It's Sunday

 The Pope is not influencing today's Catholic politicians.  Money is.  We can hope that having an American pope will cause some to think again, but the essence of the American Catholic church is not Christian, so it's a long shot at best.

I keep trying to tell them

 

Why does the punditry keep saying Dems need to move to the "center" (further right) in order to win more often?  Are they hoping if they say it enough it will be true?  It hasn't been true in decades - if it ever was.

It's Sunday

 

Of course they were doing it anyway.

It's Sunday

 

It's Sunday

“Pentecostalism represents a rare feat in American religion—a tradition that is growing,” said Ryan Burge, assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. And it plays well around the world. “The Pentecostal and charismatic movement is one of the biggest surges in the history of global and American Christianity,” said Frederick Clarkson, senior research analyst at Political Research Associates. In the most expansive definition, Pentecostalism now claims as many as 600 million adherents worldwide, or more than a quarter of all Christians.

The fact that matters today—just days after what Minnesota lawmakers have called a tragic, targeted political assassination of lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the attempted assassination of lawmaker John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette—is that this style of religion, though diverse in its various expressions, is often intensely political. The best illustration of the point comes from the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Associated with C. Peter Wagner, the theologian and professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Missions, NAR is less a denomination than a secretive network. Its hierarchy of leadership includes apostles at the top, prophets next, and several other ranks below, and they often serve as front-line captains in America’s culture wars.

In his 2008 book “Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World,” Wagner explained that God has commanded true Christians to gain control of the “seven molders” or “mountains” of culture and influence, or seven areas of civilization: government, business, education, the media, the arts and entertainment, family, and religion. “Apostles,” he says, have a “responsibility for taking dominion” over “whatever molder of culture or subdivision God has placed them in,” which he casts as “taking dominion back from Satan.”

  Contrarian Substack

Continue reading.

For future reference

I once read a paper showing that Republican elites were consciously destroying the environment in order to line their pockets because they believe that it's too late to save the earth, so they'll get what they can until it's over.  I have not been able to find that article, even though I think I posted a link to it some years ago.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to post this in hopes I can find it when I need it.  I've long said that the idea that the Democrats lose because they don't go far enough to the right, or they cater to the progressive wing of the party, is bunk.  They haven't yet tried to go further left, which is where, I believe, their success lies.  

Here's a study implying that...

 The trick will be if I can find it.

Texas may be waking up

 

Full thread here.

Democratic Party In a nutshell

 

Both make good points.  But, it's the Democratic Party leaders, strategists, and pundits who don't understand they're the party of the working class.  

And there's this...

Also, this is what Barack Obama got for his efforts:

So why do the pundits and journalists and strategists keep insisting that the Democrats need to move further right to win elections?

UPDATE 04/26/2025:

Is there something in the air?

Indiana’s Senate passed a bill, which already cleared the Indiana House, that would begin the process of absorbing Illinois counties that wish to break away from Cook County and Chicago.

The bill now heads to Gov. Mike Braun to be signed into law.

[...]

The legislation would create the “Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission” to redraw state lines to incorporate 33 rural Illinois counties that have passed non-binding referendums to split from the state.

Voters in those Illinois counties say they want to separate from Chicago and Cook County, saying voters in urban areas hold an outsized voice in Illinois politics, where Democrats hold a supermajority in the statehouse.

To annex the counties into Indiana and redraw the state’s borders, the process would have to include both Illinois legislature and Congress.

[...]

“Believe it or not, many of our constituents think this is a joke. They seriously think the General Assembly has more important policies to deal with, rather than sending political signals,” said Qaddoura (D-Indianapolis). “I’m proud of Indiana. I’m proud to be a resident of Indiana. I’m a proud legislator … I want my focus to continue to be that, not sending political messages to other states.”

[...]

“It’s a stunt. It’s not going to happen,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in January. Pritzker would ultimately have to approve the secession plan.

  My Stateline.com

I don't know all the possible drawbacks, but I say let them go.

Why would farmers still vote for Trump?

Another case of Republicans voting against their own interests.

[Small farmers] were already doing badly, and then came the tariff wars with China and the loss of a major market. There has been Trump's Market Facilitation Program (MFP), which is a bailout for farmers, but according to an analysis, the biggest operators sucked up the bulk of the money, putting small ones ever further behind.

[...]

[T]he top 10% of recipients—"the largest, most profitable industrial-scale farms in the country," according to the EWG—received half of all the dollars spent, in the form of multi-million dollar payments. The top 1% of recipients received 13% of payments. The bottom 80% received an average of $5,136.

[...]

When the owners don't have outside income that helps underwrite the costs, then 76.2% of low-sales farms (less than $150,000 a year) have below critical operating profit margin, according to the USDA ERS. From $150,000 to $349,999 gross income, 55.8% are below critical margins. And so it goes until you reach very large farms ($5 million or more) where only 24.6% are below critical.

In other words, small family farms (90% of all family farms) are in deep trouble normally. These latest shocks are helping to drive up farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides, as Chuck Jones wrote earlier this year at Forbes.com. These are people who badly need help.

[...]

[T]he farming industry is in dire straits and, you could easily argue, is a national security consideration. Having no food or other vital farm-based products is a disaster waiting to happen.

  Forbes

That was under Trump.

Donald Trump often espoused his love for America's farmers during his presidency.

But after a year under President Joe Biden, farmers say they're actually feeling the love.

[...]

While the focus of the Biden administration has been on its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and more recently the global standoff with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, the farm sector has fared quite well under the new administration, as farmers ease off of government bailouts and see a boost in commodity prices.

[...]

[I]n 2021, the majority of net farm income came from commodity sales and actual production "off the farm." Whereas in 2019, a "big chunk" of the income was coming from Market Facilitation Program payments, which were at the core of the Trump administration's effort to mitigate losses from its disputes with China and other trading partners.

[...]

Net farm income, a broad measure of profits, is estimated to have increased by $15.7 billion in 2020 relative to 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. The agency also forecast net farm income at $116.8 billion in 2021, the highest level since 2013.

[...]

Vincent Smith, a visiting fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said the Trump administration "severely disadvantaged" farmers with an ill-advised trade policy.

[...]

In 2020, Trump won a number of traditionally Republican farm states including Iowa, Texas, North Carolina and Nebraska.

  NBC

Why?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Got your passport in order?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No better description

Let my children go

I get frustrated, as I think most progressives do, with the timidity of our politician and leaders. The timidity is often defended as “realism.” The “public” isn't ready for that yet. And while that is probably true for my demographic and Fox viewers of every age, it is not true for the rest of the population. If you are reading this, you already know that Data for Progress has the receipts. Americans are overwhelmingly progressive on nearly every important issue.

And yet, “progressive” politicians are constantly making speeches and commercials reassuring the Baby Boomers that we aren't going to change things too fast.

[...]

We appease the political sensitivities [of] a generation – mine, the boomers – as if it were their future we were talking about. It is not. It is the future for the overwhelmingly progressive generations coming behind us whom we have stymied in every election, in every airing of political priorities and, of every debate about “what’s good” for America.

[...]

There have been encouraging developments in Minnesota: Progressives voting for progressive politicians and those politicians voting for progressive policy priorities! What a concept!

The highlights:

• The Minnesota legislature passed a budget that invests in education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
• The legislature also passed bills that protect the environment and promote clean energy.
• In addition, the legislature passed bills that make it easier for people to vote and to register to vote.
• Investing $1.5 billion in early childhood education.
  [...]
• Increasing funding for public schools by $1 billion.
• Expanding access to healthcare by expanding Medicaid and creating a public option for health insurance.
• Investing $1 billion in clean energy and energy efficiency.
• Making it easier for people to vote by expanding early voting and same-day registration.

[...]

In a country where progressives had the US House, Senate, and White House for two years, we achieved precious little to suggest that progressives ruled the country. Minnesota has shown us how it’s done.

[...]

And yet, we tiptoe around these issues like the kids at Thanksgiving not wanting to upset the grandparents by telling them that they’re atheists!

Why be so tentative about universal Health Care? Why be so tentative about aggressive green energy and climate change goals? These are things that need to happen and will happen and the sooner we do it, the happier we will ALL be, and the better a country and world we will leave to our kids!

   cmhmd @ Daily Kos

The US Senate is an undemocratic institution

The 25 most populous states contain nearly 84 percent of the 50 states’ total population. So 16 percent of the country controls half of the seats in the United States Senate.

  Vox

The Senate's transformation into a funhouse-mirror version of the House is a quiet emergency for democracy, because its members are still allocated equally among states. And since there now are a greater number of sparsely-populated, mostly-white, right-leaning states than there are heavily-populated, racially-diverse, left-leaning states, the Senate acts to preserve power for people and groups who would otherwise have failed to earn it. A voter in Wyoming (population 579,000) enjoys roughly 70 times more influence in the Senate than a voter in California (population 39.5 million), which sounds like the most unfair statistic in American politics, until you remember that taxpaying U.S. citizens in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico still have no influence in the Senate at all.

[...]

In presidential elections, the Senate guarantees at least three electors to seven states whose populations merit only one seat in the House: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Vermont, Wyoming, and both Dakotas. This scheme basically guarantees a net of six electoral votes to the Republican candidate, every single time; it is one of many absurd anachronisms that lead to America, say, spending four years under a president who earned a full 3 million votes fewer than his closest competitor.

  GQ

And it could happen again.

In a new memo, [Data for Progress] co-founder Colin McAuliffe writes that “the Senate is an irredeemable institution” that’s biased 3 percentage points in the GOP’s favor and systematically underweights the interests of nonwhite Americans.

Of course, the fact that the Senate gives extra weight to the interests of people who live in low-population states is not news.

[...]

As the US has gotten more diverse, that diversity has spread throughout the country unevenly. It’s not impossible for a state to be both small and diverse (Hawaii) or even small and heavily urbanized (Rhode Island), but lower-population states tend to be whiter, more rural, and less educated than average. The result is a system of “racism by proxy” that overweights the interests and opinions of white voters over those of black, Hispanic, and Asian voters.

The growing polarization of the white vote along the lines of population density and educational attainment has also supercharged the once-modest partisan skew of the Senate, making even the most popular changes to health care or minimum-wage policy an extremely heavy lift.

[...]

If California had been carved up into Massachusetts-sized states, it could be easily 15 or 16 separate entities — each with about four times the population of Wyoming — rather than the current mismatch.

  Vox

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ooooh, that's not a good look

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted on Thursday to expel two Democratic legislators who joined a protest on the House floor last week after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. On March 30, protesters gathered at the State Capitol, and Democratic Reps. Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson led a chant of "power to the people" from the House floor.

The resolution to expel Johnson failed by one vote.

  CBS

Here they are. Pearson, Johnson, and Jones: Spot the difference.

Jones said he was speaking for young voters in his district "terrified" by mass shootings and criticized the house for not expelling other members who had confessed to crimes or misbehaved in their roles.

[...]

"This is not about expelling us as individuals. This is your attempt to expel the voices of the people from the people's house. It will not be successful," Jones said before the vote. "Your overreaction, your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up."

[...]

The Tennessee House had previously expelled only eight lawmakers — six of them Confederate racists in the 19th century for refusing to affirm the citizenship of formerly enslaved Black people, one in the 20th century for a conviction of bribery, and one in the 21st century for sexual misconduct.

"Today's expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent," President Biden said in a statement Thursday night. "Rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly elected representatives of the people of Tennessee."

It's my understanding that special elections will be held to fill Pearson's and Jones' seats, and that they are eligible to run again. That should be interesting.

Ahead of the votes, Republican Rep. Johnny Garrett criticized the three lawmakers and moved to have a seven-minute video showing the lawmakers on the floor during the protest played.

[...]

The video showed Johnson, Jones and Pearson speaking on the house floor, using a bullhorn to amplify their voices. Some legislators were gathered behind them, and protestors could be heard in the background. Democrats questioned the video, because filming on the floor violates house rules, with Democratic chairman Rep. John Ray Clemmons calling it hypocritical that the person who made the video would not be punished the same way Johnson, Jones and Pearson were.

[...]

Several votes took place ahead of the vote to expel the legislators. Those votes were on bills including HB322, to harden schools with locked doors and drills, which was passed 95 to 4, with the "Tennessee Three" and one other Democrat voting no.

Because that will not work. The Nashville school of the latest shooting had locked doors. All these measures to "harden" schools don't work. But Republicans will try anything but gun control and assault rifle bans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04/08/2023:

The fallout from this is going to be enormous.

UPDATE 04/10/2023:

That was quick.

They weren't satisfied with one self-own committee

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"It's clearly carnival barker territory."  -- Stephen

Yep.  It's good for fundraising.

I like this map

One good use of the land voting map is to give you an idea of where you might want to live.  (I didn't realize south Texas had so much blue.)

Jelani Cobb

As it should be

Worth a listen

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.