Postcards from the class & culture wars (11.29.18)

November 29, 2018 By Fred Clark

“The study argues that it includes overlooked evangelicals of color, but it includes them as pawns that shore up the reputation of white evangelicals.”

“White evangelicals live in their own world, and Donald Trump and his allies rule it.”

“I suspect that one reason Walker failed so badly is that although he is conniving to his core, he is not smart.”

“Michael Milken might be the person in that room who has committed the fewest crimes.”

“No identification is needed to purchase cereal or any other breakfast food in the United States.”

“I don’t want to be that veteran on the street begging for change because I haven’t received what I was promised.”

“[Republican Sen. Mike] Lee warned of a brewing civil war, and claimed that the only way to avert violence would be to eradicate a long list of federal programs including ‘the interstate highway system,’ funding for ‘K through 12 public education,’ ‘federal higher education accreditation,’ ‘early childhood education, the Department of Commerce,’ ‘housing policy, workforce regulation,’ and what Lee labeled the ‘huge glut of federally owned land.'”

“You are not allowed to rake in other people’s forests, even if you for some reason would like it.”

“Paige Patterson, a former Southern Baptist Convention president who, at the time, was head of a prominent Baptist seminary, labeled SNAP as ‘evil-doers’ and said we were ‘just as reprehensible as sex criminals.’”

“If it led me to Rome, we’d be at the Vatican today.”

“People are people, but I tend to hold people in the ministry to a higher standard.”

“When repeatedly asked during a June House Financial Services Committee hearing whether he believed racial discrimination exists in America, his response was, ‘I have personally never observed it.'”

“Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea.”

“This summer, the Trump administration transferred nearly $10 million away from the agency that responds to disasters and emergencies, redirecting it toward one of President Trump’s top priorities — the deportation of undocumented residents of the U.S.”

“One of the nation’s largest student loan servicing companies may have driven tens of thousands of borrowers struggling with their debts into higher-cost repayment plans.”

“They’re opening up car plants. They’re opening up factories all over the country.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you, because, we’re part of the master race.”

“Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.”

“Who are you?”

“Unexpected item in the bagging area.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (11.5.18)

November 5, 2018 By Fred Clark

“I don’t know what’s going on in our country.”

“Wohl stopped responding to NBC News after being told Surefire’s official phone number redirects to his mother’s voicemail.”

“Why Did Synagogue Suspect Believe Migrant Caravan Is Jewish Conspiracy? Maybe He Watched Fox News.”

“The Fox spokesperson also did not respond to questions about Dobbs’ own rhetoric on Soros.”

“The terrorist that engaged in that synagogue shooting and my father have the same objective.”

“The justices, with no noted dissents, on Monday rejected the Republican appeal of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling throwing out the previous Republican-drawn map because it violated the state constitution’s requirement that elections be ‘free and equal’ by marginalizing Democratic voters.”

“It was as brazen a lie as any Trump has told. He simply took reality, turned it on its head, and asked Americans to believe the opposite of reality.”

“A Republican congressional candidate in a competitive race in North Carolina said in a sermon that there would be no peace in Israel unless Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity.”

“During one sermon, Harris showed his congregation a conspiratorial video claiming that Islam was taking over the world, including the United States.”

“[Washington state Rep. Matt Shea] argues that the United States is ‘a Christian nation’ and he asserts that his detractors are part of a so-called ‘counter state’ made up of ‘Marxists’ and ‘Islamists.'”

“White Supremacists Are Out of the Shadows and Running for Office. As Republicans.”

“My view is a federal minimum wage is a terrible idea.”

“I was protecting my own children and standing up for what’s right.”

“White evangelical Protestants are at odds with all other identified religious groups on many questions relating to immigration, race, the #MeToo movement and President Donald Trump.”

“Please Watch and Make your Deductions.”

“Brayton’s overt bigotry on Facebook — he posted a Ku Klux Klan blood-drop-cross insignia in June 2017 — underscores the trouble that social media companies are having as they try to keep menacing bursts of hatred off their platforms.”

“I’m tired of being confused with this racist dumbbell.”

“The Republicans, however, have failed the tests not only of responsible oversight, but of constitutional fidelity. Their removal from the majority is crucial to preserving a democracy that must survive long after Trump and his courtiers are gone.”

“This is hundreds, if not thousands of years of accumulated ideas and ways of being that we’re grappling with and it’s not going to get fixed overnight.”

“She inherited the mansion and its lands when her father died in 1857. But she didn’t stay long. That’s because her husband committed treason in defense of slavery.”

“UU churches aren’t for everyone.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (10.29.18)

October 29, 2018 By Fred Clark

“But Trump is right that at this point, he is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is him.”

“I’d like to be able to suggest a remedy that would resolve this dilemma, but frankly, I don’t have one.”

“They should be sanctioned for the sheer stupidity of the attempt, if not for the violation of the law.”

“Two weeks before the midterm elections, officials moved the Dodge City polling site outside the city limits and more than a mile from the nearest bus stop.”

“Which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.”

“The fossil fuel industry has called Pennsylvania an ‘easy take state.'”

“What we didn’t know then was that we were up against criminal behavior — people participating in criminal behavior and ignoring criminal behavior.”

“For Cruz, public office is a private quest; the needs of his constituents are secondary.”

“We will give your rapist counseling and drop all charges and let him go free.”

“The memo implored Assange and his guests to keep the bathroom clean.”

“The head of Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis’ Jewish outreach around Miami attended a Republican protest outside a campaign event that included participation by two members of the white nationalist group the Proud Boys.”

“A white nationalist writer who says he’s a canvasser for the gubernatorial campaign of Georgia Republican Brian Kemp is calling on voters to elect Kemp because, as he writes in a post on VDare, ‘I know everything I need to know about what happens when blacks are in charge.'”

“But at some point, we have to take people seriously when they treat migrants as an existential threat to civilization.”

“Just avoid using the n word and don’t reference Richard Spencer too much and don’t Jew hate just cause all the time.”

“Seventy-three percent of respondents reported that they stayed with an abusive partner longer than they wanted or returned to the partner for economic reasons.”

“I have known Ammar since he was 16 when he became part of our youth ministry.”

“At the end of the day, every senior that got off that bus, not only are they going to vote, but they’re going to get five to ten people to vote with them.”

“It was a bizarre event to host at the GOP’s Manhattan clubhouse, but the Metropolitan Republican Club defended McInnes and the Proud Boys after the fight.”

“For anyone with even a basic grasp of the mechanics of American elections, the situations and the conspiracies you would have to believe in order to give credence to widespread voter impersonation fraud make birthers and flat earth conspiracy theories seem reasonable.”

“The nearly hour-and-half-long video refers to Democrats as ‘dark and evil’ and features a bevy of American and European far-right, anti-Muslim white nationalists who make a correlation between gang rapes, Islam, and immigration.”

“It’s just the kind of direct experience with unpleasantness it seems take to get a conservative to care.”

“Oh, yeah, and Matt, welcome home. Amen.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (10.15.18)

October 15, 2018 By Fred Clark

“My hope would be that women in similar places as us would feel liberated from the expectation that you’re just doing the same thing you’ve always done, because it’s safe, because it’s what your pastor is telling you to do, or your husband.”

“Want to know what a real constitutional crisis looks like? Consider the current situation in West Virginia, where the House of Delegates impeached the entire state Supreme Court in August.”

“All voter ID laws are bad. But this one is uniquely so.”

“Why is it getting harder and harder for Native Americans to vote?”

“Under the guise of ‘voter roll maintenance,’ Kemp’s office has canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012, and nearly 670,000 registrations in 2017 alone.”

“Following intense scrutiny over his policy that blocked 53,000 Georgia residents from registering to vote, Georgia secretary of state and GOP candidate for governor Brian Kemp went after ‘outside agitators’ in a … statement.”

Sam Rothbort: Itka the Bundist Breaking Windows, 1930s–1940s

“A rare Reverse Milkshake Duck appears.”

“I have doubts about the magical psychological powers of Deputy Vann.”

“Scott Wagner, the Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, posted a video to Twitter … in which he announced his desire to step on opponent Tom Wolf’s face with his golf spikes — which could only have been a more Republican way of threatening someone if he did it while eating a cucumber sandwich.”

“She’s likened the progressive politics of the Obama administration to equal rights gains during the Reconstruction era, and cautioned that those gains could slip away, just as Reconstruction gave way to the Jim Crow era.”

“I love him so much I can hardly explain it.”

“And what we need is, we can empower the pharmaceuticals and make more money.”

“Methodist-supported Iliff School of Theology came into possession of a copy of a tome of church history bound in the hide of a murdered Native American. The book was on display at Iliff until 1974, when it was removed and the hide sent back east for proper burial at the insistence of a group of theology students in cooperation with the American Indian Movement.”

“This is a time like no other to be courageous.”

“It’s titled ‘Increase in unrelated business taxable income by disallowed fringe benefits,’ but you can call it the ‘Soak churches and other nonprofits to pay for rich people’s tax cuts‘ provision.”

“But that is hardly the fault of the victims of bigotry and greed. It’s directly the fault of powerful men like Sen. Sasse who refuse to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, well, he never had a Nobel Prize he had to hock to pay for nursing care.”

“They believe they can get away with it. Because we let them.”

“Neo-Nazis Blame The Jews For Taylor Swift Endorsing Democrats”

“Bristol man loses leg in mower after attacking son with chainsaw”

www.brettkavanaugh.com

Postcards from the class & culture wars (10.8.18)

October 8, 2018 By Fred Clark

“The vernacular tongue of the country has become greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted, by the style of our congressional debates.”

“In a written statement, Wheaton College said it was aware of the film.”

“The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you.”

“Despite spending more than $1.3 million, Heidi Group only managed to serve 2,300 clients, according to the new data.”

“It would be difficult to see my brother as anything but a racist.”

“A local TV reporter asked Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions about voting against VAWA reauthorization five years ago.”

“If someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex.”

“My whole life has been peppered with these things, gigantic and small, that have been sending me a very specific set of instructions about my place in the world. I’m exhausted by it. I’m lit up with rage about it. I’m resigned to it. I refuse to be resigned to it. I tell myself ‘not anymore.’ I know this list will grow.”

“As I tell my daughter, life isn’t fair.”

“We were taught to distrust women — beginning with ourselves.”

“36 U.S. states do not classify menstrual products a necessity and, therefore, do not exempt them from sales tax.”

“The President of the United States is getting in on the anti-Semitic action, claiming that protests against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, were ‘Paid for by Soros and others.'”

“On the particular issue of prayer of school, they’re teaching the Muslim religion in school now, but they can’t say the name Jesus. … I would like to see prayer back in school.”

“Lancaster’s sharing of the fake Blasey Ford photo comes after President Donald Trump openly mocked her at a Mississippi rally and the website 4chan continues to push the false narrative that the 2012 meme is of a young Ford.”

“I think she’s a liar and I think she deserves mockery. I think she is the perpetrator.”

“After his partisan rant, Kavanaugh will never be able to judge a case without the animus he expressed being considered a factor in his decision.”

“White people are divided over Kavanaugh; black people aren’t. And not to acknowledge that fact or probe the reasons why is a journalistic disservice.”

“This is Donald Trump’s America. But more, it is Roger Stone’s America.”

“Reasonable people can disagree about the appropriate remedy to this problem, but the first step is to recognize it exists.”

“To do what Greg Sagan is doing takes something more than optimism. It takes an irrational sense of duty.”

“Y’all need Jesus.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (9.20.18)

September 20, 2018 By Fred Clark

“The leading study found that 3.1 percent of women who attended services at least weekly had experienced a sexual advance as an adult from their clergy member or religious leader. That comes to one of every 33 churchgoing women.”

“These allegations, 99 percent of the time, are just absolutely fabricated.”

“My life is a direct rebuke of the idea that the legislative and court decisions that we make don’t have consequences.”

“I’m not a huge fan of men in general and even I don’t believe that each and every single man on this planet would have to bow out of government or law if people with histories of sexual predation were kept out of those fields.”

“In May 2017, he reported owing between $60,004 and $200,000 on three credit cards and a loan against his retirement account. By the time Trump nominated him to the high court in July 2018, those debts had vanished.”

“Kavanaugh has repeatedly sworn that he never received documents stolen by Republican Senate aide Manny Miranda — documents that he did, in fact, receive.”

“By his own standard, he should clearly be impeached.”

“The appointment of Judge Kavanaugh would threaten hard-won rights and protections for people with disabilities.”

“There are unanswered questions about Kavanaugh’s involvement in torture when serving as a White House lawyer between 2001 and 2006, while his opinions as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals from 2006 to the present undermine fundamental protections of the right not to be tortured.”

“I, too, grew up in the crime-ridden streets of Bethesda.”

“An arsonist was caught on video setting fire to a Planned Parenthood building in California.”

“The company declined to comment on any allegations regarding its finances and corporate structure, leadership on base, animal abuse, racism, pro-Apartheid social media posts, theft, misuse of money, security failures, rigged security inspections, the Iranian militia, procurement issues, generator explosions, confiscated passports, and HR complaints.”

“The Trump administration … rolled back an Obama-era rule that forced energy companies to capture methane — a key contributor to climate change that’s released in huge amounts during drilling on U.S. and tribal lands.”

“We keep watching key GOP officials admit that they want to cut programs like Medicare and Social Security. Maybe the public should believe them.”

“It interferes in your day it makes you think that hatred is sort of all around you. In some ways, it is.”

“The reason I became a skinhead was I had originally been a member of the Republican Party and always had what would be considered a right wing point of view on politics and the social environment.”

“They won’t accept a birth certificate but they will accept a family Bible?”

“The commerce secretary repeatedly lobbied the Justice Department to add the citizenship question after consulting with anti-immigration hardliners.”

“Among the attendees was Ronald Vitiello, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

“The Republican nominee to represent a state House district in Kentucky previously appeared on a white nationalist show and complained about minorities supposedly conspiring against whites.”

“The Orange County Republican Party Central Committee is poised tonight to endorse a school board candidate who has curated a ‘Holocaust hoax?’ YouTube playlist, promoted Islamophobic conspiracy theories on Facebook, referred to African Americans as “colored people” and protested a white privilege workshop alongside alt-right agitators who were scheduled speakers at Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally days later.”

“His publicist calls after our interview to make sure I know that Carlson is not a racist.”

“This should keep the black vote down considerably.”

“A curious number of people sure seem to be bursting into grateful tears in Trump’s presence.”

“We did not refer to historians. We were confident that the Internet would give us the correct information.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (8.29.18)

August 29, 2018 By Fred Clark

“I believe the Bible is about white people and for white people.”

“Republican gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis urged Floridians not to ‘monkey this up’ by voting for his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. Gillum is the first African-American gubernatorial nominee in Florida’s history.”

“In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings.”

“The [Kansas] Legislature passed the law, including a line that directed the KDHE not to look for contamination from dry cleaners.”

“The crowd for that speech … wanted more of something a lot more primal and sick than McCain was willing to give them, then or ever.”

“They are coming down here and bringing, I don’t want to say the thugs – but it is the thugs.”

“As DeVos works to funnel more taxpayer money to low-performing, for-profit colleges, she’s cracking down on federal-student-loan forgiveness.”

“You have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

“Later this year, North Carolina will probably hold its first truly free and fair election since 2010. It may also be the state’s last.”

“Oil industry wants government to build seawall to protect refineries from climate change effects.”

“Church leaders so often act as though sexual misconduct needs to be covered up so that the work of the church can go on. Confronting sin so that all can live in truth and hope isn’t an impediment to the church’s work; it is the work of the church.”

“We will not clean up a mess that’s not of our making.”

“We can’t treat mental illness with murder.”

“The researchers were stunned to find Russian troll accounts tweeting about vaccines, but unraveling why they would stoke the vaccine debate was mind-boggling, too.”

“Refugees make the country stronger, as well as better. They always have.”

“Ohio’s 2013 Medicaid expansion helped nearly 300,000 people get work.”

“The owner of a Longmont mobile home park intends to sell his 36-lot property to its residents, which would make it the city’s and Boulder County’s first tenant-owned mobile home neighborhood.”

“The Nuns on the Bus are headed to President Donald Trump’s backyard.”

“In football, prayer is — and has always been — political.”

Postcards from the class & culture wars (8.22.18)

August 22, 2018 By Fred Clark

“While the first-order political upshot of the Cohen and Manafort cases is that Trump seems to associate with an awful lot of criminals, the more disturbing implication is that there are a lot of white-collar criminals out there who aren’t being prosecuted because their lives don’t happen to intersect with a special counsel investigation.”

“As coal mining has collapsed across Appalachia, residents in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia have been socked with a double whammy — crippling electric bills to go along with a declining economy.”

“The global gag rule exacerbates global poverty and reverses progress toward combating maternal mortality, sexually transmitted diseases, unsafe abortions, and numerous other inequalities.”

“Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.”

“They are doing it with American help, killing nearly 10,000 civilians in the process as of late 2017.”

“During the first half of 2016, 1,574 Middle Eastern Christian refugees were admitted from the region, but in the first half of 2018, the United States has admitted only 23.”

“In China’s remote western province of Xinjiang, the Chinese government has begun constructing a series of internment camps larger than anything the world currently knows.”

“My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.'”

“Howke is — and I am not making this up — an old football buddy of Zinke’s.”

“To conceal and disguise his illegal activity, he misled his chief of staff by describing his regular golf outing with Individual 1 as ‘a Christian thing’ with a supporter.”

“On or about March 20, 2015, when Duncan Hunter told Margaret Hunter that he was planning ‘to buy my Hawaii shorts’ but had run out of money, she counseled him to buy the shorts at a golf pro shop so they could falsely describe the purchase later as ‘some golf balls for the wounded warriors.’”

“On average, Americans in the highest income group and the lowest income group have used the same total number of benefits.”

“White evangelicals remain the religious group closest to majority support for a wider prohibition on bringing refugees to the United States: 44 percent say they would support such a ban.”

“A speechwriter for President Donald Trump who attended a conference frequented by white nationalists has left the White House.”

“She agreed to testify against her smuggler. He went free; she’s still in ICE custody.”

“I Am trouBled by these chOices, particuLarly gIven the legal queStion at issue — Is Jaen a US citizen? — wHose affirmative answer has resulted in the United States government holding a UnIted States CitizEn in immigration detention for nearly two years.”

“The form was a forgery. Jonathan M. Love, the ICE attorney, had fabricated it for the specific purpose of securing Lanuza’s deportation.”

“Kobach, however, is a friend to white ethnonationalism. And Harvard not only didn’t stop him but helped give him the social prestige and power to carry out his mission.”

“Civil rights advocates are objecting to a proposal to close about 75 percent of polling locations in a predominantly black south Georgia county.”

“Randolph County doesn’t have a single recent report, analysis or document supporting the idea that it needs to close seven of its nine polling places due to accessibility issues.”

“State officials appear to have singled out black voters in targeted purges.”

“Registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.”

“It looks to be the result of a Republican-led challenge to thousands of Houston voters.” (via)

“Camp Lejeune has been characterized as a candidate for the worst water contamination case in U.S. history — and I am one of up to a million people who were poisoned.”

“It seems few people are enthused about having a pseudo-army patrolling their streets.”

“A good newspaper has no real friends and some fixed and certain enemies — namely those who wish to operate without the critique or attention of others.”

“House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy drew ridicule after claiming that he was unable to see a tweet because of censorship of conservative voices on social media — when the tweet was, in fact, withheld because of his own account settings.”

“I played along because I believed I had to — until I absolutely couldn’t do it anymore.”