Forced birth stories start to trickle out

Brooke Alexander cradles one of her twin daughters 

as she watches dad Billy High practice skateboarding tricks 

at the Portland Skate Park in Portland, TX

We all knew this day was coming. Now it is here. The Washington Post writes:

This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins.

Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant 48 hours before the Texas abortion ban took effect

Running on four hours of sleep, the 18-year-old tried to feed both babies at once, holding Kendall in her arms while she tried to get Olivia to feed herself, her bottle propped up by a pillow. But the bottle kept slipping and the baby kept wailing. And Brooke’s boyfriend, Billy High, wouldn’t be home for another five hours.

“Please, fussy girl,” Brooke whispered.

She peeked outside the room, just big enough for a full-size mattress, and realized she had barely seen the sun all day. The windows were covered by blankets, pinned up with thumbtacks to keep the room cool. Brooke rarely ventured into the rest of the house. Billy’s dad had taken them in when her mom kicked them out, and she didn’t want to get in his way.

The hours without Billy were always the hardest. She knew he had to go — they relied entirely on the $9.75 an hour he made working the line at Freebirds World Burrito — but she tortured herself imagining all the girls he might be meeting. And she wished she had somewhere to go, too.

Brooke found out she was pregnant late on the night of Aug. 29, two days before the Texas Heartbeat Act banned abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy. It was the most restrictive abortion law to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term.

Texas offers a glimpse of what much of the country would face if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as has been widely expected since a leaked draft opinion circulated last month.

Sometimes Brooke imagined her life if she hadn’t gotten pregnant, if Texas hadn’t banned abortion just days after she decided that she wanted one. She would have been in school, rushing from class to her shift at Texas Roadhouse, eyes on a real estate license that would finally get her out of Corpus Christi. She’d pictured an apartment in Austin and enough money for a trip to Hawaii, where she’d swim with dolphins in water so clear she could see her toes.

When both babies finally started eating, Brooke took out her phone and restarted the timer that had been running almost continuously since the day they were born.

She had 2½ hours until they’d have to eat again.

Leaving Billy in her bedroom with the pregnancy test, Brooke grabbed her keys and drove to her best friend’s house, where they sat on his bed and examined her options.

She could always get an abortion, she told him.

Then he reminded her of something she vaguely remembered seeing on Twitter: A new law was scheduled to take effect Sept. 1.

Brooke had 48 hours.

The abortion clinic in South Texas — two and a half hours from Corpus Christi — had no open slots in the next two days, with patients across the state racing to get into clinics before the law came down. When Brooke called, the woman on the end of the line offered the names and addresses of clinics in New Mexico, a 13-hour drive from Corpus Christi.

In the meantime, the woman said, Brooke could get an ultrasound somewhere nearby: If she was under six weeks, they could still see her.

“We’re gonna see how far along it is,” Brooke texted her dad, Jeremy Alexander, later that night. “See if abortion is an option.”

“What’s the cut off date,” he asked.

“They just passed a law today!!” she responded in the early hours of Sept. 1, referring to the ban that had just taken effect. “What are the f---ing odds I believe it’s 6 weeks.”

“Fingers crossed????” her dad said.

Brooke found a place that would perform an ultrasound on short notice — and scheduled an appointment for 9 a.m.

Whenever a new client walks into the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, they are asked to fill out a form. After all the usual questions — name, date of birth, marital status — comes the one that most interests the staff: “If you are pregnant, what are your intentions?”

From there, the team sorts each client into one of three groups:\

If they’re planning to have the baby: “LTC,” likely to carry.

If they’re on the fence: “AV,” abortion vulnerable.

If they’re planning to get an abortion: “AM,” abortion minded.

The Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend — which advertises itself as the region’s “#1 Source of Abortion Information” — is one of thousands of crisis pregnancy centers across the United States, antiabortion organizations that are often religiously affiliated.

When Brooke showed up with her mom for her appointment, she had no idea she’d walked into a facility designed to dissuade people from getting abortions. She also didn’t know how much significance her form held for the staff: By signaling that she wanted an abortion, she became their first “AM” of the Texas Heartbeat Act.

The advocate assigned to her case, Angie Arnholt, had been counseling abortion-minded clients at the pregnancy center for a year. While many of the center’s volunteers signed up only to talk to “LTCs” — happy conversations about babies their clients couldn’t wait to have — Arnholt, a 61-year-old who wears a gold cross around her neck, felt called to do what she could to help women "make a good decision,” she later told The Washington Post.

Back in a consultation room, Brooke told Arnholt all the reasons she wanted to get an abortion.

She’d just enrolled in real estate classes at community college, which would be her first time back in a classroom since she dropped out of high school three years earlier at 15.

She and Billy had been dating only three months.

Sitting across from Brooke and her mom, Arnholt opened “A Woman’s Right to Know,” an antiabortion booklet distributed by the state of Texas, flipping to a page titled “Abortion risks.”

The first risk listed was “death.”

As Brooke listened to Arnholt’s warnings — of depression, nausea, cramping, breast cancer, infertility — she tried to stay calm, reminding herself that women get abortions all the time. Still, Brooke couldn’t help fixating on some of the words Arnholt used: Vacuum suction. Heavy bleeding. Punctured uterus. (Serious complications from abortion are rare. Abortion does not increase the risk of mental illness, breast cancer or infertility, according to leading medical organizations.)

Starting to panic, Brooke looked over at her mom.

Arnholt ushered Brooke into the ultrasound room, where Brooke undressed from the waist down and lay back onto an examination table, looking up at a large flat-screen TV.

As the ultrasound technician pressed the probe into her stomach, slathered with gel, Brooke willed the screen to show a fetus without a heartbeat.

The technician gasped.

It was twins. And they were 12 weeks along.

“Are you sure?” Brooke said.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Thomas recalled saying as she jumped up and down. “This is a miracle from the Lord. We are having these babies.”

Brooke felt like she was floating above herself, watching the scene below. Her mom was calling the twins “my babies,” promising Brooke she would take care of everything, as the ultrasound technician told her how much she loved being a twin.

If she really tried, Brooke thought she could make it to New Mexico. Her older brother would probably lend her the money to get there. But she couldn’t stop staring at the pulsing yellow line on the ultrasound screen.

She wondered: If her babies had heartbeats, as these women said they did, was aborting them murder?

Eventually, Arnholt turned to Brooke and asked whether she’d be keeping them.

Brooke heard herself saying “yes.”  

Billy was scared to lose what he described as “the freedom of being a teenager.” After he graduated, he’d planned to keep working at Freebirds — just enough hours to get by — so he could maximize his skate time and “just chill.” People respected Billy at the skate park: Whenever he geared up to film some tricks, everyone else cleared out of the bowl.

By November, Billy was paying all of Brooke’s bills. She’d stopped working at Texas Roadhouse; the smell of the meat and grease had been making her sick to her stomach. To swing Brooke’s $330 car payment, they applied for a WIC card and ate ramen or pancakes for dinner. When they overdrafted Brooke’s credit card, Billy worked double shifts until he could pay it off.

Brooke wanted to work, but she couldn’t hack a waitressing job. At seven months pregnant, she struggled to stay on her feet for too long and felt utterly exhausted by even the simplest tasks. 

She started falling asleep while doing her homework. Then she missed a class. Then another.

When she decided to drop out of real estate school, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her teacher. She convinced herself it wasn’t that big of a deal — they’d be moving away soon anyway, and the Air Force would pay Billy enough to support them both.

Brooke wedged her real estate textbook in a line of books on her dresser, between “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and the fourth Harry Potter.

Maybe she’d come back to it one day.

There you have it. Christians shamelessly lying directly out of their self-righteous mouths to con women into carrying fetuses to term that they did not want. God's sacred ends, justify filthy means. Brooke's life is probably over and those sanctimonious Christians are not going to do much or anything to help. 

This won't be the last like it. Some women will be happy they were conned or forced into carrying a fetus to birth, some won't and some will be ambivalent. Lots of lives will be derailed. Society will pay a price.

One thing that's pretty sure, those self-righteous Christians are not going to pay to support their cruel con game. And why should they? Us idiot taxpayers are forced to support Christianity with billions in tax breaks every year. And, despite Republican opposition to social safety net spending, us idiots also pay for the unwanted children the Christian con artists foist on society and the mothers who cannot afford to raise children on their own.

Another urgent warning: Christian nationalist Republicans see themselves as serving God, not the Constitution

Evidence the House Committee on the 1/6 coup attempt makes clear, once again, is (i) the iron grip that Christian nationalism has on elite Republicans, and (ii) how deeply opposed to democracy and secularism CN dogma actually is. Former counsel Greg Jacob to Vice President Mike Pence said this without one shred of recognition of what he was actually saying about democracy or the US Constitution:

Q (paraphrasing): We heard that you and VP Pence started 1/6 with a prayer because you thought you were facing danger. How did your faith guide you on 1/6? (a grossly incompetent and stupid way for Mr. Aguilar to ask about this -- he is clueless about what he is doing and how to do it)

Jacob (paraphrasing): I pulled out my Bible, read through it and just took great comfort. In Daniel 6, Daniel had become the 2nd in command and looked to God for guidance. 

Jacob didn't think to look to the US Constitution or the rule of law for guidance. He looked to God. And the incompetent idiot Aguilar let Jacob off the hook. 

The only thing worse than incompetent Democrats is incompetent, neo-fascist Republicans. It's long past time for regime change. Current evidence suggests that maybe it's already too late.

Republican anti-climate change legal strategy verges edges toward victory

Point 11 of Rick Scott's 11 point pro-pollution plan to

"save America" by giving it to ruthless capitalists to freely exploit

The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs. -- Republican Senator Rick Scott making his only statement about climate change in his 11 point plan; Scott means this literally in defense of pollution and polluters; taking climate change seriously means stopping the federal government from trying to deal with pollution and climate change; to pro-pollution Republicans it is nutty and hysterical for government to even try to deal with climate change and pollution 

The Republican Party has been staunchly pro-pollution, climate denier and anti-environment for years. It isn't just blind opposition. Included in the Republican pro-pollution political-commercial movement is an intelligent, focused legal strategy that could mostly neuter the capacity of American law to nudge us toward a pro-environment legal and regulatory climate. The New York Times writes:

Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment

A Supreme Court environmental case being decided this month is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general and conservative allies.

WASHINGTON — Within days, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants — pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

But it’s only a start.

The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries, to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law, weakening the executive branch’s ability to tackle global warming.

Coming up through the federal courts are more climate cases, some featuring novel legal arguments, each carefully selected for its potential to block the government’s ability to regulate industries and businesses that produce greenhouse gases.

“The West Virginia vs. E.P.A. case is unusual, but it’s emblematic of the bigger picture. A.G.s are willing to use these unusual strategies more,” said Paul Nolette, a professor of political science at Marquette University who has studied state attorneys general. “And the strategies are becoming more and more sophisticated.”

The plaintiffs want to hem in what they call the administrative state, the E.P.A. and other federal agencies that set rules and regulations that affect the American economy. That should be the role of Congress, which is more accountable to voters, said Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general and one of the leaders of the Republican group bringing the lawsuits.  

But Congress has barely addressed the issue of climate change. Instead, for decades it has delegated authority to the agencies because it lacks the expertise possessed by the specialists who write complicated rules and regulations and who can respond quickly to changing science, particularly when Capitol Hill is gridlocked.

West Virginia v. E.P.A., No. 20–1530 on the court docket, is also notable for the tangle of connections between the plaintiffs and the Supreme Court justices who will decide their case. The Republican plaintiffs share many of the same donors behind efforts to nominate and confirm five of the Republicans on the bench — John G. Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

“It’s a pincer move,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research and a former senior Justice Department official. “They are teeing up the attorneys to bring the litigation before the same judges that they handpicked.” The pattern is repeated in other climate cases filed by the Republican attorneys general and now advancing through the lower courts: The plaintiffs are supported by the same network of conservative donors who helped former President Donald J. Trump place more than 200 federal judges, many now in position to rule on the climate cases in the coming year. 

At least two of the cases feature an unusual approach that demonstrates the aggressive nature of the legal campaign. In those suits, the plaintiffs are challenging regulations or policies that don’t yet exist. They want to pre-empt efforts by President Biden to deliver on his promise to pivot the country away from fossil fuels, while at the same time aiming to prevent a future president from trying anything similar.

That is truly an aggressive pro-pollution, anti-climate legal strategy the Republican laissez-faire capitalists have dreamed up. The propaganda is, as usual, based on fomenting fear based on both lies of commission and lies of omission.

It's not just abortion that neo-fascist Republican elites are going after. Their goals are huge. They want to change society, government, religion and commerce. Neo-fascist Republicans intend to force major social engineering changes on all of those targets. 

What about pro-pollution Democrats?

As we all know, Joe Manchin is a staunchly pro-pollution Senator who defends coal and oil industry interests, which heavily fund him. His shameless conflicts of interest are off the charts. Democratic leadership made Manchin the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That gives him enormous power to defend polluters and pollution. Manchin's government propaganda page says this about him:

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is proud to represent West Virginia on four critical Senate committees that will tackle the important work of addressing our nation’s energy needs, standing up for members of the military, honoring our veterans and finding commonsense solutions to boost economic prosperity. 

Senator Manchin is proud to serve as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where he will fight for a commonsense, balanced energy approach that recognizes West Virginia’s critical role in our nation’s energy future and helps us achieve energy independence within a generation. Senator Manchin believes it is imperative that this country develops an energy policy that focuses on security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Every state must do its part to use its resources – whether it’s clean coal and natural gas or wind and solar – to make energy independence a reality. Senator Manchin will always stand up for energy policies that are good for West Virginia jobs, America’s security and our way of life.  

Well, there you have it. How could anyone stand in the way of dirty energy? Our precious security and very way of life are threatened by even trying to deal with climate change. 

With pro-pollution Democrats like Manchin in charge of the federal non-response to climate change and pollution, who needs pro-pollution Republicans like Rick Scott? They use the same kind of language to downplay climate change, deflect from its seriousness and protect big polluters, while taking campaign contributions from big polluters in return for politician loyalty.

The environment is to be exploited, damaged as much needed and convenient, and the wealth flowing from capitalist environmental rape trickled up to the elites at the top and right into their big, fat bank accounts.

What about us common folks? People can either just go pound sand if they don't like it, or continue to vote for corrupt Republicans and Democrats if they do. 

Q: Does anyone see a pattern in the propaganda here?

Hint: The tactics are the same for polluters, corrupt politicians (Democrats and Republicans), authoritarian demagogues, Christian zealots, ruthless capitalists with no social conscience, QAnon conspiracy crackpots, haters, liars, traitors, etc.

A: Yes, there is a pattern. Because it works so well, it is repeated over and over and over. 

How Big Is the Red Wave Going To Be?

 Primary vote-share matters for the general election.

Observers look at primary elections as a separate species from general elections. Primaries are viewed both as a signal of which direction a party is headed as well as a determining factor in the outcome of the general election. But we should also pay attention to the partisan composition of primaries, because data shows that the partisan makeup of primaries has been strongly predictive of the final popular vote for the last 15 years.

This implies two tentative conclusions. First, that votes in a primary are not just about how contested the primary is. That is, parties don’t get more votes solely because their primary has a competitive race. Instead, there is a deeper mechanism going on which speaks to voter enthusiasm. When the general election is still months away, primary voters may be expressing their underlying inclinations by voting in the relevant partisan primary, particularly in open primary states where they have freedom to choose which primary they vote in.

Second, this data is interesting because of when primaries happen. Most occur between May and July. The conventional wisdom says that independent voters only tune in and make choices around Labor Day. But the link between primary turnout and general election vote-share suggests that in fact, many voters have made up their minds by mid-summer.

In trying to analyze the correlation between the primary and the general election, we have considered the cycles from 2006 onwards. This is because prior to the turn of the century, Democrats dominated the southern primary vote to such a degree that it skewed the entire country’s numbers and Republicans had no equivalent counterbalance. However, as voters began to shed historical party attachments, the correlation became stronger and stronger. By 2006, it began to have real predictive value.

Below, we plot the Democratic vote share in primaries against the vote share that they earned in the general election, for elections from 2006 to 2018. We see a clear pattern—the better a party’s relative primary turnout, the better their general election performance.

A plot comparing Democratic primary vote share to Democratic general election vote share, from 2006-2018 (2012 was omitted due to several states canceling their Democratic primaries and giving the delegates to President Obama).

In 2006, 2008, and 2018, Democrats dominated primary turnout. They won all three of these general elections by 7 points or more in November. In 2010 and 2014, Democrats saw abysmal primary turnout. Both of those years were Republican waves. With the caveat that the sample size here is small, the correlation does suggest that primary turnout foreshadows voter attitudes for November.

With this tentative link in mind, let’s look at what this thesis would suggest for the 2022 midterms. The current primary season is not over, but the initial data is suggestive. So far, we can track primary turnout in 15 states and make reasonable comparisons to their 2018 primary turnout. In 2018 Republicans outvoted Democrats in those states by 12 points. So far in 2022, Republicans are outvoting Democrats in those same states by 26 points. That 14 point increase for Republicans suggests a good, though perhaps not dominant, environment for them.

However, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Instead of looking at the overall margin in these states, we can also look at the average margin, which avoids giving extra weight to states that cast more votes. In these fifteen states, in 2018, Republicans outvoted Democrats in the primary by an average of 11 points. In 2022, that average has grown to 31, an increase of 20 points. This would suggest a November 2022 environment more in line with the Republican waves of 2010 or 2014.

Both sets of numbers have merit. The first number gives a more accurate view of what is going on in the aggregate—Republicans are increasing their primary vote share, if not as dramatically as one might expect. But the second number is useful as well. Republicans lag on the first metric because Democrats have seen their primary numbers hold up very well in both Pennsylvania and Texas, and both states cast large numbers of votes. But it is not necessarily clear that Democrats will continue to do well in large states that cast a lot of votes. With about 30 primaries left, it is possible that the variation buoying Democrats here will start to fade.

So what does that tell us about 2022? If Republicans finish the primary season only doing 14 points better than they did in 2018, it would mean they outvote Democrats by 3 points overall in primary vote share. This is enough of a swing to give Republicans an edge, but not a major one in line with a wave election. Using historical data, we would project that Republicans would win the popular vote by around 3 points, depending on the model. However, if Republicans instead end up doing roughly 20 points better in primary vote share, we would project a popular vote win of up to 7 points, which is closer to their 2010 landslide.

In either case, however, the environment does appear to be significantly more Republican in 2022 than in any election cycle since 2014. This means that Democratic candidates seeking to hang on in marginal or GOP-leaning districts would probably need to win by flipping many voters who would otherwise be predisposed to vote Republican. Thus, a Democratic candidate’s crossover strength will be at a premium, because the environment will likely create an electorate that is much more Republican than either 2018 or 2020.

And in an era where crossover voting is plummeting rapidly, such candidates are becoming rarer and rarer.

https://www.thebulwark.com/how-big-is-the-red-wave-going-to-be/

Trump supporters dig in: Odds of violence increase, while thin rule of law is winning

The AP writes in an article entitled, Jan. 6 witnesses push Trump stalwarts back to rabbit hole:

One by one, several of Donald Trump’s former top advisers have told a special House committee investigating his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that they didn’t believe his lies about the 2020 election, and that the former president knew he lost to Joe Biden.

But instead of convincing Trump’s most stalwart supporters, testimony from former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s daughter Ivanka about the election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol is prompting many of them to simply reassert their views that the former president was correct in his false claim of victory.

Barr’s testimony that Trump was repeatedly told there was no election fraud? He was paid off by a voting machine company, according to one false claim that went viral this week. Ivanka Trump saying she didn’t believe Trump either? It’s all part of Trump’s grand plan to confuse his enemies and save America.

The claims again demonstrate how deeply rooted Trump’s false narrative about the election has become.

Continuing dark free speech from the radical right leads to false beliefs and hate that will lead to more violence. The Washington Post writes:

One of two Republican members of the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, starkly warned Sunday that his own party’s lies could feed additional violence.

“There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), on ABC’s “This Week.” “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”

Kinzinger, who defied party leadership by serving on the Democratic-led committee, described an alarming message he received at home in the mail several days ago threatening to execute him, his wife and their 5-month-old baby.

Public officials have been inundated with threats in recent months, many spurred by former president Donald Trump’s continued obsession with the baseless claim that his 2020 loss was the result of a vast conspiracy of fraud. The Washington Post last year tracked how election administrators in at least 17 states received threats of violence in the months after the Jan. 6 attack, often sparked directly by comments from Trump.

Sooner or later, the ex-president's vitriol and lies will lead to more violence than he has already incited. The Republican Party is not backing down one iota. It is digging in and planning for continuing and intensifying its all-out war against democracy, civil liberties, secularism, pluralism, truth and the separation of church and state.

Worse, some professional news sources are starting to report that it will be hard or impossible to convict the ex-president of any his crimes associated with his 1/6 coup attempt. The rule of law is in full blown failure in the face of professional white collar criminals and traitors. Plausible deniability and subverted judges protect them.

If nothing from 1/6 is prosecutable, that leaves the felony obstruction of justice crimes the ex-president committed during the Mueller investigation. There is no hint that Merrick Garland and his DoJ has any interest in prosecuting those crimes. That leaves probably all of the ex-president's crimes as big, fat nothingburgers in the blind eyes of American law.

The Republican Party believes in thin RoL,

but it opposes thick RoL and works to weaken it

Q: Who controls most contract power (> ~90%) 

and most property (> ~80%)?

A: Wealthy and powerful elites,

not average citizens

National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles

Over at The American Conservative website, prominent American conservatives have written a statement of principles. It lays out conservative grievances in view of their perceptions of American reality today and their vision of how things ought to be (grounded in their version of the past), whether we like it or not (and we don't). The statement reads in part:

A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.

We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.

We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

Drawing on this heritage, we therefore affirm the following principles:

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end.

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs.

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.

That scares the jeebus right out of me, assuming I had any in me to start with. This statement is first rate propaganda. It tries hard to sugar coat and deflect from the intolerance and authoritarianism it stands for. In terms of foreign policy, it is America first Trumpism. This is Christian nationalism openly declaring war on democracy, secularism and pluralism. Christian intolerance and hate are clear in it. 

Instead of calling for withdrawing pubic support for secular universities they hate and would love to cancel out of existence, how about calling for withdrawing pubic support for religion, including religious schools and universities? That seems fair and balanced.