We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022

Shock jocks, pro wrestlers, bad stand-up comics ...

JD Vance staking claim to the MAGA frontier of being anti-divorce. Three years away from reactionaries rejecting germ theory and fully embracing bad humors as the source of illness.

"It's the miasma"

“He’s a moderate on phrenology.”

Hillbilly Phrenology

damn JD’s wife must have one foot out the door

with a 6-3 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court has elevated Bill DeFrance to his preordained position as America's Thought Leader

Bill DeFrance, superintendent of Eaton Rapids Public Schools in Michigan, has moonlighted for years as a high school soccer referee. When religious schools compete, he has listened as coaches intone team prayers before and after a game. Still, he has never seen a public-school coach lead a prayer.

But in light of the Supreme Court ruling, and pending guidance from state officials, DeFrance said he is open to the idea of coach-led prayer.

If the Michigan Department of Education or the Michigan High School Athletic Association “said they’d like to work … about how you can incorporate prayer into sports events for kids, I’d certainly take it to the [school] board to say, ‘We could help pilot this; we could try this,’ ” DeFrance said. (A spokesman for the state athletic association emailed The Washington Post, saying: “This is strictly an individual school district issue in Michigan. We have no part in this decision-making process.” A spokesman for the Education Department wrote in an email that his agency “has not sent any guidance to local school districts on this issue at this time. We have made a request of our state attorney general’s office for a review of the decision.”)

If done well, DeFrance added, coach-led prayer could yield advantages for his district’s 2,000 students, serving as a way to learn about other cultures.

“I could see some real interesting things like, ‘Okay, Bill, you’re Hindu, you lead the prayer this week,’ and give some background about why Hindus pray,” he said. Plus, “I do think sometimes having a little bit of a spirit helps you to play.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/

Thought Leader Christi Fraga, a school board member in Miami-Dade, is also very interested in learning about other religions

Fraga still does not understand why it’s okay for the district to recognize LGBTQ History Month, with school-hosted events and celebrations, but not do something similar about prayer. Although she is running for mayor of the city of Doral and plans to leave the school board in November, she intends to continue her education advocacy — bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling, she says it may be possible to introduce more religion classes into public schools.

“I would love to see there be the ability to implement more religious teachings,” Fraga said. “There’s lessons that are taught right now in school that maybe certain families do not believe in, [and] students have to sit there and listen to what history has brought us to.”

Why not, she asked, also offer lessons on the Christianity, the “religion that has formed our nation”? As well as “the different types of religion,” she added.

i imagine these "oh yeah, other religions too, because i'm open-minded, right?" utterances to be read in the kind of sped-up, micro machines guy voice that plays at the end of commercials for products that might actually kill you

like the “other economic systems” section of my junior high economics class. they took up all of one day’s teaching iirc. i can still remember the phrase “command and control economies”

Thought Leader Amy Kruppe is an expert at identifying which religions are popular with people in her community.

Amy Kruppe took over as superintendent in Hazel Park Schools, Mich., seven years ago. When she arrived from Illinois, she was surprised to find that school board members opened meetings with prayer — sometimes inviting “a man of the cloth” to lead proceedings.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not constitutional,’ ” Kruppe said. “But their feeling was it was important to them as an organization” — so to this day, the board opens its meetings with Christian prayer, Kruppe said.

Over the years, Kruppe has come around to the idea. There have never been complaints, apart from hers. She said coaches in Hazel Park also lead prayers at games, “and no one says anything about it.” She noted that Hazel Park, a district of about 3,200 students, is about 50 percent White, 50 percent Black and, as far as she can tell, nearly 100 percent Christian.

https://i.imgur.com/PoOuJ9I.png

weird! somehow she incorrectly identified half of her own county as Christians when it turns out that, given several million different varieties of Christianity to choose from, 50% of the county's inhabitants said "NONE". but i'm sure a lot has changed since 2010

i sentence all of these people to live in reformation-era central europe

like the “other economic systems” section of my junior high economics class. they took up all of one day’s teaching iirc. i can still remember the phrase “command and control economies”

i'm pretty sure my school system didn't even bother going that far. our history classes never made it past reconstruction by the end of the semester - we would always just barely hit a paragraph about "jim crow" and then it would be summer. i think the only other economic system i ever learned about was subsistence

I had some decent labor history in my AP History class, and we covered the civil rights movement pretty well. The greatest weakness of the narrative I received was the utterly dishonest notion that all of "those problems" — racism, sexism, labor exploitation, pollution, etc. — had been solved and were in the past.

They picked a photo to show what Biden has done to her. It's beyond the party now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/opinion/kamala-harris-joe-biden.html?searchResultPosition=1

I’m out of articles and am not going to ask anyone to share the piece youn linked to. What’s the summary - is it basically that she’s in a tough spot?

it’s saying they basically have no relationship and she hasn’t been prepared to assume the reins of power should biden cark it

(Thanks)

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/07/the-white-guys-playbook-for-discounting-women

Perhaps he picked her as his running mate just to shore up the black woman vote.

Probably but shoring up your coalition/countering your obvious weaknesses should be the only consideration in picking a VP anyway. Old? Pick someone young(ish). Black? Pick honky Joe Biden.

No doubt, but post-election the VP should be an asset as well.

Someone probably suggested that but someone else heard "asshat" and figured they had enough of them.

"We were hoping she would be a credit to her race, but . . . "

I remember rumblings of Harris becoming a sort of undocumented immigration czar or something (with trips to Honduras, El Salvador), but I don't know if anything concrete has come out of that

That is one of the impossible tasks they have pinned on her.

Well, Kushner handily solved the Middle East crisis, so the bar has been raised

The Cheryl Rofer piece Alfred linked is thoroughly otm - the Times piece is a barely-disguised sexist hit job.

“I cannot be killed. I am invincible!” — Ashli Babbitt https://t.co/QU5ruJbqcq pic.twitter.com/SsCSFYrGbe

— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 25, 2022

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday called Democratic efforts to bolster election-denying candidates in Republican primaries “disgusting,” accusing Democrats of taking too lightly the threat Kinzinger said those candidates pose to U.S. democracy.

“I think it is disgusting,” Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, told CNN on Tuesday. “Look at Darren Bailey in Illinois, an election-denier. [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker spent tens of millions of dollars so that Bailey would win. Yeah, Pritzker has a little bit of an advantage right now. Good Republican year, Bailey may win.”

I'm no veteran strategist, but I'm pretty much in agreement.. bummed that my little $25 donations were probably misspent on these whackjobs

Thanks for that link. A good test case could be comparing coverage of Beto O'Rourke:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/us/texas-governor-campaign-abbott-orourke.html

This new NYT article also includes more info on Christina Bobb, coordinating this stuff. (She was in touch with Doug Mastriano!)

Bobb promoted the fake electors as an OAN personality, without disclosing her work on it. Not a news organization of any kind. https://t.co/EDhFhRbKpe pic.twitter.com/i7ItGVJBOw

— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) July 26, 2022

To be clear, I'm not a fan of Harris, but the coverage by the usual Beltway suspects has been uniformly awful.

The Times does have a range:

Bad reporting like this has real consequences. Numerous people tried to warn @emilybazelon that her article could cause exactly this kind of harm. She's silent about her role in the Texas court case, and refused to answer my questions. https://t.co/wL0iE3DQIx #ProtectTransKids

— Kit O'Connell (@KitOConnell) July 22, 2022

Fully expect at best no one more than a bunch of lawyers face actual jail time, but still, WaPo makes it official:

Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions as part of Jan. 6 criminal probe. Prosecutors are examining the former president’s actions and conversations with lawyers and other loyalists leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, four people familiar with the probe said...Investigators have seized phone records of top aides

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/26/trump-justice-investigation-january-6/

honestly, that's the headline i expected to see the evening of january 6. or, at the latest, like a week later. then time kept passing. so much has happened in my life, since that day, it's kind of unbelievable. it feels like four trillion years ago.

still, i guess good for DOJ. i think it'll just be giuliani and eastmen going to prison, and wrist slaps for everyone else. now, when you do the coup next time, you do it a little differently, ok?

now, as a matter of professional diligence, i am going to have to ask the jan 6 coup organizers to go ahead and NOT do another coup in the next election, ok? i do apologize for that and i understand if that's going to make a lot of people angry. i am just reading what i have to say on a card here, i don't want to be a part of this either. that's me talking there, not the script. i think the january 6 people are wonderful prayer warriors. but just to be sure, i am told that i should stress that you should not do another coup, ok? now i'm going to face my guard chair toward this sleepy little corner setup and take a catnap. i urge you to not raid the armory, which is through that open door, and take over the building while i snooze, zzzzzzz

... America’s policy toward Taiwan has hardened, scrambling partisan alliances and putting the U.S. and China on a potential collision course.

Speaker of the House NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.) still weighs whether to visit the democratic island. Biden administration officials say it’s a bad idea since it could spike tensions with Beijing. But Republicans (and some Democrats) egg her on, insisting China can’t dictate where American politicians go.

It’s still unclear if Pelosi will show up in Taipei any time soon. But even the discussion of a visit highlights the “dangerous moment” that we’re in, said BONNIE GLASER, the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program director. “We’re approaching a crisis.”

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

“I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.”

https://www.theroot.com/house-democrats-introduce-term-limits-bill-for-supreme-1849336866

idk if this is likely to go anywhere but Christ is it bleak

TERRIFYING: The text of @RepCuellar's bill the Workplace Flexibility & Choice Act is available.

It would carve workers out of min wage & OT protections -- not just app-deployed workers -- ANY WORKER whose employer...1/https://t.co/NF2jfcDVWd

— Veena Dubal (@veenadubal) July 27, 2022

Thank god Pelosi et al. went to the mats to help beat back Jessica Cisneros.

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, July 26, 2022 7:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

Meanwhile here's a Texas mom outraged that her 9th-grader is learning about Banksy in art class. (Bonus, it's because Banksy is "anti-free-market" lol)

Here is one of the Texas moms who traveled to Austin yesterday for a state legislative hearing focused on parents’ rights in education.

She’s angry because her son learned about Banksy in a high school art class. pic.twitter.com/FKpqfbh1Up

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) July 27, 2022

it's funny how conservatives have become the most rabid regulators in the country. they used to say they believed in liberty, that the government should let people live. now they want to use government - state government, school boards, the US supreme court, you name it - to regulate the holy fuck out of everyone. regulating people's bodies. regulating what they're allowed to read in school. regulating who can marry who. regulating who can compete in athletic events. how about the step they fuck off for a minute and let people live their lives

Lmao tipsy mothra! Really hope that gets back to Banksy and he runs with it.

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

The Table nails it. The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically (except fiscally a little too concerned with the needs of the hoi polloi, and of course a dire lack of Christian nationalism in their overbearing moralism).

I'm not even sure what 'conservative' means anymore, in today's climate; the right wing has become much more radical, seeking broad sweeping changes rather than cautious incrementalism

Maybe Mitt Romney is still a country club conservative, but he knows his days are numbered

I've been watching The Janes (HBO doc about an underground abortion network in Chicago in 1968-72) this week and idk it seems like everything I thought I knew about the political climate in American history has been off (see also finally reading Before the Storm last summer). Not that I was unaware abortion was illegal, mind you, but I think the only reason the right seems more radical right now is they're successfully clawing back a lot of the power they only gradually lost in the first place. Their core tenets have been authoritarian for a long time, and their purported libertarianism has always been a sham / purely situational for the benefit of capital / barely disguised racism

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.