Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

So many bastards, so little time.

“But what about the lurkers?”

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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Reader Interactions

77Comments

  2. 2.

    AlaskaReader

    Along the lines of things we can all do:

    We know that churches are driving much of the right wing dogma, hate and bigotry.

    Every one of you know of a church that has abused it’s tax status through political action.

    It is illegal for churches to engage in politics.

    File a complaint.  It’s a simple process, and you can file anonymously if you wish,

    …so please, no excuses, just file a complaint.

    (and as the IRS page suggests, copy those complaints to your state tax regulators too.)

    https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/irs-complaint-process-tax-exempt-organization

     

    Info here: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics#:~:text=Currently%2C%20the%20law%20prohibits%20political,to)%20any%20candidate%20for%20public

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    I finally, finally…. I mean, I have been trying for twenty years…. I won the Trader Joe’s weekly raffle for bringing my own reusable bags!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH I’M A PRINCESS!!!

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    There’s a really good PBS American Experience premiere tonight.  “Fly with Me.”  About how the 1960s and 1970s stewardesses (yes) fought for civil rights, better pay, and to not have to retire at age 32.

    They still had to put up with girdles, though.

  8. 8.

    Planetjanet

    @AlaskaReader: I would not be so cavalier about calls to attack churches.  Politics swings both ways.  There is quite a bit of organizing among African American churches.  Souls to the polls is an effective get out the vote strategy.  We have fought to get Sunday early voting.

  9. 9.

    lowtechcyclist

    @AlaskaReader:

    Every one of you know of a church that has abused it’s tax status through political action.

    No, I don’t. How would I know something like this about a church if I didn’t attend it?  In the 25 years I’ve lived here, I don’t recall having ever seen persons handing out political literature that were identifiable as members of a church.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    More on “Fly with Me.”  WaPost did a good article on it.  Gift link here (free, free!)

    I went to this film rollout last week in DC at the Smithsonian.  We only saw 40 minutes of the documentary, but it was excellent. I am glad to see author Julia Cooke getting credit in the WaPost story, because I had read the Pan Am book and don’t think she got credited in the clip we saw, or in the discussion after.

    On graduation day in 1956, Patricia Banks was excited to start a career as a stewardess. Airlines came to the Grace Downs Air Career School in Manhattan to recruit candidates. Though she was a top student in her class, she received no offers. An instructor pulled her aside and told Banks the carriers would never hire her because of her race.

    Banks sued Capital Airlines, alleging discriminatory hiring practices. In 1960, she became one of the airline industry’s first Black stewardesses. Now in her late 80s, she shares her story along with other barrier-breaking crew members in “Fly With Me,” a new PBS film about the flight attendants who helped transform their industry — and society as a whole.

    “It is very exciting to think how much these women were responsible for changing their own profession, but also the ripple effects that go beyond the airline industry,” said Sarah Colt, who co-directed the film with Helen Dobrowski. “They were really on the cutting edge of a second wave of feminism.”

    The directors’ interest in the topic stemmed from a book Dobrowski found in her local library outside Philadelphia. “We were both riveted by it,” Colt said of “Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am,” by Julia Cooke.

    During the research phase, they discovered that many key figures who challenged the airline industry’s racist, sexist and ageist policies were still alive.

  13. 13.

    KrackenJack

    @Suzanne: I guess TJ’s in these parts stopped that when the state mandated disposable bag fees, but I’m not sure. I haven’t seen anything about a raffle in years. Queen for a Day!

  15. 15.

    bbleh

    Very … very … tired of “Columnist Panel Discusses Analyses Of Potential Lines Of Reasoning Of Why Some Commentators Suggest They Might Believe That Biden Should Withdraw From Race” stories.

    Isn’t February enough of a pain?  Why do they inflict this on us, why?!?  Are they monsters?!?!??

  16. 16.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Planetjanet:

    There is quite a bit of organizing among African American churches. Souls to the polls is an effective get out the vote strategy. We have fought to get Sunday early voting.

    There is nothing wrong with churches actively encouraging and aiding their members in voting.  That’s as legal as church on Sunday, as they say.  What churches can’t do is suggest to people who they should vote for.

  17. 17.

    AlaskaReader

    @Planetjanet:  There allowable activities and illegal activities.  I’m assuming some churches follow the rules but some don’t.

    I’m speaking about those who don’t.

  23. 23.

    Planetjanet

    @lowtechcyclist: Our local candidates make it a point to visit local churches.  You just can’t point fingers with a broad brush.  I am tired of the anti-Christian rhetoric  around here at times.

  28. 28.

    hitchhiker

    @Planetjanet:

    There are rules, though, about what’s okay for a church to do and what’s not. I think Souls to the Polls is well within the scope. Encouraging voting is not the same as campaigning for a candidate.

    A couple of years ago one of my sisters was volunteering at her local food bank, which was run by a Catholic parish near her house. She was shocked to see Republican candidate flyers on the table; the instruction was to add one to each bag.

    She asked if she could bring flyers for her favorite candidate too, and was told absolutely not. That’s not legal, as I understand it, and she took it to the church authorities, who also said no. By the time her complaint made it to someone who could do something about it, the election had happened  and the food bank had lost her as a volunteer.

  29. 29.

    bbleh

    @Suzanne: their chocolate-covered fruits/nuts were always good.  They had some good bar chocolate for a while too.  Some people say some of their frozen foods are very good (I’m generally not a frozen guy). And occasionally they have decent cheeses

    (ETA: I like “decent cheeses.”  Or maybe “Nigel, he’s a decent cheese.”)

  30. 30.

    H.E.Wolf

    @AlaskaReader: Evangelical:
    …just another word which is wholly interchangeable with the word hypocrite.​

     Not wholly. (See comment above about Black churches, among others.)

    There are also evangelical Protestant Christians who hold liberal political values. Among the most well known is Slacktivist. He’s a big Frederick Douglass fan, and here’s one of my favorites of his blog posts:
    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/04/04/friday-the-13th-a-ghost-story/

  31. 31.

    lowtechcyclist

    @AlaskaReader:

    I’m frankly surprised you haven’t read news articles and public announcements that describe illegal campaign activities by churches.

    News articles? I’m sure I did read such, back when I subscribed to a newspaper.  But that was a long time ago.

    Not sure what public announcements you might be talking about.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    @bbleh: They have a white Stilton cheese with apricots that I sometimes get as a special treat. And almond biscotti, and pumpkin biscotti in autumn time.

    They also have surprisingly good skincare stuff.

    I could have pumpkin spice all damn year.

  33. 33.

    Jay

    @Planetjanet:

    Candidates are allowed to address Church Congregations.

    Pastors and other Officials are not allowed to tell their congregation how to vote, or which campaigns to support, in the Church.

    ie. no sermons from the pulpit on how TIFG was “ordained by God to save ‘Merica”.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Honestly, for me, it’s been the principle of the damn thing. I have been to Trader Joe’s at least once a week for decades at this point. And liberal guilt, so reusable bags! GODDAMNIT IT WAS MY TIME.

  35. 35.

    lowtechcyclist

    @H.E.Wolf:

    There are also evangelical Protestant Christians who hold liberal political values. Among the most well known is Slacktivist.

    Does Fred Clark still identify as an evangelical? He’s written about how little it takes to get kicked out of the tent, so to speak, and he knows quite well that he’s on the outside as far as the white evangelical gatekeepers are concerned.

    I thought he’d given up some time ago on trying to save white evangelicalism from itself.

  37. 37.

    bbleh

    @AlaskaReader: @lowtechcyclist: @Planetjanet: @Jay: the problem I see is both practical and political.

    The practical problem is proving that something is being done that crosses the line.  A lot of objectionable activity isn’t as blatant as, say, handing out political flyers or formally endorsing a candidate from the pulpit.  Where does, eg, advocating strongly concerning an “issue” that is highly (even obviously) politically salient and associated with a particular candidate or party, but also arguably “moral,” fall?

    And the political issue is, of course, Law Enforcement Attacks Church, ’nuff said.

  39. 39.

    AlaskaReader

    @WaterGirl: Appended as you suggested.

    Here is an old, (2008), NPR article describing flagrant abuse of the law backed by the Alliance Defense Fund, which is still, as many of you know, (Mike Johnson’s gig), a going concern.

  40. 40.

    Argiope

    @H.E.Wolf: And along with the progressive Protestants, there are progressive Catholics.  I’d love to see a guest post someday about liberation theology, linked to progressive movements in the global South.  When I was a yoot I was involved in a college ecumenical Christian group that was primarily sociopolitical (progressive and overtly feminist) with some spirit on the side.  We believed that Jesus wished his followers to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable”.  I attended many an anti-apartheid and anti-Gulf War 1 protests with those folks.

    So yeah, it’s sometimes tedious to hear some of the “All ___ Christians are reactionary” stuff just because I know how inaccurate it is, firsthand.

  42. 42.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Interview with the mother of the 16-year-old non-binary student who was beaten to death by their classmates.

    Some takeaways:

    Nex said they and another trans student had been in a fight with three older students. “Sue Benedict told The Independent she was called to the school that day to find Nex badly beaten with bruises over their face and eyes, and with scratches on the back of their head.” The school — which didn’t call the police, nor called an ambulance — suspended Nex for two weeks for the incident.

    An Owasso High School teacher who Nex had greatly admired resigned in 2022 after he was featured in one of Chaya “Libs of TikTok” Raichik’s posts. Nex’s extensive bullying started in earnest at the beginning of the 2023 school year, a few months after Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that required public school students to use bathrooms that matched the sex listed on their birth certificates — producing exactly the result that the law intended.

    I take small comfort that at least Nex’s family was supportive.

  49. 49.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Meanwhile Christopher Rufo — the architect behind the critical race theory and LGBT “groomers” moral panic — where Rufo falsely claims puberty blockers “that gender affirming care somehow removes what makes us human, removes our very souls.

    Imagine what you can justify against people who are no longer human.

    This far right propaganda is openly declaring that after transition we are no longer human beings.” Xitter link.

  50. 50.

    glc

    @AlaskaReader: Not that I know anything, but nonetheless I will copy from Wikipedia:

    which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office

    Now I’m sure there’s a lot of case law, and in particular the article  you mention gives concrete examples.  And now we have PACs (which may not “coordinate” ha-ha-ha) and the world is very complicated. And I don’t see that the Wikipedia article addresses what this means in practice.

    I suppose the Supreme Court will strike this eventually as the government does not have the power to regulate churches (or anything else, really, other than women).

  51. 51.

    Argiope

    @Sister Golden Bear: How awful.  Especially tragic because many youth in other places are supportive allies to trans and nonbinary kids.  Mine is a nonbinary native–uses the singular they with fluency. I think it would never occur to her to be anything other than supportive to her trans and nonbinary peers; it’s just normal where she has grown up.  It will never cease to dismay and astonish me how threatened people can be by equality.

  52. 52.

    AlaskaReader

    @H.E.Wolf: There are likely exceptions to every rule.

    The word originally came from Greek and was ‘adopted’ by Protestants, I have no problem up to a point, but today, those claiming to be ‘Evangelicals’ as a political group, are simply hypocrites.

    I don’t think that point can be missed.

  53. 53.

    mrmoshpotato

    Tonight’s No Fair Remembering Stuff, the Tuesday edition of the The Professional Left podcast is about the dun dun dun!… Clinton budget surplus!

    Let’s listen and remember how it magically turned itself into a deficit!

  54. 54.

    Miki

    Met with the chief Ortho resident for my LTKR 3 month visit today (surgeon unavailable due to unknown hospitalization but he called the resident last night to talk about me and my status – love, love, love my VA care).

    Anyway, had a femur fracture during my surgery in November and my recovery has been slow. Bend and extension has been fantastic but weight bearing has been terrible. For a lot of reasons everything started turning around about 3 weeks ago and finally I can walk without pain.

    This is a humongous happening.

    FWIW, a TKR is a traumatic experience. But when it works, finally, it’s miraculous.

  55. 55.

    AlaskaReader

    @bbleh: The ‘practical problem’ ?

    The practical problem I see as being churches driving politics.  Specifically the right wing politics of hate and bigotry.

    I don’t think I’ve misstated the problem, or why it’s a concern.

  56. 56.

    bbleh

    @AlaskaReader: ok the legal problem.  not saying it’s not an issue; saying that trying to go after it using existing law could be very difficult, both practically as a matter of law and politically.

  57. 57.

    Planetjanet

    @AlaskaReader: “Evangelical is just another word for hypocrite” is quite the inference.  You are painting with a broad brush.  The reality is much more complex.

  58. 58.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Argiope: Much of it’s the same exact playbook of homophobia from years past. Homophobes said that gay people being gym lockers made them feel unsafe. Homophobes said that having to say “her wife” or “his husband” was compelled speech. They said gay marriage was an attack on the family and heterosexuals.

  59. 59.

    AlaskaReader

    @glc:

    A definitive court case on the issue of free speech and political expression is Branch Ministries Inc. versus RossottiPDF. In that case, the court upheld the constitutionality of the ban on political activity. The court rejected the plaintiff church’s allegations that it was being selectively prosecuted because of its conservative views and that its First Amendment right to free speech was being infringed.

    The court wrote: “The government has a compelling interest in maintaining the integrity of the tax system and in not subsidizing partisan political activity, and Section 501(c)(3) is the least restrictive means of accomplishing that purpose.”

  60. 60.

    bbleh

    @Sister Golden Bear: reversal of victim and oppressor.  I feel threatened by your assertion of equality.  Same thing as all the complaints about “anti-White racism.”

    See also Johnson, Lyndon, regarding poor Whites emptying their pockets.

  61. 61.

    AlaskaReader

    @Planetjanet: In the context of todays ‘Evangelical’ political cohort, a broad brush is entirely appropriate to the task at hand. (exposing their hypocrisy).

  62. 62.

    Sister Golden Bear

    At least justice is (hopefully) being done in the case of a trans teen from South Carolina who was stabbed 37 times, mutilated and murdered less than a month after finally living as himself. He was on his first date with a man he met online. This week the man, and the man’s girlfriend, were both arrested in the case.

    The number of wounds and the mutilation of Williamson’s body was “certainly not typical,” Dr. Kenny Kinsey, a forensic and crime scene reconstruction expert and former chief deputy of the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, told The State Media Co. Kinsey, added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this or worked anything like this in South Carolina,” referring to the unparalleled brutality of the act….

    Videos surfaced of Newton and Smith engaging in a live stream on the social media platform LiveMe, just hours after the fatal stabbing. Newton casually remarked during the stream, “It was fun.”

    The case echoes that of UK teenager Brianna Ghey. Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl, who was stabbed 28 times in her back, head and neck in a violent, daytime assault [by classmates who intentionally befriended her in order to kill her].

    Unfortunately this sort of vicious “over kill” (as it’s referred to) is pretty common when trans people are murdered.

    For all posts I do about anti-trans stuff going on, there’s so, so much more that I don’t post about, both because of both time constraints and needing to maintain my own sanity.

  63. 63.

    AlaskaReader

    @bbleh: Existing law is there to be used.

    One of the best parts of having laws in our country is our right and ability to use them.

    The law isn’t just a cudgel for oppressors. In our country, the law can be wielded by the oppressed as well, maybe not on equal terms, but one does what one can or one does nothing.  I choose to report violations, it’s easy and I believe if more people did the same, it would become more effective.

    And putting a stop to people like Speaker Johnson needs to happen if we want to keep our country.

  64. 64.

    glc

    @AlaskaReader: I have the impression you’re trying to respond to my comment about what the Supreme Court would do with logic or facts.

    I do not see the relevance of logic or facts in this context.

  65. 65.

    Argiope

    @Sister Golden Bear: Yep, I was around for all that, with a gay sibling who was out at the age of 13 in 1983. I remember it well.  Which makes all the anti-trans panic all the more enraging since you and I know (well, I think we do) that trans identities are going to eventually be just as accepted as being gay is now, once a whole bunch of assholes realize they’ve been completely wrong (well, they will pretend later that they were always on the right side of this, let’s be honest).  It’s actually kind of inevitable given how many people under 25 identify as nonbinary or trans.  But meanwhile the patriarchy must be violently defended YET AGAIN because reasons.

  66. 66.

    AlaskaReader

    @glc: With our present illegitimate and compromised SCOTUS, I have to agree that the relevance of logic and/or facts is only going to be credible until their next possible illegitimate and compromised ruling comes down.

    Until then I’m still reporting my local churches that abuse their tax privilege.

  67. 67.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Argiope: ​”And along with the progressive Protestants, there are progressive Catholics.”
    Yes. Among others, the Berrigan brothers! I read a lot of their prison writings, back in the day. (And let’s not forget the South American liberation theology Catholics, some of whom were assassinated for their beliefs.)

    @Argiope again, same comment as above:” So yeah, it’s sometimes tedious to hear some of the “All ___ Christians are reactionary” stuff just because I know how inaccurate it is, firsthand.”​ 

    Yep. Those of my relatives who were in the Society of Friends walked their talk. One of those relatives had become a Friend (which, incidentally, has an evangelical branch) because the Society of Friends got her and her brothers – and a number of other college-age Americans of Japanese descent – out of the USA’s concentration camps during WWII.​

  68. 68.

    glc

    @AlaskaReader:

    Until then I’m still reporting my local churches that abuse their tax privilege.

    All for it. Though I’d think about looking for an organization to work with or through perhaps.

    In a different direction, the  Military Religious Freedom Foundation is doing good work in the military with the assistance of the ACLU and has the advantage of dealing with an organization that is legally obligated to respond to them.

    However, it’s the opposite side of the coin – the state doing religion, rather than the church doing politics.

  71. 71.

    AlaskaReader

    @glc: Wait, what?  The state doing religion?

    Enforcing the law and enforcing the separation of church and state is not the state ‘doing religion’.

  73. 73.

    AlaskaReader

    @glc: …yes, Christofascists would love for the state to do their bidding, Dominionists and others are intent on making exactly that happen as a rule. 

    As you say, the state would then indeed be ‘doing religion’.

    A good example that fits with the intent of the organization you speak of is those in the AF Academy trying to indoctrinate AF cadets.  I don’t know if the org you cited was active in trying to suppress that example but that aligns with their mission.

    I’m unaware of any organization that specifically works the IRS tax abuse complaint angle. That would be nice to know of but in the meantime, each of us can file complaints and the process only takes a few minutes.

    In most places in the world the church needs defending from the state, …in today’s America, the state needs to be defended from the church.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @AlaskaReader:

    https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/07/churches-list-violations-johnson-amendment/

    Your point is??????????????

    I’m not saying no churches ever cross the line into blatant politicking. I’m saying that in the course of living my life, I have few if any opportunities to become aware of such incidents.

    I live in Maryland. I don’t follow Texas media.  If your point is that I should be doing regular Web searches to look for articles like this, it seems that you’re already doing it and can report churches to the IRS where appropriate.

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