County rose significantly when he was the Sheriff.  

Latino groups organized, registered voters and Arpaio was voted out of office in 2016.  He made a primary run for the Senate in 2018 and lost, and announced he would run for Maricopa County Sheriff again in 2020, but was defeated in the primary.  

Maricopa County is one of the fastest growing counties in the country, in one of the fastest growing states in the country.  A significant number of the new residents are from the heavily Democratic neighboring state of California, and from the heavily democratic cities of the upper midwest and northeast.  While Republican voter registration in Arizona has actually declined during the past 20 years, Democrats and Independents have both increased their numbers.  Democrats have chipped away at the once insurmountable Republican majorities in the heavily gerrymandered senate and representative districts and are now just one election cycle away from a majority.  The state's congressional delegation shifted after the 2010 census and both US Senators are now Democrats (though Sinema is much more of a conservative independent).  

One Place to Get Rid of "Big Lie" Advocates

Getting one Republican out of the mess and getting their vote to kill the bill that would place more power in the hands of the attorney general to "investigate" elections was a great start.  All elections matter, mid-terms clearly as much as any others do.  This is a great example of a place where Democrats can make a real difference.  The Arizona legislature is ripe for a flip, given the number of Democrats who have registered to vote in the state since the last election cycle.  All this silliness, and the disaster of the Cyber Ninjas have pushed a lot of independent voters to the left, as have the antics of Senate President Karen Fann, who seems to be living up to her first name in alienating members of her own party. 

This is why the mid-term elections are important, and why Democrats need to blow past all the media coverage and make plans to set turnout records.  The balance on President Biden's poll numbers, which have shifted upward since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, is Trump's unfavorable number, which hovers around 65%.  That doesn't count the "somewhat unfavorables."  Head to head, nationwide, Democrats are in great shape to take this thing.  Arizona is one good place to start.

Another Achievement for the Biden Administration

The historic nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she once worked at a clerk, is one more achievement of what has been a highly successful Presidential administration.  The fact that this is historic, that Judge Jackson is the first African American woman to be nominated, is significant in multiple ways.  Coming at a time when conservatives are increasingly embracing a revival of white supremacy and attacking anything that challenges its fallacies, this nomination, yet another fulfillment of President Biden's campaign promises, stands in contrast to right wing bigotry and prejudice.  

But Judge Jackson is one of the highest qualified individuals ever nominated to the Supreme Court, in both the education she brings and in her experience.  Her presentation yesterday, at least, the recorded parts of it that I watched later, was impressive.  Her ability to redirect Republican attempts to distract and change the narrative, and harp on their own themes was brilliant.  It's unfortunate that Senate hearings for Supreme Court appointees have, like everything else the Republicans have done over the past thirty years, turned into a political campaign circus.  In political terms, the Republicans took a beating yesterday.  

GOP flip flopping and dishonesty on their approach to their last two Supreme Court nominees may have actually done us the favor of being able to dispense with many of the formalities and get Judge Jackson onto the court quickly.  Then again, a few more days of televised hearings, with this particular nominee's demeanor, responses to questions and ability to distinguish political baloney from real questions related to her background and experience is a big political advantage for the Democrats right now, very much in contrast to the attitudes being displayed by Republicans on the judiciary committee.  

A Shift in Perspective on the Right

Judge Jackson's nomination itself stands in contrast to the agenda-driven attempts by the GOP to make the Supreme Court a partisan political entity instead of the defenders and protectors of constitutional law that it was designed to be.  If people are paying attention, what they will see here is a President with real life experience as a member of the Senate, and as the Vice-President, nominating someone who is actually qualified educationally and by their experience, their knowledge of American history and of the Constitution, and whose judicial rulings demonstrate no inkling of partisan bias or political manipulation.  That stands in stark contrast to all three of the previous President's nominees, who he nominated as a political favor to a group of his extremist right wing supporters.  

Will American voters be able to see the contrast here?  Or maybe what I should be asking is whether there will be enough American voters who can see the difference, and are tired of the political shenanigans and dishonesty from the Republican party to go into the voting booth in November and make sure the GOP stays as a minority party for the duration of President Biden's term.  The Republicans shriek and flap their lips over judges they claim are "legislating from the bench," but they've got at least five judicial "legislators" on the Supreme Court now, put there by Republican Presidents doing favors for narrow political interest groups.  I would like to see President Biden be able to replace at least three more of them, before the end of his first term.  

So, a Little Review of the Achievements of the Biden Administration Over the Past 14 Months...

The nomination of  the first African American woman, Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson, to the United States Supreme Court is historic, not just because she is the first African American woman to be nominated, but because she has been an absolutely outstanding judge and is as highly qualified as anyone else on the court. 

The restoration of confidence in the United States as the world's leading democracy and unifying the NATO alliance as Russia prepared to attack Ukraine was an outstanding foreign policy move.  The brilliance of disclosing accurate intelligence regarding the troop buildups and even the dates of attack and invasion was a key factor in creating trust in the US's leadership of NATO.  Now the President is going to Brussels to meet with NATO leadership and then on to Poland.  

Now, we are seeing a skillful, carefully managed campaign to help Ukraine without triggering a larger conflict or losing any stature as a world leader.  This will not be an easy road, but I'll leave it to this President to figure out how to do this and do it as well as it can be done.  

Taking the initiative to reach out to China, helping to push them a little further away from helping Russia and toward more support for Ukraine was also a great foreign policy move.  The approach carried a firm warning.  Given China's response after the conversation, this was effective in achieving its goal.  In fact, President Biden's whole approach to the Ukraine war has made Republicans like Ted Cruz, who are just parroting talking points disconnected from real events, look foolish and inept.  

The mitigation of the COVID viral pandemic in so many ways that reduced the number of deaths and hospitalizations has been a huge achievement.  Management of the widespread distribution of tests and vaccinations, and the successful vaccination of over 70% of the population, in spite of conspiracy-theory propaganda against it, is a major achievement.  Measured in terms of the total number of vaccinations, this was a smashing success and a smack-down of the ignorant, fact-denying conspiracy theorists.  

The successful passage of an infrastructure bill that the previous administration could not get done should be considered President Biden's signature legislative achievement. This was supposed to be Trump's signature legislation, but instead, largely due to his own falsehoods and failures, was an abysmal failure.  Biden got it done right away.  

Unemployment is dropping, and job growth is surging.  Jobless claims are dropping to record lows not seen since the Clinton administration.  Growth indicators have hit records over 70 times during Biden's administration, and even though the media makes it sound like we are in some kind of a great depression because of inflation, these facts seem to be secrets the media wants to keep.  

I don't care what the media says about the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, the facts show that this, too, was a remarkable achievement.  Trump wanted out, too, but he bungled the whole thing by undermining the legitimately elected government, as bad as it may have been, and hung out with his dictator-type friends, the Taliban.  His direct negotiations with them gave them legitimacy they had lost on the battlefield and his treasonous refusal to participate in the peaceful transition of government when he was legitimately and decisively beaten in the 2020 election made the situation very unstable.  But the Biden administration got over 100,000 people out of Afghanistan in short order.  

Then There's the Press Conferences

One of the best features of the Biden presidency has been the fact that we don't get all the false statements from the President.  Trump was on record as having lied, and that's what I will call it because that's what it was, over 32,000 times.  Those are all statements that could be verified to be completely false by a quick examination of the facts.  The man just says what comes to the top of his head.  The fact that people believe him means they're stupid.  

Well, what else can you say?  This has been a pattern all of his life.  It did not take long before the faces and questions of most of the reporters in the room during one of Spicer's or Huckabee-Sanders' press conferences indicated their opinion that what they were hearing was propaganda, not facts. 

Fact check President Biden, and you won't find anything close to that.  It's rare for either he or his press secretary, to deliberately tell a lie in the face of facts.  And that's just such a change from the way it was, it's like we have to get used to hearing the truth all over again.  

Signal Press, committed to telling the truth about President Biden and making sure that the achievements and accomplishments of this remarkable Presidency are put in writing and with an accurate perspective, even though the news media won't do it.  

Did She Really Say That?

"We cannot and we must not allow our compassion to blind us to reason and common sense."--Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, March 17, 2022

I never imagined that the day would ever come when an American politician, a member of the House of Representatives, who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, would stand in opposition to helping another country defend its own liberty and democracy, modelled after our own and based on the values and principles that define us as Americans, against an enemy who has openly declared himself diametrically opposed to everything we stand for and is destroying a country to keep it from being free.  

To make such a statement is not only unpatriotic and unAmerican, but separating reason and common sense from compassion makes one a sociopath, and is blatantly selfish, completely inhuman, cruel and barbaric.  It is even more immoral and inhumane in that she is weighing the realities of the indiscriminate and deliberate targeting of civilians in Ukraine to defend her politically indefensible support of the Russian dictator who is committing those war crimes. Compassion doesn't blind us to reason and common sense, it puts it in perspective and shows that we have a conscience.  

It gets worse.  

She, along with seven other members of her party in the House of Representatives, voted against the aid package for Ukraine.  This is a duplicitous attempt to avoid well-deserved criticism for a vote that has been correctly interpreted and labelled as "pro-Putin," because that is exactly what it was.  Being caught off-guard by a sudden, but very overwhelming shift in public opinion is not an excuse for dishonesty and duplicity. She voted against helping Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked, unjustified attack, and against helping to defend a country that is fighting for the same freedom she has.  She doesn't regret her vote, she only regrets that there will likely be political consequences because she's on the wrong side of public opinion, not because she cares one bit about the innocent civilians who are dying to defend their liberty and their country.  

At least her colleague, Madison Cawthorn, admits he is pro-Putin, anti-American, unpatriotic and stands against the liberty and values that Ukrainians are now fighting to defend.  He's declared that he is politically motivated and that his position is aligned with that of the Russian dictator.  He's made it clear that there is absolutely no compassion on his part, that Ukrainians are not innocent because they are corrupt and "woke" among other things, that his reason and common sense is fully supportive of authoritarian autocracy against representative democracy.  That is, by no means, an admirable position, and it is also immoral and inhumane and completely disqualifying for a member of the House.  But he is apparently willing to be identified as a Pro-Putin conservative.  

All eight of the house members who voted against aid to Ukraine are among those who have closely tied their political fortunes to Trump and promote loyalty to a person over loyalty to the nation.  So is their vote partial re-payment of the debt they owe for Putin's help in getting Trump elected in 2016?  They are all supporters of the January 6th insurrection, several of them participated in it and helped insurrectionists tour the Capitol and lay out their plans.  I think that tells us exactly where they stand.  They should all proudly wear their Pro-Putin label. If you live in one of the congressional districts any of those eight represent, well, they've certainly given you a clear choice.  

Graham's "Tough Talk" Doesn't Cover Up GOP Weakness When it Comes to Putin

Washington Post: Lindsey Graham's Call to "Take Out Putin"

Apparently Lindsey Graham feels that he has to make up for the fact that his party has become known as the "party of Putin" during the Ukrainian war.  It's been pretty easy to identify the Republican members of Congress who are opposed to helping Ukraine and by their actions, are correctly seen as supporting Putin's invasion.  Only the most mindless Trumpies don't acknowledge Putin's widespread interference in the 2016 election, and his attempts to continue to interfere beyond that, even with insurmountable and conclusive evidence that he was doing it.  

So, in an effort to prove the GOP's toughness, and to try to change the narrative that is pointing out, with their own words and deeds, the affinity many Republican leaders, including Trump, have for Putin, Graham called for Putin's assassination.  And because he got a lot of publicity for it, and a mountain of negative criticism, rightly so given the serious error that it was, he's sticking by it. It's not like he could take something like that back.   

Before you read on, you need to know that there is just no possible way I can take Lindsey Graham seriously.  Other than Louisiana's John Kennedy, Texas' Ted Cruz and Missouri's Josh Hawley, Graham is one of the biggest, and most duplicitous jokes in the Senate, and to ever have served in Congress.  He's a wannabe, a hanger-on, an attention seeking mimic who sticks his finger up to see which way the wind is blowing before he puts his foot into his mouth.  

A Clue About Republican Thinking on President Biden's Leadership

Graham's been around long enough to figure out how things work in Washington.  He's always just a bit behind the curve, but he can pick up on the signals and sense when things are going to turn south, so to speak, and try to get his interpretation and perception of events into the mix to avoid major damage.  

Republicans like Graham know President Biden.  They've worked with him, and against him, in the senate.  They've seen his experience in foreign policy and they have seen his success.  I expect that Graham, more than most Republicans, recognizes the full potential that President Biden has when it comes to making the right decisions and I also expect that he knows what the President is now doing is exactly the right thing to do.  

In spite of the fact that this is a dangerous situation, and it requires our government coming together to do the right thing and get behind the President, as Republicans demanded with Iraq after 9-11, they're still playing politics.  Graham's remark, which did absolutely nothing more than provide Putin with evidence to support his claim that the West, and particularly the United States, is "out to get him," and that his reason for going into Ukraine was to prevent the US and its NATO allies from using a neighboring, former Soviet republic, to do it.  It was one of the easiest pieces of propaganda that the former KGB leader ever got from an American politician, aside from Trump's flattery.  

Tough Talk is Just Talk 

President Biden has handled this situation with remarkable skill, considering the pressure that is placed on the United States any time something like this happens, because of expectations.  The Republicans know the dynamics of the situation, and they know that what the President has done is the most that can be done under the circumstances.  Ukrainian President Zelenskyy acknowledged this.  Yes, he'd like everyone, including the United States, to do more, of course.  But handling this with the real acknowledgement of the danger that is involved is part of the skill.  President Biden has very wisely and carefully avoided giving Putin anything that he can use to his advantage, to gather support for his claim that this action is a result of Russia being "bullied" by the West.  

The claim has been made that if Trump were still President, Putin wouldn't have attacked Ukraine.  While I wouldn't bet on that, the circumstances would have been different.  Trump essentially walked away and left NATO pretty much on its own, falsely stating that the US was the only country paying its dues and supporting the alliance financially, and undermining its unity.  Putin also saw Trump interfering with and actually helping his cause in undermining Ukraine.  Trump wanted to undo all of the sanctions put in place supporting Ukraine after the seizure of the Donbas and Crimea, and couldn't because he didn't have the authority.  But he did hold up the military appropriation approved by Congress, and got impeached for his corruption.  And he removed one of the most effective American ambassadors to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, out of fear that she would expose his corruption there.  

My guess is that he would have invaded anyway, given his rhetoric and reasoning for doing it now.  But he would have had much less resistance from NATO and from around the world, and he wouldn't have to worry about American participation in the sanctions, or leadership in uniting the NATO allies against him.  

So what we have here, with Graham's loud, "tough talk," and the muttering and rhetoric from Cruz and Hawley, is a Republican Party that has been caught between a rock and a hard place, having left a very conclusive record of support for an autocratic dictatorship and against a fledgling representative Democracy looking to American idealism to build their nation.  Their actions and their words, including the eight Republican votes cast against further sanctions on Russia in Congress this week, are telling the voters that the GOP no longer stands for the constitution, liberty and a government of, by and for the people.  

Thank you, Lindsey.  We can always depend on you to cut and run when the going gets tough.  

Can We Stop the Politics and Get Together to Preserve Our Ideals and Our Freedom? And Save Ukraine?

I watched President Zelenskyy's speech to Congress today, along with the video he presented.  He got a standing ovation from the United States Congress, one of the few times when they all did the same thing at the same time together in years.  Remarkable.  It took a European country, a new democratic country formed out of the ruins of the Second World War and the ideological and economic ruins of the former Soviet Union and the old Czarist Russian Empire, being attacked by a Russian dictator, to get the members of Congress to show their appreciation and admiration, in one accord, by their applause.  

I'm going to call this exactly what it is.  It is the single most dangerous moment in American history.  It's the same kind of danger we've faced before, the threat of the destruction of our country and everything it stands for, but this is more dangerous than the threat has ever been before, because the threat of a nuclear holocaust is very real and very permanent.  This is a much bigger crisis than that which was created by the Civil War, or the Pearl Harbor attack, the Cuban Missile Crisis or 9-11.  And if our politicians can't come together, and decide that the survival of our nation is a common cause on which we can agree, and around which we must unify, then our survival and our future is in serious jeopardy. 

With Ukrainian cities in flames once again, as they were when the Nazis invaded in 1941, Ted Cruz opens his mouth and proves to the entire nation why he is the most hated man in the United States Senate.  Criticizing President Biden's foreign policy at a time like this is bad enough, a clearly unpatriotic and very blatantly selfish attempt to feather his own political nest.  But the fact that this man threw his own father and wife under the bus to go chasing after the former president, whose foreign policy was responsible for the fall of Afghanistan, the isolation of most of our allies including NATO and South Korea, and now the attack on Ukraine, all of which put our national security in this unprecedented danger, is more than just unpatriotic and anti-American.  He's a big part of the problem.  

President Biden's foreign policy isn't pushing the opposition party to get in line behind an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country for the wrong reason, capitalizing on the American reaction to 9-11.  That was a real foreign policy disaster, as was just about everything that followed during that administration.  President Biden didn't undermine the legitimately elected government of Afghanistan by direct negotiation with the Taliban.  He didn't isolate our NATO allies by cozying up to Putin.  He didn't isolate South Korea by cozying up to Kim Jong Un.  He didn't withhold military aid appropriated by Congress for Ukraine, bribing their president to invent lies about Joe Biden.  

That's what bad foreign policy looks like, Mr. Cruz.  And if you can't see all of that, and you can't get on board now, get behind the President and support our country and its efforts to help Ukraine, whatever decisions and actions that may require, then you need to resign now and get out of the way.  We don't need someone who won't defend his own father or wife against lies to be involved in the defense of our country.  

Follow Your Own Advice, Republicans

The GOP leadership wanted Democrats to drop the politics and get on board when Bush was about to invade Iraq, in the fervor and anger following 9-11.  And the vast majority of them did.  Bush was the President and commander-in-chief, and our military forces were about to be committed to an attack on a foreign country in a dangerous area of the world.  The President claimed he had intelligence that supported his decision.  It wasn't the time for partisanship or electioneering or grandstanding.  

And in spite of the duplicity that the GOP has shown, talking out of both sides of its mouth about how close to an election is too close to pick a Supreme Court justice, or their major shift on the moral standards for the Presidency between the 1990's and 2016, this is now the time when the unity of our country needs to be demonstrated by the unity of its government.  If there are members that just can't do that, then they need to step down and let someone else take their place who can.  That's what the people, whose government it is, expect from you.  

The Consequences May Have Quite a Price

If the notable GOP partisans, Cruz among them, won't stop using this as campaign material, or for Trump-fluffing, the price for not appearing unified is going to be quite high.  The mid-terms are pretty close.  With upwards of 80% of the voters on board with helping Ukraine, and a few more speeches from Zelinskyy like today's appeal, those who don't contribute to the unity of the government are going to pay a big price.  I'd guess that even down there in Texas, not getting on board with a cause like this will take a big chunk out of the votes for any Republican who might even use the word "Putin."  At any rate, the kind of support that is being generated now, and the way those poll numbers seem to be moving, indicate that if the Biden administration successfully handles the Ukraine war, and we all know that someone with his kind of experience is very likely going to be successful, the midterms will be an overwhelming affirmation of the Democratic party and a repudiation of the GOP.  

Stop playing politics.  Work together and save Ukraine.  Save our country.  

Set the Record Straight on Ukraine and Republican Support for Putin

David French: The War in Ukraine is a Blow to the Nationalist Post-Liberal Right 

The Party of Treason

The best possible outcome for Ukrainians at this point would be for something to convince Putin to back his army out of their country and leave it alone.  Of all of the former Soviet republics that became independent and democratic after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's independence, and liberty, is the biggest problem for the autocratic fascism of its big neighbor, Russia, because in just a little over thirty years, Ukrainians have not only developed a sense of national unity and pride, but they are economically prosperous and a free people with a representative democracy. 

Public opinion in the United States can shift rapidly as a result of circumstances.  There are several historical events which have contributed to an almost complete change of opinion following their occurrence.  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor shifted a divided American public, in which the majority favored an isolationist, "America First" mindset, dragging their feet on help for Britain and not wanting to intervene against Nazi Germany.  The 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center made it possible for President Bush to manipulate public anti-Islamic fervor for support to attack Iraq for the purpose of "regime change," even though Saddam Hussein had no involvement at all in the attacks.  

The images coming out of Ukraine, not just in media reports, but through social media as well, has caused another shift in American public opinion and it has caught the Republican Party completely off guard.  Most of them believe, or at least they act like they believe, the majority of Americans are ignorant, stupid people who forget things after a few days or are confused by what direction they are pointed.  They are desperately hoping that memory of all of the first Trump impeachment, especially the stonewalling and the illegal use of congressionally appropriated funds to bribe the Ukranian President into lying about then Democratic nominee Joe Biden, will slip from people's memory.  

But there are people committed to keeping their behavior and their actions favoring Putin, fawning on him, their words of praise and admiration, and the positions they've taken which led us to the present circumstances, right in the public eye.  While Republicans and Trump were fawning all over Putin, and defending Trump's indefensible withholding of aid to Ukraine, Putin had already whacked off part of the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine, and taken the Crimea. He had an ally in Trump, who had distanced the United States from its NATO allies, criticized the alliance and claimed, falsely, that only the United States was keeping up with its financial obligations.  

Trump, and the Republicans who follow him around with tissues and toilet paper (yeah, figure that out, OK?), think that their base is bottomlessly naive and hopelessly ignorant.  They're probably right about that, I'm not going to argue the point.  But this isn't for the base.  This is for those Americans who still think we are in a traditional, two-party political mold and since the Democrats don't seem to be delivering on all of their pre-election requests, they might just stay away from the polls in November, or vote for Republicans here and there to teach the Democrats a lesson.  Sorry, but the days of traditional, two-party politics with that traditional give and take are long since over and gone.  The core of Trump loyalists, which I refer to as "Trumpies," and which others call "Trumpians," is not interested in compromise, they are interested in takeover.  

And once they accomplish that, if we let them do so, it will be winner take all.  That will be the end of the constitution, the peaceful transition of power, any negotiations in good faith, and the end of free and fair elections.  So get past the pettiness, the traditional politics, the griping and complaining that goes along with it, wake up, smell the coffee and any other cliche which directs attention to what is transpiring in the real world.  

Republican Duplicity is Indisputably on the Record

Public opinion has shifted.  The President's job approval and favorability ratings have soared since the State of the Union, and since the Russians did exactly what his administration's intelligence said they would, they invaded Ukraine and opened up a campaign full of wartime atrocities.  Unfortunately, for the GOP, the Trump administration, and multiple members of their party and their Fox News propaganda team, they are also very recently on the record as being pro-Putin, anti-NATO, and opposed to giving any kind of help to the Ukrainian government.  

Do they really think that their sudden shift in rhetoric is something a majority of Americans are going to buy?  Well, yes, they do think that.  And some, those who are clueless, uneducated, uniformed and living under a rock, will buy it.  Most, and that's a percentage I'd put at upwards of 75% to 85%, will be on the bandwagon for supporting Ukraine.  And ultimately, that will translate into mid-term votes with the invasion of Ukraine being one of the top issues influencing the outcome of the 2022 election.  

Trying to keep the critical focus on President Biden has failed dismally, at least as far as the perception of the voters goes.  It was President Biden who revived the NATO alliance quckly and effectively.  It was the Biden administration, headed by the President, who decided to publish the intellingence about Putin's intentions as a tactic to put pressure on him and to gain the trust of the allies, who had lost trust in America because of Trump's failed leadership.  It was President Biden and the Democrats whose committees crafted the Ukraine aid bill that just passed through Congress.  

It was the Republicans who have been chasing after Putin, following Trump's lead, protesting the sanctions President Obama laid down when Russia went into the Donbas and the Crimea.  It was the Republicans who voted to defend Trump's inexcusable withholding of vital aid to Ukraine which, in light of their complaining and pushing over the plane exchange deal with Poland, makes this look even worse for them.  

Enjoy the Reading and the Video 

I hope this is inspirational, not only for a personal reminder about exactly what needs to be followed through to justice related to Trump's incitement of the January 6th insurrection, but in helping Democrats get up out of their chair and work to make sure that the GOP loses seats in both houses and emerges from the mid-terms without a clear candidate for President in 2024.  

Share this, post it on your social media, the links are excellent and this may be the only place where these two things come together.  

Faith Influencing Politics without Politics Changing Faith

"We've turned the other cheek and I understand sort of the Biblical reference--I understand the mentality.  But it's gotten us nothing."--Donald Trump, Jr. to a Turning Point USA gathering in Arizona

Taking these remarks in its whole context, what Trump Jr. is saying here is that the teachings of Jesus, along with bringing in Evangelical Christians to the far right and engaging in the political culture war of right wing politics, is interfering with their cause.  Trump Sr. once suggested, in one of his books, that the meek, whom the gospel writer Matthew records Jesus as saying will "inherit the earth," are, in his perspective, "suckers."  It's not possible, in the Trumpian political view, to act in a manner that is consistent with Biblical teaching and at the same time, expect to win or gain influence in the culture war.  

Peter Wehner, in a story on this particular event in The Atlantic, said of Trump Jr.'s analysis, "If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace, then it needs to go."  

Tyler Huckabee, in a report in Relevant magazine, wrote that Trump, Jr. is probably more correct here than he knows.  "Christianity is a poor device for gaining worldly influence. Nearly every page of the Gospels has stories of Jesus refusing earthly power and exhorting his followers to do the same. … The most cursory reading of Scripture would leave anyone with the sense that this is not a manual for getting stuff.”

And those comments are from the secular media world. 

I would disagree with Trump Jr., that the church's "mentality" in turning the other cheek is the reason it hasn't "gotten anything."  I would say that the reason Christians have this sense that they have been "shut out" of the worldly influences Junior is referencing is that they have aligned themselves too closely with partisan politics and have replaced their dependence on God's spiritual power with the use of worldly, political influence.  They've given their loyalty to politicians for worldly influence and given up their evangelistic mission and purpose.  And many of the politicians with whom they have built a political alliance not only don't accept or believe in Christian faith and practice, their lifestyle is completely antithetical to it.  

The Influence of Faith in Politics 

The constitutional guarantee of religious liberty and the establishment clause set American Christians free from state-mandated, state-controlled religious practice and created a free church.  What that did in America was usher in several notable revivals, boosting church membership with thousands of new converts, and it led to Protestant Christianity becoming one of the most pervasive influences in American culture and government.  The Whig party is one of the more notable examples of the influence of Protestant Christianity in politics.  

But having the better part of a branch of the Christian church endorse candidates and embrace a political agenda that is not based on Christian practice and principle is something very different.  Instead of influencing the party, the party demands that the Christians who support it adopt its own agenda, and support everything the party supports, including a whole list of policies and practices which are completely inconsistent with Christian theology and practice.  The party itself does not embrace its Christian constituents or their perspective, it simply picks and chooses the things to support that brings in the most votes and campaign contributions.  But it demands support for the whole party agenda, and loyalty to the party's candidates. 

In the case of the current jumble of Republicanism with Trumpism, that has meant that some Evangelical "leaders," mainly pastors of churches, televangelists or ministry executives, have had to endorse Donald Trump.  And that has required overlooking the immoral behavior, including his highly publicized affairs and the humiliation of all three women who have been married to him, the business and tax fraud, the incessant lying, and now, the incitement of an insurrection with the intention of overturning a legitimate election and subverting the constitution and its peaceful transfer of power.  

The testimony of Evangelical Christianity specifically, but of Christianity in general, has been significantly damaged by what appears to be widespread loyalty given to Trump by Evangelical leaders after many of these same "leaders" were highly critical of former President Clinton's moral failures and publicly declared that his lack of morals and values disqualified him from serving as President.  Dr. Adrian Rogers, the former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, and a former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, codified their leadership "requirements" in a sermon entitled "Does Character Count?"  He didn't mention Clinton directly, but the circumstances occurring at the time made the subject of his message pretty obvious.  

When Trump was running, not a single Evangelical leader who has embraced right wing Republican politics uttered a peep about Rogers' sermon.  Trump, who has not only been totally unrepentant and unapologetic for his debauchery, actually backed away from claiming he had some kind of conversion experience, which some Evangelicals wanted to claim for him, and told CNN's Jake Tapper that he didn't bring God into his moral view and didn't believe he needed to ask forgiveness for anything.  Now we have one of his surrogates, his oldest child, telling the Trumpian Evangelical constituency that the values of Jesus are just not getting them anywhere in this world.  

Most Evangelical church members are susceptible to this kind of influence because they know very little about their own faith.  They depend on those who have worked their way to celebrity status among mostly white Evangelicals to tell them what to believe.  They see those leaders and their followers being loyal to Trump and acting like Trumpers.  Right wing politics has become equal to real theology and doctrine among many churches, because they depend on their pastors and prominent leaders to interpret all of that for them and those leaders have made right wing politics indistinguishable from theology and doctrine.

That's one of the reasons that heresies like White Christian Nationalism and religious-based white supremacy groups, and the Prosperity Gospel, have taken root and flourished.  It's no surprise that Trump considers one of the most heretical prosperity preachers, Paula White, as his "spiritual advisor."  Birds of a feather, I guess.  Not only is her preaching and teaching way, way outside the boundaries of biblical Christian orthodoxy, but she considers herself a "pastor" and a "prophetess."  The vast majority of Evangelical sects, denominations and churches in America completely reject female pastors and preachers, but they are completely ignoring this relationship. 

But there are people inside Evangelical Christianity who are waking up to what's going on.  January 6th was a wake up call for many of them.  It doesn't take very many percentage points to flip election results in the polarized atmosphere that currently exists.  And some are willing to take a stand to protect the integrity of the church.  

There's no question the reputation, testimony and witness of Evangelical Christianity in America has suffered considerable damage from getting just a bit too close to the flames.  Trump built his fame and reputation on what the Apostle Paul calls "debauchery."  He revelled in it.  He bragged about his affairs, how poorly he treated his wives, his business cheating which he refers to as "deal-making," his tax evasion and deception and he handles criticism by incessant lying.  There are lists of all of those things in the Bible, too, but they're the opposite of the Beatitudes.  Embracing his candidacy and endorsing it means embracing and endorsing his character, which is anti-Christian.  

Those Christians who publicly support Trumpism are either ignorant of their own faith and its doctrine and theology, which is the case for vast numbers of them, or they are ignoring their faith, choosing the politics over the spiritual principles, or making the politics their spiritual practice.

A Conversion Experience in Reverse

"We want your votes and your support, but please leave your values, morals, convictions and faith practices behind, because they don't get you anywhere in this world."  But Jesus very clearly states that his mission wasn't to achieve worldly success.  The Jewish people in Palestine during Jesus' day had lived under the domination of foreign rule for a long time and had turned their theological view of "Messiah" into a political leader who would throw off the yoke of Roman rule.  Jesus resisted the temptation to increase his own popularity by claiming a political kingdom and worldly power,and instead, during his public ministry, he taught people the principles by which to live a life that glorified their creator God, and which was full of spiritual abundance and unselfish purpose and which pointed others to God's existence, grace, and ultimately, to reconciliation with God because Jesus fulfilled his atoning, sacrificial purpose.  

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews."  John 18:36 NRSV

The verses at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, known as the "beatitudes," define the very essence of Christian faith and practice and are the distinguishing characteristics of the Christian life.  They result in real spiritual blessings, not material wealth, but to things that money and power and fame cannot buy or produce.  They lead to a fulfilled life, peace of mind, comfort, peace, to the spiritual presence and power of God himself.  After the Beatitudes, there's this passage which defines the purpose of the church that would eventually develop, made up of believers in Jesus.

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.  

You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one, after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:13-16, NRSV

When Christians support a political perspective or movement that considers its core principles and values ineffective in achieving its goals, they have, as the analogy here says, "lost their taste."  They are a lamp under a bushel basket, so to speak.  The are supposed to be living a life that glorifies God and points "the world" to Jesus but instead, they are pointing to political solutions to worldly problems, and identifying with those who achieve their ends by the use of worldly power.  What the world sees is their support and endorsement of the lifestyles and tactics of the political leaders who set their movement's agenda and that is how they are labelled and identified.  

The faith that Christ preached and taught, and that the apostles expanded and used to change the world, depends on spiritual power and life transformation, not on the use of politics and legislated morality.  

"My Kingdom is Not From this World" 

Trump Jr.'s statement about turning the other cheek demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge of how Christianity works.  He said that himself, "I understand--sort of--the Biblical reference. I understand the mentality...but."  But what?  He sort of understand but not really, because it doesn't seem to be worth much because it's not getting Christians anywhere in this world.  So what he is asking is for Christians to join their cause and change their beliefs and values, adopting the violence, deceit, duplicity, dishonesty and the vile disorder that characterizes Trumpism.  

When Christians leave their faith behind to pursue worldly success, they lose their identity as the church, and they become just another political faction or pointless sect.  And unfortunately, many of Trump's white, Evangelical supporters have done just that.  They've let their politics change their faith.  

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?  Mark 8:36 ESV

Pointlessly Driving in Circles, So-called "Freedom Convoy" Fails to Make Points or Block Traffic

Newsweek: "Freedom Convoy" Fails to Block Beltway Traffic

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" attempting to block traffic on the Capitol Beltway around Washington, DC, has failed, not only to block traffic on the Beltway, but to have an effect on what they claim is the purpose of the convoy, which is somewhat nebulous and vague, but which they say is for elected officials to "work with the blue collar and white collar workers of America and restore accountability and liberty--by ending all mandates and lifting the state of emergency--as COVID is well in-hand now, and Americans need to get back to work in a free and unrestricted manner."  

Even as they were gathering and organizing at a race track near Hagerstown, Maryland, only one state had any mask mandates still in place, Hawaii, and that one has been lifted this week.  I doubt any of the truckers in the convoy had to worry about driving their trucks to Honolulu.  The "system" that they are protesting worked exactly as it should have.  COVID is, indeed, well in-hand, largely due to the work of the Biden Administration in getting massive amounts of free tests out to the public, along with efforts leading to the full vaccination of over 70% of the population.  

There is plenty of evidence, massive mountains of it in fact, demonstrating that the declarations of states of emergency, mandates and regulations, were a major factor in mitigating the spread of COVID in the United States.  Real science, not haphazard, inane pronouncements off the top of some former President's addled brain, has proven that vaccinations and masks, among the other mitigations, work very well to prevent the spread of the virus and save lives.  

States which never had mask mandates, or which worked to obstruct them, experienced hospital overtopping, shortages of just about everything needed for treating both viral patients and others who couldn't get into hospitals because of it.  States like California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Massachussetts, where there were both mask mandates and vaccination mandates issued by the state, did not have nearly as many fatalities and had fewer cases, per-capita, than those who were unable to overcome the selfishness of a handful of loud bigots, like those who organized and joined this so-called "Freedom Convoy." 

Too Much Fake News

I guess there wasn't anyone available to tell them that what government officials have been saying all along is that the mandates and regulations are temporary, and when COVID numbers drop, so do the mandates and regulations.  Perhaps they were absent from the world that day, living in an alternative la-la land.  I guess most of them skipped their eighth grade constitution and history class, or they would know that the Supreme Court gave states and municipalities the constitutional right to protect their residents and citizens with mandated vaccines in the event of a contagious pandemic disease outbreak in 1905, when smallpox was raging.  

Can I assume, since pointless driving around in circles requires paying that high price for diesel fuel that President Biden is supposedly responsible for causing, that these truckers and convoy participants are just fine with the price?  With the kind of money the trucking industry is gouging out of its customers at this point, it seems kind of odd that there are truckers driving around the Beltway, not really accomplishing any purpose, avoiding making the kind of money they could be earning by being real truckers with real payloads.  Then again, I wonder how many of them have taken advantage of President Biden's and the Democrats' COVID relief packages, and have stuffed their bank accounts with our tax dollars, giving them all of this free time?  

Surely, these people have just missed, somehow, the fact that a million of their fellow Americans have died as a result of this virus in just two years.  Their insensitivity and lack of compassion can't just be due to inconsideration and selfishness, can it?  Some of the trucks and vehicles carry crosses and Jesus signs, indicating that the occupants must be Christians.  If they have a Bible, maybe it needs to be checked to see if "Love your neighbor as yourself" is still in theirs, or if they've removed that part, along with "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others (Philippians 2:4 from the Apostle Paul).  Those are core, foundational principles of Christianity so I guess those who have the crosses and Jesus symbols fell asleep when the preacher got to that part in his sermon.

The Biden Administration is Working With Blue Collar Americans, and It Has Restored Accountability and Liberty 

The biggest contrast between the Biden administration and the previous administration is that it has decided to give its tax relief benefits to the blue collar, and white collar working class in America, rather than just to the wealthiest of the wealthy, like its predecessor did.  Not only did COVID relief go where it was most needed, but there's an infrastructure bill that all of those truckers will find beneficial when they decide to go back to work and earn some real money.  

So, what are you protesting by driving around and around on the Capitol Beltway?  As Shakespeare once wrote, "Methinks thou dost protest too much."  

Driving in Circles is Pointless, and So Is This Protest

This was supposed to be an event that focused the attention of angry conservatives directly on the nation's capital city, an incursion of Trump and Confederate flags which negate any claim to "patriotism" by the protesters, into the heart of one of the bluest metropolitan areas in the country.  But there aren't enough trucks and vehicles in the convoy to achieve their goal of "being a pain" to the beltway commuters.  Somewhere between 250,000 and 275,000 vehicles a day traverse the various stretches of the Capital Beltway through Maryland and Virginia, hitting the District of Columbia boundary at one very short point on the south bridge across the Potomac.  A hundred or so truckers and accompanying vehicles doesn't even make a dent in that.  

I certainly hope the effectiveness of this convoy is a reflection of the effectiveness of Republican congressional and senate candidates in November.  

President Biden is the "Savvy Genius" in Current Foreign Policy

Personally, the terms "savvy" and "genius" are not being used correctly when they are applied to the leader of a huge, militarily powerful nation deciding to bully one of his weaker neighbors by setting up a false pretense before invading the country for the purpose of installing a puppet government friendly to him.  With ten times the military power, triple that in missiles, tanks and air superiority, it doesn't take much genius to launch an invasion and win quickly.  If he were "savvy," he'd have come up with a better accusation with which to label the Ukrainian government that claiming they are Nazis, and a better pretext than visibly non-existent attacks on Russian nationalists living in an already Russian occupied part of the country.  

But I would call the way the Biden administration has handled this whole situation, from the very beginning, both "savvy" and "genius."  I'd add the term "brilliant."  The Biden Administration is full of people who are experts in foreign policy, and who have studied and observed what's been happening in Russia and Eastern Europe for decades.  They understand how this all works.  There are always gambles and uncertainties, but the way they've handled this situation is a demonstration of learning from past gambles that didn't work, careful examination of the reality of the situation, understanding the impact this will have on the people and keeping the ultimate goal in mind.  

Lessons From History

History is so relevant in so many ways, the failure of our current educational system to teach it and help our people interpret it is tragic and at some point in the future, with nuclear warheads around everywhere, could be deadly.  It's an old saying, but knowing it and learning from it are ways to prevent it from repeating.  We live in the 21st century, and we are now far enough away from the disaster and destruction of the Second World War to have forgotten about it, and to think that something like that can't happen again.  

When Nazi Germany was running amok in Europe, had conquered France in a month and was sitting at the English Channel, armed to the teeth, seething to cross, Winston Churchill made some remarkable moves after learning from previous mistakes.  The British were facing the Germans across the narrow channel because a prior British administration had not seen what might be coming, and lost an opportunity to form a military alliance with Stalin and the Soviet Union before Hitler did.  Once free of the threat of a two-front war with the Soviet Union, Hitler turned on the West, vanquishing the Netherlands, Belgium and France in short order.  

Churchill decided to trust British and American intelligence coming from Eastern Europe which indicated that Hitler was planning to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union.  Even though Britain looked like Hitler's next target, Churchill and his advisors put the intelligence of German troop build-ups together with Hitler's own words in Mein Kampf.  Hitler's ambition was "lebensraum" in "the East," meaning Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic and Western Russia.  The British correctly guessed that Hitler and the German general staff had weighted the cost of trying a channel crossing and decided to go east instead, after the "lebensraum."  

The British disclosed their intelligence to Stalin, who, because of past history, didn't trust them.  Post war memoirs indicate that he and his advisors thought the British were planting those stories to get Russian help against the Germans.  Soviet intelligence was faulty, though there was plenty of evidence that the German army was moving literally millions of men and military equipment into Poland, Czechoslovakia and along the Ukrainian border all the way to the black sea coast in Romania.  History records that Stalin was "surprised" when three million German soldiers launched the invasion into his country.  The British gained back a lot of trust they had lost from prior problems by being right on target about the intelligence they shared.  

Were you bored with the history lesson?  Too bad.  You need to read and understand more of it.  I recommend A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

A "Savvy Genius" Publicly Discloses the Intelligence Reports

Biden's decision to disclose everything they were getting through intelligence reports was key to winning the trust of most of the rest of the world and pulling the NATO alliance, which had lost its trust of the United States during the Trump administration, back together.  American intelligence is the best in the world and they got this right, down to the specific plan of attack, the pretext Putin would use to launch his invasion and direct reports from the Donbas and Crimea that what Putin claimed was happening wasn't really happening.  

This might be going much differently had Ukraine been a NATO member.  But even that card is playing into Biden's hand.  NATO's credibility and the support that it is gathering, even from the reluctant neutrals, is the fact that Putin has made all of the aggressive moves in this campaign.  He's bombing civilian neighborhoods, creating the humanitarian crisis, taking out his frustration over Ukraine becoming a freedom-loving country by damaging and destroying its cities.  The time may come when some kind of military intervention is warranted, like a no-fly zone, but right now, all of the aggression and destruction, and the humanitarian crisis that has developed, is all on Putin.  

The Biden administration is also working to put enough pressure on Russia, specifically via what are economy-crippling sanctions, looking at another historical event in the recent past--the collapse of the Soviet Union.  What we're seeing in Russia is a Soviet-style government, with a twisted blend of Czarist imperialism.  The elitists run the country and are massively wealthy as a result of their position.  The Soviet Union collapsed because the economy could not sustain the nation.  That's what these sanctions are aimed at and in a relatively short time, they've had a crippling effect on the Russian economy, particularly when it comes to the value of their currency, which affects the amount of wealth they have. 

There's no guarantee here, but the historical record does provide some indication of how sanctions, especially the ones that are as deep as these, will work.  At some point, experience will inform the Biden administration when there needs to be an offer of an exit ramp made to Putin, and the likelihood of his taking it to get off.  Hopefully that will come before Kiyv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Odessa are mostly ruins.  

The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy.  Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century.  We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism.  Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. --Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny:  Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Thankfully, the President of the United States is Joe Biden.  And that gives me confidence that this will turn out well, and we will move forward toward a more peaceful world after it is over, having learned yet another lesson from history.

Separating True American Patriots From the Pretenders

As expected, predicted, and reported, as the COVID-19 Omicron variant waned, so would mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other mitigations, all based on scientific research and evidence of effectiveness in stopping the spread of the virus, be lifted as needed. To put any of that in the category of "tyranny" is to insult and minimize those in the world who experience real tyranny.  Frankly, it's the result of selfishness and ignorance, and it's become a political trademark.  Some people have lost their lives as a result of this kind of behavior, not because they've experienced "tyranny" or at the hands of the government authorities who issued the mandates, but because of their own ignorance.  

So this week, I've been reading about the trucker convoy that is aiming to clog up the traffic on the Capitol Beltway in Maryland and Virginia, around Washington, DC.  They are aiming to "be a pain" to drivers there as a means of protesting mask and vaccine mandates for COVID.  Don't those trucks have radios in them?  And if they do, what are they listening to, old Hank Williams songs?  Most states have lifted the mandates as COVID figures dropped.  We knew they weren't permanent.  I guess these guys didn't know that, or they were misinformed.  Perhaps they are just trying to imitate their fellow Canadian truckers who did, indeed, make themselves "a pain" but other than that, failed to achieve their purpose with the protests, made a lot of people angry, and strengthened the political position of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  

With a humanitarian crisis looming in Ukraine, as Russian missiles rain destruction down on its civilian population and its cities, this particular trucker convoy may accomplish some unintended outcomes.  Protesting non-existent mandates seems pointless anyway, though it's clear they've headed into DC based on other motives, like still not being able to come to grips with the reality that the former President was beaten, defeated, LOST the election.  But I think they're really going to convince a lot of Americans who haven't really had their eyes opened to the dangers of right wing extremism driven by conspiracy theories and misplaced loyalty and that these people really are enemies of American democracy, liberty, the Constitution and representative democracy as we know it.  Protesting for your own selfish benefit during a major humanitarian crisis and a war against liberty is about as anti-patriotic and un-American as it gets.  

I'd be willing to bet that there are more than just a few Putin backers in that group.

Meanwhile, Almost Two Million Ukrainians Have Fled Their Homes

Approximately 4,500 Russians have been detained, and threatened with 15 years in prison, along with a torturous interrogation, for protesting an unprovoked, inhumane military invasion of a sovereign, independent country.  Maybe that will help put things in perspective.  I'm not counting on it, given the misinformation and outright ignorance that has permeated the anti-mask, anti-vaxxers and the political wall that has been erected around those issues.  Most Americans have absolutely no idea what it feels like to experience real tyranny, and many of us take the real liberty that we have for granted, as if it is something that will always just "be there" without any effort on our part.  

Over a million Ukrainians have fled their homes because they are not safe from relentless missile attacks and shelling in their neighborhoods and around their homes.  Compare that to being required to wear a mask that covers nose and mouth to help prevent others from getting a contagious virus that has become the third leading cause of death among Americans in just two short years, and which has killed, to date, 957,000 Americans in two years.  That's a rhetorical statement, because there is absolutely no comparison at all.  

Ukraine Has Been a Free Country for Just 31 Years

Ukrainian history is very closely tied to that of Russia, as is its language, culture, religion, just about everything, including being the part of the Soviet Union that suffered the most devastation and Nazi brutality during World War II.  And yet, in spite of that, when the Soviet Union fell apart, and Ukraine declared its independence, and began building a democratic government and a free society, they experienced something as a people that they had never known before, and it became the centerpiece of their national identity.  That has set them apart from their Russian cousins, just like it has in most of the other European former Soviet "republics."  They've flourished.  

Putin has menaced them for at least a third of their existence.  He's tried to install puppet governments, and actually succeeded with the help of an American, Paul Manafort, our former President's first campaign manager.  Yeah, remember him?  He's used the presence of Russian-speaking people in the Crimea and Donbas to deny freedom to Ukrainians living there.  As Ukraine has become more and more comfortable enjoying its freedom and its representative democracy, Putin has planned to keep it from happening so that the experience won't translate over to his own people.  They've taken up arms to fight this invasion off.  That's how much it means to them.  They are fighting against real tyranny.

So this truck convoy protest, and those who drive their private vehicles into the mix, looks pretty selfish and petty.  Frankly, it looks as anti-democratic, anti-patriotic and anti-American as the January 6th insurrection, a riot engineered to overthrow the legitimate government and subvert the constitution, looked.  But this is a free country, so go ahead, see if you can block the traffic on an already impossible-to-navigate, regularly clogged up freeway.  Help people see just how ridiculous is the whole conspiracy-theory, falsehood-driven extreme political right is, and steer them toward the Democratic party come November.  This is just about the best free publicity we can get.  

Too Much Taken for Granted

The Ukrainians are united in a stand for their independence and freedom.  The trucker convoy is standing for their own selfishness, fed by lies and conspiracy theories.  Ukrainians are accepting rifles, standing together, protecting each other, drawing strength from each other and putting their lives at risk to do so.  The trucker convoy supports an unwillingness to consider the safety and well-being of others by doing something as simple as putting on a mask, or getting a little needle stick in the arm.  

Ukraine looks to the United States, and to its allies, as a model for the kind of democracy they want to build.  We need to show them what that looks like, not taking things for granted as we have done for so long, but demonstrating that our Constitution, which has survived for over 200 years, will continue to do so and our representative democracy is as strong as it ever has been.  One of the best ways we have to demonstrate this is to clean house when it comes to the January 6th traitors.  The justice department needs to keep the courts busy prosecuting everyone, starting with the former President.  If that launches a "political war" then at least we will be able to identify clearly who the enemies of freedom, democracy and America are, and we can use the best weapon we have to eliminate them.  It's called "the ballot box."