An Early Skirmish With America's Christian Nationalist Supreme Court

The Satanic Temple logo

A press release from The Satanic Temple (TST) states that the TST has lost its Supreme Court motion to disqualify Justice Amy Coney Barrett, alleging it is reasonable to believe that she cannot impartially consider a case involving abortion. The press release comments:

TST's complaint was initially filed when TST member Judy Doe, seeking an abortion in Missouri, was forced to accept literature that asserted the position that life begins at conception and then was made to endured a three-day waiting period that was designed to instill guilt and shame for her decision. TST argued that the imposition of this arbitrary view on when life begins violates their religious beliefs of science and bodily autonomy and creates an unconstitutional undue burden on Doe's religious practices. The Eighth Circuit Court dismissed the case and held that Missouri's proclamations do not violate Doe's free exercise of religion, even though they are rooted in Catholic dogma. TST appealed this decision to the Supreme Court.

In its motion to disqualify, TST stated that "any objective observer would reasonably believe it is unlikely Justice Barrett could set aside her deeply-held religious beliefs on the illegitimacy of abortion and barbarity of [Roe v. Wade] to render an impartial decision on the Petition." TST spokesperson and cofounder Lucien Greaves states, "We cited numerous examples in our motion that unequivocally display Justice Barrett's hostility towards the act of terminating a pregnancy. Yet, the Supreme Court refused to recognize that her dogmatic conclusions related to abortion, which she announced publicly, can reasonably affect her ability to impartially rule on our religious freedom claims."

Greaves continues, "Federal law states that judges must disqualify themselves in any proceeding in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Because the Supreme Court has essentially removed any basis for asserting bias, they invite questions about the legitimacy of the legal system as a whole. When the Supreme Court considers if they will hear our abortion case in conference on November 20, we hope for the sake of upholding fair and impartial jurisprudence that they will make decisions justified by established legal precedence."

Barrett has made her bitter opposition to abortion perfectly clear. Her impartiality can reasonably be questioned. She is clearly biased and should recuse herself. But under our Christian Nationalist Supreme Court, concerns like this will routinely be swept away. A major point of the Evangelical radical right putting her on the court was to get rid of Roe v. Wade once and for all.

TST religion is not a religion

The other, equally or more concerning aspect of this is the decision Eighth Circuit Court that dismissed Doe's case and held that Missouri's law did not violate Doe's free exercise of her religion. Doe is a member of TST, which is an officially recognized religion under US law. She adheres to the TST religion. In essence, the Eighth Circuit did not recognize the TST as an official religion, at least implying that the Missouri law could not be a burden on her religious exercise. 

TST religious dogma on abortion is clear. TST abortion tenets hold that women have bodily autonomy and members should act in accordance with scientific evidence. TST describes its religious abortion ritual like this:

The Satanic Temple has announced that its Satanic abortion ritual exempts TST members from enduring medically unnecessary and unscientific regulations when seeking to terminate their pregnancy. The ritual involves the recitation of two of our tenets and a personal affirmation that is ceremoniously intertwined with the abortion. Because prerequisite procedures such as waiting periods, mandatory viewing of sonograms, and compulsory counseling contravene Satanists’ religious convictions, those who perform the religious abortion ritual are exempt from these requirements and can receive first-trimester abortions on demand in states that have enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

First, the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause as well as several state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA), protects religious practices and beliefs from government interference. Second, state laws governing abortions commonly serve no medical purpose and do not result in better health outcomes. Therefore, they unlawfully hinder access to the Satanic abortion ritual.

White Christian Nationalist Ideology

Both the Eighth Circuit court decision and the Supreme Court decision are in accord with the tenets of Christian Nationalism, a religiously chauvinistic ideology that takes a hostile view of other religions and a place for them in American society. The group Christians Against Christian Nationalism describes it like this:

Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.

As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith. We believe that:

People of all faiths and none have the right and responsibility to engage constructively in the public square.

Patriotism does not require us to minimize our religious convictions.

Government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion.

America’s historic commitment to religious pluralism enables faith communities to live in civic harmony with one another without sacrificing our theological convictions.

This kind of intolerant, radical white Christian theocracy is the new normal that we can probably often or always expect to come from the federal courts for the next 20-30 years. That is what happens when the GOP turns authoritarian and intolerant of democratic norms.

Tracking Viral Misinformation About the 2020 Election

 Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online.

Republican distrust of news may be helping election misinformation spread.

Research from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has found a long and steady decline in trust in traditional media among more conservative Americans. In its place, they are increasingly relying on right-wing media outlets like Breitbart News and One America News and conservative pundits with a history of spreading falsehoods.

This week, Politico published a poll finding that 70 percent of Republicans do not believe the election was free and fair.

OTHER HEADLINES:

No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes.

Conservatives, feeling muzzled on social media, are switching to apps like Parler.

We called officials in every state. None had evidence of significant voter fraud.

There is no proof that people stole maiden names to vote.

For those who still believe in Rightwing Conspiracy theories concerning the election, please read:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions

From The Flogging Dead Horses Department: There Was No Widespread Voter Fraud

The president, and various pro-Trump sources and politicians continue to claim widespread voter fraud tainted the 2020 election. The claims continue to be false. Such claims have reached a point where they are lies in view of existing evidence. The AP writes:

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s hard to put it any more bluntly: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Rejecting President Donald Trump’s persistent claims and complaints, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials is declaring that the Nov. 3 voting and the following count unfolded smoothly with no more than the usual minor hiccups.

It was, they declare, resorting to Trump’s sort of dramatic language, “the most secure in American history.”

The statement late Thursday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency amounted to the most direct repudiation to date of Trump’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest, and echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials.

The New York Times writes:

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that [a Trump lie follows] a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed.

The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.  

Across the country, election officials have said the vote came off smoothly, with no reports of systemic fraud in any state, no sign of foreign interference in the voting infrastructure and no hardware or software failures beyond the episodic glitches that happen in any election. (emphasis added)

Authoritarian Trump and the authoritarian GOP are directly attacking democracy

In continuing the charade, the president and GOP are undermining democracy, elections and the rule of law. The Washington Post writes: 

Republicans’ private talking point about how they can continue to aid President Trump in denying election results boils down to what a senior Republican told The Washington Post this week: What’s the harm in humoring him?

Plenty, say national security officials who are concerned about how other countries — and the coronavirus — could take advantage of a slowed transition for President-elect Joe Biden. Plenty, say democracy experts who warn that the Republican Party is undermining the foundations of the U.S. electoral system and that the GOP is mirroring authoritarianism.

Political Tweet Analysis: Power Flows from Media to Politician

An article published by Nature, one of the world's most respected science magazines, describes the effects of Trump's Tweets on media coverage. The article's abstract says this:

Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation. (emphasis added)

Once again, the power of dark free speech (lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, etc.) is observed. The casualty is, as usual, the public interest and the wound is deceit and distraction. Ever since Trump announced he was running for president, the professional media seemed to be doing a bad job in dealing with Trump's endless stream of dark free speech. I wavered between giving the media an overall D or D-. 

I suspected that the reason Trump tweeted when and as he did was to divert attention from his problems and failures. This research supports that belief. Trump is not the only politician or government that does this to manipulate the media and public perceptions. The Nature article includes this in the paper's introduction:

On August 4, 2014, a devastating earthquake maimed and killed thousands in China’s Yunnan province. Within hours, Chinese media were saturated with stories about the apparent confession by an Internet celebrity to have engaged in gambling and prostitution. News about the earthquake was marginalized, to the point that the Chinese Red Cross implored the public to ignore the celebrity scandal. The flooding of the media with stories about a minor scandal appeared to have been no accident, but represented a concerted effort of the Chinese government to distract the public’s attention from the earthquake and the government’s inadequate disaster preparedness. This organized distraction was not an isolated incident. It has been estimated that the Chinese government posts around 450 million social media comments per year, using a 50-cent army of operatives to disseminate messages. Unlike traditional censorship of print or broadcast media, which interfered with writers and speakers to control the source of information, this new form of Internet-based censorship interferes with consumers by diverting attention from controversial issues. Inconvenient speech is drowned out rather than being banned outright. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the power of social media to poison millions of minds to the detriment of the public interest is clear. Unlike the Chinese people, Americans still have a chance to fight against dark free speech in social media. The question is how long will this luxury last? 

The Constant Presence of Propaganda: Oil Company Astroturfing Public Opinion

Propaganda by a public relations (propaganda) company website named 

Texans for Natural Gas funded by natural gas interests but pretending to 

be regular folks naturally supporting natural gas  

Astroturfing: the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization, e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations (propaganda) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants

The New York Times writes: 

In early 2017, the Texans for Natural Gas website went live to urge voters to “thank a roughneck” and support fracking. Around the same time, the Arctic Energy Center ramped up its advocacy for drilling in Alaskan waters and in a vast Arctic wildlife refuge. The next year, the Main Street Investors Coalition warned that climate activism doesn’t help mom-and-pop investors in the stock market.

All three appeared to be separate efforts to amplify local voices or speak up for regular people.

On closer look, however, the groups had something in common: They were part of a network of corporate influence campaigns designed, staffed and at times run by FTI Consulting, which had been hired by some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world to help them promote fossil fuels.

An examination of FTI’s work provides an anatomy of the oil industry’s efforts to influence public opinion in the face of increasing political pressure over climate change, an issue likely to grow in prominence, given President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pledge to pursue bolder climate regulations. The campaigns often obscure the industry’s role, portraying pro-petroleum groups as grass-roots movements.

As part of its services to the industry, FTI monitored environmental activists online, and in one instance an employee created a fake Facebook persona — an imaginary, middle-aged Texas woman with a dog — to help keep tabs on protesters. Former FTI employees say they studied other online influence campaigns and compiled strategies for affecting public discourse. They helped run a campaign that sought a securities rule change, described as protecting the interests of mom-and-pop investors, that aimed to protect oil and gas companies from shareholder pressure to address climate and other concerns.

FTI employees also staffed two news and information sites, Energy In Depth and Western Wire, writing pro-industry articles on fracking, climate lawsuits and other hot-button issues. Former employees familiar with Energy In Depth said the site’s content had direction from Exxon Mobil, one of the major clients of the FTI division that worked on these oil and gas campaigns.

The Energy In Depth website notes its affiliation with an energy trade group that Exxon is a member of, though not Exxon’s role in directing content that the site published. 

This article is based on interviews with a dozen former FTI employees, including former managing directors, a review of hundreds of internal FTI documents and an examination of the digital trail of domain-name registrations and other details left by the creation of the websites. In all, FTI has been involved in the operations of at least 15 current and past influence campaigns promoting fossil-fuel interests in addition to its direct work for oil and gas clients.

Matthew Bashalany, an FTI spokesman, disputed the idea that FTI worked behind the scenes for these groups. [FTI lies in its own defense][1] “We hide behind no one,” he said.

“We summarily reject as false, misleading and defamatory the general narrative and specific claims,” he said. “We hold ourselves to the highest professional and ethical standards of conduct; when and where shortfalls are identified in this regard, they are addressed appropriately.”

This is just a reminder that the real war in America is over winning hearts and minds. The goal for rich and powerful people and interests is gaining and maintaining wealth and power. The goal for the masses, or the mob as the radical right sees it, is a better deal based on less economic inequality and special interest over public interest influence (i.e., money and power). 

This is an all-out war of dark free speech (lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, self-serving motivated reasoning, etc.) against the masses. Unfortunately, dark free speech is more powerful than honest free speech. The playing field is heavily tilted in favor of the rich and powerful as it usually is and has been throughout history.

Footnote: 

1. Going forward, I will try to insert a notice that a lie or other form of deceit follows from content I quote. To better counteract dark free speech, I will try to get closer to the truth sandwich rhetorical tactic (discussed here) that has been proposed as a better way to deal with dark free speech. If I don't get to a full sandwich, I'll at least make an open faced sandwich, e.g., [FTI lies in its own defense]. The point of this is to try to be more aggressive and effective in countering dark free speech.

A THEORY ABOUT TRUMPISM

 I HAVE A THEORY.

YES - this is strictly MY theory, SNOWFLAKE'S theory, so you are more than welcome to disagree with it.

I HAVE been reading more and more headlines lately about "TRUMPISM", and how it will still be with us long after Trump.

IN FACT, Trumpism by another name has been with us for decades and it only took Trump to bring it to the surface.

NOW HERE IS MY THEORY:

Call it the darkest before the dawn theory, or call it the storm before the calm theory, but I think we needed Trumpism to usher in a new era in the good Ole U.S. of A.

NOT making headlines is that five states had ballot initiatives about passing legal cannabis laws, and in all five, the initiative passed.

MORE AND MORE individuals, cities and states are moving towards alternative energies. HELL, electric charging stations for electric cars are popping up all over the place.

AND ENTIRE GENERATION of young people are growing up and reaching voting age that view the Environment as a #1 priority, as well as some form of Universal health care.

By 2050, or some sites saying even before that, Whites will be in the minority in the U.S. The Right can only do so much gerrymandering or passing of Voter ID laws, and still not be able to stem the tide.

I GET IT - 70 million voted for Trump, but I believe, and hence MY theory, that this was the last gasp of the middle age, middle income, middle (and southern) Americans who want desperately to keep their image of America alive - Bibles, guns, football, pick-up trucks and backyard BBQs.

BUT a record number of people also voted for Biden, despite all the measures put into place to disenfranchise legitimate voters, and Biden could NOT have won with just the minority vote. A LOT OF WHITES would have had to vote for him too.

I could spend my time posting links to numerous articles on the subject of a changing America, but I only have to use my eyes and ears:

Gay marriage being more accepted, more states legalizing cannabis, white suburbs becoming more and more interracial, black entrepreneurs popping up all over the place.

YES, I KNOW that this is still a white man's country, abortion rights are being overturned in many states, and we have to wring our hands at having a conservative SCOTUS, but.....

The trendlines are moving left, they really are, just think back to what it was like in the 60s and 70s (if you are old enough to remember that far back).

Progress is irritatingly slow, with many bumps along the road, but I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that over the next couple of decades we will end up looking more like Europe and Canada than the States of the 1950s (which a lot of people are fearing we are regressing into)

Maybe one needs to be a SNOWFLAKE or an optimist to see the silver lining, but I BELIEVE that we needed Trump to show us the ugly underbelly of the monster, and that having seen the ugly underbelly, we will be even MORE motivated to bring about CHANGE.

THAT is my theory anyways.