News bits: Religious churning; Traitor John Eastman forced out of law; Money talks, democracy walks

NPR reports poll data about reasons people leaving their religions for another religion or for no religion:

People say they’re leaving religion due to 

anti-LGBTQ teachings and sexual abuse

People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

The Catholic Church is losing more members than it’s gaining, though the numbers are slightly better for retention among Hispanic Catholics.

There is much lower religious churn among Black Protestants and among Jews who seem overall happy in their faith traditions and tend to stay there.

As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion's teachings.

And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people. “Religion's negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says. “We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.”

About one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion because the religion was bad for their mental health. That response was strongest among LGBTQ respondents.

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A California state bar judge has found that DJT's traitor lawyer John Eastman committed 10 offenses during his work to overturn the 2020 election in favor of DJT. The judge ordered Eastman into a status called involuntary retirement and ordered him to pay all California State Bar costs plus $10,000 in sanctions for being extra naughty. The California State Supreme Court will have to disbar him because the state bar court does not have that power. The 128 page decision includes these statements:

Introduction

In this contested disciplinary proceeding, the Office of Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar of California (OCTC) charged John Charles Eastman (Eastman) with 11 counts of misconduct arising from certain activities surrounding his representation of former president Donald J. Trump and the 2020 presidential election. Eastman is charged with one count of failing to support the Constitution and laws of the United States (Bus. & Prof. Code § 6068, subd. (a));1 two counts of seeking to mislead a court (§ 6068, subd. (d)); six counts of moral turpitude (🤪) by making various misrepresentations (§ 6106); and two additional counts of moral turpitude (§ 6106). After full consideration of the record, the court finds that OCTC has satisfied its burden of proving all charges except for count eleven, which the court dismisses with prejudice.

In view of the circumstances surrounding Eastman’s misconduct and balancing the aggravation and mitigation, the court recommends that Eastman be disbarred.

INVOLUNTARY INACTIVE ENROLLMENT 

John Charles Eastman is ordered transferred to involuntary inactive status pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 6007, subdivision (c)(4). His inactive enrollment will be effective three calendar days after this order is served and will terminate upon the effective date of the Supreme Court’s order imposing discipline herein, or as provided for by rule 5.111(D)(2) of the State Bar Rules of Procedure or as otherwise ordered by the Supreme Court pursuant to its plenary jurisdiction.

Good ’ole judge Roland whacks the traitor Eastman

A satisfying result

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The WaPo reports (whole artilce not paywalled off) about the fickleness of greedy wealthy elites and their shallow to non-existent commitment to democracy and the public interest:

Many GOP billionaires balked at Jan. 6. 

They’re coming back to Trump.

Elite donors are rediscovering their affinity for the former president over taxes

The day after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, billionaire and GOP megadonor Nelson Peltz called the attempted insurrection a “disgrace” and expressed remorse for voting for Donald Trump. “I’m sorry I did that,” Peltz said of supporting Trump in 2020.

But earlier this month, Peltz had breakfast with Trump and other billionaires — including hotelier Steve Wynn, Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk and former Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter — at Trump’s luxurious Palm Beach oceanfront mansion, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private gathering.

The shift reflects many conservative billionaires’ fears of President Biden’s tax agenda, which if approved would drastically reduce their fortunes. In some cases, it also points to their discomfort with the Biden administration’s foreign and domestic policy decisions. Some of these billionaires have been assiduously courted by Trump and his advisers in recent months.

“If it starts to look like Trump may win, despite his legal troubles, it is inevitable that Republican business people who have not been fans will open their wallets in self-defense,” said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the top lobbying group for major corporations in New York.

Things that seem to make most people mostly authoritarian include lots of power, lots of money and rigid ideology. Combined with an authoritarian personality, the allure of authoritarianism is quite strong. All the authoritarians need to do is promise to serve and protect the elites, and they get support. 

Now, combine all of that with the legalization of political corruption by the 2010 Citizens United USSC decision and the power brass knuckles capitalist power of lightly regulated corporations acting as mere innocent human beings with constitutional human rights. What does one get? One gets seductive a form of kleptocratic authoritarianism that is far too sexy and fun for the most (~85% ?) of the wealthy to resist. Same goes for authoritarian Christian nationalist elites.