Mary L. Trump is Donald’s niece, the daughter of his older brother. She is the author of the best-selling tell-all about her family and her uncle: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. She wrote this article after watching Elise Stefanik bulldoze Kristen Welner on “Meet the Press.”
Shameful… Today, Elise Stefanik used NBC’s Meet The Press as her MAGA bullhorn, and “journalist” Kristen Welker just let her get away with it. But we now have tools to fight back.Read on. 👇
I could only watch the clips in short bursts, because each was worse than the last… one of the most egregious (and dangerous) displays of journalistic incompetence I’ve ever seen.
Elise Stefanik Called Jan 6 Insurrections… What??
Elise Stefanik, an opportunistic traitor desperately angling to be Donald’s VP pick with every lie she spews, declared those convicted of January 6 crimes to be “hostages”.
”I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages,” Stefanik stated.
Welker’s response? Crickets. 🦗 No demand for an explanation, e.g. Who is holding them hostage? How is holding people accountable for crimes a hostage situation?
At least Welker could have shown Stefanik this chart from the NY Times:
As former GOP Comms Director Tara Stetmayer (and guest of my latest Deep Dive) put it so eloquently, “No journalist should ever allow any of these MAGAs to call Jan 6th justly-prosecuted thugs, ‘hostages’. What an affront to our rule of law.”
Planning the Next Coup
Welker asked, “Will you certify the results of the 2024 election, no matter what they show?”
Stefanik responded with obfuscation and lies about the 2020 election, before admitting she will NOT certify the election, unless – in her eyes – “it’s constitutional. What we saw in 2020 was unconstitutional.”
Welker pushed back briefly, citing that even two firms hired by Donald said there was NO evidence of election fraud, and Donald’s own officials said it was the most secure election in history. Two points for sanity.
But then Welker allowed Stefanik to negate it all by simply saying, “The American people understand it was not a fair election.”
And the response from Welker? No follow up. No pushback. Just the classic dreadful tactic used by incompetent journalists… basically, ”Let’s move on.”
No, Ms. Welker. Stefanik just admitted on live television she will attempt another coup after the election if Biden wins – and she will use a string of lies to create her own “facts” to justify her treason.
Now is NOT the time to move on. Grill Stefanik and other Republicans who continue to lie, obfuscate, and gaslight the American people. Demand evidence. Call out the lies. Force them to disprove officials and independent firms that declared 2020 the most secure election in history.
Show your audience that the person calling these this traitors “hostages” has zero integrity. Don’t just hand her a fucking bullhorn.
But Kristen Welker will continue to give MAGA the bullhorn.
Here’s why:
Corporate Media vs Substack
Stefanik and right-wing politicians choose to be interviewed by people like Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd for a reason.
Truth seeking is not high on the priority list for most corporate journalists who see getting clicks as their goal. Corporate media only cares about ratings.
Insanity sells; negativity sells; and LIES sell. The more viewers these MAGA guests bring, the more ad revenue comes in… enriching both media executives and their advertisers – all at the expense of facts, justice, and American democracy.
But now, you have an alternative.
The Substack community only serves one person – you.
From Joyce Vance, to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, to my work here – you have a place where MAGA is called out for their lies – with facts, analysis, and powerful tools that inform your friends & family during a critical election year.
You can count on me, for one, to do ANYTHING to get out the truth, and thus help get lying traitors like Elise Stefanik and my uncle out of power… no weekends off.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Stefanik told the truth and lied at the same time when she said, “The American people understand it was not a fair election.”
From the studies I’ve been reading, about a 1/3 of those questioned in think it wasn’t a fair election.
That means two-thirds, 2/3rds, think the election was fair and honest.
33.3 out of a 100 people questioned said there was fraud and cheating, that it wasn’t a fair election and Trump won.
66.6 say it was fair.
I want to be the one that decides who to slice into thirds. I’ll have them freeze dried first. I’m not that cruel. That way they won’t feel any pain or bleed when a precise laser does the cutting.
I’m thinking someone that won’t decide if it was fair or there was fraud, so they can claim victory no matter who wins. Still, I’d make sure they voted for Traitor Trump in 2016, first. The third that voted for the traitor in 2016 will go in the column that says there was cheating. The other 2/3rds will go in the no cheating column.
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I watched it. Welker is, if possible, even WORSE than Chuck Todd was. And Todd was horrible.
And Stefanik is a total joke. If Welker had even a smidgen of ability to do the job she would have stopped Stefanik at the first mention of “hostages” and reminded her, firmly, that a lot of those “hostages” were tried by juries of their peers while receiving the benefit of a presumption of innocence, the requirement of a unanimous verdict, no burden of proof, and the most stringent due process requirements the Constitution provides. If I were a January 6 juror, I’d be looking to paste Stefanik in the face. People gave up their time and underwent personal sacrifice to give these “hostages” the benefit of every doubt. And still they were convicted.
Stefanik is one step removed from a $20 hooker. That Welker played the role of pimp is nauseating.
And they’re not “hostages”, Elise. They’re “convicts”. They put themselves in jail.
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Sex work is far more honorable than what Stefanik does.
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Somebody in New York needs to primary Stefanik and get behind a more reasonable and moderate candidate.
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R.E.
Does the large, religious right segment in her district want a moderate?
Generating tribalism by telling the public that Catholics are persecuted by the federal government must be a campaign message that Elise believes works, locally and nationally.
Do you have a counter plan for that?
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This morning, I watched a portion of the Stefanik segment and moved on. It was as awful as Mary Trump said. Stefanik went to private schools- an entitled brat with no conscience.
The journalistic incompetence probably has to do with both Kristen and the people behind the scenes. AEI’s mouthpieces are frequently at the table.
What is their contribution- a spin tank’s talking points for the wealthy.
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Welker is from Philly where she also attended a private school, Germantown Friends. Quakers try to keep the peace, but it’s not good journalism.
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“Quakers try to keep the peace.” Does that statement qualify as good journalism in describing Welker’s motivation?
Germantown’s tuition is about $45,000. Both Stepanik and Welker attended the bastion of unmerited privilege, Harvard (Jared Kushner’s admittance to the school as example).
The qualities that Welker exhibits as a member of the free press likely reflect a confluence of her experiences.
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The website Crooks and Liars saw the Stefanik interview.
They were outraged when Stefanik, “made a martyr of herself.”
Elise said, “… we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government against not just Trump …we’re seeing it against Catholics.” The retort of the journalist at Crooks and Liars, for readers, was, “Really? When is the last time you heard of any persecution against Catholics?”
Stefanik’s dogwhistle to get Catholics to vote GOP was front and center. The truth is Catholic Republican votes, Catholic Conferences, the bishops’ political spending, the Catholic right wing media, Catholic wealthy like Tim Busch and Robert P George, Catholic judges like Amy Comey Barrett and, politicians like Sen. Ricketts and Rep. Stefanik advance their religious sect while the rights of all Americans are taken away. A set of religious beliefs and its twisting to accommodate libertarian economic exploitation is held by less than 65% of the White Catholic segment yet, their influence, accompanied by protestant evangelicals, is at the heart of the destruction of the American democratic form of government.
This blog is about public schools. No entity has had more influence in privatizing education in the central states than the Catholic church.
According to AEI’s Frederick Hess, no person has had more impact in legally advancing religious charter schools than Notre Dame Prof. and Manhattan Institute fellow, Nicole Stelle Garnet.
Pretend Crooks and Liars has a personal vendetta against Catholics- it conveniently absolves any requirement to act or speak out against the political activities of the Church and its right wing activists.
Put, your fingers in your ears to block what the 3rd ranking GOP House member said this morning and ignore its implications.
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One of the best blogs out there is emptywheel.net
Marcy Wheeler is brilliant. She doesn’t just post her opinions, she explains why she has them, using evidence and argument. Her knowledge of the law is remarkable, and she asks the right questions and doesn’t pretend to know what she doesn’t know.
She wrote about exactly this issue today:
Her entire blog is always worth reading, and so is this particular post – here’s a brief excerpt:
“Before I look at what Elise said, let’s talk about why.
In response to a great post on January 6 and fascism the other day, I attempted to write a taxonomy of the reasons why Republicans are waltzing along with Trump towards fascism. This is evolving, but I came up with:
I have no doubt that Elise worries that defending her past statements might elicit retaliation from Trump, item 1. But for her, this is about ambition, utility, item 3.”
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I agree, Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel) is top notch.
And Kristin Welker was in over her head.
As Democratic Congressman Wiley Nickel put it:
“Elise Stefanik delivers a masterclass on gaslighting the voters. @kwelkernbclet’s her get away with lie after lie on @MeetThePress. This was a dark day for journalistic integrity on the longest-running program on American television…”
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It’s unusual for people “in over their heads” to steeple their fingers (see photo). Steepling is a non-verbal cue of confidence. Welker is serving the side that butters her bread. Hiring a biracial journalist to facilitate Stefanik’s propaganda was the logical step after Todd’s usefulness ended.
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Um, no. Welker is just not very good at her job.
Not everything is a conspiracy, no matter how much you might wish to believe it.
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Nailed it, jsr. But just this morning, I had to vacuum the rug in my living room. I suspect that that was because of all the dust the Catholics stirred up. And when I last went to see my primary care physician, I had to wait for half an hour past my appointment. Catholics, again, in there mucking up the operations of the office.
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And it’s a little-known fact that one of the aides to Jim Jordan, who supported Trump’s insurrection, once dated a Catholic girl for three months in his junior year of college. Coincidence? I think not. Which raises the questions, what roles did the AEI and Leonard Leo play in getting those two college kids together?
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EmptyWheel, like Diane’s blog, is one of the rare places on the interwebs where you learn as much from the comments as you do from the posts themselves.
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True. I also think Marcy Wheeler is one of the best media observers around. (I put her in a class with Kathleen Hall Jamieson because they both carefully support their criticism with evidence and argument.) I commented here about a different EmptyWheel post (about the terrible coverage the NYT and other newspapers gave to Biden’s excellent Valley Forge speech Jan. 5.) but it doesn’t seem to be posting. Worth looking at next time you check out EmptyWheel: Jan 6, “How Trump Manipulated 3 NYT Journalists to Make a Campaign Ad for Fascism”
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Yes, I just read the Empty Wheel discussion of Elise Stefanie’s shameless embrace of Trump’s lies. Excellent. Stefanik is execrable.
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“Truth seeking is not high on the priority list for most corporate journalists who see getting clicks as their goal. Corporate media only cares about ratings.”
This is the central truth about cable air news that Wayne Barrett railed against in 2015–23 years after he exposed everything we needed to know about Trump in his book, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”
The hosts on these shows follow a scripted through-line from hour to hour that stretches their “breaking news” du jour cycle from morning until night. Meanwhile, most of each hour is filled with commercials promoting pharmaceuticals that warn of what to do if users experience side effects.
These programs–right, middle, or left–are led by polished hosts who are masterful ringleaders. That’s why I don’t believe the poll numbers that are presented to scare viewers into believing that Trump is far ahead of his rivals. They want to create self-fulfilling prophesies, keeping everyone depressed and nervously tuned into the psychodrama as the race unfolds (and the strung out court cases, as well). There’s great danger in the fait accompli they are promoting.
I might add, there is some truth in the notion of false facts–by omission or commission. The same mindset that pretty much squashed Bernie Sanders in 2012 and 2016 is also at work in downplaying Chris Christie this year. He spoils the assumption that Trump is a lock to be the Republican nominee.
Mary Trump is right to decry the cable news footsie–pointing out what should be obvious by now.
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Agree with you.
Adding, a journalist would have countered Stefanik’s lie about the federal government as weapon against Catholics, telling the truth that the Catholic Church is political weapon against the American people. A journalist would have pointed out that taxpayers have made Catholic organizations the nation’s 3rd largest employer, that Koch and Leonard Leo made SCOTUS a right wing Catholic arbiter, that Don McGahn of the Jones Day law firm filled judgeships with right wing religious, that religious schools were exempted from civil rights employment law as a result of a suit brought by a Catholic school, that the campaign to take away reproductive rights was/is the success of Catholic Conferences, that school privatization was/is the success of the Catholic bishops’ lobbyists, Catholic right wing activists, Notre Dame’s political activities and, the sophisticated voter mobilization efforts of the Catholic Conferences. A journalist would expose the well-placed media writers covering for the Catholic Church.
The fact that the American Enterprise Institute practically lived on the program during Todd’s tenure and extended into Welker’s is a huge, red flag for Americans who strive to throw off the shackles of right wing religion’s abusive power.
Jefferson- in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot.
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No. Just, no.
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So the polls are fixed?
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Fred, Christie is almost dead last, and has been from the beginning. He was never anywhere near The Orange Idiot in popularity. Last I checked, the Black Plague and bowel cancer were running ahead of Christie.
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Here is more Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel showing how media criticism is done.
Her headline: “How Trump Manipulated 3 NYT Journalists to Make a Campaign Ad for Fascism”
Wheeler spent a good deal of time providing evidence of why an article in the NYT about Biden’s terrific Jan. 5 Valley Forge speech has major problems:
“Then there’s the NYTimes, in a piece by Michael Bender, Lisa Lerer and Michael Gold. It seems to be a genuine attempt at cataloging Trump’s “brazen” attempt to “cast[] Mr. Biden as the true menace,” the subhead of the piece.
But it proceeded to quote just 31 words of what it calls Joe Biden’s “forceful” speech, before it aired:
And they did so in an article talking about the import of focusing on democracy, not on Trump’s false claims about it.
Even including a 33-word quote from Josh Shapiro about how Pennsylvanians have learned to see through Trump’s bullshit and 30 words about the threat of violence, NYT still quoted Trump or his supporters’ false attacks on Biden and rule of law almost twice as much as they did true claims about Trump.
Effectively, it rewarded Trump for telling “audacious” lies. By telling them, he got three NYT journalists to quote his lies about Joe Biden and rule of law over and over and over.
The reason Trump projects his own failures on other people is because journalists never fail to reward him for it, presenting his false claims alongside true ones, leaving the impression that truth is up for debate, that professionals are helpless to discern which of these claims are true.
Trump’s goal is to degrade the very notion of truth. And this kind of journalism only helps him do that.
Update: After I wrote this, NYT changed the headline of this piece, from “Clashing Over Jan. 6, Trump and Biden Show Reality Is at Stake in 2024,” to “Trump Signals an Election Year Full of Falsehoods on Jan. 6 and Democracy.”
(End of Marcy Wheeler post)
Note that Wheeler understands that just because the NYT runs a story on something does not mean that it is “covering” an issue except to amplify the right wing framing. She understand how much danger our democracy is in because of this.
There’s more about the other mainstream media’s coverage of Biden’s speech, which unfortunately is even worse.
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I always felt that Trump appointed inferior people to the Supreme Court because he wanted people who would stand up for him if he needed help.
K___ Will ‘Step Up’ to Keep Trump on Ballots, Ex-President’s Lawyer Says
08 january 24
Brett K___, the US supreme court justice, will “step up” for Donald Trump and help defeat attempts to remove the former president from the ballots in Colorado and Maine for inciting an insurrection, a Trump lawyer said.“I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court,” Alina Habba told Fox News on Thursday night. “I have faith in them.The supreme court said Friday it will consider the Colorado matter.“You know, people like K___, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness. And the law on this is very clear.”
K___ was the second of three justices appointed by Trump, creating a 6-3 rightwing majority that has delivered major Republican victories including removing the federal right to abortion and loosening gun control laws…
https://www.rsn.org/001/kavanaugh-will-step-up-to-keep-trump-on-ballots-expresidents-lawyer-says.html
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CarolMalaysia, even though you did not use the word “Kavanaugh,” your comment went into moderation.
The WordPress AI must have figured out what you meant.
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Trump has actually referred to it many times as his court.
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Trump used to refer to the military leaders as “my generals”
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And now that he is running for president again, he is waffling about having explicitly placed people on the court who would overturn Roe. At the time, he was clear that that was what is was doing. Now he is denying it because he knows that millions and millions of women are not happy with his ugly ass.
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Why would you credit the words of Alina Habba?
While I am no fan of Brett Kavanaugh’s, he’s no lightweight. He knows the law and he argues his positions well. He has done nothing on the job to justify demeaning his qualifications and intelligence.
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Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court represents a clear and present danger to the rights of workers and their families and the protections they are afforded by law. His decisions and opinions have strongly favored big business and corporations at the expense of workers.
Kavanaugh also wrote opinions supporting the Venetian hotel’s decision to ask the police to issue criminal citations against union demonstrators who were protesting legally; and Verizon’s decision to prohibit union members from displaying pro-union signs in their cars while at work.
Kavanaugh also sided with Donald Trump’s Venetian Casino when it tried to prevent workers from unionizing.
As a judge, Kavanaugh has denied employees protections under anti-discrimination laws.
In one case, Kavanaugh dismissed an African-American employee’s claim of racial discrimination after he was denied a promotion that went to a white employee. Kavanaugh accepted the employer’s claim that the employee wasn’t promoted because he lacked a specific skill, even though the skill was never listed as a job requirement. A dissenting judge said there was evidence that the employer’s claim was “fabricated to mask unlawful discrimination.”
In another case, Kavanaugh disagreed with a majority ruling on an African-American employee’s right to pursue a claim of discrimination. The employee sued for racial discrimination and retaliation when she was fired from her job as a senior advisor to the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. The majority of his colleagues on
the panel ruled that the employee had the right to sue. Kavanaugh disagreed.
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I get it: You don’t like Kavanaugh.
But when the country elects a president, he gets to name nominees to fill Supreme Court vacancies. The Constitution does not provide that any nominee must decide cases the way you or I like. Your criticisms seem to be not based on his knowledge or legal ability. Rather, they go to the merits of his opinions, which is of necessity subjective.
The massive battle over his nomination was a political battle, not a battle over competence.
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This is a battle over competence.
Brett Kavanaugh should never been allowed on the supreme court | Carol Anderson
Sat. Feb. 2019
Despite all of the warning signs, Kavanaugh was confirmed. Now he’s trying to roll back basic rights
…Numerous credible allegations of sexual assault were brought against Kavanaugh. And, of course, there was Kavanaugh’s unforgettable rage-filled partisan opening statement.
That was more than enough for the American Bar Association to announce that it would re-evaluate Kavanaugh’s ABA rating. The National Council of Churches wanted his nomination withdrawn. The Jesuits backed away from him. Faculty and students from his alma mater urged the senate to vote “no.” More than 2,000 law professors came out against Kavanaugh’s elevation to the highest court in the land. Even former Justice John Paul Stevens declared that after that partisan rant, it was clear that Kavanaugh was unfit and didn’t have the required judicial temperament to sit on the Supreme Court.
Despite all of the warning signs, however, Kavanaugh was still confirmed by the slimmest of margins with Senator Susan Collins, a key swing vote, convinced that he was committed to precedent and “would not vote to overturn Roe v Wade.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/09/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-louisiana-abortion?CMP=share_btn_link
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What’s done is done
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So will NBC, after this and her catastrophic interview of Trump, give Welker a third strike, say in an interview of Steve Bannon? Are the participants in Substack so enamored with democracy that they are willing to get out from behind a pay wall to trumpet the truth? It’s amazing how money complicates transparency…
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Maybe Nebraska Sen. Ricketts, Leonard Leo, a Republican from the Knights of Columbus, a Notre Dame ACE representative, Professors Robert P George or Adrian Vermuele or, a lawyer from Becket Law or Jones Day can be interviewed in expectation that they will augment Stefanik’s claims about persecution/federal government weaponization against Catholics.
At Easter, Welker can join CBS’ Face the Nation in bringing on a Catholic bishop and lobbing soft ball questions unrelated to politics so as to create the impression that a centralized right wing religious sect isn’t actively engaged in legislatures, taking away American rights.
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We are living on Planet Earth. You realize that, right?
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A planet with reproductive and LGBTQ rights, no school vouchers – where Stefanik got it right- Catholics are persecuted by the federal government-
got it. Where the research at the Scielo site, “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs” is bogus.
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jsr-
The Pope didn’t get your memo.
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It’s bizarre to me that jsr’s parallel planet didn’t have Issue 1 in August. My planet, my nation, my state (ranks 7th in population) witnessed the archdioceses spend almost $1,000,000 to takeaway a fundamental democratic right.
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Yes, and there is the Grand Inquisitor whom the Pope has put in charge of armies to terrorize the Cathar villages of southern France!
Oops. Sorry. Wrong century.
Are you talking about the 1.7 million that the church poured into stopping the referendum in Ohio keeping abortion legal? The church LOST.
But one must be concerned, of course, about the space port under the Vatican by means of which the shape-shifting reptilians from Alpha Draconis come to take their places as heads of government worldwide, the one built with funds from Leo and the AEI. Tin foil hats, I’ve found, are the best protection against their thought control mind waves.
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Not a business but, a religious sect ranking as the 3rd largest employer- perfectly normal on jsr’s planet where neither Adam Smith nor FDR were born yet.
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Neither Adam Smith nor FDR were even born yet? What on earth does that mean?
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Bob-
Issue 1 increased the requirements to get a referendum on the ballot. Had it passed, it would have set the standard for a referendum at a point where it would be virtually impossible to get one on the ballot. The only means citizens have to stop the GOP in a gerrymandered state is a referendum. People who think like you pose a danger to democracy.
People like me worked very hard, at no pay, to fight against Issue 1 and, to counter the messaging and spending of the top 5 Issue 1 funders which included archdioceses and a Robert P George-founded group.. Three months later in November, the dioceses again spent money- this time on the abortion issue and, people like me felt compelled to engage in the fight for the sake of our daughters’ lives. The Secretary of State was able to get deceptive language on the abortion ballot issue approved by Ohio’s Supreme Court. If a fight had not been engaged, there is NO reason to think the outcome would have been a loss for the Catholic church.Both ballot issues had Catholic Conference lobbyists working against people like me.
The bishops publicly stated there was no moral content in Issue 1.
Your point, that the Catholic hierarchy failed was not known at the time all of us fighting for democracy in Ohio, made our sacrifices. It is impossible to imagine a more lame argument to discount the anti-democracy efforts of right wing Catholics than the one that hangs on the premise that somehow, the people will prevail in countering the money, voter mobilization apparatuses and lobbyists of the Catholic Church. We certainly have not prevailed in the issue of our tax dollars going to Catholic schools.
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Good for you, Linda, for working to stop these noxious pieces of legislation!
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Issue 5 was a referendum. The citizens after a fight involving a lot of personal sacrifice were able to preserve collective bargaining for public unions. The Ohio Senate only passed the noxious ALEC-drafted legislation that provoked the referendum, by one vote. Since then, Republicans in the state have gained more power. Every right that the citizens have (since SCOTUS can’t be counted on to protect them) was put at risk in Issue 1 in August. And, you are cavalier about it, and about all of the work that it took to fight it and, you are cavalier about the enemy we had to fight.
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Bob,
Your position (and, I assume Diane and jsr’s) remains that noxious legislation concerning reproductive and gay rights and, school choice have no locus of origin and no identifiable support in the American Catholic Church? And, I am mentally ill wearing a tin foil hat
when I (1) document origin and support e.g. amicus briefs (2) identify who publicly takes credit for success (3) report research, gained through valid sources, about who is spending how much promoting the legislation and, (4) report what the official government record shows about who lobbyists work for?
-odd how far people will go in defense of
a group that works against the goals that those same people purportedly care deeply about- the takeaway- mixed messaging thwarting the advancement of the cause-
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I agree that there is noxious legislation supported by the Catholic church. I agree that the Church itself takes some positions that I find, in a word, ludicrous (transubstantiation, Original Sin, the Virgin birth, the resurrection, Christ as sacrificial lamb, Christ as the one and only son of god, the “mystery” of the Trinity and others that I find morally abhorrent (refusal to ordain women or perform marriages of gay and lesbian people). I agree that there are very powerful and freaking downright evil people in the United States today who think that they are acting out of their Catholic belief system (Leo and Alito spring to mind). But I also know that there are literally billions of Catholics, many of them truly wonderful people, some in my own family, including the warm, generous, kindly, well-educated, and incredibly devoted nuns and brothers with whom I taught in a Catholic school long ago, and so I find your CONSTANT railing against Catholics and the Catholic Church one-side and monomaniacal, extremist, obsessive. I know a guy whose Catholic faith leads him to coach youth soccer and teach the importance of fair play and generosity toward opponents. What a terrible thing! Up there with, I don’t know, moonbeams and apple pie with the great evils of the world.
There are other sources of evil in the world besides the Catholic church. And the Catholic church is also, in many of its instantiations, a source of great good. The current Pope, for example, is an honorable, decent, and learned man.
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It is my hope that THE MANY PROGRESSIVE PERSONS AMONG CATHOLICS TODAY will help the Church to evolve past its former superstitions and repugnant moral positions, to transcend its questionable history. This is already happening. There are a LOT of nominal Catholics (and other Christians) in the United States today, for example, who find the ideas of hell and the Devil idiotic or, at best, metaphors or symbols but not actual, concrete things. These are cultural Catholics, as there are people who are culturally Jewish though they don’t believe in, for example, the parting of the Red Sea and the talking serpent, lol. One sees this happening with major religions. The Dalai Lama, for example, says that where Buddhism and science disagree, Buddhism must accede to our increased knowledge. Similarly, yes, there are horrific fundamentalist Jihadist types, but there is also Rumi (and the Sufis generally). And where in places the Church is still extremely reactionary, it’s LOSING. Those views are held increasingly only by extremely elderly people, and those same views are simply driving people away from the Church. Those taking religious vocations as priests and nuns make up a RAPIDLY dwindling number because few people in their right minds support religious celibacy anymore. A recent poll of American Catholics showed that 66 percent of them supported letting priests marry.
So, the church you attack is a caricature.
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cx:
So, the church you attack is an unreal caricature, the last dying gasp of support for a previously existing institution that is being transformed by cultural change and scientific and moral progress into something only faintly resembling the idea of it that exists in the minds of the most extremist elderly Opus Dei Fascist.
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Bob- There can be no dispute that there are people in almost all religious sects and in almost all groupings of people who have good souls. Some in each group may be supporting with their donations to their organizations, good works AND, the legislative agenda of their leaders e.g. policies that cost women their lives and the LGBTQ their dignity.
IMO, a group without the money, influence and demonstrated success in the public square of the Catholic Church, doesn’t warrant attention when no media attention focuses on the whale.
In part, I would like my eulogy to say I actively opposed the efforts of enemy dollars spent to privatize common goods and services like education, opposed the enemy’s dollars spent to generate support for the GOP and to overthrow democracy (e.g. Issue 1 in Ohio) and, opposed discrimination in hiring and delivery of services especially when funded by tax dollars. You can read the eulogy written and say that person wears a tin foil hat.
You and I can both read a eulogy for a person that says his/her beliefs led them to church and the person strived to live a life consistent with Christ’s teaching of empathy and compassion. I would respect that person and presumably you would as well.
You and I can read the eulogy of a person who financially supported a church knowing that that church would have prevented, through government process, a 10 year old rape victim from getting an abortion in every state. You can
view that eulogy in one way and I can view it in another.
But, the preceding does not relate to the overwhelming bulk of what I write.
I comment about the right wing political advances achieved by the Catholic Church.
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And, while I write about the enemy of US democracy, civility to those who disagree
is a standard to which I try to adhere.
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For those unfamiliar with the topics and people about whom I write, a sampling includes Ivy League Professors, Adrian Vermuele and Robert P George and, Notre Dame Professor Nicole Stelle Garnet. Vermuele publicly advocates for preferential immigration for Catholics, George is co-author of the Manhattan Declaration signed by 15 bishops of major cities. And, Garnet is described as the legal scholar most influential in advancing religious charter schools.
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Bob-
Smith and FDR references- I want to believe that FDR appreciated Jefferson’s warning about priests and despots when he created the New Deal and did not anticipate and did not want the benefits of the program to accrue to one religious sect that is characterized by authoritarianism.
Smith’s plan for an economic system was capitalism – free enterprise, not a theocratic government with control of the economy.
I am describing my prescriptive planet not jrs’ preferred real planet.
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If you missed it, here’s the NYT mapping out Clarence Thomas clerks, and the connective tissue – Ginny Thomas – which keeps on yielding dividends to Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, and on and on.
I thought this was an excellent comment:
Jarod Masci MD commented December 24, 2023
Jarod Masci MD
Buffalo NYDec. 24, 2023
As a psychiatrist who attempts to heal the victims of Narcissistic manipulation, this entire article reads to me like a how to guide for pseudo-family cult creation.
Step 1: Find the “right” candidates. Likely young people who are yearning for family connection in a cold legal world.
Step 2: Treat them far better than expected, allowing for no possibility that the “Mom and Dad” could also be the bad guys.
Step 3: Repeat over and over the “specialness” of the group, with over-the-top “family” terms applied whenever possible.
Step 4: Keep them close to prevent this “Us vs Them” specialness from eroding AND to provide implicit pressure from “siblings” to not question “Mom and Dad”.
How else could a corrupt judge and an insurrectionist get so much support from otherwise intelligent people?
No paywall:
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