Lawless Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod leadership

I find it "interesting" to see the number of Protestant churches, largely non-denominational, independent churches in a generally Baptist, or more broadly, Anabaptist conservative evangelical background, rebelling against the government on coronavirus issues, and not listening to the clear words of Paul of Tarsus, as painted at left by Rembrandt.

I'm not talking about general minimalizing of the severity of the virus or anything like that.

Rather, I'm talking about the ministers of such churches continuing to hold services, and in many cases, without multiple smaller-size services, in direct defiance of government proclamations.

(I have further explicated what I see as the likely main motives of these ministers in this new post.)

The big civil-government question? Could the government force churches to close "for the duration" if deemed necessary.

Short answer?

Hellz yes.

And, folks, that link goes to a story in the Deseret News, officially owned by The Morons, I mean the LSD Church, I mean the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Yes, wingnuts, I laugh at them, but it's a church denomination that tilts VERY conservative among political preference of its members; that's why I jumped on this.)

Here's the nut grafs:

Legal experts said the answer is almost certainly yes, as long as regulations are reasonable and applied equally across all religious groups and other types of organizations. 

Policies don’t violate religious freedom laws if they’re created in order to save people’s lives, said Michael Moreland, director of the Ellen H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University. 

“So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them,” he said.

There you go. I encourage reading that whole linked story in the first paragraph of the pull quote.

But these independent Protestants, whether truly wingnut rebels, or people who started independent churches because they thought either some worshipers, or their own wallets, couldn't survive without exactly their church? Don't want to accept that.

It's halfway tempting to compare many of them to Paul's man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians:

2 Thessalonians 2:3-10 (selected) New International Version (NIV) 

3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
...  9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

Actually, "Paul" should probably be in scare quotes; the majority of modern scholarship considers this pseudepigraphal, albeit with lack of consensus on when it actually was written.

Note that I said "halfway" tempting. I don't think this idea is all wet.

Certainly, the actual Paul, in one of his legitimate letters, would be highly concerned.

I am thinking of his famous "submit to the governing authorities in Romans 13.

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 

That nails it.

That said, that passage has been ignored by U.S. Protestants since 1775 or before.

Ordained Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and those a minister in a state of grievous sin. Boston's Old North Church, driven by hotheads such as Sam Adams, was a ground zero of rebelliousness.

And, Romans 13 is crystal clear. No exceptions.

Not even for Missouri-Synod Lutherans of my childhood (or Catholics) in Minnesota.

These nutters, whether independent Protestants, conservative-to-fundamentalist wings of mainline Protestants, or Catholics, are also ignorant of church history. (Of course.) In medieval Europe, since the village church or town cathedral WAS the agora or forum, it worked to prevent the spread from one village or region to another. The churches themselves? Some were open, but in many cases, priests ran away. And, with daily masses, peasants could probably practice a crude form of social distancing.

Also, shock me, per my "gun nutz for Luther" piece, that the LCMS would have a regional leader, Minnesota South District President Lucas Woodford, officially sign off on being a sinful rebel.

As for bitching that Minnesota Gov. Walz is putting the Mall of America ahead of churches? Churches are one of the worst, or "best," places to catch COVID.

On the other hand, Gov. Walz's restrictions, originally to no more than 10 people, even at outdoor services, were overkill.

That said, the law's the law. Period. Anybody who understands an iota of the Roman Empire within which Paul wrote Romans 13 knows, or should know, that. Fortunately, in a challenge to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Chief Justice John Roberts showed he knows the First Amendment better than four wingnuts, voting with  the majority to uphold Newsom. (Newsom's restrictions of 25 percent of capacity up to 100 is more sensical.)

Update: To square the circle, I webmailed the LCMS at its comments page, asking if Synodical President Daniel Harrison had any discipline proposed for Woodford.

The duopoly, lesser evilism and the Supreme Court

Last month, when Bernie Sanders was on the verge of dropping out, but hadn't yet, "Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill" started trending on Twitter, and I knew why.

Anybody who remembers Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden's cave-in to committee Republicans remembers.

Of course, many a Democrat was ready to counter with "Oh the SCOTUS," Clarence Thomas being enabled aside.

The reality, as Tweeted in a thread? Just as Democratic presidents have been "lesser evilism" compared to Republicans, so, too have their Supreme Court appointments. Democratic appointments, including Antonin Scalia lover Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka "The Notorious RGB," have had various degrees of lack of enthusiasm for the First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments.

(Insert: After I first got this done, but before it hit its publish date, as I had other more time sensitive stuff in the hopper, Justice Kagan gave more more ammunition. She hated on criminals in the Ramos case, voting with Alito and Roberts to still allow non-unanimous criminal jury verdicts.)

Let’s refresh ourselves.

The First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Our fundamental “speech acts,” worship — and freedom FROM worship for we secularists — freedom of the press (though misinterpreted by the media at times as a license to stand above the general public), freedom to strike (though severely curtailed by the feds), protest, boycott and many other things, and finally, to ask our gummint to fix things, and tell them to fuck off in the process.

The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

A biggie in today’s world, of the Internet, electronic surveillance and GPS systems. Governments at all levels and private businesses both abuse it. (Suits against businesses have rarely been tested, and the courts, unless something is truly egregious, usually grant even more carte blanche here than to government officials.)

The Sixth Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

This is perhaps less assaulted than the Fourth, but it’s still assaulted. Let’s dig in.

I last visited this issue in a general way when Tony the Pony Kennedy retired. The one handclap lauding of him made it clear that Democrat-type liberals appreciated him on gay rights and were glad he did not go further right than a middle ground breach on abortion. They didn't care about First Amendment nuances, like the muddled and awful but not horrible Town of Greece decision Kennedy foisted on us, because the New York or San Francisco city councils never have invocatioms. Worse yet, they ignore that Obama's DOJ filed an amicus, not on behalf of Galloway, but on the behalf of Town of Greece. Why? Dem-type liberals generally aren't irreligious. Worse, they halfway believe in the Christian nation mythos, as long as it's baptized into the civic religion that Scalia and Rehnquist, especially, liked to cite.

This guzzling of the civic religion Kool-Aid has been done the most Clinton squish Stephen Breyer and Obama squish Elena Kagan. Their being Jewish, to be honest, may be a factor. They may think the "Judeo fig leaf" half of the "Judeo-Christian tradition" is necessary to uphold, under the guise of civic religion, for Jewish protection. Or maybe not. In whatever case, they were wrong.

And more wrong when they indulged warmongering by connecting Christian crosses and military burials with evading the First Amendkment. Their ruling on American Legion vs American Humanist Association, commonly known as Bladensburg Cross, was godawful, pun intended. And, contra Hemant Mehta, Breyer's old Van Orton ruling which he used as precedent was almost as godawful.

Breyer, pulled out as a separate link from one of my blog posts, earlier hated the First Amendment's free speech protections whenever a cop might get butt-hurt you were exercising your free speech against him.

Wise Latina Sonia Sotomayor? Before nomination, on the appellate bench? A squish on Freedom of Information Act requests (First), churches freedom from labor laws (First) and minors' free speech rights (First).

Sotomayor, since getting on the court, has joined Breyer in being a Fourth Amendment squish.

Notorious RGB? Not come up in court cases, but Kaepernick-hater Ginsburg is a personal squish on symbolic speech acts such as flag burning. As a Hillz friend, this isn't surprising. Pulled from that blog post, The Nation talks about her as a squish in general. Hypocrisy alert, though. The Nation will never say a word outside the duopoly because it never has before.

Before that, ALL justices were squishes against the freedom of assembly clause of the First Amendment (told you it gets disrespected) when they ruled that Shrub Bush's Secret Service (a practice followed when allegedly protecting candidate Obama, then by President Obama) was OK in creating "cattle pens" of protestors way, way away from the president. Having been at multiple Bush protests, and in Denver the day before the start of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, I've seen this stuff firsthand.

Related? ALL justices have been Voting Rights Act squishes whenever the issue of voting rights isn't ethnic minorities but third parties.

Pre-SCOTUS, Elena Kagan was a political squish on drug laws, namely the Slickster's crack vs powder cocaine punishment difference.

Before this time, back in the 1990s, Slick Willie appointees Ginsburg and Breyer both voted to uphold capital punishment, restric habeas corpus, and even to allow Boston's St. Pat's parade, which was not church-organized, to ban gay groups. That one, even with less enlightenment nationally on gay rights 25 years ago, was disgusting enough then. Today? It's totally repulsive, and it's also totally repulsive that, when Tony the Pony was still on the court, nobody ever found occasion to overturn it.

Hell, within his own race to some extent, Thurgood Marshall was a Fourth Amendment squish. The Terry case is the blackest mark on his record. The case's language is full of loopholes that subsequent local, state and federal law enforcement have driven Mack Trucks through. True, it passed 8-1, or 6-1-1-1 if one wants to count concurrences by White and Harlin (both joined the main ruling as well). But Marshall, as an African-American, by joining the opinion without even a concurrence to nuance it.

The big takeaway, setting aside the Marshall footnote? Democratic Justices care little more about criminal rights, by and large, than Republican ones. They care no more about third-party voting rights. (Besides the link I offered, the fact that SCOTUS has consistently allowed, even required, state government elections officials to act as tools of the duopoly parties has shown this antipathy to run deep.) And, Democratic justices care not a lot more about expansion of executive branch powers than Republican ones.

==

Underscoring this, with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, is SCOTUS' ongoing refusal to deal with the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which has let many killer cops avoid even going to trial. Remember, it only takes four judges to grant cert. So, unless four librulz were highly worried that they'd spoil future cases on qualified immunity by granting cert to a less than perfect case, they're full of shit.

As USA Today explains, qualified immunity as a legal doctrine didn't exist until 1982. The court then had two definite liberals, Marshall and Bill Brennan. Harry Blackmun had by that time become a moderate liberal. Stevens was a moderate conservative. (He later became a moderate but never was a liberal, myth aside.) Powell and White were all definite conservatives, but not Rehnquist-type wingnut. Burger was a pompous conservative squish.  O'Connor was new, a conservative, but not Rehnquist.

Know what the vote was in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, the 1982 determinative case? 8-1. Burger the one dissent. Marshall among those supporting qualified immunity, as was Brennan. In Pierson v. Ray, both also signed off on the precursor to today's qualified immunity; Bill Douglas the only no vote there.

Per Wiki's page on qualified immunity, the eight justices, many of whom would go on two years later to bend backward for cops on the first phases of good-faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule, now said it would be unfair for them and others to go on trial to distinguish a state of mind when they were acting.  Wiki's page is good at bottom in noting an attorney defending a killer cop will always claim there isn't an EXACT precedent, and that qualified immunity has no obvious root in common law.

Texas Progressives: This corner does NOT Biden-stan

There's plenty of Texas politics and more Texana, on this week's issue.

And, between the stupidity of Joe Biden and Libertarians going online, at least for the presidential nomination, there's yet more national political stuff.

So let's dig in!


Texas

Off the Kuff has the latest updates in the various vote-by-mail lawsuits. Update: The state Supremes have weighed in and have SORT OF taken the side of Kenny Boy Paxton, while also noting that individual voters using their judgment on "disability" can keep requesting mail ballots. Summary, in other words: County election officials can't PEDDLE mail ballots, but individual voters can ask away.

Speaking of, Kenny Boy and Strangeabbott owe voting rights plaintiffs nearly $7 million in legal fees. Shockingly, the "loser pays" touters don't want to pay up.

It's only potentially a little water damage, isn't it? Part of the reason oil prices have rebounded is that the Railroad Commission has ruled Texas producers can store produced oil in geological formations. And, yes, that's a threat to aquifers. The RRC voted not to adopt prorating oil production (mainly favored by independents) and to go beyond the Observer, RRC head Wayne Christian bragged about it. Tis true that without North Dakota, New Mexico and maybe a couple of other states joining in, it would have been problematic, but Christian gives little indication he even tried.

Grits has a good roundup of criminal justice news, except the last item. Yes, Grits, non-duopoly presidential candidates may be highly unlikely to win, but they do exist.

Better Texas Blog calls for rebuilding child care.

The Texas Signal wonders if migration from other states will be what finally turns Texas blue.


Texana

SocraticGadfly offers his take on the documentary-based last chapter in the life of "Roe," that is, Norma Jean McCorvey.

Texas Monthly has a set of pieces in this category in the June issue.
It first reviews "Cult of Glory," the most thorough debunking yet of Texas Rangers myth.
Big Bend signs as signs of the times is a quirky read.
San Augustine has a quirky builder.
Texas has some quirky barbecue sauces.


National

Hellz, yes! The Green Party has a celebrity candidate who's also a real Green on profile Chris Hedges is running for Congress from New Jersey. I'd pull his presidential lever in 2024. 

For the not Biden-stanning, I refudiated Kuff earlier this week.

DosCentavos tells us that Joe Biden had Latino problems last week, too. But they are fixable. (They're fixable as long as Biden never says: "No eres Latino si votas por Trump.")

SCOTUS sadly punted, at least for now, on tackling the qualified immunity issue, used most often by police officers to justify shooting American Indians and blacks. (Per capita, American Indians have the highest death rate per capita at the hands of police of any ethnic group.)

#FreeLeonardPeltier since he's a vice presidential candidate!

Chris Wallace pushed back hard on WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany questioning reporters' religion and suggesting what questions they should ask. Donna Brazile, on the same Fox panel, disgustingly called her an "extraordinary person." That was after McEnany got pushback on the issue on the floor of the presser from a reporter.

At Bloomberg, Jonathan Bernstein thinks Trump is acting like a man who doesn't want to win. I would never make that assumption, and people made similar comments in 2016. (Kuff's weekend link dump often gives me something to at least have a different take than his implied take, if not outrightly refudiate.)

Fuck Doordash and fuck Grubhub (along with fuck most modern online/app based delivery systems in general).

A reminder from a Team Obama economist, Jason Furman, that the deep bust right now could be followed by almost as big a rebound. Biden's staff is already taking note, or notes.

Trump, now that Twitter has allegedly "fact-checked" his mail-voting tweets but NOT his Lori Klausitis ones, is promising an executive order that would make social media companies responsible for material they host.  First, that likely carries little legal weight. Second,  he could be shooting himself in the foot.


World

Look at all the Palestinian-hating Democrats. Mondoweiss has details on the new Israel Christmas presents.

A timeout from Twitter; and a new one from FB for good measure

I have taken two Facebook timeouts in the past. One was just about a full week. The other was three or four days.

I've never stepped away from Twitter.

But, although it's not the same degree of privacy, and privacy monetization, leech as Hucksterberg, it's a bigger cesspool as far as being a poster child of all that's wrong with social media.

And Jack Dorsey allows much of it specifically to try to monetize it. That's especially true in the case of one Donald J. Trump.

And in the case of promoting a conspiracy theory claiming that then-Congresscritter Joe Scarborough murdered a staffer, Lori Klausitis, Trump has gone further than normal.

And Jack Dorsey went too far himself.

Now, Scarborough, a one-time Trumper, made his bed. While not justifying any conspiracy theory, any Trump bootlicker, even if not a current one, with an iota of brains knows he will turn on you.

But, not only would Jack not remove the Tweets, despite personal pleading, he wouldn't even put the "fake news" tag on them, which he DID later in the day over Trump claiming Michigan and other states were committing voter fraud by expanding vote by mail. Trump response? Typical bully. He threatened to shut down Twitter. Shows Jack what he gets for enabling Trump.

That said, on the Klausitis Tweets, they first started two weeks ago. I guess Scarborough tried approaching Dorsey in private, and nothing happened. Ditto on her widower, who is the one who asked them to be taken down.

As for Jack? Even by the self-anointed tech guru standards of Silicon Valley, he is a nut. And a grifter. That second link probably explains well Jack's inner "deep state."

Finally, as to Twitter friends who regularly Tweet #DeleteYourFacebook on Twitter? What are you going to do about Twitter? As I have explained above, and per the "later in the day" link, Jack enables Trump because of $$$.

That leaves you two choices.

Boycott companies that advertise on Twitter or
Stop using Twitter, at least temporarily, so those advertisers reach fewer eyeballs.

Well, you have a third choice. And that's to keep enabling Jack Dorsey's cesspool.

I have other reasons to hate Jack and Twitter.

One account of mine was hacked. The hacked version got suspended, but because you can't deactivate a suspended account, the email associated with that is in Twitter limbo. (Jack apparently, though, is unfamiliar with this idea of "burner email addresses.") Another account was suspended because Covington Catholic chuds reported it, my original primary account, in spades. Its handle was "@realDonaldTrump." With the "@" as part of the handle, and the full thing not a name, I charge that this is NOT impersonation, especially when the profile photo was usually one that would piss off the actual Trump.

So, I've got, per Twitter, up to 30 days to reactivate or it deletes. I'll probably use most of it.

Meanwhile, I figured that, for a couple of days at least, I'd take another Fuckbook timeout, to make this more real.

I am also on MeWe ... with four friends. It would probably be more of a cesspool, whether financial or wingnut or both, were it bigger. (Basically, it's the reassembled detritus of Google+.) I've already blocked two wingnuts, one a lying Buddhist or Buddhist-friendly Islamophobe and the other an outright Trumper. Both were in a philosophy of religion group, and both got me a tut-tut from the admin, who is himself a dick, as far as I can tell, starting with half the stuff he lets fly as philosophy of religion. Probably time to leave that group.

And since I don't have my password for it bookmarked on all my browsers at home, that restricts where I use it.

==

As for the issue at hand? Scarborough always has the option of suing Trump.

Yes, yes, Scarborough is a public figure.

But?

It seems pretty clear that this involves
Actual intent of malice and
Reckless disregard for the facts.

Of course, good luck with the jury strikes making sure that you have no more than 1 die-hard Trumper among the 12 people in the box, if it's in most states, or none if it's federal. (And, if this ever actually happened, no way Trump would waive his jury rights.)

Of course, that's why he's not asking. And it's not him leading the push to take them down, it's Klausitis' widower.

Klausitis' widower could also sue, but, in reality? He just wants this to go away, I'd think.

That said, Raw Story looks at the legal chances of both Scarborough and Timothy Klausitis.

And, basically, like the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, Jack is deliberately letting family members be injured.

Meanwhile, if Trump is going to try to punish Twitter (and Fuckbook) tonight, he could be shooting himself in the foot. That's even as his now-announced executive order was reportedly in the works for months, waiting for an excuse. That Daily Bees story is also worth reading for the holier-than-thou hypocrisy of Hucksterman and his minions. If tRump had a Facebook account, Zuckster the Huckster would treat him with the same kid gloves as Jack.

The reality, as an Australian state-level supreme court ruled recently with Google, is that these folks ARE publishers. But publishers have biases all the time. Let's stop pretending otherwise. But, if Jack Dorkey's going to be a hypocrite, you and I can jump off, whether permanently or selectly. (My current plan is to stay off Twitter for a couple of weeks, and then get on just enough to reactivate my primary account, then likely deactivate again and lather, rinse, repeat.)

As for federal law? MUCH of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is flawed and needs overhauling, not just Section 230. Some of it's bad in civil libertarian terms. Some of it's bad in neoliberal capitalism terms, like Section 230.

Update, May 29: So now, Dorkey is hiding a Trump tweet over Minneapolis rioting — until you click a link acknowledging it's violating Twitter terms for glorifying violence. That said, even after clicking the link, it can't be "liked" or retweeted without comment. So there is that.

BUT .... it CAN be retweeted WITH comment. And, oh, it will.

The other problem is a Twitter "infrastructure" problem, as detailed here, with a story claiming this was two years in the works. Twitter's antique backbone, along with a refusal to hire fact checkers, all helped lead to this.

That said, Hucksterman, with a brand new "infrastructure," left Trump's comments up on Fuckbook. Of course he did. And I guess Trump has a Facebook account, and it presumably just reposts his tweets. And Hucksterman's holier-than-thou stance is worse than Dorkey's.

Update, June 11: Ars Technica has a long discussion of Section 230 and possible options. Ben Wittes' "reasonableness exceptions" at the bottom of the piece is exactly what I would support. 

The Libertarian Lady is not for turning

See multiple footnoted sidebars at bottom and note also that this original post has been expanded. Note also that primarily due to exchange of comments, I've got two sidebar blog posts that I'm spinning off this. They'll be linked when they go up.

And here you are on part 1 and part 2.

Libertarians nominated Jo Jorgensen for president, a long-ago VP candidate and NOT an ex-Republican, on the fourth ballot. Libertarians did a virtual convention for president and veep ONLY; the original plan for an all-virtual convention was derailed when some legalistic LPer cited bylaws, so they'll meet in person for other quadrennial business. (Does this surprise you?)

Just because she's their first woman nominee doesn't make her anything but the typical hardcore Libertarian, per a Reason interview. (Don't ever, EVER forget Maggie Thatcher, per the header.) *

(That said, the "not for turning" is sincere, especially with many Greens, including many older, by both age and GP years of involvement, individuals salivating over political opportunist Jesse Ventura. Now, back to the thread.)

She makes the No True Scotsman claim that healthcare needs free markets to actually work. Actually, a good socialist like me knows that insurers are but lightly regulated. Pretty free market. And abusive. But, doctors and hospitals, ordering unnecessary tests out of a mix of capitalist grifting and fear of L/libertarian type lawsuits, are also part of the problem.

(Big picture: "True Scotsman" true capitalism for many Libertarians, I think, is what was covered nearly 400 years ago by Thomas Hobbes.)

As ProPublica has written in detail? Capitalism in American health care is part of why poor black folks with diabetes gets amputations at a rate far higher than whites.

Beyond that, capital L's, many small-l libertarians back national health care. Like Hayek! Boom. (Though, unlike me, I am sure no libertarian of small or capital l's backs a National Health System here in America.) And, while some small l's support national health care, I have NEVER met a capital-L political candidate who does. This is surely another reason why Europeans who call themselves libertarians stare at American libertarians as though they were three-headed goats or something.

She blames governments for air pollution. (More below.) She kind of admits global warming is real while saying "I don't want to talk about how we got here." Why not, pray tell? Are you a secret defender of the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change and afraid to drive away some Libertarians? The reality is that, the reason why we got here is generally related to how bad you think it is, and then in turn to how serious of a response you deem to be needed.

As for nukes helping climate change? No, free markets won't help there; no power company wants to build a nuke plant without even more federal guarantees. Seriously, LPers in general are like Vermin Supreme's ponies in believing that a truly free market would solve all sorts of verschnizzle it wouldn't. More seriously, do any of you talk to the actual business world? Beyond that, there's some good scientific articles about how supply restrictions on various metals in reactor construction means that, while nukes could maybe replace what's left of the world's current coal-fired electricity, they realistically can't go beyond that.

(IMO, they're also in denial about the wind-up-the-world-like-a-clock Deist deity that lies behind Adam Smith's invisible hand and has been refuted by quantum mechanics. They're also in denial about how Enlightenment-era ideas of human rationality have been refuted by modern psychology, and scientifically refuted by behavioral psychology. [And no, an average of all wandering paths on this doesn't produce a species-wide averaged-out Homo economics rationalis, it just produces a species-wide naturally irrational critter.])**

Her platform also has an outright lie about most pollution being in developing countries. The US is the King of Trash. So, no, it's not governments, per above; no, it's not developing countries; it's the most rampant types of capitalism that are the problem. If she means air or water pollution? Well, it's the regulatory state that's addressed that, NOT unfettered capitalism. We all know that big business in the U.S. has fought any, every, and all regulatory measure to control air and water pollution over 50-plus years.

She has an outright lie of another sort on poverty. She notes that from 1959-69 the US cut poverty rates in half. THAT is true. This is not:

However, after the war on poverty was fully implemented in the early seventies, progress stopped.

Other than Nixon's Earned Income Tax Credit, most of the War on Poverty was stopped after LBJ left office. Some of it was slowed by LBJ even before leaving because of Vietnam. The ProPublica piece above details some of Nixon's budget cutting on health care. Whether the "War on Poverty" really could have been won or not, we'll never know, because it was never fully tried, never "fully implemented."

The truth is that economic inequality (which Libertarian ideas would increase) reduces national economic growth. I'll give a kudo to both capital and small l's for in some ways being more serious about racism than many Democrats, who often have a simplistic Joe Biden take. But they lose that kudo when they don't address classism nor acknowledge how class and race are intertwined. (Some leftists lose half a kudo when they try to always reduce race to class, at the same time.)

And a third lie. No, the Department of Education hasn't failed. What's failed is colleges making themselves into Big Biz and the government not actually funding more of the costs of a collegiate education. Add in "credentialism" and voila.

All of this is why, when Greens talk about making an "alliance" with Libertarians, I strictly insist that that would only be on a case-by-case basis, and would almost certainly just boil down to selected civil liberties areas. And, contra many Greens, re the horseshoe theory of politics on COVID et al, my "selective" would be more selective than theirs. (Note: I may officially declare myself an independent leftist later this year over a variety of issues. The SPUSA would be my next stop. Within the GP, I am definitely a "watermelon Green.")

Also, as for Greens hankering for such an alliance? Libertarians rarely play up this idea. Besides, who would want to ally with a party even more disorganized than Greens? (I refer to Libertarian delegates not being pledged. Contra this piece, since Green delegates ARE pledged, non-duopoly parties can do exactly that. And, no, this isn't a coronavirus issue; Libertarian delegates have been unpledged in the past.)

And, beyond that, the LP lived up to its old nutbar roots by nominating Vermin Supreme acolyte Spike Cohen as its Veep. NY Mag has more.

Let's add a "disorganized" note here. Jorgensen and Cohen are both from South Carolina. THAT's constitutional. BUT, should the LP slate win any states South Carolina, electors from that state can, per the Constitution, vote for only one or the other. (Corrected from the original; see comment by Winger and my response below.)

"Congrats" to Libertarian delegates, who like to shout "unconstitutional" all the time, for their constitutional ignorance. Per back-and-forth in comments, nobody raised this issue at the LP convention, while 2000 Republicans, and the person of Dick Cheney, had plenty of time to address it in advance.

This is expanded over my original post. It's been a while since I've gone in depth like this. Probably one-third of the reason I did so is suggested in the paragraphs about the thought processes of some Greens.

==

* Sidebar 1: Jorgensen was NOT the favorite of Libertarian delegates at the start, not even a plurality favorite, nor of voters in any states with Libertarian primaries, nor other states with Libertarian caucuses or conventions. (That said, using IRV-oriented polling, she was the favorite, it appears, after you get through IRV elimination rounds.)

But, because the LP not only has unpledged delegates, but does old-fashioned bottom-candidate elimination rather than some version of instant runoff voting, she got the "bump" when candidates below her fell by the wayside through the first three ballots. That, in turn, may be an additional factor in how well — or how poorly — she does this year, besides the pandemic issues. In essence, she seems to have gotten the nomination because she's "not Mr. X." Jacob Hornberger never seriously bumped above his first-round numbers.

Seriously, Libertarians? Why go through the motions of electing delegates even on a preference basis? Why not just have each state, as assessed by LP national, appoint a bunch of Rando Libertarians out of the air to meet its delegate total and go from there?

As far as the Veepness, as Richard and I go back and forth in comments, Jorgensen wanted to go a more serious direction, with fellow prez candidate John Monds, but Spike nosed him out. Had this happened, Root might have gone apoplectic if Monds' African-American ethnicity had been trumpeted by the LP. And, per my second response to Richard, the 2016 convention honored Gary Johnson's choice of Bill Weld. (That said, as Wiki summarizes, Jorgensen didn't officially endorse Monds, either.)

I still would disagree with Libertarians. But, riffing on Ed Kilgore, I wouldn't think them a joke if they hadn't chosen Cohen as Veep, and if, in the big picture, they didn't have unpledged delegates.

OTOH, maybe to some Libertarianians, maybe the lack of pledging of delegates is part of the party's performance art.

==

** Sidebar 2: Riffing on the last graf of my expanded original post, this is of course paralleled by a fair minority of Greens who think all you have to do is mention the word "nature" all the time, throw in some New Agey thoughts, and we'll all be good.

And, no, Anthony Dlugos, first commenter, I don't claim that governments are more rational, economically or otherwise, than individuals. That said, governments can provide a check on irrational individuals, and per Kahnemann and Tversky, members of a government, working together, can hit the "pause" button and engage in Stage 2 thinking more readily than CEOs, etc.

==

*** Sidebar 3: The Greens in 2016 and the SPUSA this year showed themselves to be "clowns" and ... "constitutionally ignorant or uncaring," in another sense. I'm talking about constitutionally unqualified Elijah Manley being on the 2016 GP and 2020 SPUSA ballots, at least in some states. He should have been tossed. For that matter, the Federal Election Commission should automatically toss applications like his while we're at it.

Texas Progressives: Coronavirus, week 11

Good piece here, as Tex-ass reopens more and more, what the risks are at various venues.

Grocery shopping, even as the Great Costco Mask War and other things took off last week, isn't that high of a risk, the expert says. The top four?
Family and friends parties. In other words, the backyard cookout or whatever, if you've got 20 people there. Why? IMO, it's because you're all close together on an extended basis, not momentarily, and you're saying to yourself "We're all family and friends."
Bars. Duh. Unhealthy anyway.
Theaters and sporting events. Also duh.
Churches and other religious events. #MAGA! #ThoughtsAndPrayers! #GodWillProvide!

Lowest risk, besides being outside hiking, walking, etc.
Grocery shopping, so chillax a bit. But don't get complacent. That said, the CDC itself now says that, outside of violating social distancing, grocery shopping is definitely low risk.
Mail service.
Dining outdoors, with appropriate social distance.
Just a bit above those? Beaches, but again, with social distancing, which lots o ppl don't want to do.

Here's a similar piece from NPR if you hit a BI paywall or Javascript on the first.

Finally, a note that Texas is among 24 states either with, or projected to have, a new "surge." That's from new Imperial College London modeling. (For MAGAs who scoff? Stop misrepresenting its initial study.)

====

Texas

I am shocked there is gambling going on in this Gov. Strangeabbott establishment. Abbott is letting antibody testing, which has a bad false positive rate even on the best tests, count as part of coronavirus testing, which is only really supposed to be based on tests for the presence of the virus itself. How soon before other Red State govs follow suit, if they're not doing it already, then get President Hydroxy to give it his blessing? Meanwhile, the state UNDERcounts active cases, mainly by prisoners in many counties who are infected not being counted.

Texas collegiate sports appear ON for the fall at the UT, A+M and Tech systems.

UIL is letting summer camps start June 8. Expect information for fall public school sports after its June 16-17 meetings.

Sanford Nowlin finds Greg Abbott fibbing about how Texas handles COVID testing data.

A Houston church has shut back down after its primary priest died and three other Redemptorists who serve the parish tested positive.


National

By wasting one week of time, in not getting social distancing started that much earlier, Trump may have helped kill 36,000 people.

Chris Wallace ripped Toady Birx to shreds Sunday. The one missing question? WHY is she a toady?

Ed Yong notes that the rate of growth of cases, and their sources, shows more and more an American patchwork.

Trump's Homeland Security folks are trying to accelerate deportation of children of Ill Eagles back to unsafe conditions. At the same time, for adults? A COVID explosion at an ICE detention center west of Abilene has infected 25 percent of detainees.

On closure of churches, in California, the Ninth Circuit has weighed in. Score? Gavin Newsom 1, Donald Trump ZERO.

Related? Week 1 is here and week 2 is here. Week 3 is here and week 4, here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6. Here's Week 7. And, looking past this? Weeks 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. And, after a three-week hiatus, but necessitated, week 14.

Memorial Day: The civil war before the Civil War

What is there that's not been said before, here and elsewhere, about Memorial Day?

It's for the war DEAD, not all veterans, and it was originally for the UNION dead after the Civil War, sadly despoiled by the Lost Cause and its redivivus among the alt-right today.

So, I offer up the civil war before the Civil War — the American Revolution, focusing on Vol 1 of Rick Atkinson's planned new trilogy, and an expanded version of my Goodreads review.

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was originally, when I finished, thinking three stars. But seeing how the "stanners" were rating this almost entirely five stars, with little in the way of nuaced, but favorable, four-star reviews, I had to counterbalance that. Per what follows, here's why, with detailed receipts

Rick Atkinson seems to be prepped to offer a storyteller’s three-volume history of the American Revolution. Well, if volume 1 is indication, he may be suffering from dilettantism and pretentiousness in his storyteller style. (“Prolix” was a word used by another reviewer.) In addition, the book has a few other issues.

First, the stylistic ones.

A firelock is a generic term for a whole historical list of pre-percussion cap long guns. A Brown Bess is normally known as a flintlock.

Yes, the world “firelock” may well have been used back then, along with “flintlock.” But, Atkinson offers only one direct quote.

This one alone I found almost as grating as Gregory Wawro shouting “doughboys” or just “doughs” every five pages in his WWI book “Sons of Freedom,” as reviewed by me here. But it wasn’t the only stylistic problem.

Talking of Hessian bands playing “hautboys” is snooty and incorrect at the same time. The French is “hautbois.” The alternative English is "hoboy" but was pretty much replaced by “oboe” by or shortly before the time of the Revolutionary War, with first documented English use in 1726. Besides again, “oboe” is the word in German.

In addition, direct-quoting Col. Rall in German on one page, then in English on the next, just three paragraphs later, looks like a mix of dilettantism and simply silliness.

Kind of a sneering take on Lord Stirling, who had had a Scottish court recognize his claim before the House of Lords overrode it. The fiscal pretentions may have been aristocratic, but they were based on a real titular claim.

Ditto on calling Hamilton’s mother a sugar islands harlot. Rather, she and his father were, essentially, common-law spouses since she left her husband for him until James Hamilton abandoned her. She did have an affair of some sort with one other man, also single, before James Hamilton. Here's the details. None of this makes her a “sugar islands harlot.” And, if he’s just repeating a trope from the Hamilton musical, then that’s lazy history.

Taken in conjunct with the Stirling sneer (as far as him being a spendthrift, one Thomas Jefferson was, too, as representative of the nobility-pretentious Southern American planter class), pretentious might not be right. "Supercilious," maybe?

That's the main literary issues, but I could have cited more. The Hamilton and Stirling ones go beyond literary to just bad or at least not good history.

There's one main history issue, with many parts.

Guns.

Yes, SOME of Michael A. Bellesiles’ research was fraudulent. Not all of it. The cost of a gun as two months’ wages has IMO not been refuted. There was a reason the colonies were desperate to import guns at the start of the Revolution — there weren’t THAT many in America. Also, while Bellesiles may have made up will registries, his refuters fail to tell what percentage of colonial Americans died intestate — and, presuming these were mainly poor, how that influences the gun ownership percentages.

Rifles? Atkinson neglects to tell how slow they were to be reloaded and other things, until the last chapter. Readers might be wondering if they were that much more expensive than guns, or why they weren't used more. (They WERE more expensive, but that wasn't the only reason.)

Speaking of guns, while I know what 3-pounders, 6-pounders, etc., are, Atkinson could have done a better job of explaining them for more basic readers. And even for more advanced readers, he could have explained the range of an average 6-pounder of 1775 based on typical 1775 gunpowder. Ditto, of course, for other guns. And, if he's really wanting to write a three-volume, basically military, history of the revolution, tell me the penetration power against, say, brick, of a 12-pounder at 300 yards.

And also on the historical side, as one other reviewer notes, American Indians are almost entirely missing from the narrative. Yes, they didn't have a major part pre-1777, but they were in the picture more than Atksinson paints.

Finally, a "scope" issue.

Is this primarily a military history? If so, there's too much "padding" at times on what's happening in Privy Council on London, on details of Franklin's trip to Paris and more.

If not, maybe a few more words on the Continental Congress and the Declaration? On the invasion of Quebec, if you're quoting people, did any Frenchmen above the habitant level leave diaries? What did they think of the invasion?

This is a “marker” for Atkinson, whose WWII books I have generally liked, even if they were somewhat American triumphalist in style. Drop the snootiness, pretentiousness and dilettantism in the next two books of the trilogy or, if I even skim them, the ratings will be even sterner. (And don’t go further down the triumphalist road; I saw bits of that already here.)

On the plus side, he has an excellent explainer of the series of battles subsumed under the Battle for New York. His description of the flight across the New Jersey countryside is also good. But that doesn't counterweigh a bunch of problems.

===

Next, because Atkinson speaks little about slavery in 1775, including not telling you that Northern as well as Southern rebels were slaveowners?

Here's a book to rectify that.

The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a powerful, scholarly, well-informed overview of how the pervasive spread not just of slavery, but of slavery of Africans, was importantly connected to the American Revolution.

As part of this, Home shows that, decades before the Somerset decision of 1772 that freed a slave brought from Virginia to England, Americans (or proto-Americans, or mainlanders) feared just such a ruling.

Home leads up to this by showing that both the colonies and London, before 1700 in the Caribbean and by soon after on mainland North America, the English feared that France and Spain would encourage English slaves, in both locations, to either revolt or run away. Next came struggles on wanting to control slaves vs. having ever more of them brought into slavery.

Other subcurrents run through this. Until 1689, the British Crown had a monopoly on slave trading. After that, private traders gradually began taking more of the trade. That, in turn, connected to relations between the British sugar islands in the Caribbean and the mainland.

Meanwhile, the 1700s have three major wars between Britain and the two Catholic powers, who also generally seemed to view Africans with not quite as much disfavor and given them a few more chances at emancipation.

All of this ties together after 1763, when France and Spain no longer threaten the American colonies. Nine years later, Somerset squares the circle ... even as slave owners north, like John Hancock and James Otis, as well as those south, talk about rights and hint at revolution.

===

A non-American reading or two of the Revolutionary War, as far as the big picture, not just the military one, is never bad. Here's a good one from about a decade ago.

Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth by Holger Hoock

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is not a totally chronological history, though it follows that general order. It is in no way a military history.

Rather, it's about violence leading up to, and during, the American Revolution. Hoock, being a native of the Netherlands, is positioned for some type of "neutrality." (Several years ago, I read one British book of the period; from the British POV, it could be called the British Civil War.)

People who know this period are familiar with things like tarring and feathering of Stamp Act agents, etc., by Patriots. That's Hoock's starting point.

He deals with violence against other civilians by both Patriots and Tories, and by Continentals/militias and Redcoats/Hessians alike.

The civilians were about equally bad. Washington's troops weren't as bad as the British, but weren't perfect, and, of course, many Revolutionary theaters of action had troops not under his command. This includes American atrocities against Indians in New York.

I don't know if the number of relatively low ratings is in part due to some people not liking to hear all this message, or what.

==

That British history? This.

War for America: The Fight for Independence 1775-1783 by Jeremy Black

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The "Revolutionary War from a British history perspective

The only reason I didn't give this five stars is that I wish it had more depth. But, on the other hand, that does make it an easy read, and also, as more of a popularizing than academic historian, that's more Black's style.

As it is, Black goes more in depth into the Southern theater of operations than many American historians do. Without toppling Washington from any rightful pedestal, as part of this, he gives adequate coverage to Nathanial Greene and other American Continental Army and militia commanders.

With a little more depth/length, I probably would have liked to see more review and analysis of British Cabinet discussions and such, along with a British analysis of the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris.



View all my reviews

Off the Kuff is off his rocker on Biden and Texas

Joe Biden is going to put Texas into play in November, it seems. Actually, Donald Trump is putting it into play for him and it remains to be seen if Biden can keep it in play.

Piece of advice No. 1 for Biden's minders? Make sure that he NEVER goes on a Hispanic version of Charlamagne tha God, that is, Lenard Larry McKelvey. Maybe Stace Medellin might be "safe."

Texan political analyst of long standing Cal Jillson says that if Biden DOES win, he'll likely have won 40 other states as well.

Kuff thinks Jillson is making an overstatement when he scoffs. OK, a bit of hyperbole, but no more, Kuff. If Biden wins Texas, he's won 35 others, not 40. Your own map agrees, Kuff.

So does the Chron's Jeremy Wallace, author of the piece:

Don’t count Texas on that battleground list yet. But Democrats see an opportunity they haven’t had in decades.

Yep, we heard this all two years ago with Robert Francis O'Rourke. The reality was that ALL Dems except Loopy Lupe Valdez ran about as close to Republicans as did O'Rourke.

Update, June 11: Mark McKinnon also agrees with Jillson, saying that if Biden actually wins Texas, it will be part of winning 400 electoral votes. And agrees with Wallace, or goes beyond, on the "we heard this all here before," and also, as a political strategerist, McKinnon suggests that Team Biden shouldn't get too seduced by the swan song of Texas.

Trump wasn't directly on the ballot in 2018, with either the stupidity of his actual presidency or the power of the presidency as an instititution. And one poll has shown Biden with a lead, which Beto never had.

That said, Beto had charisma Biden doesn't, and while he said his own dumb things at times, they were different dumb things that didn't get immediate rebukes.

I don't laugh at Kuff the way Brains and DBC do on his digging in the statistical weeds, but, I'm totally with them in noting that if it's Democratic nominee, Kuff runs them up the flagpole and salutes.

The big issue will be if, trailing by 3-4 points consistently in September and early October, Biden pounds money down a rathole like Hillary did in 2016. His odds appear better on Arizona.

Maybe if Biden, per Katha Pollitt's dreck at the Nation, boiled him some babies in other states, her saying "I would vote for Joe Biden if he boiled babies and ate them." .... Meanwhile, Jonathan Turley, sure to raise Dem hackles even more, compares that statement to Trump's "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody." He's half right. But, later in his column, apparently rejecting that Emmet Sullivan actually can interrogate the DOJ prosecutors when they formally appear before him to seek dismissal of charges against Michael Flynn, Turley shows how he can indeed get stuff wrong.

A reminder from a Team Obama economist, Jason Furman, that the deep bust right now could be followed by almost as big a rebound. Biden's staff is already taking note, or notes. On the other, or third hand, many other economists, per Five Thirty Eight, don't expect a full-ish rebound for a full year or more. So, contra Furman, it's more likely to be a "check mark" rather than a "V." How much even that helps Trump and the soft bigotry of low expectations remains to be seen, of course.

The tell? If the unemployment rate is above 10 percent in October, it will take a miracle for Trump to win.

On the third hand, as the NYT notes, demand is still sluggish, and a moderate job bump in May, likely primarily due to short-term hiring for COVID-related needs by grocers and other retailers, along with delivery for restaurants and other things, isn't likely to last. (In other cases, the rehirings were done to meet the terms of the Paycheck Protection Program. That's "semi-temporary," and remember, that program is loans, not grants.)

Update, June 14: Kuff is now backwalking things a bit, with a new post about the Economist's economic modeling of national and state-by-state odds.

As of this writing, Biden has about a 20% chance of carrying Texas, which frankly sounds pretty robust to me.

Not at all what you were indicating three weeks ago.