A point of personal privilege: Ben Montgomery is a friend, a vastly talented reporter and writer, and a member of an informal group of writers to which I am proud to belong. By contrast, Axios stands revealed as a creepy little band of Beltway-drunk dilettantes who, taken together, don't have the courage God gave the average assistant night city editor at a 30,000-circulation daily. If there's one thing I despise most in this business, it's suits who don't stand behind their reporters in the face of unjust, performative outrage and flinch before they're hit.
On Wednesday, Axios fired Ben. From the Washington Post:
The news release sent Monday afternoon said DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had hosted a roundtable “exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education.” It also called for prohibiting state funds from being used to support DEI efforts. “We will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” DeSantis said in the statement. Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, replied to the email three minutes after getting it. “This is propaganda, not a press release,” he wrote to the Department of Education press office. About an hour after that, the Education Department’s communication officer, Alex Lanfranconi, shared Montgomery’s reply on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 1 million times. Montgomery said the news release had “no substance,” adding that he “read the whole thing and it was just a series of quotes about how bad DEI was.”
Here's the news release. If anything, Montgomery understated his case.
(I have a long-standing hatred for the rules of “objectivity” when they are used as an excuse for timidity and professional ass-covering by said echelons.) But this was a private communication between a reporter and a government official that the official shared in a public forum. Even the most hidebound traditional journalism ethics don't touch this. It's the apparatchik who should be fired for sharing a private communication for, yes, propaganda purposes.
But the official did so in the hope that Axios would prove to behave like the thoroughgoing chickenshits they've proven themselves to be. Presto! A Pulitzer finalist is out of work. The manipulative desk jockey probably will get a raise.
Alaska drops policy banning discrimination against LGBTQ individualsOn the advice of the state’s attorney general, Alaska’s civil rights agency quietly deleted language promising equal protections for LGBTQ Alaskans against most categories of discrimination, and it began refusing to investigate complaints.
At 11th hour, Kentucky Republicans resurrect, expand and pass anti-trans billGov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, now has 10 days to either veto or sign Senate Bill 150 into law. Beshear is widely expected to veto the bill. Kentucky’s Republican-led legislature, though, will be able to override his veto when it returns for the final two days of the legislative session on March 29 and 30.
Texas SJR76
Proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the constitutional provision that prohibits the appropriation of state money or property for the benefit of any sect, religious society, or theological or religious seminary.
1. This is a suit by Loma Linda – Inland Empire Consortium for Healthcare Education d/b/a Loma Linda University Health Education Consortium (“LLUHEC”) seeking a judgment declaring that the National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”) lacks jurisdiction over LLUHEC, ordering the Board to immediately dismiss case numbers 31-RC- 312064 and 31-CA-312278, issuing a preliminary and permanent injunction requiring the Board to desist from further processing case numbers 31-RC-312064 and 31-CA-312728 except as necessary to effectuate their immediate dismissal, ....20. The Church has a long-standing and well-established doctrine against joining, recognizing or bargaining with labor organizations that is founded on firmly-rooted religious principles.22. The Supreme Court in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop, 404 U.S. 490 (1979) (“Catholic Bishop”) held that the Board lacks jurisdiction over church-affiliated educational institutions.36. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest. 42 U.S.C. §2000bb-1(a) and (b).
37. The Church has a long-standing and well-established teaching against joining, recognizing or bargaining with labor organizations that is founded on firmly-rooted religious principles, including the interference with free religious exercise and commitment to God resulting from such relationships.38. If the Church were to be ordered by the Board to recognize and bargain with the Union, it would be forced under the threat of civil sanction to act contrary to its long-standing and well-established religious teachings regarding labor organizations.
39. Being forced to choose between adhering to the tenets of its faith or suffering civil sanctions is coercive and substantially burdens LLUHEC’s exercise of its religion.
Christian Nationalist Former Lawmaker Wants Right-Wing Evangelicals to‘Take Authority’ Over All Levels of GovernmentJason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, appeared on the “Give Me Liberty” program late last year and laid out his vision for a nation in which every congressional seat is occupied by Christian conservatives.
A longtime religious-right activist and ardent Christian nationalist, Rapert declared on the December 17, 2022 episode of the “Give Me Liberty” show that right-wing Christians must rise up and “take authority” over everything from their local school boards to the federal government.
“When people quote the Bible and say, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’—Psalm 33:12—how in the world do you expect to ever have that if you are not electing somebody that would adhere to that worldview?” Rapert asked. “You can’t have a nation whose God is the Lord when you’re electing people that are holding up Sodom and Gomorrah as a goal to be achieved rather than a sin to be shunned.”
More than 70,000 Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the US after the Taliban takeover are at risk of losing their work permits and, far worse, could face deportation by this summer if congress fails to extend their stay with something called the Afghan Adjustment Act in time. These refugees worked with the US forces during our longest war, and they and their families would almost certainly face torture and death at the hands of the Taliban if they were sent back to Afghanistan. The fate of these people is almost never discussed in the highly repetitive news cycle in the US. Yet we not only recruited them in Afghanistan, but brought them here after the withdrawal of US forces. Then we failed to provide a path to citizenship for them, in stark contrast to the resettlement of former war refugees that stuck their necks out for the US such as those in Vietnam. A few members of congress claim they were "not sufficiently vetted." This is not only untrue, but in order to settle them more vetting would be required anyway. Clearly they pose no risk, as we have heard nothing about terrorism plots that a few paranoid voices in politics and the media have occasionally warned about. They are victims and not perpetrators of terror. The real threat of terrorism here comes from our own radical Right, as emphasized on this blog regularly.
A few days ago, PBS aired this interview with Krish Vignarajah, herself a refugee who runs the highly effective Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. It is a heartbreaking and enraging interview. These people really need our help. The US spreads death and destruction with impunity through its wars and interventions; then consigns those who sincerely tried to help themselves and the US to oblivion-- or worse prolonged ordeals of torture. We don't hear much about the aftermath of Afghanistan a year and a half after the US withdrawal. If any of you are able, please consider making a donation to LIRS here or any other credible and effective charity that is helping this tragically neglected population. Here is the PBS interview with Krish Vignarajah:
Republicans Accept No Blame For Bank Failures After They Voted To Deregulate Banks
“Where were the regulators?” Sen John Kennedy (R-La.) said on the Senate floor. “This whole debacle could have been avoided if the regulators had just done their job and stepped in and said, ‘Silicon Valley Bank, what you’re doing is dumb, and you can’t do it anymore.’”
Kennedy omitted a key detail from his remarks. He and the other members of the Senate Banking Committee — including several of the panel’s Democrats — wrote a bill in 2018 that told regulators they could relax their scrutiny of institutions like Silicon Valley Bank. (BuzzFeed, HuffPost’s parent company, banked with SVB.)
“The legislation that we passed did not eliminate liquidity stress testing,” Kennedy told HuffPost. “It did not eliminate the regulation at all of banks in that range.”
Kennedy is right — the law made enhanced prudential regulation optional instead of mandatory for mid-sized banks. But it wasn’t a mystery what regulators would do. Jerome Powell and Randy Quarles, the chairman and former top bank regulator at the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers during hearings on the legislation in 2018 that it would be a good idea to cut regional banks some slack.“They had the tools available,” Sen Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told HuffPost. “The question is, why didn’t they use the tools?”
“It was an option,” Sen Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “And if they chose not to do it, that’s gonna be a really good question based on the activities of Silicon Valley.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said it’s not clear whether Silicon Valley Bank would have failed to meet the higher standards under Dodd-Frank. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat behind the 2018 rollback, said Wednesday that regular bank oversight could have caught the problems.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who chaired the Senate Banking Committee in 2018 and was the lead author of the Dodd-Frank rollback, said Wednesday the bill had nothing to do with banks going belly-up.
“The fact is, this is not a capital issue. This is a liquidity issue,” Crapo said. “It’s an entirely different set of issues.”
A federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s media company Trump Media has expanded to include potential money laundering violations linked to an $8 million loan with Russian ties, the Guardian reported Wednesday, potentially further threatening the ex-president’s media company and its planned merger with special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC).
A growing chorus of [radical right] conservative pundits and politicians have said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of the bank’s “woke” policies, blaming the California lender’s commitments to workplace diversity and environmentally and socially conscious investments.
These claims are without merit. The bank’s collapse was due to financial missteps and a bank run.
Moreover, the firm’s policy on diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as D.E.I. — is similar to ones that have been broadly adopted in the banking sector. So is its approach to taking environmental and social considerations into account when investing — referred to as E.S.G. — although that has become a target of [radical right] conservatives.
In fact, Silicon Valley Bank is considered about average in the industry when it comes to these issues.
WHAT WAS SAID
“They were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the E.S.G.-type policy in investing.”
— Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, in an appearance on Fox News on SundayFACT CHECKThis lacks evidence. First, experts have broadly agreed that the bank’s demise had little to do with “wokeness.” As The New York Times and others have explained, the collapse was due to a bank run precipitated by a decline in start-up funding, rising interest rates and the firm’s sale of government bonds at a huge loss to raise capital.
The bank’s loans to environmental and community projects “were not an important factor behind the collapse of SVB,” said Itay Goldstein, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “There is no immediate indication that these loans precipitated the run by investors.”
Silicon Valley Bank also was not an outlier in its diversity goals or its E.S.G. investments.What the animosity to DEI and ESG amounts to is a major front in the bigoted and racist Christian nationalist (CN) culture war. Core CN dogma is open bigotry or racism toward out-groups that God hates. What groups does God hate and demand to be subjugated and oppressed by wealthy, White heterosexual men? Mainly:
The Freedom From Religion Foundation today won its case before an appeals court against the Texas governor’s censorship of its Capitol display.
After Gov. Greg Abbott and the State Preservation Board blatantly and illegally censored FFRF’s display in the Texas Capitol in 2015, Abbott and the board have fought every step of the way to delay the ultimate resolution of FFRF’s now six-and-a-half-year lawsuit, engaging in protracted, entirely avoidable litigation at taxpayer expense.FFRF, with help from members and with requisite permit and sponsorship by a legislator, had placed a Winter Solstice display in the Capitol building in December 2015 to counter a Christian nativity there. FFRF’s whimsical exhibit depicts the Founders and the Statue of Liberty celebrating the “birth” of the Bill of Rights (adopted on Dec. 15, 1791). Abbott, as chair of the Preservation Board, while permitting the Christian exhibit, ordered FFRF’s display removed only three days after it was erected, lambasting it as indecent, mocking and contributing to public immorality. FFRF initially won its lawsuit at the district court level in 2018.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is appalled at Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signing legislation that will funnel over $340 million in taxpayer dollars to private, mostly religious schools.
The new law is an egregious decimation of the public school system in the name of “school choice.” The “Students First Act” creates an education savings account redirecting taxpayer funds to private school education. The newly enacted law makes these funds available to families who make 300 percent of the poverty income guidelines for the first year. The following year, the availability of the funds will be expanded to families making 400 percent of the poverty income guidelines. After that, the funds will be available to all families, regardless of income. Eventually, all Iowa families can use up to $7,598 a year for private school tuition.
In short, even if a family is fully financially capable of sending their children to private schools, and even if they have always planned to utilize private schools, they will soon be eligible to receive taxpayer-funded assistance for that purpose.
In addition to being bad policy, the law runs counter to the Iowa Constitution. Article 1, Section 3 of the Iowa Constitution states, “... nor shall any person be compelled to … pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing places of worship, or the maintenance of any minister, or ministry.”
FFRF has long held that where public tax dollars go, public accountability must follow. But there will be little public accountability for funds going to these religiously segregated and unaccountable parochial schools.
“Forcing taxpayers to pay for the religious education of others is a fundamental violation of religious liberty,” comments FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “Public education funds should be utilized solely for secular, public education.”
The United States Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision on June 27, 2022, that significantly affects the analysis courts use to determine whether the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has been violated. The Establishment Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and it has long been interpreted to apply to state and local governments.
The case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, arose in Washington State. Joseph Kennedy (Kennedy), a public high school football coach, took a knee on the 50-yard line after games and prayed.The Court then addressed the role of the Establishment Clause, and in so doing, overruled the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. The Lemon Court Establishment Clause analysis calls for an evaluation of the purposes and effects of an action and whether it fosters “excessive government entanglement with religion.” The Court asserted that the Lemon test for Establishment Clause violations caused chaos in lower courts and led to differing results in materially similar cases. Also, in the Court’s view, the Establishment Clause test in Lemon overemphasizes the importance of the Establishment Clause in relation to the Free Speech and Free Exercise clauses.
