Monday Reads: Republicans Create Dependence Day!

Incantation for America Incantation: a series of words said as a magic spell or charm. “Make America safe again. America, save us from ourselves. America, I elect to love you in this moment of extraordinary need. America, absolve us of our uncertainty and fears. America, make us safe again and indivisible, united, under myriad beliefs, with liberty and justice for all.” IVIVA OLENICK artist

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m moving slowly today.  The heat and the humidity are really wearing on me.  I’m waiting for the rain that’s supposed to cool us down for a few hours.  The thing that frightens me is that I think this is the new normal.

Today’s textile art comes from Polish American Iviva Olenick.  Wonk the Vote actually turned me on to her, so shout out to Wonk if she’s reading this!  She calls her art.”Stitchcraft – envisioning matriarchal social systems through “women’s crafts” of oral narratives, textile handcrafts, and plant-based knowledge.”

I’m still incensed by the Supreme Court and its utter disregard for settled law.  TBogg–Tom Boggioni at Raw Story–has this article showing some hope to turn back one of the decisions this week. A” Procedure exists to force the Supreme Court to rehear ‘made up’ wedding website case: Neal Katyal .”

Based upon new evidence that a landmark Supreme Court case on religious and 1st Amendment rights was based upon a bogus claim, former Solicitor General Neal Katyal claimed that Colorado’s attorney general has a duty to ask the court to rehear the case and that a justice on the court could also ask the court to review the new information.

Speaking with fill-in host Michael Steele, the legal expert cited a report from the New Republic that website designer Lorie Smith made the claim that, “I will not be able to create websites for same-sex marriages or any other marriage that is not between one man and one woman. Doing that would compromise my Christian witness and tell a story about marriage that contradicts God’s true story of marriage—the very story He is calling me to promote,” which she bolstered by claiming she had received an inquiry from a same-sex couple named Stewart and Mike.

However, upon being contacted by the New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant, Stewart stated no such thing had happened and that he was not gay, was married to a woman and happens to be a website designer himself.

With that in mind, and after host Steele said everything about the case and how the conservative majority handled it “reeks,” Katyal suggested there is a legitimate reason for the court to revisit their controversial ruling.

“The Supreme Court has a procedure to seek a rehearing, so to say, ‘Hey Supreme Court, there’s a new fact that emerged and we need you to revisit your ruling,’ so that’s possible,” he explained. “The Supreme Court can also on its own ask for a briefing on this new question on whether this case is made up.”

“Conservatives right now are defending the decision saying that Roe versus Wade, Roe wasn’t pregnant at the time of the decision and that’s different,” he elaborated. “Roe was pregnant at the time of the filing of the complaint so she was having the exact problem that she was trying to remedy, namely seeking an abortion because she was pregnant. Here, this web designer has never once done a website for an LGBT couple. It’s the exact opposite situation it’s totally hypothetical and made up. I think the Colorado attorney general should consider bringing a rehearing petition before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Mourning the Legal Death of Choice. 2022. Embroidery on fabric. Iviva Olenick

I look forward to this.   From Steve Vladeck at  MSNBC, we receive this instruction.  “ Don’t believe the data: This is the most conservative Supreme Court we’ve known .”  This is an opinion piece. Vladeck is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

The effective end of the Supreme Court’s term on Friday touched off what has become an annual tradition: hot takes summarizing the justices’ work over the preceding nine months based upon data aggregated from the justices’ decisions. These accounts typically focus on surprising-sounding results (50% of the decisions were unanimous!) in service of pushing back against the most obvious summary of the current court: that it is sharply divided between the six justices appointed by Republican presidents and the three justices appointed by Democrats. You can spin the data however you want, but the reality is actually simple. The conservative majority is pushing American law decisively to the right.

Statisticians call this phenomenon the “tyranny of averages” — the fact that averaging a data set tells us nothing about the size, distribution or skew of the data. But these kinds of “judge the Supreme Court by its data” assessments are even worse than just ordinary statistical errors.

First, they fail to account for the Supreme Court’s own role in choosing the cases it decides — so that the data isn’t random to begin with. Second, they ignore all of the Supreme Court’s significant rulings in other cases — those that don’t receive full briefings and arguments. Finally, even within the carefully cultivated subset of cases on which these claims generally focus, these commentaries both miscount the divisions and treat as equal disputes that bear no resemblance to each other. It’s not that this data is completely irrelevant, but anyone relying upon it should take it with a very substantial grain of salt.

Let’s start with the court’s docket. With one tiny exception (which accounted for exactly one case during the justices’ current term), the court chooses each and every one of its cases (and, even within those cases, which specific issues it wants to decide). This docket control, which is entirely a modern phenomenon, means the justices are pre-selecting the cases they decide — including technical disputes on which they may be likely to agree (or, at least, not disagree along conventional ideological lines). Thus, from the get-go, the entire data set on which too many commentators rely is biased toward the justices’ own behavior.

Women Birth Whole Communities (so keep your laws off our uteruses). 2022.
Embroidery on fabric. 7.5 x 7.25 inches. B&W pattern inspired by Polish folk art. Iviva Oleniick

We may expect a series of lawsuits to challenge the SCOTUS justice interruptus.  This is from the AP. “Activists spurred by affirmative action ruling challenge legacy admissions at Harvard.” 

A civil rights group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University, saying the practice discriminates against students of color by giving an unfair boost to the mostly white children of alumni.

It’s the latest effort in a growing push against legacy admissions, the practice of giving admissions priority to the children of alumni. Backlash against the practice has been building in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court’s decision ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, filed the civil rights complaint Monday on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England, alleging that Harvard’s admissions system violates the Civil Rights

“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”

Keep Your Laws Off My Uterus, Protect women’s rights. IVIVA OLENICK at The Nation,2023

The Culture Crusaders of White Republican Christian Nationalism are not backing off.  Here are a few clues. We’re hosting part of the party of hate down here.  Maybe that is why it’s hot as hell here.   This is from Politico‘s Politics Editor, David Siders.  “The ‘Shrinking Baptist Convention’ Is Doubling Down on the Culture Wars.  The challenges facing the nation’s largest Protestant denomination mirror those facing the GOP — and both would rather stick to their guns than shift course.”

NEW ORLEANS — No one could accuse the Baptists of excessive cheeriness. Or underplaying their challenges.

Over the clanking of silverware and the smell of breakfast sausages on the sidelines of a major gathering of Southern Baptists here, several hundred pastors and other churchgoers welcomed a roster of speakers ruminating on a “teetering” nation, “sexual insanity,” “all this trans stuff” and the specter that the country’s largest Protestant denomination was on a “road to insignificance.”

At the evening get-together in the same hotel ballroom — where attendees sipped on bottles of water in this humid city better known for imbibing more intoxicating beverages — they used even more apocalyptic language.

“We are living in dark and perilous times in America,” read the billing for a night with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “as our culture descends into a spiritual abyss …”

Not long ago, during Donald Trump’s presidency, white evangelical Christians had taken comfort in the idea that their interests carried weight at the highest levels in Washington, in conservative Supreme Court appointments and otherwise. Even if it had taken some rationalization for them to get behind a thrice-married former casino owner who botched basic religious conventions and was eventually indicted for his alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star, the Trump years were good years for these Baptists.

“One of the things about President Trump’s administration, there were so many Christians involved,” an influential Texas pastor named Jack Graham told the crowd. “In the West Wing, you couldn’t walk very far without bumping into bona fide, born-again believers and followers of Jesus.”

Yeah. Good Ol’ Republican Jesus.  Who preaches only love neighbors that look and believe like you and don’t you dare feed the hungry and shelter strangers and,  as for those kids. Don’t let them near me!  Put them in cages or off to work! Who said slavery is bad for the American Economy?

“America is leaning on migrant children as indentured servants. Sickening reports on the prevalence of child labor in the U.S. cannot be ignored — and are reminiscent of a horror story from before the 20th century.”  This is straight from Joy Reid.

When you try to erase history — like the Florida governor wants to do — you are doomed to repeat it.

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a stunning account of more than 100 migrant children, largely from Central America, who, according to the Times’ reporting, were working overnight shifts and dangerous jobs for companies large and small throughout the U.S.

According to the report:

In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J.Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts used by Ford and General Motors.

In other words, nearly all of us are likely buying and using goods fabricated by children’s hands. We’re all implicated in this story. These migrant children, who have traveled thousands of miles, are under intense pressure to send money home to their families or to the people who sponsor them in the United States. Many of them are extorting the children for smuggling fees, rent and living expenses.

These children are ostensibly under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, which assigns them caseworkers to make sure they’re cared for while they are in this country.

The New York Times reports that “in interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time.”

Home Brew Healthcare. 2022. Embroidery and beading on fabric dyed and printed with marigolds and indigo leaves.

At least, this is the part at the end of all these gruesome descriptions.

And on Monday, the Biden administration announced that it was creating a new task force to crack down on the illegal exploitation of migrant children for labor in the United States.

Enforcement of child labor laws will most likely be a top issue for Julie Su, President Biden’s newly announced nominee for secretary of labor.

If confirmed, Su would be the Biden administration’s first AAPI Cabinet secretary.

Here’s one about my old stomping grounds in Iowa.  I don’t recall it being this weird when I went to elementary school there, but who knows now?  This is from Marc Caputo at The Messenger. “‘A Ginormous Jug of Diesel Fuel on a Bonfire:’ How Trump’s Indictments Could Win Him Iowa and the GOP Nomination. Trump so far has persuaded enough Republicans in the crucial early state that his indictment is their political cause.”  Why are all these images of hellfire being used on a weekend when I’ve got a city full of Baptists, hipsters, and a Heat Wave?  Abandon Hope all who enter Iowa’s Republican presidential field.

Just before spring in Iowa, Merle Miller’s fellow Washington County Republicans said they wanted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or even South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to run for president. They didn’t want Donald Trump.

Then Trump was indicted in New York City on state charges.

Then he was indicted a second time in Miami, on federal charges.

“Now you don’t hear those names brought up like before. The majority of Republicans here are for Trump after this frickin’ legal lynching. That’s all it is,” said Miller, explaining and channeling conservative sentiment in this rural county where he’s the GOP chairman.

“People here take the indictment personally,” Miller said. “I think if they wouldn’t have done this thing and try to prosecute and persecute him and drag this guy through the mud like they’ve been doing for seven years that it would be different. But people are mad.”

And Republicans aren’t just stirred up and rallying to Trump in Miller’s county outside Iowa City.

From Iowa’s Mississippi River border in the east to its western edge at the Missouri River, nearly two dozen Republican county chairs, consultants and activists who have not picked a side in the race told The Messenger that the New York and federal indictments gave Trump a crucial edge by intensifying the devotion of his backers and consolidating support among former doubters.

The shifting sentiment carries outsized significance because Iowa is on pace to be the most important state in the Republican presidential primary. Most GOP insiders and political pros believe a Trump loss in the Iowa caucuses in January would likely prolong the primary fight. A convincing Trump victory would trigger a domino effect of cascading wins in each of the next four early states, all but assuring his nomination.

He also has a “commanding lead” in the polls in Iowa. Let’s hope this surge lets up by the Labor Day Weekend.  It sure is depressing to know that tomorrow is Independence Day, and a helluva lot of Republicans want to be dependent on a Putin-wannabe.

Maybe it’s these Hitler-quoting Moms for book banning and their hatefest in Philadelphia who will find the next Hitler-wannabe.

But, then, Moms for Liberty has similarly triggered warnings from the SPLC.

“Moms for Liberty and its nationwide chapters combat what they consider the ‘woke indoctrination’ of children by advocating for book bans in school libraries and endorsing candidates for public office that align with the group’s views,” the SPLC explains. “They also use their multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.”

The group’s genesis overlaps with two recent trends. The first was school closures during the pandemic, a move intended to limit the spread of the coronavirus that quickly became intertwined with partisan politics, just like everything else pandemic-related. The other was the backlash against including instruction about race in school curriculums, the “critical race theory” scare amplified by Fox News. That proved to be an effective organizing vehicle, particularly for parents on the right. In short order, LGBTQ issues were folded into the mix in an effort to use social issues as a political wedge.

This movement depends on an exaggerated sense of innocence. These are just parents worried about their kids! They simply want schools to focus on fundamentals, like reading and arithmetic, instead of teaching about systemic racism or oral sex! Why, even the government is trying to oppress them, what with its calling upset parents “domestic terrorists!”

That’s not what the government did, of course. Hearing concerns about increasingly aggressive threats to school officials and administrators, the Justice Department released a statement insisting it would crack down on threats of violence. The other assertions in the paragraph above are similarly misleading. There was no widespread effort to teach critical race theory to kids in schools, though there was an effort to use that term to broadly attack discussions of race. The criticisms of discussion of same-sex relationships is similarly overblown and often dependent upon the argument that there’s something inherently sexual about people of the same gender being in love.

Fanning the Flames, 2021, embroidery on fabric, 14.25 x 7.75 inches Iviva Olenick.

So, that’s it for me today. I’m going to go soak in a cold tub for a while or more. Maybe that will put out the fires.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?