Month: January 2022

I never really believed that Bernie Sanders could do a better job of turning out low-proclivity voters than Donald Trump, but I acknowledged that it was possible. What I was absolutely certain about was that he would not be able to pass his agenda through Congress. I spelled this out in an August 2019 piece for the Washington Monthly called How to Campaign When Nothing is Possible. It turned out to be too optimistic, but I think you’ll see how prescient my analysis was. A big part of my point was that, if you were concerned about legislative policy, it largely didn’t matter which Democrat won the nomination. All of them would be severely constrained by their inability to overcome a Republican filibuster. If you were trying to decide between candidates, it was less important what they had to say about health care or climate or police violence than what they’d be able to do within the constraints, and also what they might do administratively without the help of Congress.

What irked me to no end was Sanders’ insistence that he could create a groundswell of support to create “a revolution” that would persuade Republicans to cave in to his demands and pass his agenda. In truth, Sanders’ was going to be in a weaker condition than most of the other contenders precisely because he had such a poor relationship with members in the middle of the Democratic Party. Biden’s advantage was basically that he had a better chance of getting the Democratic senators to act with unanimity and to hold down defections from suburban members of the House.

I put forth three basic scenarios, including the one that came to pass–a Democratic trifecta with narrow congressional majorities. I noted that the Democrats would not be able to eliminate the legislative filibuster in the first year, although I hoped that their frustrations might become so great that it could be changed thereafter. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a pipe dream.

If the Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate, the new Democratic president will not be enacting one iota of their top shelf legislative agenda. There will be nothing major on health care or college loans or immigration or climate change. Even judges will be only confirmed in the most belated and begrudging manner, and only if they’ve never said anything on the record that conservatives find irritating. All legislative progress that can be made will come as the result of leverage over must-pass bills, and the leverage will only be truly significant so long as the Democrats retain control of the House of Representatives. But navigating government shutdowns and threats of national default in order to attach a few things to appropriations bills is not going to turn many of a candidate’s campaign promises into reality.

If, however, the Democrats win control of the trifecta (White House, Senate and House), they will still be hamstrung by the Senate’s legislative filibuster and the limits of what vulnerable or conservative Democrats are willing to support. It’s actually becoming foreseeable that the Democrats will do away with the legislative filibuster, thus allowing them to pass bills with fifty instead of sixty votes. But that would require them to be completely united, or nearly so if they somehow win even more than four GOP-held seats in 2020. Because the Democratic caucus includes many institutionalists, it’s probable that they won’t kill the filibuster for good until they’ve given the Republicans most of the 2021 congressional calendar to provide some compromise. Only if they are frustrated in that effort (and they will be) does it seems possible that every Democratic senator will be ready to make the move. As a result, President Biden (or Warren or Harris or Sanders, etc.) will probably lose all the momentum normally enjoyed during the honeymoon period of a new chief executive.

Yet, even if the Democrats win the trifecta and eliminate the legislative filibuster, they’ll still have huge problems passing legislation. Even assuming that Nancy Pelosi can push the president’s agenda through her chamber (and this is doubtful for some of the policies the candidates are pushing), there are senators (like Michael Bennet of Colorado, for example) on the record opposing much of the progressive candidates’ agenda. There are senators like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia who vote with the Republicans almost as often as they vote with the Democrats. Manchin, by the way, will probably be the chairman of the Energy Committee, making impactful climate legislation next to impossible to pass. And then there will be the freshman class. In order to get a net gain of four seats, the Democrats will have to win a seat or two in states like Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Even the seemingly easy pickings in Colorado, Arizona and (perhaps) Maine are going to bring in freshmen who won’t feel very safe in their seats.

In this scenario, the only things that will be legislatively possible are going to have to pass muster with the one or two most conservative/vulnerable Democrats in the Senate. And this is the rosy scenario. One way of putting it is that if Joe Manchin doesn’t want it to happen then it almost definitely is not going to happen.

That last sentence formed the basis of my analysis for the Democratic primaries, and it was admittedly a thoroughly pessimistic and depressing premise, but it was entirely accurate. What has surprised me is Biden’s inability to bring Manchin along, but ironically I feel like it only bolsters my assumptions. Biden had the best chance of moving Manchin among the Democratic candidates. The others would have done no better and Sanders would have been cut off from the outset. I guess one advantage there might have been less wasted hope, and maybe an earlier pivot to realism, but Sanders has never been known for pivoting or compromise.

I’m really, really frustrated to have been proven right about how things would go, partly because it has been even worse than I feared, but seeing where we are you might get a clearer picture about why I’ve been so despondent about the prospects for progressive change roughly since the conclusion of the 2014 midterms.

I know people want messages of hope, but I’ve always focused on accuracy as my brand. Things have been bleak, really, really bleak for a long time and I’ve been short-tempered with people who didn’t understand how deep our hole had become.

To put it all in perspective, when it became clear that Biden had defeated Trump I had a conversation with my brother Phil. I was ecstatic and he was tempering my enthusiasm by pointing out how disappointing the congressional races had been. I told him that I had internalized that way ahead of time and while it was indeed a bummer, there wasn’t much Biden could do even with slightly bigger majorities. The critical thing was that Trump had not been reelected because it meant our country still had a pulse. We would get a chance to regroup and recover.

And that’s what we have now, but we’re paying a heavy price for overpromising and having expectations that the Republicans would allow any significant progress. The only way through now is to pull off a major upset in the midterms, and that is looking less likely every day.

Trump’s legal woes are starting to pile up, and maybe they’ll bear fruit and change the trajectory we’re on. On the other hand, we could soon see things get much worse for Biden, especially if Russia invades Ukraine.

Two of the Democrat’s major initiatives are currently stalled in the Senate: the Build Back Better Act and voting rights. Republicans have made it clear that they not only oppose these two pieces of legislation, they refuse to negotiate with Democrats on the goals of addressing the economic challenges faced by Americans or protecting the right to vote.

So how is the media handling this obstruction? A few headlines tell the story.

USAToday: “As voting rights push fizzles, Biden’s failure to unite his own party looms again”

Axios: “Biden’s Epic Failures”

Washington Post: “Biden is failing politically, and not just because of Republican obstruction”

The New Statesman: “Joe Biden’s failure on voting rights could cost the Democrats the White House”

Perhaps you get the point. Failure to pass these bills is being laid at Biden’s feet, not at Republicans for refusing to even negotiate.

Politico took things a step further, suggesting that Biden’s favorite columnists are revolting against him. Who are the columnists they talked to? The list includes David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Chris Matthews, and Josh Barro. Other than the fact that they are all white guys (mostly former Republicans), the one thing those four men have in common is that they’re all suggesting that – even on voting rights – Biden has moved too far to the left.

For example, Brooks said that “Biden’s aggressive rhetoric on voting rights…represents how he has strayed from his roots as a moderate.” Even if you buy into the way right wingers have politicized an issue like voting rights, Brooks is completely ignoring the fact that the Freedom to Vote Act was a compromise designed in part by Senator Joe Manchin – a so-called “moderate” Democrat.

Josh Barro also seems to suffer from having a bad memory when he told Politico that “The top issue for voters is the economy. So every day that you’re talking about voting rights legislation, you do not appear to be focused on the economic problem that’s the number one issue for voters.” He doesn’t seem to remember that Republicans also obstructed the Build Back Better Act, which would have gone a long way towards addressing the economic problems faced by Americans.

I won’t hold my breath for a time when Barro calls out Republicans for their failure to even put forward an agenda to address “the number one issue for voters.” Where are Republicans focused these days? On voter suppression. For example, on the first day Republicans regained control of the Virginia State Assembly, they immediately got to work on their number one priority.

This General Assembly session, various Republican Delegates and State Senators have proposed 20 bills to restrict or limit absentee voting…

Proposed bills include reinstating a requirement of an “excuse” to vote absentee, limiting absentee voting to a week or two weeks before Election Day and eliminating ballot drop-off boxes.

Other bills would require a photo ID to vote, require absentee ballots be mailed and received by Election Day to count, and eliminate the automatic absentee voter list – in which the registrar’s office mails voters ballots for each election.

It’s clear that Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema are giving Republican obstructionists a boost by refusing to alter the Senate’s filibuster rule to pass voting rights. But it’s also important to remember that their votes wouldn’t have been needed in 1982 when the Senate reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 85-8 and it went on to be signed by President Reagan. Or how about 2006 when it was once again reauthorized, this time by a vote of 98-0, and signed by President George W. Bush?

When it comes to protecting the right to vote, where are the so-called “moderate” Republicans, like Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Bill Cassidy, and Richard Burr? They’re all lined up with the obstructionists in their party. Are any of these columnists calling them out for moving too far to the right? Not a peep.

A group of former Democratic senators just put a lie to the idea that the push for voting rights is a move to the left. Doug Jones, who served as a senator from Alabama published a letter that was signed by a group that would fit the bill of being described as moderate. It included Senators Tom Daschle, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Mark Udall and Mark Begich. Here’s what they said about voting rights.

Last year, we saw an unprecedented amount of misinformation regarding the winner of the 2020 presidential election, a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying the election results, and partisan state legislatures trying to overturn the election in their states while erecting barriers to voting in future elections. Congressional Democrats have proposed multiple bills aimed at strengthening our democracy and advancing voter rights legislation that would instill confidence in our elections only to see them never reach the Senate floor. If the Senate cannot even begin to debate and vote on something as foundational as voting rights, we must reform Senate rules and restore the chamber to its rightful place as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

Protecting the freedom to vote should not be a partisan issue.

At this point, the only accurate way to tell this story is that, with an assist from Manchin and Sinema, Republicans have politicized an issue that was once bipartisan. They are not only obstructing efforts to protect the right to vote, they have prioritized voter suppression. The fact that the media isn’t reporting it that way represents their own failure, not Biden’s.

I’m not saying Hillary Clinton was politically wise to refer to Donald Trump’s supporters as a basket of deplorables but it’s become evident that she was definitely making an accurate statement. For proof, look not further than the behavior of the people who have been arrested for their participation in the failed January 6 coup attempt. An investigation by BuzzFeed found that there are more than 550 seditious defendants out on bail. A significant number of them have actually been jailed because they couldn’t abide by the conditions of their pretrial release. Others have been warned or had stricter conditions imposed.

Pruitt is one of 10 people charged in connection with the attack on the US Capitol who were ordered into custody after initially being released; seven of those cases involved defendants who violated conditions of their pretrial release. Prosecutors have a pending request to put another defendant behind bars, and BuzzFeed News identified at least 16 cases where judges tightened restrictions or issued warnings after finding defendants failed to be in full compliance with the letter, or spirit, of their release conditions.

The violations vary quite a bit, but mostly fall into a refusal to give up their firearms or abide by a curfew. One was “violating a prohibition on internet access after he was caught streaming election fraud conspiracy theory content.” Another “tried to pressure his estranged wife to lie.”

Here’s a good example of a guy who has a basket of deplorable behavior.

Earlier this week, a judge granted the government’s request to put James Grant of North Carolina in jail. Grant is charged with joining other rioters in using metal barricades to assault police officers at the Capitol. The government didn’t seek detention when he was arrested in October. But a prosecutor returned to court a few months later to ask the judge to revoke Grant’s release, citing multiple violations.

In early December, police officers responding to a call of a suicide threat encountered Grant intoxicated in a car, according to the government; they found an assault rifle and 60 rounds of ammunition in the vehicle. The pretrial supervision office had previously alerted the court that Grant tested positive twice for amphetamines after being allowed to go home. The prosecutor also noted that before Grant’s arrest in the Jan. 6 case, he’d been charged in September with driving under the influence and carrying a concealed firearm; that case is pending.

Nothing like a suicidal guy in a car, drunk and high on right-wing nonsense and amphetamines, and armed with an assault rifle. That’s the kind of “patriot” that follows Trump.

Amazingly, there are tens of millions of these people. And we can’t seem to beat them politically, so nothing gets done.

It’s utterly disgusting.

This is a Mazzy Star track from the mid-1990s. It got featured on a Rick and Morty episode that basically made me a fan. You’ll get a scene from the first season, where Morty is really traumatized for the first time. Mortality is traumatizing so young, even in the universe of that series.

Mazzy Star were what emerged from the ashes of Opal, who themselves were what emerged from what was left of the paisley underground in LA/OC in Southern California. They recorded some beautiful songs in their day. All very existential.

Cheers.

One of the things we’ve learned about Donald Trump is that everything he says or does is designed to prop up his narcissistic ego. Such is the case with the Big Lie. As Tony Schwartz made clear, Trump is compelled to create a delusional reality in which he wins, even when he loses, because the admission of a loss is the “equivalent of obliteration.”

What that means is that the former guy can never abandon the Big Lie. On the contrary, he is making it pivotal as we head into the 2022 midterm elections. Trump has gone all-in on endorsing his favorites in Republican primaries. And the litmus test he’s using is the extent to which they buy into the Big Lie.

The governor’s race in Georgia i a perfect example. Trump is mad at the Republican incumbent Brian Kemp for not doing more to overturn the election results in that state. So he has endorsed David Perdue, whose candidacy is completely based on support for the Big Lie.

Trump’s recent rally in Arizona is another example. Those who were invited on stage all payed homage to the Big Lie – with Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake leading the way. Lake not only says that, if she were governor, she would not have certified Arizona’s election, she has threatened to jail politicians and journalists who told the truth about Biden winning the state.

At this point, Trump hasn’t endorsed a candidate in Arizona’s senate race to challenge Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly – although he did attend a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago for Blake Masters, president of the Thiel Foundation. That has often been a precursor to an endorsement.

The leader in the Republican senate primary so far is current AZ Attorney General Mark Brnovich. Check out what happened when he tried to cozy up to Trump.

Let's see some justice for that corrupt, rotten 2020 election. https://t.co/mPUS3cnROl

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 17, 2022

The MAGA crowd – which will obviously vote for any candidate Trump endorses – is likely to prevail in primaries with several candidates on the ballot. That is especially true in states where the winner could be decided by as little as 20-30 percent of the vote. But what happens in the general election?

Journalists have paid a lot of attention to the fact that a majority of Republicans believe the Big Lie. But very little attention has been paid to the fact that between 60 to 65 percent of voters believe that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. That number has been stable since November, so it’s not likely to change.

What happens to all of these Trump-endorsed Republicans when the former guy comes to town to campaign for them in the general election and insists on promoting the Big Lie? Of course, that will be a factor in state-wide races more than gerrymandered House seats. But as an example, in 2021, Glenn Youngkin didn’t want Trump anywhere near his campaign in Virginia – which was probably a factor in his success.

Will candidates who embraced the Big Lie during primaries in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio stick with Trump and his Big Lie, or will they attempt a very awkward pivot once the primaries are over? You can be sure that if they chose the latter, Trump will savage them – regardless of how that effects the outcome. His ego will demand it.

While journalists seem intent on a doom and gloom forecast for Democrats in 2022, too many of them are ignoring the fact that Republicans face a huge bind heading into the midterms.

“Trump still has this outsized voice and influence and too many candidates fear his wrath,” said Charlie Dent, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and Trump critic. “We know Donald Trump will use his megaphone to condemn those who don’t buy his lies and his false narrative on the 2020 election. So these candidates are put in a bind: If they tell the truth, they run the risk of losing their primaries and incurring the wrath of Trump, and if they acquiesce and go along with this nonsense, they run the risk of alienating a lot of voters.”

Candidates have been pivoting between primaries and general elections for decades. What’s different for Republicans this time is that a narcissistic ego who controls the MAGA cult will be waiting in the wings to demonize anyone who fails to prop up his Big Lie.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke remotely for about five minutes with congregants from the reverend’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. It was part of an apparently hopeless effort to convince the U.S. Senate to pass voting rights legislation. The White House released a brief speech by President Biden as well. Passing voting legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes because of the filibuster rule, and Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona had made it clear that that will not countenance any substantial change to the rule that would overcome Republican opposition.

The goal is to pass two bills: the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. They have been packaged together and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer used some procedural jujitsu to overcome the Republicans’ refusal to open debate. But that won’t allow him to end the debate so they can conduct an up-or-down vote on final passage.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to begin debate on the legislation on Tuesday. At some point, the Senate will need to vote to end debate, which requires 60 senators to vote to proceed. It’s at this stage that Republicans can filibuster the legislation, preventing it from moving on to a full vote. Only one Republican senator — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — has supported the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and no Republicans have supported the second bill. But Democrats would need 10 conservatives to join them to overcome a blockade.

Schumer could try various maneuvers or signal a vote to change Senate rules to end the filibuster, but without Sinema and Manchin onboard, the latter effort is all but guaranteed to fail.

In a letter Schumer sent to the Democratic caucus on January 3, he stated that a Republican filibuster would result in a vote on changing the rule no later than January 17.

Over the coming weeks, the Senate will once again consider how to perfect this union and confront the historic challenges facing our democracy. We hope our Republican colleagues change course and work with us. But if they do not, the Senate will debate and consider changes to Senate rules on or before January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to protect the foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections.

However, that date was pushed back and it now appears that the debate on voting rights will only begin on Tuesday, January 18.

The New York Democrat said late Thursday that the chamber would not take up the legislation until Tuesday, citing “the circumstances regarding Covid and another potentially hazardous winter storm” approaching Washington, D.C. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, announced a positive Covid-19 test on Thursday. Democrats will lack a simple majority until he can return to the evenly split Senate.

“Make no mistake, the United States Senate will — for the first time this Congress — debate voting rights legislation beginning on Tuesday,” Schumer said Thursday night. “Members of this chamber were elected to debate and to vote, particularly on an issue as vital to the beating heart of our democracy as this one. And we will proceed.”

At some point, Schumer will try to end the debate, some Republican will object, and a roll call will be held to overcome the objection. This will most likely be a completely partisan 50-50 vote, ten votes shy of what is required. Then Schumer will try to change the filibuster rule, and he will fall short of the 50 votes needed.

This is how things are queued up, and it should make for very depressing theater. Let us pray that something happens in the next 24 hours to prevent the failure and demoralization this spectacle is ready to produce.

Last week, a couple of Fox News hosts thought they had landed on a story that promoted their twin goals of fear-mongering about the so-called “culture wars” and undermining public education. Both Rachel Campos-Duffy and Tucker Carlson did segments on the fact that an elementary school in Illinois will offer an after-school “Satan Club.”

What is a bit ironic about those segments is that the group who sponsors these clubs – the Satanic Temple – was probably pleased to get the attention. Here is what Katherine Stewart wrote about them back in 2016:

The blend of political activism, religious critique and performance art that characterizes the After School Satan Club proposal is not a new approach for the Satanic Temple. It is just the most recent in a series of efforts that have made the Temple famous and notorious.

She went on to provide another example of how the Satanic Temple operates:

In 2014, after the Supreme Court ruled that the regular recitation of prayers before town meetings did not violate the First Amendment, provided that towns do not discriminate among religions, the Temple decided to test just how much religious liberty towns allowed. They volunteered to perform a Satanic benediction in an Arizona town where the board had regularly opened with a Christian prayer. In that case, the town preferred to abolish the practice of opening prayers.

So while you might cringe at the use of Satan (I know I did), it provides the shock factor that can be effective. It worked for me. When I saw those Fox News segments, I dug a little deeper to find out what this was all about.

In the case of the after-school clubs, the Satanic Temple is using them to protest against another Supreme Court decision. In the 2001 case of Good News Club vs Milford Central School, the court basically ruled that teaching religion in an after-school program was protected speech. The plaintiffs in that case wanted to set up an after-school program called the Good News Club, which is sponsored the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF).

In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the activities of the CEF were not really religious, after all. He said that they could be characterized, for legal purposes, “as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint.” That is belied by the group’s vision statement, which states that “Our special mission in CEF is to evangelize every child.” Their aim is to proselytize, which is why they want to be in schools instead of just churches.

My journey into reviewing what the Good News Clubs are about was a bit painful in that it reminded me of many of the things I was subjected to as a child. I never attended a club with that name, but the materials and lesson plans permeated everything I was taught.

A group that has studied the lesson plans demonstrates exactly how children are taught to be authoritarians.

The first thing is to teach children that they are sinful.

The word “sin” and its derivatives (e.g., sins, sinned, sinning, sinner, sinful) appear 5002 times, averaging out to 41 times per lesson.

Here are some quotes from the lesson plans:

• “Your heart (the real you; the part of you that thinks and feels) is sinful and wants to do wrong…”
• “Others may think that you are a good person, but God knows what you’re really like on the inside. He knows that deep down you are a sinner – you were born that way.”
• “Your heart (the real you) is sinful from the time you are born …. Even the good things you do aren’t good enough. The Bible says those things are like filthy (dirty) rags… . Filthy rags either need to be thrown away or washed.”

Keep in mind that this is what’s being taught to 5-12 year-olds.

The next two things go together. Because God is vengeful, sinners must be punished. That means going to hell when you die.

The word “punish” and its derivatives (e.g., punished, punishment) appear 1032 times. There are more than 250 mentions of or allusions to Hell.

The so-called “good news” is that Jesus died for your sins, which will save you from punishment and hell. But then comes the kicker…you are required to be obedient.

The word “obey” and its derivatives (e.g., disobey, obedience) appear 1113 times, averaging out to 9 times per lesson.

As an example of what it means to be obedient, Katherine Stewart, author of “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children,” points to a lesson focused on Saul and the Amalekites found in 1 Samuel 15. God told Saul:

Now go, attack the Amalekites, and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Saul did as he was told, committing mass slaughter of men, women, children, infants, and animals. But he spared the king and a few animals. God was furious because Saul didn’t completely comply. Here is how that is handled in the teaching manuals for the Good News Club:

The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one: “You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left.”

“That was pretty clear, wasn’t it?” the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

Even more important, the Good News Club wants the children to know, the Amalakites were targeted for destruction on account of their religion, or lack of it. The instruction manual reads: “The Amalekites had heard about Israel’s true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment.”

The instruction manual goes on to champion obedience in all things. In fact, pretty much every lesson that the Good News Club gives involves reminding children that they must, at all costs, obey. If God tells you to kill nonbelievers, he really wants you to kill them all. No questions asked, no exceptions allowed.

It is worth noting that this particular Old Testament story has consistently been used to justify genocide.

According to Pennsylvania State University Professor Philip Jenkins, a contributing editor for the American Conservative, the Puritans used this passage when they wanted to get rid of the Native American tribes. Catholics used it against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics. “In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu preachers invoked King Saul’s memory to justify the total slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors,” writes Jenkins in his 2011 book, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperCollins).

It’s also worth noting what’s missing from the curriculum. The word “empathy” doesn’t appear anywhere. The many Biblical exhortations to love your neighbor (Royal Law) or do to others what you would have them do to you (Golden Rule) aren’t the subject of any lessons.

In 2011, CEF reported that there were 3,560 Good News Clubs operating in the U.S. and more than 42,000 worldwide. In other words, they are training millions of children to be authoritarians.

Of course, it is unconscionable that a group blatantly proselytizing young children is allowed to do so in our public schools. But what is especially painful to me is the way they are damaging children. Using shame and fear to coerce them into total obedience is a form of emotional child abuse. At least that is how I experienced it as a child. It took me decades to heal from that abuse, and the pain that is ignited by these stories reminds me that it is still a work in progress.

For those of you who didn’t experience this kind of abuse, you might have wondered why there is such a strong overlap between Christian nationalism, authoritarianism, and right wing violent extremism. To answer that question, you need to look no further than the kind of lessons being taught by Good News Clubs.

Novak Djokovic is the best tennis player in the world, and he just missed winning the Grand Slam in 2021, which is accomplished by winning the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open in a single year. Only two men have ever achieved this, the last being Rod Laver in 1962 and 1969. Djokovic fell just short last year when he lost in the U.S. Open finals, but there was a decent chance he would pull it off in 2022.  Unfortunately, he’ll never get the chance because he was just deported from Australia for his refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Part of the court’s argument for denying him the opportunity to play in the Australian Open is that his mere presence in the country might set a bad example and inspire resistance to the vaccines.

Tennis star Novak Djokovic has left Australia after losing his legal challenge to remain in the country and compete in the Australian Open despite not being vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Djokovic departed Australia at 10:39 p.m. local time, on an Emirates flight to Dubai.

After a weekend of hurried court hearings, a panel of three Australian federal justices unanimously upheld the immigration minister’s decision to cancel the unvaccinated athlete’s visa on the grounds that his presence in the country might incite anti-vaccine sentiment and “civil unrest,” clearing the way for the country to deport him and ending his hopes of competing in the Australian Open.

According to David Siders at Politico, it has become clear over the last week that Donald Trump will be running for president in 2024. He bases that at least in part on the former guy’s thinly veiled attack on his most likely competitor for the nomination – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. During a recent interview on the right wing OAN network, Trump called politicians who won’t admit they got a Covid booster shot “gutless.” That came after DeSantis refused to answer a direct question on whether he’d gotten a booster.

What Siders failed to mention is that DeSantis shot back – telling a right wing podcaster that one of his biggest regrets was not speaking out “louder” on Trump admin calls for lock downs during the pandemic. At least when it comes to Covid, DeSantis is positioning himself as even more extreme than the former guy. So the battle between these two guys is going to get very interesting.

There are those who think that one of the things that could potentially stand in Trump’s way are all of the investigations he is facing into criminal activity. Those include the ones being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general over financial fraud, Fulton County’s investigation over the pressure Trump applied to overturn the election results, and DOJ’s investigation into the events on January 6.

As we’ve seen, these investigations are painfully slow. But the 2024 election is still almost three years away. It is possible that at some point, Trump will at least be indicted, while conviction is much less certain within that window.

That raises the question of whether someone who has been criminally indicted can run for president. The answer is clearly “yes.” The only qualifications stated in the Constitution are that the person must be a natural born citizen of the U.S., must be at least 35 years old, and must have been a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years. To make matters worse, convicted felons are not barred from running for president, even those who are imprisoned. In other words, Trump could run again in 2024 – even if he is indicted or possibly convicted.

Signaling that is exactly what he would do, Trump issued this statement on the day it was announced that the Manhattan district attorney had convened a grand jury to review potential criminal charges.

This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history…Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.

Our Country is broken, our elections are rigged, corrupt, and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!

This is reminiscent of the one time Donald Trump actually told the truth. That was when he bragged that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and his supporters would remain loyal. Anyone who thinks that a criminal indictment, or even conviction, would sway right wing media or the MAGA crowd hasn’t been paying attention. People who continue to believe the Big Lie will simply buy into the idea that the prosecution was corrupt and politicized.

But what I take from all of this is that three years is a long time. A lot can happen between now and then, which is why all of the horse race pontificating about the 2024 election is mostly a waste of time.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of a scene near New Paltz, New York in the Hudson Valley. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 9×9 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I have now completed the dirt path to the structure as well as the field in front. To the right rear, the foliage has been revised. The painting is now complete. Note the final photo is a bit darker and more representative of the actual painting. Credit this to my bad photography.

The current and final state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have a new painting to show you next week. See you then.