Leo XIV, immigration, and conservative cafeteria Catholics — plus Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ cafeteria Catholics!

If you're politically awake and not under a rock, you probably heard last week about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, nearly unanimously (five noes, three abstentions) passing a sternly written policy statement about humane treatment of immigrants and explicitly rebuking ICE thuggery.

Per that piece, the statement was pushed by the new pope, Leo XIV, himself. Links at the Substack piece include the National Catholic Reporter as well as mainstream media.

Let us go to that NCR piece, skipping Hale's intermediary, in part for reasons at the bottom. Here's the nut graf:

"We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care," the bishops said. "We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones."

And, read on as you desire. 

With that, off to the second half of the header.

What ARE "conservative cafeteria Catholics," you might ask?

Nothing other than the flip side of "liberal cafeteria Catholics."

You'll note there is no such thing in world as "cafeteria Catholic" without the political adjective qualifier. I have written extensively before about mainstream media getting this wrong.

That's because many of the people playing "gotcha" on liberal cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, etc. on abortion and birth control fail to follow the official Vatican line on the death penalty and are therefore ...

"Conservative cafeteria Catholics," period and end of story.

There are a few who walk the Catholic walk on both. 

At the national level, I am only aware of Bob Casey, recently voted out as one of two U.S. Senators from Pennsylvania, and Dan Kildee, Congressman from Flint. So was his uncle, Dale Kildee, whom I know personally.

Within the state of Tex-ass, obviously, Gov. Strangeabbott is a conservative cafeteria Catholic. I have, in fact, called him out before. So is former state Legiscritter Drew Springer. (If you're a Catholic in a death-penalty state, and haven't pushed a bill to repeal it, you're a CCC. And, that's not FDR's CCC.) 

And, I've called out hypocrisies of conservative cafeteria Catholics on the abortion issue before, too. 

How the USCCB will play out in the conservative cafeteria Catholic heartland, with which I am familiar, either among laity or among priests in pulpits, I have no idea. That said, given that on many social issues (I'll cover this more at my other site) these people have become more and more like conservative evangelical Protestants on many issues, this may go over at least halfway like a lead balloon. 

This all said, let us not hold Christopher Hale up as some sort of saint. Beyond things like The Bulwark, bad enough, his "follows" on Substack include Bari Weiss's odious, genocide-supporting Free Press, a bunch of Obamiac / BlueAnon accounts, but not a single pro-Palestinian one. (He does have one piece about Leo condemning Israel's actions, that's paywall truncated.

Also, Hale doesn't talk about the rest of the policy document, like on "gender-affirming," or sex-affirming, health care. That's because it doesn't fit his agenda, which apparently is the ConservaDem wing of BlueAnon. That's also going to be part of the discussion at my other site. The problem there is, per the 19th website, is that Catholic hospitals are one of six in the nation, and in many smaller towns (not just "rural") the only option. That site doesn't mention that Catholic hospitals are also barred from surgical birth control, like tubal ligations, that prevent "implantation." That that said, there's way more than two sides on that issue.

Let me add that — as a secularist — I loathe people who selectively exploit religious statements for political reasons. To tie the last couple of paragraphs above together? Leo's predecessor, Pope Francis, called for an investigation as to whether or not Israel was committing genocide. On the other hand, he never went beyond a call for "investigation." And, Leo himself is a weasel-shit on this. Hey White Sox bubbe, we have international organizations that have already called it a genocide.

Also, earlier, Francis said that NATO had been "badgering" Russia, which I'm sure Hale also ignores, whether Catholic or not. (He does have a post about Leo calling for peace in Ukraine.) And, since he IS Catholic, and worked for Dear Leader, we're going to invent a new version of this label: Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ Cafeteria Catholic. Beyond ignoring Francis on foreign policy, and refusing to go beyond Francis and Leo on Gaza, he's also a sheepdogging cafeteria Catholic. This is even more true since he's written for sites like National Catholic Reporter himself.

So, Michael Shellenberger is behind the new nuclear power push?

Atomic Dreams: The New Nuclear Evangelists and the Fight for the Future of Energy by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

That's probably the biggest thing I learned from this ill-informed book. 

I actually should say I relearned it, as I had written about this in 2022, linking the same Counterpunch piece that's below and mentioning Shellenberger in passing.

I don't think the author is duplicitous. I think, rather, she's a mainstream neoliberal-type Democrat who doesn't know better, didn't want to look under the hood at some of the sources of some of her information, and more.

Let's look at that, in an expanded version of my Goodreads review. I will note that learning Shellenberger and various minions of his are behind various astroturfing and semi-astroturfing pro-nuclear power groups is probably the single biggest thing saving this book from a one-star rating.

I begin with some "negatively rhetorical" questions. 

So, nuclear power plants are as low-carbon through their entire lifecycle as solar and wind?

Maybe not, if you look at research not done by the U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear power advocates, utility companies and nuclear plant manufacturers. Per Counterpunch with extensive links on this and other nuclear power matters, at worst-case scenario, nuclear is as carbon-intense as natural gas.

OK, Counterpunch is ardently anti-nuclear, more so than I am, but with reasons far beyond this which I agree with more, but let’s split this in half. If nuclear is halfway between wind and solar on one hand, and gas on the other, then it’s still somewhat better than gas, and a lot better than coal, but not the panacea advocates claim, even without all its other issues. Tuhus-Dubrow halfway admits that in the epilogue, but only in passing.

This was, halfway through the book, one of multiple issues that had already cost it 2 if not 2.5 stars, meaning the best it could do was 3 stars and more likely was 2.5 rounded up.

If breeders, molten salt reactors and the long-touted thorium ones are such hot stuff, then why isn’t heavily nuclear France, with top-down national not federal government, not pushing them more? Why isn’t command economy China?

In reality, there’s only five fully commercial breeder reactors in the world. There’s no current commercial thorium-cycle reactors, and thorium, other than possible abundance levels, offers no other major advantages over uranium. There’s no commercial large-scale molten salt reactors, whether thorium fuel cycle ones or not. If nothing else, the two 1970s oil embargoes, before climate change, would have been enough of a research kick that if something viable was there, it would have taken off. Addendum: Via Counterpunch, which discusses how a company like Holtec, which has never ever built a nuclear reactor before (and elsewhere tells us to follow the capitalist money, folks) read this about the truth on small modular reactors vs what the book's interlocutors, and by extension, the author herself, claims.

As for Trump 1.0 taking the gloves off of regulations theoretically hindering new nuclear plant designs?

None of that exists in China. Or Russia. Or, not much so in India.

Next? Cooling a light water reactor in the era of climate change. France had to shut down some of its reactors during the last huge European heat wave in 2022 because streams and rivers adjacent to them were too warm to be effective coolers. This will happen in the US Southwest, too, with drought expected to continue through the end of this century. Inland lakes, rivers and streams will be too warm — and possibly too scarce on water — in southern California and Arizona, and nobody will build or be allowed to build another nuke plant in coastal California. Ditto on water supply in Texas west of I-35. None of this is in the book. The water issue is among the additional items at that Counterpunch link.

Long-term waste? Perhaps Fukushima did say we shouldn’t be alarmist, but that’s not long-term. Citing Sweden’s community model for long-term waste storage? Nice. Omitting France’s top-down national government solution of telling an economically depressed area in Lorraine that “you WILL take it” and here’s some money? Not mentioned. Nor is Russia, China, etc.

Why aren’t pro-nuclear people, whether climate scientists like James Hansen or Michael Schellenberger’s groupies, focused more on getting states outside of California and Aridzona changing state laws on things like “feed-in tariffs” to bolster rooftop solar? (My Texas is horrible compared to California on this.) Apparently the author never asked. She never even thought to ask. Maybe she assumes regulations on renewables are the same from state to state.

And, beyond all this? What gets an additional ding is the old missing index. I mean, this book isn't that long, but it mentions a lot of people and issues.

And beyond this? Not telling the full truth about Shellenberger, who is, say, at least halfway to being Jordan Peterson, and supports fracking among other anti-environmental things. He has written for Bari Weiss’ genocidal Free Press, as well as his own Substack, dived deep into the Twitter Files, is listed on staff at that wingnut University of Austin and more. Is it any wonder that the likes of Eric Meyer, even if not the two women from Canyon Diablo, are perfectly OK with anti-renewables state energy support laws as long as they support nuclear? This LA Review of Books piece has more beyond Wikipedia. It also notes that his re-conversion back to Christianity appears to be of a conservative, fundagelical type, including Genesis 2 and human dominion over the earth. "Evangelist" indeed.

His own Substack posts and notes, beyond what I already noted about him writing for Bari Weiss, show him as a techdudebro fellow traveler, an anti-immigrationist and more.

Weirder yet, which I did not know before, is that he appears to be a real believer on UFOs visiting earth.

Yes, all of this added together is enough to discredit him as a nuclear evangelist. Tuhus-Dubrow does tell you small parts of the above, in brief, and that’s it.

Safety? Directly or indirectly, a lot more people died or will die from Chernobyl than 31 direct deaths. The real answer is thousands at minimum, tens of thousands to approaching 100,000, at upper estimates.

As for waste disposal? Tuhus-Dubrow doesn’t mention that WIPP, near Carlsbad, NM, the main depository for low-level waste, has had problems.

Further discrediting the author? Not mentioning that the Democratic Party stole its Green New Deal, lite version, from the Green Party’s original.

To summarize a review of this book and the larger situation both?

To pun on nuclear reactors? Shellenberger is nuclear poison. Hansen, Bill McKibben, etc., should fully dissociate from him.

Second? The author didn’t do a lot of research, or else she started out with the mindset of ignoring contradictory research to some of her information.

Third, to riff on Michael Grunwald’s new book, energy investment, like land, is not free. Believing in nuclear power silver bullets may undercut research into further improvements in solar, tidal power or other options. M.V. Ramana, among others, has more on that.

There is also the issue, per Ramana, on capitalism and nuclear power. Like Bozo Bezos investing in small-scale nuclear via Amazon and his on Washington Post not mentioning that in a house editorial column. And, like climate change minimizer Bill Gates, who wants to restart Three Mile Island, Bezos wants this for those AI slop data centers that we don't need.

There's also the issue, per my top link, of build-out time for nuclear. Demented Don (I see what I did) may waive every regulation he wants to, but the lawsuits will keep on coming. Meanwhile, wind and especially solar keep improving in efficiency. Your typical light water reactor is not THAT efficient.

Mentioned only in passing by the author? The perils of uranium mining. I grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, and remember when the berm-dam for the tailings pond at the Church Rock mine (owned by a Kerr-McGee subsidiary, by the way!) broke. I've written about that, the economic destructiveness of uranium busts, the environmental damages of uranium ore dust and more. 

Yes, today's injection mining may not create radiation-toxic dust in desert and semidesert lands, but it uses a lot of water and could cause problems with aquifers. See here for more. 

This Inside Climate News piece notes that currently, very little uranium is mined in the US, but how there's a push to both open new mines and reopen old ones, either on the Colorado Plateau where Gallup is, or the Wyoming Basin. And, this includes the Church Rock mine.

It also notes the US currently has just one diffusion plant for enrichment, just one for processing into fuel and has NO domestic facilities for the fuel needed by more modern plants. Anything we need right now? We get mainly from the Russkies. 

There's also the problem that mines in the Southwest, while generally on federal land, also generally abut Indian sacred sites.

Some of the fast-tracked New Mexico mines border the lands of the Acoma and Laguna pueblos. In the nearby Navajo Nation, the new activity has sparked concern. 

The Navajo Nation “continues to be affected—not only from abandoned uranium mines and mill sites—but also from other contaminants,” said Perry Charley, chair of the Diné Uranium Remediation Advisory Commission, at a public meeting in August in Shiprock, New Mexico. 

From 1944 to 1986, mining activities left more than 500 abandoned mines and an enormous amount of uranium waste in various regions of Navajo land.

Once again, rich White America has zero sensitivity or care. 

Let's have Hansen, Bill McKibben et al support not just a robust carbon tax, but one with higher rates on things outside of agriculture and conventional industry. Let's have them speak to Navajos, Laguna and Acomas, then breathe infested sand. That's in part because Bezos and Gates want to inflict these data centers on the whole world, not just the US.

View all my reviews

Ed Buckner, unfollowed as not my idea of a secular humanist

I recently unfollowed Ed Buckner on Substack, for running Clinton Tankersley's dreck. I had lumped this with others I've unfollowed recently, but decided to pull it out as a separate piece, as it had gotten longish.

Why?

See this piece, "Gaza: Two Years Before the Mast," for details on why. And with John Ratcliffe, another of Teh Stupidz running Trump's spy shacks, revealing that 2014 at the Maidan was indeed a coup, a good reason to unfollow a Uki-tankie and block another who had other reasons to be blocked. But, unskeptical blank-check Zionism was the biggie.

Buckner, after a bit or more of goading on my part, has responded:

Here’s an even better idea: use your actual critical reasoning faculties and discover that despite your confident assertions, considerable well regarded evidence supports the opposite view. Of course Palestinians deserve reasonable and decent treatment and of course there is real evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu has been less than honest about the war in Gaza. But also—and also of course—there is overwhelming evidence that Hamas egregiously and unilaterally violated a ceasefire on 7 October 2023 with sadistic terrorism, that Hamas hides behind civilians and admits no civilians into its extensive and expensive system of tunnels under Gaza, that Hamas held for over two years innocent hostages it kidnapped, and more. One need not hate or love Jews to discover actual truth in these matters. And to any interested in my Letters to a Free Country blog (subscriptions are always free): I welcome readers who disagree with me or other readers, though I prefer they maintain civility. SocraticGadfly left of his own accord, though he’s not been missed overmuch. And I personally see no evidence whatever that he is at all competent to judge whether others are true humanists, secular or otherwise.

He even had a second comment:

I neglected to add, by the way, that supporting religious states is unreasonable in the cases of those being Islamic states—and there are many of these, some merely nominally religious and generally supportive of separation of religion and government—others quite outrageously destructive of civil rights for non-Muslims.

Hmm, where to start? 

First, I never said that Hamas was perfect. I did say Clinton Tankersley was lying, and Buckner was lying by uncritically giving him his Substack space. I stand by that, Ed. 

Second, there's plenty of evidence that Israeli leadership knew Oct. 7, 2023, was coming in advance, so why did they let it happen?

Third, violating a cease-fire? In reality, Israel had already been violating it. And, cease-fires with Lebanon in the past year as well.

Fourth, Israel holds hostages when it arrests Palestinians without charges and holds them indefinitely in such status. This has long, long been an Israeli practice. "Administrative detention" of Palestinians in Israel is considered the equivalent of hostage-taking by many human rights groups, and as of this time, nearly 5,000 Palestinians are so held. I quote:

According to B'tselem, since the outbreak of the Gaza war on 7 October 2023, Palestinian prisoners with Israeli citizenship have been stripped of many of their rights.[5] It further found that abuse of detainees is so institutionalized that the prisons should be called 'torture camps.'

There you are. 

Fourth, I'd say repeating lies that one people tells about another people as part of dehumanization is anti-humanist, and that participating in it yourself is also the same. 

Fifth, on the whole background of Hamas, including Israel helping create it, I'm not even going to waste time here. But yes, that first part is true:

Initially, Hamas was discreetly supported by Israel, as a counter-balance to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Most my regular readers know the background, but I'll bet Buckner doesn't. The rest of that Wiki link is worth reading.

YOU invited Tankersley to do all of this and so stand in the dock yourself. Simple truth, Ed. YOU, with these responses, refuse to use YOUR critical reasoning faculties.

Sixth, to the second note.

And, supporting Israel, which has fused religious Judaism and secular Jewishness, isn't doing the same? 

 

Turd-polishing the Democrats' TACO-ing on the shutdown and deconstructing Josh Marshall

I decided to wait until Tuesday to write something, in part to let things percolate a bit, in part cuz TACO Tuesday, amirite?

The straight news story with explainer is Time, via Dnyuz. 

The backstory on the eight Dems who flipped (just enough to offset Squirrel Hair Rand Paul, who flipped the other way) is here with brief explainer already in the main. Four "purple state" senators, the New Hampshire and Nevada contingents, with Shaheen retiring to boot. Maine independent King. Retiring Durbin. Sen. Hoodie from the Zionist Hood Fetterman, who already backed the GOP. Triangulation Tim Kaine.

In reality, somebody as mushy middle as The Atlantic notes this was a "fork in the road" on how to fight Trump. In other words, it's just like Democrats to bring a knife to a gun fight.

First, what did they get? A December vote on Obamacare subsidies. And, if the House kills it? 

And, back pay for federal workers? What if Trump refuses? What will Senate, or House, Rethugs do then? Did Senate Majority Leader John Thune get even the semblance of a Trump buy-in in advance? 

You know the answers. If not, this Substack will help. 

First, I agree on all of it, and beyond the first paragraph. The US is close to being a failing state. Yes, in the political science world, like a Pakistan. And, no, you don't have to be poor to be a failed or failing state. 

The U.S. political system is just about irreparably broken. The Democrats were “winning” the comms fight over the shutdown, but that’s a borderline-pyrrhic victory. Trump doesn’t care about his popularity, and he doesn’t care about Republican electoral losses a year from now, and he doesn’t care about mass suffering and loss. The guy went to the Supreme Court with a demand that he let him starve 40 million Americans. That’s both terrible substance and terrible optics! 

And still the theory-of-change here is “well we hope that the electorate blames Trump and the Republicans for this, and keeps blaming them for another year, and then votes in such record numbers that they give the Democratic Party a slim majority in the House and Senate.” 

That’s the best near-term theory-of-change available. But I keep looking around and thinking “yeah but that’s not nearly up to the task. 

The government shutdown was pretty much bound to end this way. At some point, the squishiest members of the Senate Democratic Caucus were going to to get too uncomfortable with all the pain and suffering for their constituents. They were going to ask “is this worth it for what we have demanded?” And they would eventually decide “nope, not anymore it isn’t.”

 This guy is still on Team Democrat, though.

At least he's not a turd-polisher, unlike Josh Marshall. (Shock me.) Here you go:

Rather than tonight’s events being some terrible disaster, a replay of March, I see it as the glass basically being two-thirds or maybe even three-quarters full.

Really? Of course, Josh turd-polishes Zionism, too, so there you go. But, let's give you more.

There was a legitimate party rebellion after the March debacle. Democratic voters demanded fight. When the time came, Democrats fought. They held out for 40 days, the longest shutdown standoff in history. They put health care at the center of the national political conversation and inflicted a lot of damage on Trump. At 40 days they could no longer hold their caucus together. And we got this. 

That’s a sea change in how the party functions in Congress. And that’s a big deal. Many people see it as some kind of epic disaster and are making all the standard threats about not voting or not contributing or whatever. That’s just not what I see. It’s a big change in the direction of the fight we need in the years to come that just didn’t go far enough. Yet.

So, that's what two-thirds full is. 

And, even though it's arguably not his fault this time? Chuck Schumer left the door open for this with his own surrender this spring, as noted by Marshall. #FuckChuck hashtags are never out of season. 

Contra Josh Marshall, what you really have is shutdown kabuki theater, as I see it. First, if Chuckles Schumer couldn't get the Gang of Eight to look at the long term at the start, that's on him. I mean not just the long term of caving and getting the backlash, but the long term of knowing that on this one, Trump would not TACO, at least not readily.

The Hoodie in the Hood was already known as GOP Lite. Durbin looks like he just wants to keep his head down until retirement. Triangulation Tim's been suspect since being Hillary's Veep choice. King, like the Hoodie in the Hood, had voted with the GOP before. The Purple State People Eaters? One or more of those four have been squishes on other things.

What's interesting is nobody asks why Squirrel Hair moved the other way. Parliamentary procedure reasons or something more? 

And the Ides of March version of Chuckles gave them room to be squishes again when the chips were done.

If that's two-thirds full, what's two-thirds empty? And, this "inflicted a lot of damage on Trump"? Yesterday's news. Marshall has a graduate degree in history and surely studied military history. Unless the country holding the battlefield at the end suffered a massive tactical loss, we all look to who's holding the battlefield.

Finally, Josh Barro notes that shutdowns as a tool by an opposition party in Congress have basically never worked. He adds that Democrats should be grateful Schumer became a punching bag.

Texas Progressives talk this and that

Off the Kuff has some initial election analysis and some good news from the school board races.

SocraticGadfly notes that the push to revive uranium mining could have environmental consequences in South Texas as well as the Desert Southwest original mining homeland.

Bari Weiss is a scab, and a promoter of her own legend vs reality, as well as a Zionist genocidalist, per Mike Elk. 

Kenny Boy is suing Galveston ISD for not posting the Ten Commandments. GISD, while not part of any current lawsuits, has cited them for not posting the Divarim. Guess it's part of a lawsuit now.

Dannie Goeb wants St. Charlie of Kirk in Texas high schools and colleges statewide. 

The Barbed Wire notes that TSA staffers as well as air traffic controllers are doing shutdown sickouts. SIX hours through security. Shock me that the major airlines, per the piece, are backing a GOP continuing resolution that won't address why we're in this shutdown in the first place. 

Texas Christian University is private, but not public, but it still appears to be caving to Strangeabbott on DEI issues, per a faculty member.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said so-called union friendly Mayor Whitmire blamed TSA workers for not coming to work for no pay for delays at Houston airports, rather than the right wing thugs running the country.

The TSTA Blog rightfully calls Christian nationalism un-American, and opposing it patriotic.

The Barbed Wire tells Greg Abbott he's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is.

Texas constitutional amendments vote post-mortem

Post-Proposition 4, the Trib talks about climate change and Texas reservoirs, in ways that neither Prop. 4 itself, nor in different ways, the Texas Green Party did. Fuck em all, including the Trib for not posting this before the election, and calling out High Plains farmers and ranchers like Suzanne Bellsnyder for presumably deliberately ignoring this as well as overpumping of the Ogallala Aquifer, which the Trib never even discusses.

“Wooo we gave tax cuts to the rich and made life shit for the poor! Go us!” That's a quote off social media from the Barbed Wire noting how fucked up the state was in approving all 17 amendments. Give it a read. Here's more:

“Boomers can’t seem to pull the ladder up behind them fast enough,” wrote another. 

“Hard to believe Texans actually voted to protect the wealthy freeloading class from paying their fair share of taxes,” a user posted on Blue Sky. 

“I expect some voters had NO idea what their vote was supporting,” wrote another.

The piece notes only 15 amendments have lost in the past 30 years, per Jon Taylor, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Taylor adds vote turnout was the best in 20 years, prolly cuz of banning nonexistent taxes.

And on Prop 4, it notes:

In the end, a few measures did pass that actually invest in Texas’ long-term wellbeing. Just enough to say we care! Proposition 4 puts $1 billion a year toward fixing our water system before it crumbles (though there are apparently some arguments to be had about data centers expanding across arid West Texas), and Proposition 14 establishes a $3 billion Dementia Prevention and Research Institute.

And snark on Prop 5:

And Proposition 5 exempts animal feed from taxes, meaning cows are now possibly getting more tax relief than renters.

Totally agreed.

It also throws Austin's neoliberals and any remaining Keep Austin Weird wannabes under the bus on local Prop Q: 

As Taylor told The Barbed Wire, the vote was a “decisive no across Austin’s political spectrum, with affordability driving the vote.”

There you go.