The stealth CN attack on tax dollars; DJT’s vengeance lust; Canceling Germaine, again

A WaPo article discusses a quiet, but very clever effort by America’s theocratic CN (Christian nationalist) wealth and power movement to get access to more tax dollars:

Texas may pay schools to use 

curriculum critics call overtly Christian

Texas public education leaders are proposing to pay school districts to teach elementary language arts lessons that critics say disproportionately focus on Christianity.

Worries about the separation of church and state in the Texas curriculum were previously reported by the 74, an education news website, when the materials were released last week.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath denied that the lessons push Christian beliefs. [that is not credible]

“It’s hard to understand or to teach Western civilization or European history without understanding the impact or the influence religion had on Martin Luther and his treatise and Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers. “But there’s a difference between providing context of the circumstances and actually injecting stories and fables and religious indoctrination into the curriculum.”

Capo said the state starved school districts for money to the point that they have to adopt this curriculum because districts get $60 per student to offset the costs. “You’ve created a funding shortage for school districts and then thrown them this carrot,” he said.

Despite the rise of inflation, Texas legislators have not given teachers a significant raise in about five years, said Jaime Puente, director of economic opportunity with the nonpartisan tax policy group Every Texan.

The new curriculum gives a chance for some districts to replace their books that could be five or 10 years old with new materials at a defrayed cost.

“It’s not like there’s much of a choice,” he said.

Many view the new curriculum as part of a ploy by Republican state leaders to hollow public schools and eventually privatize education. [that is how I see it]

Note the brilliant simplicity of the CN tactic to claw its way into more tax dollars. They starve public schools and then offer some desperately relief in the form of stealth radical Christian theocracy education.

For decades, getting more tax dollars has been a key piece of CN dogma. By arguing there is no separation of church from state, tax dollars could be more easily used to pay for literally all CN activities.

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An interesting WaPo article focuses on Faux News’ Sean Hannity’s persistent but failed efforts to get DJT to say he will not employ political persecution of political opponents if he gets re-elected: 

Even Sean Hannity can’t get Trump to back away from wanting revenge

[Last December, Hannity tried to get] Trump to disavow any intent to subvert democracy and seize power, to kneecap the hand-wringers on the left and in the old guard who were offering warnings about Trump’s second term.

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight,” Hannity lobbed to Trump, “you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.”  

“Except for Day One,” Trump chirped, to the amusement of the audience. Trump has since argued that this was just a joke, .... But this was not the answer Hannity was seeking. The Fox News host spent decades tuning his antenna to understand what candidates should and shouldn’t say and was trying to keep Trump on-radar. He failed.

[Then on Wednesday June 5, 2024,] Hannity overtly wanted Trump to assure viewers and America that he wasn’t going to target his political opponents if reelected — an assurance, in effect, that he would close the barn door even though the horse was well over the horizon.

“My question is a very serious one,” Hannity said. “People are claiming you want retribution. People are claiming you want what has happened to you done to Democrats. Would you do that ever?”

“Look, what’s happened to me has never happened in this country before,” Trump replied, “and it has to stop, because—” Hannity jumped in. “Wait a minute!” he interjected. “I want to hear that again. It has to stop.”

There you go! Trump said the thing that will give him enough cover for the next few months. Whew. But then, as when Trump was asked about Jeffrey Epstein this month, the former president kept talking.

“Focus on those that want people to believe that you want retribution, that you will use the system of justice to go after your political enemies,” Hannity repeated after Trump had gone on a tangent about how he’s “a very legitimate person.”

They’re wrong, Trump said, repeating the line Hannity enjoyed that it had to stop. Uh, but! “I would have every right to go after them,” Trump continued. “And it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden, and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”

Another tangent, this time accusing Biden’s family of taking money from a Russian woman, which isn’t true. (“Turned out to be true,” Trump said of the story, without Hannity offering any objection.) More riffing from Trump and then Hannity tried again.

“Will you pledge to restore equal justice, equal application of our laws, end this practice of weaponization?” he asked. “Is that a promise you’re going to make?”

“Well, you have to do it,” Trump replied. “But it’s awful.” Then he gave the game away. “Look,” Trump continued, “I know you want me to say something so nice.” “No, I don’t want you to say!” Hannity objected, a claim that you may evaluate for yourself. “I’m asking.”

“But I don’t want to look naive,” Trump continued. “What they have done to the Republican Party, they want to arrest on no crime. They want to arrest the person that won the nomination in a landslide.”

He’s popular, the indictments are bad, etc., for a while. And then: “I will do everything in my power not to let — but there’s tremendous criminality here,” Trump said. “What they’re doing to me, if it’s going to continue, we’re really not going to have much of a country left. It’s really — it is weaponization. You call it ‘lawfare.’ You call it — some people call it just ‘warfare.’”

It is clear that DJT will abuse his power and try prosecute and imprison at least some political opponents if he gets re-elected. Faux News and Hannity are idiots for not realizing by now that DJT usually cannot be reasoned with.

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From the Canceling Germaine Files: From time to time I check out a different pro-Trump site to see how it deals with inconvenient comments and how or if Disqus relays that feedback to the commenter. The usual response I get to posting inconvenient fact and reasoning is being blocked or banned. Today I tried out the pro-Trump site BizPac Review, which has this pro-Trump article posted: 

Russell Brand: ‘I don’t know how you could do 

anything other than vote for Donald Trump’

Actor and comedian Russell Brand was clear this week that he sees through the smoke screen that is the Democratic Party’s approach to counter Donald Trump.

Brand interviewed RNC spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko on his new Stay Free podcast premiering Friday and shared his thoughts on the November election, questioning how any freedom-loving American could pull the lever for President Joe Biden.

“In a straight choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, if you care about democracy, if you care about freedom, I don’t know how you could do anything other than vote for Donald Trump for precisely the reasons that they claim that you can’t,” he told Pipko.

“They act as if a vote for Donald Trump is almost like you’re directly voting for Armageddon, like you see hysterical performances outside of courtrooms, endless MSNBC bombast,” he continued. “But I’m starting to think that no, a greater threat to democracy is this kind of technological feudalism, that tells you that it cares about you and that it’s protecting vulnerable people, all the while increasing censorship, increasing the funding of wars, increasing the division between ordinary Americans.”

The weaponization of the legal system is proving to be harmful for Democrats as Brand took note of the difference between reality and discourse.

“For a long time, I’ve been concerned about the snobbery and the contempt and condemnation in which people that support Donald Trump are plainly held by his detractors,” Brand said. “And this is while you have an administration that’s emulating his policies, plagiarizing from Donald Trump, while simultaneously criminalizing him from the weaponization of the legal system.”

I checked BizPac’s credentials and the site seemed to be reasonably characterized as pro-Trump. MBFC did an assessment, and the site claims to be a conservative news and opinion website founded by Jack Furnarni in 2009. The about page says it is a “political news website that provides breaking news and analysis unfiltered by the liberal bias that has eroded the media’s credibility. With public trust in the press sputtering at an all-time low, BizPac Review fills the void with its unparalleled coverage of current events that the mainstream media intentionally ignore.”

Out of curiosity, I posted this inconvenient comment in response to the crackpot blither that Mr. Brand spewed:

So far, so good. BizPac moderates comments. Good for them. An hour later I checked to see what Disqus said about my comment. Pending, so so far, so good.

I want back to BizPac to check on my comment. As I suspected, BizPac deleted my comment. Disqus told me nothing about it. 

The comments to Mr. Brand’s nonsense 

did not include my comments

Q: Where did Germaine’s comments go?

A: Into the black hole of radical right cancel culture

In the old days, Disqus would change the status of pending to blocked or banned. Now it doesn’t do anything, and just leaves comments in pending status. I presume that has to do with making more money by keeping users in the dark and allowing paying sleaze sites to do their dirty work in secret.

The tally so far is I’ve been blocked or banned at all 11 (or is it 12 by now?) pro-Trump sites I’ve tried to post inconvenient truth at. I am losing count, but the result is now quite predictable.

DJT, his GOP and propagandists constantly complain about cancel culture by the left. What a bunch of shameless hypocrites.

About the Normandy invasion and authoritarianism

Allied and American pro-democracy forces in WWII were antifa against fa, i.e., fascism. Literally. Today, American antifa forces in defense of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties are arrayed against DJT, the corrupt authoritarian Repub Party and corrupt fascist Christian theocrat and corrupt capitalist authoritarian forces in America today. 

Yeah, maybe history does not repeat. But it damned well does rhyme.

So on this 80th anniversary of D-day, let us quietly think in 2024 about what the hell we are doing to our democracy, civility, and fact- and reason-based perceptions and thinking.

We owe it to the suckers and losers (as DJT puts it) who lost their lives defending what is good and decent to oppose the evil and hate of America's Republican Party radical right wealth and power movement. That legacy of their blood is left to us all who still believe that fighting for democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties was and still is worth it.

In God's infinite love, Republicans hate LGBQT; Jim Crow was better for black families; A gigantic flip-flop

The infinite love of God really does work in mysterious ways. The Hill reports:

Colorado’s Republican Party this week called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned, describing LGBTQ Americans as “godless groomers” in a fundraising email and multiple social media posts railing against Pride Month.

“Burn all the #pride flags this June,” the state GOP wrote Monday on the social platform X. Earlier Monday, an email sent by the party with the subject line “God Hates Pride” perpetuated the false claim that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to abuse them.

“The month of June has arrived and, once again, the godless groomers in our society want to attack what is decent, holy, and righteous so they can ultimately harm our children,” reads the email.

The party’s message — which includes a link to a sermon led by Mark Driscoll, an evangelical pastor known for his anti-LGBTQ views — is signed by state Republican Party Chair Dave Williams, who is also a candidate for Congress.

Guess it is time to burn evil, Godless pervert groomer flags like this:

Wait, wait! Didn't Republicans condemn flag burning and try to outlaw it? 

Yup, they sure did, in their usual morally rotted, hypocrisy-based, and crackpot & lies-infused style of Godless, authoritarian politics:

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’d support laws criminalizing flag burning, saying in a call with governors that it’s time for the Supreme Court to take up the issue again as nationwide protests have intensified over the death of George Floyd.  

Trump, who as a candidate in 2016 proposed jail time or loss of citizenship for burning the American flag, called the act a “disgrace” on Monday and pledged support for an “anti-flag burning” statute.

Q: Is God is on the side of authoritarian, hater Republicans, or on the side of the political opposition? 

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The Hill reports:

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) suggested that Black families were better off during the Jim Crow era, while speaking at a campaign event for former President Trump.

Donalds, who is on the shortlist for Trump’s potential vice-presidential pick, was campaigning for the former president in Philadelphia at a “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event aimed at garnering Black male voters, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

During the conversation, the first-term lawmaker said he is starting to see the “reinvigoration” of Black families, adding that it is “helping to breathe the revival of a Black middle class in America.” Donalds also claimed that the nuclear family — or one with a mother, father and children living under the same roof — and its values have been eroded by Democrats and lost among Black voters after they supported the party following the Civil Rights Movement, the outlet reported.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more people voted conservatively,” Donalds said.

He says that things were better under Jim Crow

Q: Were things better for Nazis under Hitler because Nazi families tended to stay together? Is crackpot reasoning good or bad for democracy? 

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The WaPo reports about a gigantic Republican Party flip-flop on supporting convicted felons for president:

GOP voters have flip-flopped fast on questions about Trump and crime

A new poll follows a string of examples. It shows the percentage of Republicans who say a felon shouldn’t be president dropping from 58 percent in April to just 23 percent today

Donald Trump’s position on presidents and crimes is reliably inconsistent:

• He pushed for prosecutions of many foes — including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — before his own legal problems led him to conclude that presidential candidates and presidents should be spared charges.

• He said in 2016 that Clinton’s being convicted would lead to a “constitutional crisis” if she were president; now he is pressing forward with his campaign despite his own felony convictions.

• He has suggested that Clinton, Obama, Ted Cruz and Vice President Harris should be disqualified from running for various reasons. But when critics tried to disqualify him under the 14th Amendment, Trump decided it was unthinkable to deprive voters of their choices.

For a brief moment this weekend, Trump seemed to acknowledge his convenient evolutions. Asked about urging the jailing of Clinton in 2016, he told Fox News, “And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about ...” before trailing off.

And Trump is not the only one to engage in a series of about-faces. So have large swaths of his party.

It has responded to his legal jeopardy and now his conviction by disowning its previously professed principles in a remarkable fashion.

A new YouGov poll this week is perhaps the most striking example.

Whee! A gigantic flip-flop!! MAGA!!

The good news: 

~23% still think a felon president is bad

But this is very messy. Other poll data suggests the net effect of the 34 guilty verdicts are hard to parse:

This is a fundamental component of this election and American politics in general: Many people don’t pay close attention to even objectively important developments. That tends to be more true of political independents, people who are not attached to political parties. It is also particularly true of younger Americans, who are more likely to identify as independents.

 

 

 

  

Worth noting: the top-line support for Trump and Biden (and for not voting or voting third party) didn’t budge before or after considering the verdict.

It is often the case that people, when asked, attribute existing political beliefs to new information when the opposite is the case. They will say, for example, that learning about X scandal or Y policy makes them more likely to support their candidate, even though they were going to support that candidate all along.

This poll offers something similar. According to SurveyMonkey, 1 in 10 Republicans changed their mind following the verdict. One in 20 went from undecided to Trump or from Trump to undecided. And support among Republicans for Trump went from 73 percent before hearing about the verdict to 74 percent after.

It’s possible that none of those views were particularly dependent on the verdict at all.

It is probably still too early to draw firm conclusions about what effect if any the 34 felonies will have on the outcome of the election. Let’s give it more time and reconvene in the first week or two of August to see if there is anything to be seen.

How does one become THIS numb?

I wonder at the genius of the Right, Trump, Rightwing media.

Maybe their intention was to make us numb. To bring us to the point where we are exhausted.

That is how I feel.

In my absence from here (what? you didn't notice?) I did a lot of perusing of other forums to gauge the temperature. It's nasty out there and getting nastier.

Yet, if I were to avoid American cable news and online forums, my living in Canada seems to shelter me.

I see no MAGA hats, not "F*ck You Biden" lawn signs. And no group of people clustered together prophesizing "the end of democracy."

I just know that when I consider composing a thread, I honestly don't know what to talk about any more.

Any time I suggest that the Dems are their own worst enemies or that Joe needs to step down NOW, or that the constant attacks, indictments, and convictions against Trump are actually helping him, not hurting him, I can feel the slow burn at the back of my neck.

Is this because I have become numb thanks to the tactics of the Right, or because I live in Canada, or is it just human nature? Namely, you can only allow yourself to get riled up for so long because you exhaust yourself.

Think about it. Can't get over a failed marriage? Carry the anger and frustration around like a ball and chain for years. Eventually, wouldn't you just say "F*ck it"? 

I want to hug someone. I don't mean just hug my significant other or friends or family members.

I want to hug every angry Palestinian protester, every Trump supporter, every prophesizer of doom, every member of Germaine's forum, every American now living in fear, frustration, anxiety, and bitterness. 

Would it help?