GOP Prez Candidates Search for Messages, Debates

In another look at the Ohio rejection of Issue 1, requiring a 60 percent vote to add citizens’ measures to the state constitution, Republicans aren’t dealing well with the overturning of an attempt to suppress citizen participation in democracy. Pitiful Secretary of State Frank LaRose, also GOP candidate for U.S. Senate blamed the defeat on out-of-state money although the 80 percent of the $32 million spent on the initiative coming from out of state was evenly divided. The biggest single donation, $4 million, came from ultra-conservative Richard Uihlein. Recently-elected Sen. J.D. Vance said the difference in the vote would be a matter of a few thousand votes; Republicans lost by 400,000 votes.

Nine GOP presidential candidates have satisfied polling requirements for the first GOP primary election debate on August 23 with only one glitch, a really big one—their promise to support any winning GOP candidate for the 2024 candidacy. Only one of them, Vivek Ramaswamy, has thus far pledged to support even a convicted felon. Another demand for the first debate is agreeing to a data-sharing agreement with the RNC. Chair Ronna McDaniel stated she will bar any candidate refusing to support the primary candidate winner from monthly televised events and any other debates.

Most of the GOP presidential candidates dragged their feet about DDT’s lies about a “stolen” election in 2020, but they are now reluctantly admitting that—maybe—DDT was wrong. The evolution—or reversal—may have come from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking publicly that DDT lost the election. Some candidates vaguely allude to supposed problems with the election although they failed to provide any evidence, but they seem to agree that Biden is the “legitimate” president. Their problem, however, is that DDT’s indictments have moved the nation’s focus to the January 6, 2021 insurrection with the accompanying denial by a majority of the GOP members.

In another problem, GOP presidential candidates have stayed largely silent as Democrats push to lower costs for healthcare, giving them the inside track on the issue. Only Will Hurd agrees that people “should have increased access to healthcare at a decreased cost”  although 54 percent of Republicans find these costs are a major concern.

The first GOP candidate, Nikki Haley, is criticizing Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for blocking military officers’ promotions and thus endangering national security. Her husband is serving overseas while 301 confirmations cannot go through the Senate. As commander-in-chief, the president is responsible for dealing with these problems. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that Tuberville won’t “back down” because “he’s become a celebrity folk hero in the fringe right.” According to Murphy, Tuberville “is prepared to burn the military down.”

Most Republicans opposed the billions being spent on the infrastructure, but they’re home for almost seven weeks bragging about it. Red states are getting more money than blue ones despite GOP congressional members voting against the funding and their current attempt to overturn the law. Sixty percent of GOP senators opposed the bill as well as 201 Republicans, all except two in the chamber at that time. Of the announced projects, 80 percent of the clean energy investments have gone to districts held by House Republicans, all of whom voted to repeal those benefits. President Joe Biden’s signs at all the projects clearly give the source of the funding although graciously calling the bill “bipartisan.”

Although DeSantis is at top of the GOP candidate list except for DDT, he rapidly going down, the more minor candidates benefiting from his loss. In a “reset,” he’s trying hard, firing a large number of his staff and trading his 34-year-old campaign manager, who had no experience before working for him, with a 33-year-old replacement who has no experience. The fired campaign manager had been DeSantis’ chief of staff, a strong Federalist member who built the governor’s conservative policies including anti-mask, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTQ rights. 

DeSantis’ authoritarian methods are based on DDT’s philosophy, the governor’s most recent action suspending a legally-elected state attorney Monique Worrell in the Orlando area because she disagreed with his policies. This is the second time in a year that he fired an elected official, and federal judge said DeSantis had violated his free speech rights. Andrew Warren, who DeSantis suspended a year ago, called Worrell’s suspension a “tantrum” because of DeSantis’ floundering campaign.

Republicans may be losing faith in DeSantis, partly because of Disney’s lawsuit against DeSantis and state officials, a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint.” DeSantis’ war on Disney started when its CEO Bob Eiger criticized the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Signatures on an amicus brief supporting Disney include former GOP governors Arne Carlson (MN) and Christine Todd Whitman (NJ); former GOP House members Christopher Shays (CT), Tom Coleman (MO), and Claudine Schneider (RI); and chiefs of staff, commissioners, and attorneys from former Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. The brief declares:

“The fact that Governor DeSantis has taken these anti-democratic actions so blatantly and brazenly— that he is proud of them—only makes them all the more damaging to the political and social fabric of Florida and the country as a whole.”

The brief also describes how DeSantis’ retaliation against Disney hurts Florida’s economy from a loss of business. The authors said that DeSantis follows the autocratic examples of Russian and Chinese governments. Local Florida attorney Jacob Schumer expects Disney to win the court case because DeSantis’ retaliation violates the company’s constitutionally protected free speech rights.

DeSantis’ wish to kill migrants suspected of smuggling drugs also doesn’t make him popular. Asked how law enforcement can know which ones are “running drugs,” he said a police officer would “make judgments”—in other words, just guess which people to murder. No trial, no search, just shoot on a hunch. 

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll also shows that DeSantis’ anti-woke campaign is losing its energy. Only 24 percent of GOP voters chose “a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture” over “a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.” In another choice, 52 percent prefer a candidate and government permitting non-interference with what corporations support. Candidate Ramaswamy, who called “wokeness” a “cultural cancer” has moved on. authored Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, has called “wokeness” a “cultural cancer.” His campaign stickers that read “Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek” are replaced with “Truth.”

Another DeSantis problem is his dumbing down of education in the state. He has backed down on his order not  to teach AP Psychology which including sexual orientation and gender identity, but book banning has expanded to William Shakespeare’s plays. Because of “sexual” content in Shakespeare’s writing, teachers are no longer permitted to assign entire plays; instead they must give students squeaky-clean excerpts. Ultra-conservative book banning Florida groups such as Moms for Liberty are offering reading lists after they have been the primary source of censorship in the state and the nation. A high school reading teacher said:

“I think the rest of the nation—no, the world, is laughing at us. Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd.”

In the past, one school district would require students to read two complete novels or plays in English classes; the new requirements are one novel and excerpts from five to seven different books. Frustrated with the changes, a school board member wrote on social media about the changes by the State Board of Education and the GOP legislature:

“Honestly, it feels that much of this is intentional, in order to cause as much chaos in public education as possible, so that the collapse of public education is swift and the agenda of education privatization can move forward with less obstacles.”

Book banning is costing school districts tens of thousands of dollars as each book on the schools’ shelves must be digitally chronicled. The arduous task has been outsourced, costing from $34,000 to $135,000 annually. The policy also leaves the school districts open to more book objections and led to a “ban first, review later” mentality and censorship. In the meantime, books are not available for students. At least two lawsuits, one by the huge publisher Penguin Random House, are challenging school districts for the books they have pulled.

DeSantis claimed that his new laws were to prevent schools from indoctrinating students. Yet materials provided to schools by far-right advocacy group PragerU are intended to indoctrinate, according to its founder Dennis Prager, right-wing radio host promoting climate denial and opposing democracy. One of his videos,  a cartoon about Christopher Columbus, gave the “good side” of the adventurer who says, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.” The state education department declares the “material aligns to Florida’s revised civics and government standards.”

To conform with state laws refusing the use of transgendered student names in school, Orange County Public School District, the eighth largest district in the U.S. with 200,000 students and 130 schools, requires signed parental permission for teachers to use students’ nicknames. As a student, Ron DeSantis would be called “Ronald” without his parents’ written permission. On the other hand, educators can display photos of same-gender partners because it doesn’t count as “classroom instruction.”

BTW, Florida ranks 48^th in the nation in teacher pay. “Make America Florida!”

Hope for the Future – August 5, 2023

Rational people in the U.S. worry about whether justice will come for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), and conservatives plan ways to control the U.S. with no rights for anyone else. Meanwhile, progress continues in government. 

The two Black Tennessee lawmakers expelled by GOP House members in a gun-safety protest this year have won their seats back—Justin Pearson with over 90 percent of the votes and Justin Jones with over 75 percent. The protest followed a shooting in a school near Nashville leaving three children and three adults dead. A white female lawmaker survived the expulsion vote by one vote. All three were tried with the charge of “disorder and dishonor.” Both men ran on campaigns highlighting environmental issues in poor communities, gun safety, and expansion of healthcare and living wages.

In Texas, a state district court judge issued a temporary exemption to the state’s abortion ban if the fetus is unlikely to survive after three women sued the state. In these cases, doctors who use “good faith judgment” to terminate a complicated pregnancy are free from prosecution. Abortions can also be performed if a pregnancy presents a risk of infection or the pregnant person requires regular, invasive treatment. The judge also wrote that the anti-abortion law is unconstitutional and enforcement is beyond Texas’ legal powers.

A 2-1 panel from the 5^th Circuit Court struck down Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era voting law from the state’s 1890 constitution that permanently revoked voting rights for some people with felony convictions, ruling it unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Reagan-appointed Judge Edith Jones dissented from the majority. The Supreme Court had refused to hear a challenge to the law, which denied a higher percentage of residents the right to vote than any other state in the U.S. Blocking over 10 percent of the population from voting, the policy prevented 16 percent of otherwise eligible Black voters from casting ballots. The opinion stated that the law “ensures that they will never be fully rehabilitated … and serves no protective function to society.” Restoration of voting rights had required a two-thirds vote by all members of each legislative chamber, accomplished by seven people between 1997 and 2022. Only 12 states permanently disenfranchise people for life in some cases.

Federal Communications Commission regulators are fining a company $300 million for a huge illegal robocall operation responsible for billions of auto-warranty scam calls spanning the world. It made over five billion robocalls to over one-half billion phone numbers in just three months of 2021. The people behind the network have used shell companies, aliases, and fly-by-night phone providers to scam people into shoddy service contracts since 2018. New, more effective technology allows investigators to quickly identify unwanted, automated calls, and FTC policies permit regulators to block entire voice providers from the U.S. telephone network for robocall violations.

Supporters for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) in Michigan have been criminally charged with felonies for accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election. One of them was a former GOP AG candidate.The two fake electors illegally obtained a voting machine, thinking it would prove election fraud.    

An attorney in Michigan has filed a tax status complaint against the highly homophobic book banning group Moms for Liberty, founded in Florida. With its 501(c)(4) non-profit status, it should be a social welfare organization instead of conservative political advocacy group lacking the necessary balance to have an educational purpose. Members, however, can join only through private Facebook groups controlled by the national organization. The 501(c)(4) status permits the group to advocate for specific candidates, but the advocacy must be under 25 percent of the group’s activities. At half the group’s activities, the “real danger zone” threatens the non-profit status. A primary purpose of Moms for Liberty is getting far-right extremists elected to local school boards to carry out their agenda.

The ban on most incandescent bulbs began on August 1, and Kathleen Parker honored it with a column on how she was stocking up on pink incandescent bulbs because they make her look pretty. nother writer wrote he was gathering incandescent Christmas bulbs because LED ones might not be as good—although most of them sold in the store now are LED. In the past few decades since LED lights were more commonly used, they have become quite similar to incandescent bulbs. Quite expensive in the beginning of general use, LED bulbs cost little more than incandescent bulbs and last 25 to 50 times longer. 

The rule targets only manufacturing, importers, distributors, and retailers, not consumers. It started with a 2007 law signed by George W. Bush that established new efficiency requirements for lightbulbs and an incandescent phaseout goal. DDT slowed down the process in 2019 by rolling back Obama-era efficiency rules. Recent GOP backlash, however, has received little mainstream media attention. Savings are 222 million metric tons of carbon emissions, generated by about 28 million homes per year. Consumers can save about $3 billion per year on their utility bills. The conservative anger has largely moved toward restrictions on gas stoves to keep people from getting sick.

Already running out of money for his campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis risks losing more donations from megadonor Robert Bigelow, who gave $20 million to DeSantis’ PAC Never Back Down, if the presidential candidate doesn’t drop the MAGA wooing. Bigelow wants DeSantis to appeal to GOP moderates and criticized him for signing the anti-abortion law. The donor said he’ll give DeSantis no more money until he proves he can raise funds “on his own.”

Another U.S. billionaire has stopped funding the think tank behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “judicial reform” which the country’s protest movement calls an assault on democracy. Arthur Dantchik’s millions have bankrolled the Kohelet Policy Forum, architect of Netanyahu’s plan which puts all government power into the parliament. Earlier this week, the Dan David Foundation, stopped donating to the conservative Israeli government projects that are “endangering the balance of powers and undermining the democratic foundations of the state.”

A federal judge refused the conservative group Parents Defending Education (PDE) a preliminary injunction on the Olentangy Local School District’s (OH) prohibition on misgendering trans students as part of its anti-bullying policy. Judge Algenon L. Marbley wrote about transgender students being far more subjected “to harassment and bullying in public schools. They are threatened or physically injured in schools at a rate four times higher than other students … Allowing speech that creates a hostile environment for transgender students can have devastating consequences.” He also stated that “the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children does not encompass a right ‘generally to direct how a public school teaches their child’ or how the school disciplines their child.”

Lawrence (KS), home to the University of Kansas, has become the first municipality in the state to be declared a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ people with a unanimous vote by city commissioners after a state passed an anti-trans bill. Ordinance 9999 bans the city and all of its employees from collecting or releasing information on a person’s “biological sex, either male or female, at birth” and from helping with any investigation, detention, arrest, or surveillance “conducted by a jurisdiction with the authority to enforce Senate Bill 180, as enacted.” Senate Bill 180 defines a person’s gender based on their assigned sex at birth and bans transgender, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and intersex people from using bathrooms, locker rooms, and even domestic violence shelters that align with their gender identity.

The Supreme Court shadow docket is still in effect, this time protecting Native Americans in Oklahoma. In an unsigned order with no public dissents, justices rejected a request from Tulsa to put on hold a 10^th Circuit Court decision to ban the city from enforcing municipal ordinances against Native Americans. In 2020, the high court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that a large area of eastern Oklahoma remains an Indian reservation because of the 1906 Oklahoma Enabling Act passed by Congress. State and local governments cannot prosecute Native Americans from committing crimes on the reservation.

Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) began a six-month formal cease-fire this week with the hopes for peace between the government and the last rebel group of 5,000 in an insurgency going back to the 1960s. The UN will deploy 68 observers to monitor the process. Peace efforts received new momentum for President Gustavo Petro, sworn a year ago as Colombia’s first leftist leader. To Petro, “total peace” would demobilize all the country’s remaining rebel groups and its drug trafficking gangs. Union leaders, students, and priests inspired by the Cuban revolution founded the ELN in the 1960s. Colombia’s government signed a peace deal in 2016 with the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ending a half century of conflict, but holdouts have continued violence in rural areas.

Good news for all women giving birth, including those living in forced-birth states: the FDA has approved the medication zuranolone for the treatment of postpartum depression. This is the first FDA-approved oral bill for the serious mental illness development, which can cause suicidal ideation, that hits over 14 percent of new mothers after childbirth, possibly over 500,000 women and their families each year. Without treatment, the disorder can last up to years. The oral medication is unique because it acts almost immediately to alleviate postpartum depression.

Good News (Mostly) – July 29, 2023

Starting out with the good news, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to change the military’s dealings with sexual assault cases. The order:

• Amends the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) by transferring key decision-making powers from commanders to specialized, independent military prosecutors in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, child abuse, and other serious offenses.
• Sets up rules to govern the new Offices of Special Trial Counsel, the independent military prosecutors who will now decide, in place of commanders, whether to prosecute such offenses.
• Establishes prosecutorial decisions from the special trial counsel that are binding and independent from the military chain of command.
• Better protects victims.
• Promote uniformity and fairness for rape and sexual assault sentencing.
• Guarantees consistency within the military services with a uniform evidence standard for non-judicial punishment actions.
• Advances the core accountability recommendations outlined in a 2021 report by the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military, building on progress that has been already made by the U.S. Department of Defense.

According to last year’s survey by the U.S. Department of Defense, the number of sexual assaults on service members reported in 2021 spiked to a new high of 7,249, a 13 percent increase from the previous year. Despite major efforts to address the issue of sexual assault in the military, including reforms instituted in 2021, women in the military services have significantly lost trust in the military to follow through on their cases or treat them with respect.

A federal judge in Arkansas has temporarily blocked the state from enforcing a new law, due to take effect on August 1, permitting criminal charges against providing “harmful” materials to minors. The preliminary injunction creates a new process challenging library materials and relocate them to areas not accessible by youth. The judge also stopped state prosecuting attorneys from trying to dismiss the case. Booksellers and publishers are also suing to block a new Texas book censorship law, a ratings law that could ban Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men” from schools’ classrooms and libraries. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated that his signing the law “gets that trash out of our schools.”

Tennessee teachers are fighting back against GOP state laws blocking them from talking about race and forcing them to push “biased” views of history on students. Their lawsuit opposes the deliberately vague law with no definition and making teachers afraid that even neutral mentions of race could cause them to lose their jobs and even go to prison. They claim the law violates the 14th Amendment, requiring laws to be specific.

Republicans claim that the law allows “impartial” discussion but doesn’t define the term although it prohibits any reference to racial superiority such as the violent nature of slavery. The state says any mention of this could make students—meaning white ones—feel guilt. To solve the “problem,” for example, Tipton County replaced an annual field trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis with a trip to a baseball game. A choir director in Shelby County fears that his decades-long teaching about the history of spirituals will be “divisive.” State Rep. John Ragan (R) explained that teaching “balance” in teaching about the Holocaust of 9/11 could be done by saying the perpetrators of those events were created “in the image and likeness of God,” just like everybody else.

Another federal judge in Montana put a temporary hold on a new law banning minors “from attending ‘sexually oriented shows,’ including “so-called drag story hours, which the law defines as events hosted ‘by a drag queen or drag king who reads children’s books and engages in other learning activities with minor children present.'” The bill “also bans public ‘sexually oriented performances’—including any involving ‘removal or simulated removal of clothing in a sexual manner’—seen by people under the age of 18.”

The extremist right-wing Florida group Moms for Liberty who partnered with the right-wing violent Proud Boys to elect Republicans, including DeSantis, and organized a book banning movement across the nation is now facing an IRS complaint about being a political educational organization. A Michigan attorney alleges that Moms for Liberty violated its 501(c)4 non-profit status. He also questioned the group’s participation in political campaigns and active recruitment of school board candidates. In 2021, the husband of the organization’s co-founder, chair of the Florida GOP, said:

“I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year old females involved with the Republican Party. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.”

Reactions to Florida’s curriculum that students see slavery as a help toward better jobs haven’t calmed down. Gov. Ron DeSantis has failed to avoid controversy although he claims that he didn’t have anything to do with the decision. He handpicked all the people who prepared the materials and led the anti-history movement throughout the U.S. Some Black Republicans are supporting DeSantis’ support of the curriculum, but Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), presidential candidate, and Rep. Ryan MacDonald (R-FL), a leader in putting Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) into the House Speaker position, criticized the curriculum and agree that DeSantis has gone too far.

Scott said that “slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives.” DeSantis responded that they had joined the liberals like VP Kamala Harris, mispronouncing her first name, who said, “They want to replace history with lies.” The two who spoke out are 40 percent of Black Republicans in the Congress.  

DeSantis’ feud against Disney started after the company’s CEO criticized DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” law; the governor has moved on to defunding the police for Disney’s property. The governor’s handpicked Disney board has removed $8 million from the security budget to lower property taxes. Disney pays $1 billion a year in taxes and has 75,000 employees. Defunding the police is not a good look for DeSantis campaign who also faces other possible legal problems.

DeSantis is taking a campaign tour as a “guest” of the super PAC Never Back Down, which is bound by law to be separate from any candidates. In addition, DeSantis is upsetting Republicans and incurring complaints by the Federal Elections Commission. He is using $100 million from his DDT-backed governor reelection campaign to run against Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and moved $82.5 million from his state political committee to the federal super PAC. Never Back Down used this transfer to claim it raised $150 million. In March, two months before the transfer, the Florida GOP-led election officials reversed the ruling that blocked the transfer of money from state to federal committees.

The purpose of the Supreme Court, one of government’s three branches, is to enforce checks and balances in the U.S. government, but one justice said that those same checks and balances don’t apply to him or the other Supreme Court justices. In a defensive statement to Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, Justice Samuel Alito stated:

“No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”

For the current time, this assertion caps a series of WSJ op-ed pieces defending Alito’s position and justifying his taking financial favors organized by Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Alito purports that the Supreme Court controls the other two branches of the government. Those refuting his position cite the Constitution, specifically Article III, Section 2:

“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Attorney and former judge Bob Vance used other parts of the Constitution to point out that “Congress has the power of the purse, controlling funds allocated to the federal judiciary. It can also alter the size of the Supreme Court, which it has done in the past.” Rep Ted Lieu (D-CA) directly wrote Alito:

“You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the court to nine justices. Congress can impeach justices and can in many cases strip the court of jurisdiction. Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so. You are not above the law.”

Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser wrote:

“For the record, Article III judges are not supposed to issue advisory opinions on constitutional questions that are not presented to them in case or controversy that their court properly has jurisdiction over.”

Alito may have the chance to oppose voting rights again after supporting Alabama’s gerrymandered congressional districts to keep Blacks from voting. The state is refusing to following the directive of the 11^th Circuit Court per the high court’s ruling with a GOP plan to overturn the 1965 Voting Rights Act, according to anonymous sources. If the case returns to SCOTUS, Alabama may find a majority of conservatives to support the state’s gerrymandering as it did in Alabama’s Shelby County v. Holder ruling. Alabama AG Steve Marshall is leading the noncompliance charge.

In Georgia, whites are so opposed to Black officials that the Augusta judicial circuit, home to a three-county criminal justice system for over 150 years, lost its whitest county after a Black was elected district attorney in 2020. The state Supreme Court dismissed the Black Lives Matter Fund’s lawsuit, contending that the old circuit’s Black voters were disenfranchised.

 

News from June 12-19, 2022

Killings with guns in the U.S.—including mass shootings—are happening more frequently. Recent ones around the nation include three people killed outside an Episcopalian church near Birmingham (AL) at a senior potluck by a 71-year-old gun dealer who had received a warning letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in 2018 related to missing gun inventory. Smith “failed to the record the disposition” of multiple firearms, and “failed to record” necessary information like addresses and license numbers in records as required by law.

Mass shootings: June 16, 2022 – One man and another four men and women were wounded outside an Oakland (CA) sports bar. Surveillance cameras caught the shootings on video.

June 18, 2022 – Five people were injured in a Pensacola (FL) nightclub.

June 19, 2922 – At least two people were killed and five others injured in a shooting at a family gathering in San Antonio. A 15-year-old boy was killed and three adults including a police officer injured in Washington, D.C.

The rosy projection of a bipartisan “gun reform” bill has greatly dimmed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) responsible for the negotiation. He followed his usual MO—pretend a breakthrough while scuttling progress. He clearly stated that restricting guns was “not gonna happen” and supposedly targeted “the problem, mental illness and school safety.” Yet boos were so loud at his speech last week in his home state that he couldn’t continue. Cornyn originally promised ten GOP votes in the Senate for the proposed bill framework, but the ten Republicans on the bill are reneging on two parts of it: closing the boyfriend loophole allowing violent partners to have guns and giving money to states that incorporate the “red flag” law to remove guns from people through a court process if the firearms are a danger to themselves or others. Cornyn complained his own state won’t get money because they will refuse the red flag law, and he can’t figure out what partners will be of danger.

Cornyn also moved the goalposts: now he requires 20 GOP senators to sign off on any gun bill instead of ten. The Juneteenth holiday shortens this week’s schedule before the Senate heads out for a two-week vacation for the July 4^th recess. Again Republicans hope that people will forget about ten people killed in Buffalo and another 21 in Uvalde (TX), 19 of them under 11 years old, so they can drop any gun reform ideas. and they can go back to satisfying all the gun-clutchers.

The communications director of the far-right, GOP-funded Moms for Liberty, was caught on tape declaring that her school district’s librarians should “all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now.” She declared the recording was illegally made and edited, but Media Matters maintains her claims are false. A losing U.S. House GOP candidate and DDT’s former “top pastor,” Mark Burns, also wants to execute LGBTQ people for “grooming” children.

Sunday, June 19, is the first annual anniversary of the federal holiday of Juneteenth, the date in 1865 when the last Blacks  were told that they were free although the Emancipation Proclamation freed them 30 months earlier.  One year since Congress established the federal holiday, only 18 states allow state employees a paid state holiday for the event. Some legislators said a day off is not worthwhile because not enough people know about the holiday. Almost 60 percent of people say they know about the holiday, and Blacks have celebrated the day since the late 1800s. This resistance is similar to state objections to the holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday after a federal holiday was passed in 1983. Beginning with Texas in 1980, nine states made Juneteenth a paid state holiday before President Joe Biden signed the bill on June 17, 2021, making it a federal holiday. Legislation passed 148 to 1 in the House and 35 to 1 in the Senate.

June 19, 2022 is also the 50^th anniversary of Father’s Day as a national U.S. holiday on the third Sunday of June. First celebrated with a sermon in 1908, the day struggled with popularity because men ridiculed the day’s sentimental celebration for masculinity through flowers and gifts. Efforts to combine Mother’s and Father’s days disappeared in the Great Depression because retailers wanted to commercialize two different days. By the end of World War II, it was used to support the war effort; by now people spent over $1 billion on Father’s Day gifts.

Arizona’s AG Mark Brnovich, a candidate for U.S. Senate, lost his case to lead other states in defending the changes in the “public charge” rule by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT). The U.S. Supreme Court supported the 9^th Circuit Court blocking states the lawsuit. The rule changes had made it easier to deny green cards to working immigrant families if they are “more likely than not” to use public benefits in the future such food stamps, housing and rental assistance, and Medicaid in 12 months of 36 months. Two of these forms of assistance for one month would count toward two months.

Brnovich also lost his case to order a major rewrite of an almost 300-page document telling Arizona county election officials how to manage the 2022 elections. He had refused an update Election Procedures Manual from Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, but a judge said his complaints were unsupported. The judge ruled that the manual approved by Brnovich, Hobbs, and Gov. Doug Ducey in 2019 would be in effect for the upcoming election. Hobbs provided county officials with guidance on changes on new laws and court rulings that affect that set of rules.

Glyphosate, found in the world’s most widely used herbicide Roundup, may pose a health risk for people exposed to it on farms, yards, roadsides, or food crop residue. The 9^th Circuit Court ordered the EPA to reexamine its 2020 finding under DDT that found it to be no danger. Acquiring Roundup in 2018, the pharmaceutical company Bayer faces thousands of lawsuits about its causing cancer. EPA will review the court ruling and determine the “next steps,” and the Supreme Court may hear an appeal from Bayer to close the lawsuits against them. The three-judge panel ruled that EPA’s determination of no risk to human health “was not supported by substantial evidence.”

Parents won its lawsuit against a North Carolina charter school where girls were required to wear skirts because of the co-founder’s belief in “chivalry.” With a vote of 10-6, the entire 4^th Circuit Court overturned the dress code—and a three-judge panel of the court—declaring the school violates female students’ constitutional rights. The two DDT-appointed judges on the panel had earlier ruled that the school was not a “state actor” although it receives public funds, is subject to state educational requirements and is called a “public school” in state statutes. Female students between kindergarten and eighth grade said that the dress code kept them from participating in recess and made them uncomfortable in such situations as emergency drills when they had to crawl on the floor. The judge wrote that chivalry is “a code of conduct where women are treated, they’re regarded as a fragile vessel that men are supposed to take care of and honor” and intended to ensure that girls are treated “courteously and more gently than boys,” an impermissible gender stereotype.

Police are receiving death threats after they arrested members of the neo-Nazi Patriot Front heading to an attack on an LGBTQ Pride event in Coeur d’Alene on June 11. Members of the group were charged and then released on bail. Calls to the agency came from as far away as Norway. Threats included publishing personal information of police offices such as their home addresses and telephone numbers. Details about the Patriot Front. More about the Patriot Front, an offshoot of the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America.

One Patriot Front member won’t be going home: his mother, Karen Amsden, kicked the 27-year-old out of her house. Karen Amsden, the mother of a 27-year-old Utah resident, kicked him out of the house. Divorced after her husband defined himself as gay, she said she told her son he could “choose between Patriot Front and your family.” He picked Patriot Front, and she told him to pack and leave. Her son had told him that he was just going camping for the weekend in Idaho and later used the false excuse for the attack that LGBTQ people are “grooming kids.”

A group of five Proud Boys traumatized children attending a Drag Queen Story House at the San Lorenzo library, 25 miles southeast of San Francisco, when the hate group stormed the facility yelling homophobic and transphobic threats. They also accused adult participants of “grooming kids.” State Sen. Scott Wiener received a death threat with hate language and sexual obscenities after he called the incident the “direct result of political attacks on LGBTQ people.”

At the Faith & Freedom conference where DDT attacked Mike Pence—again!—Sen. Lindsey Graham announced, to much applause, the GOP philosophy: “You know what I like about Trump. Everybody was afraid of him.”

The goal of the Republicans is to make everyone afraid of them. Allow everyone to keep guns to terrify people. Use bullying to destroy diplomacy. Employ vigilantes to take away people’s constitutional rights such as voting. Create tantrums accusing people of evidence-free wrong-doing. And never admit you’ve lost—make up lies to get your own way, repeat them over and over, and cheat people to win. It’s the GOP playbook.

Evangelism: The Newest U.S. Political Party

In the 18^th century, the Christian evangelical movement began in Britain and the United States as a movement of conservative Christians. For almost two centuries, the evangelicals had beliefs such as being born again and avoiding politics. Their goal was to rule heaven, not secular government. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, however, the evangelicals decided to join business to control the U.S. government, and almost a half century later white evangelicals have stopped being a religion and developed their own political party.

The evangelical platform includes anti-immigration and anti-science but blocks any discussions of racism. Between DDT’s election in 2016 and his loss in 2020, 16 percent of people not identifying as evangelical and not voting for DDT reversed these positions. In 2020, 18 percent of white evangelical voters voting for DDT were converts to him after not supporting DDT in 2016. Although the majority of people blame the January 6 insurrection attempt was by white supremacist groups, 57 percent of white evangelical Protestants blame liberal left-wing groups such as antifa, and 68 percent of white evangelicals believe DDT is a “true patriot.”

To pastors in the Mercy Culture Church, the U.S. belongs to God, and the Lord claims that 2021 is the “Year of the Supernatural” when believers wage “spiritual warfare” to advance God’s kingdom. In this nondenominational political engine of DDT’s GOP, leaders are called apostles and prophets in publishing empires, prayer networks, TV programs, podcasts, and merchandizing. Demons and miracles are real as civilization has only two genders, no abortion, a free-market economy, evangelical-based education, and laws blocking the rights of everyone except the believers. As mainline denominations shrank since the 1980s, nondenominational groups grew to ten percent in 2020 though the recent New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

In dominionism, a sociological approach to attract members, God commands Christians to assert authority over the “seven mountains” of life: family, religion, education, economy, arts, media and government/ With success, Jesus Christ returns and God reigns for eternity. The new expansion comes from DDT’s network of NAR-style leaders who made him God’s chosen president. Evangelical voters are no longer older Southern Baptists in wooden pews but younger extremists firing up the Great Awakening with an epicenter in Texas.

These white evangelicals have joined other Republicans as the defenders of lawlessness and disorder, a system which employs the law only for them and uses courts to protect their personal interests while intimidating opponents. Their new laws control women through a “legal” vigilante style and distorted language. The term “protect life” is used for fetuses but not for protection from disease, guns, and other violence. “Integrity” in election law means eliminating the voting rights for anyone considered undesirable voters, specifically non-conservatives. “Court packing” means having bipartisan judges but doesn’t refer to the GOP “packing” of conservatives in all the U.S. courts, including the Supreme Court, in the past four years. Judicial activism refers only to positions opposed by conservatives.

In July, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) demonstrated the religious need to control women during a confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee for Hampton Dellinger, Biden’s appointment as assistant attorney general in the DOJ Office of Legal Policy. When Dellinger, a devout Catholic, said GOP men are the driving force behind abortion restrictions, he offended Kennedy, who asked:

“Do you think that my votes with respect to abortion are based on the fact that I want to control women?”

Dellinger said he could not “speak to that,” and Kennedy asked Dellinger why he said that “in front of God and country.” The exchange continued, and Kennedy asked, “Do you believe in God?” Dellinger said he had “faith,” and Kennedy asked:

“A lot of people have faith. Did it ever occur to you that some people may base their position on abortion on their faith?”

Kennedy outright stated the GOP opposition to women’s right to choose comes from Republicans’ religion and their refusal to permit women to determine their personal reproductive health care—all violating the First Amendment as well as the constitution’s Article VI, mandating “no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” It was the same Article VI Kennedy used three years earlier in complaining about a question for Supreme Court justice candidate Amy Coney Barrett about whether her extremist Catholic faith would interfere with fairness as a jurist.

Evangelicals may claim to be religious, but they are far less moral than those in the secular population. In June, 14 percent of the U.S. population said they will not be vaccinated under any conditions, but among white evangelicals Christians, the number was over 50 percent higher at 22 percent, the highest of any demographic group. As the percentage of vaccinations increased since then, refusals remained high among white evangelicals as right-wing, white supremacist political figures spread disinformation and “suspicion of science.” Evangelicals assume they won’t contract the disease and feel no need to protect the lives of anyone else, even those close to them. They have no need to block, or even slow down, the pandemic, therefore causing it to surge throughout the nation.

Data shows that human activity is destroying the world through wildfires, floods, melting glaciers, polluted water and air, worse hurricanes, rising sea levels, etc. Over 80 percent of secular people in the U.S. accept evidence for this catastrophe and make its change at the top of their priorities. Only 33 percent of white evangelicals take responsibility for climate change. Secular people are far more likely to oppose gun violence, government use of torture, and corporal punishment while supporting refugee assistance, affordable health care for all, LGBTQ rights, etc.

Project Blitz, a secret Christian white supremacist “bill mill” to create a female-controlling theocracy in the U.S., begins with innocent-seeming bills such as mandating schools display the national motto, “In God We Trust.” Its exposé in 2018 drove the project underground, but proposed bills continue to emerge, including those to criminalize librarians and teachers for using “age-inappropriate sexual materials.”

For example, Tennessee’s “Moms for Liberty” demand that the Williamson County School District ban a book because its watercolor illustrations of “seahorses is too sexy.” A book about Johnny Appleseed, the folklore hero traveling the Midwest and planting apple trees, is “sad and dark.” A book about hurricanes should be eliminated because “first grade is too young to hear about possible devastating effects of hurricanes.” And a fifth-grade novel about the Civil War includes “out of marriage families between white men and black women” and depicts “white people as ‘bad’ or ‘evil.’” The group recommends removing 31 books or placing them at a higher level—seahorses touching tales in Seahorses: The Shyest Fish in the Sea, published in 2006, might work for 8^th grade, according to the misnamed “Moms for Liberty.” 

The same forces behind Project Blitz has other legislative agendas: anti-trans youth legislation, religious exemptions to COVID-related public health protections, broad denial-of-care bills, and bills that undermine abortion access. The push for religious exemptions has the biggest traction and the broadest effect, especially with its attacks on contraception, child labor laws, etc. Another “blitz” focus is against the so-called “critical race theory” with efforts in 27 states to block education related to racism, contributions of different racial and ethnic groups in American history, and related topics.

Rachel Laser, president of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, said:

“White Christian nationalism is the belief that America is and must remain a Christian nation founded for its white Christian inhabitants, and that our laws and policies must reflect this premise,” she said. “They completely reject church-state separation. White Christian nationalists oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities and the nonreligious.”

Former evangelical Valerie Talrico lists ten thought patterns developed by its fundamentalism:

• All or nothing: any sin can send people to hell; people are either saved or damned.  
• Good guys and bad guys: people are in one of two mental boxes, and they are either for us or against us.  
• Never feeling good enough:
• Hyperactive guilt detection: in a world of should and should-nots leaves one with a constant sense of guilt from the smallest failing.  
• Sexual hangups: sexual sins—meaning pleasures—are the worst.  
• Living for the future: all life must be focused on the future instead of the moment because only heaven has value.
• Bracing for an apocalypse: the impending doom of nuclear disaster, pandemic, etc. keeps people driven instead of the sense of curiosity and discovery.  
• Idealizing leaders: demagogues and authoritarians exuding confidence about what is right and how to solve problems prey on all fears reinforce the sense that everyone who doesn’t share a person’s worldview must be extinguished because they are evil. 
• Desperately seeking simplicity: the lack of multi-dimensional nuance and moral ambiguity reinforced frustration of differences among people and coping with problems that have no right answers. 
• Intrusive what-ifs: nagging doubts lead to people second-guessing themselves and making them believe they are wrong even if they aren’t.

The increasing polarization of the United States matches almost all the characteristics developed in evangelicals.