Congresswoman Elise Stefanik wrongly labels her constituents

Some questions for Representative Elise Stefanik: This opinion letter about the Republican congresswoman that is New York state's 21st district representative to congress, was published in the Times Union newspaper, in Albany New York state. 

Dear Editor: have been a public school teacher for 27 years, doing my best to help students achieve success in school and in life. I have mentored them, I have consoled them in their grief and exalted with them in their successes, coached them, even fed them.

I was raised Roman Catholic and I have always tried to live my life by the church’s creeds, “You are your brothers’ keeper" and “There but for the grace of God go I.” I have always tried to help when asked, to help those in need.

I believe in freedom, all freedoms for all, not just those who look like me. Freedom to live like you choose, marry who you choose, freedom to control your own body, etc. You don’t get to pick and choose.

Representative. Elise Stefanik: Do you believe in freedom or don’t you?

I pay my taxes, I support law enforcement, I support the (veterans) troops, and I believe that the laws of our land apply to everyone. I live my life each day trying to be a good citizen, looking out for my neighbors and family.

And I voted Democratic. 

So, I ask you Ms. Stefanik, when did I become a “pedo-grifter?" So, now, I’m a pedophile because I voted for Democrats? When did I become a “communist”? Please, let me know how and when this happened?

From Sergio Diana in  Colonie, New York

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is not liked in NY District 21

Stefanik blatantly misleading public echo opinion letter published in the Daily Gazette, a newspaper covering the communities around Schenectady, NY.

Rep. Elise Stefanik is at it again, lying and gaslighting to cover up the revelations of the January 6 select committee of the House of Representatives.

tRumpzi cult is riding with Stefanik

Stefanik played loose with the truth in telling the public this week that the Jan. 6 committee is devoid of Republican input and is nothing but a dog-and-pony show staged by the Democrats.

Elise Stefanik is ordained into the tRumpzi cult!

Yahoo! Stefanik is in the tRumpzi cult! 

Most of the witnesses called by the committee have been Republicans with an abundance of first-hand knowledge of the lead-up to and execution of the seditious riot. The Republicans initially shunned an attempt to create a bi-partisan investigation.
Many Republican witnesses have defied subpoenas or invoked the Fifth Amendment.

It’s astounding how the Republican base allows Stefanik and the rest of the acolytes to mislead them while taking out their angst on those Republicans who put country over party and have come forward to tell the truth — under oath. Liz Cheney, a pure conservative Republican, has taken a key role in the proceedings.
It’s up to voters to hold Stefanik accountable and recognize her brazen dishonesty in the name of sheer politics. The survival of our democracy depends on it.

From Al Singer,  Ballston Spa

Can Congresswoman Elise Stefanik read? IDTS

Echo opinion letter published in the the Glenn Falls New York Post Star newspaper:

I called my Congresswoman Elise Stefanik with a few questions. I called her Glens Falls office, and trying to get answers I also spoke to her Washington, D.C. office.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is my rendition of the Lady MacBeth in the U.S. House. New York District 21 deserves better. 
"O horror, horror, horror! / Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee"— MACDUFF; ACT 2 SCENE 3

These are my questions:

1. How do you justify a president who does nothing to stop a violent mob from breaking into the Capitol?

2. How do you explain away the testimony of Trump’s own appointees and White House aides demanding Trump intervene to stop the mob and Trump turning a deaf ear?

3. Explain to me how any president could watch Fox News coverage of an armed mob chanting to hand Mike Pence, and respond by tweeting Pence is a coward and further inciting the mob’s violence.

4. Explain to me how this is not a dereliction of duty.

The answer I received from her Glens Falls office was: The Congresswoman has made no statement on that. Four times.

The answer from her Washington, D.C. office was: I have no statement, I will pass those questions along to the congresswoman to get back to you.

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik's fan club chant: "Double, double, toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble—" THREE WITCHES; ACT 4 SCENE 1 (Elise Stefanik is a Trumpzi groupie)

Each time I gave my contact information and each time I said I have called your office in the past and the only response I received was an email form letter which never addressed my questions.

If I get anything different such as an answer to my questions I will send them into the paper.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

From Janet Palitsch, in Lake Luzerne

Tennessee can do better than right wing Senator Marsha Blackburn

Echo to the editor of the Williamson Herald newspaper, in Tennessee.

Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is an airhead - but that's just my Maine Writer opinion.

Senator Marsha Blackburn in a Republican right wing Senator who claims to represent Tennessee: Disgusted by Blackburn’s column.

To say I (i.e., the letter writer) was disgusted by Marsha Blackburn’s commentary about Critical Race Theory written in [a recent] email (and published on her website) from the Herald is an extreme understatement. 

Blackburn writes on her website: 

What Senator Blackburn Is Doing To Stop Critical Race Theory

Although I respect that she has a right to speak her mind, it is, nevertheless, deeply disturbing to be reminded that our state is represented in the U.S. Senate by someone who is so willing to fan the flames that keep our country divided by writing a piece of propaganda like this.

Senator Blackburn has also pushed for legislation to prohibit federal funding for the “1619 Project". 

Please allow me to clear the air on a few basic points, using facts instead of falsehoods. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has not been taught in our state’s or county’s public schools. Further, “the left” is not making an effort at “brainwashing” our kids or “shaming” white children in our state/country’s schools. And CRT does not actively encourage discrimination, nor does it “segregate people into two main categories: oppressors or victims.”

CRT “at its core” (to borrow Mrs. Blackburn’s words) IS about understanding inequality and racism in our country and encouraging debate about how we should address it. It IS based on the idea that racism is a part of our everyday lives as it is embedded into our legal systems and policies. And as such, people who do not intend to be racist may make choices that fuel racism.

It is about outcomes, not only individuals’ own beliefs. And it calls for these outcomes to be studied and rectified. Clearly, there is much room for debate about how outcomes can be rectified, but we should welcome such debate, not stymie it. 

We need to broaden our children’s world view, not narrow it Mrs. Blackburn points out the voice of one parent (of many, I’m sure). But there are also many parents who believe — as my wife and I do — that our kids are very capable of critically considering many ideas. We believe it is important that they are exposed to these kinds of ideas and that they should be encouraged to consider the implications of our history, both the good and the bad, including how it has informed both our historical and current laws and policies. This is why we are so concerned by the law recently passed in TN (SB 0623) and by propaganda like Mrs. Blackburn is spreading.

I agree, parents need to show up at school board meetings. But we need to show up to make sure that our kids are allowed to learn about institutionalized racism. We need to make sure our board members understand that we know this teaching does not imply that white kids are demonized. Rather, we believe it is important that our kids are allowed to consider ideas in a broader context. Our kids are very capable of critically considering these kinds of ideas, and they need to be given the opportunity to do so.

Sincerely,  Tony Caudill in Franklin Tennessee 

Bipartisanship instructions from Madison and Aquinas

Bridges, not fences! Published in Deseret News, in Utah.

Echo opinion:  A fence won’t bridge the political gap: The political divide in America was not what our founders intended for us. We can still build bridges instead of fences By Brad Barber.

When I was 16, my parents decided to send me to my grandfather’s ranch to work for the summer. They said it would build character.

Bipartisanship is about building political bridges.

They were right.

Grandpa put me in charge of a team of workers to install a 300-foot line of fence — a project that required operating heavy equipment and welding a daunting number of pipes. I felt like a true cowboy.

After a few weeks, my team finished installing the fence. Then grandpa came out to inspect our work. He closed one eye and sighted the fence line. “These fences are jagged,” he said. After a harsh chastisement, he told me there was only one solution: rebuild.

Today, the United States has constructed a jagged fence line dividing us. We are a nation that is grossly misaligned.

In a recent poll published by The Washington Post, more than 80% of President Joe Biden and the former guy Donald Trump voters agreed that elected officials of the opposing party “present a clear and present danger to the American democracy.” Another poll showed that nearly 80% of Americans have few or no friends across the political aisle. 

In short, Republicans and Democrats don’t like each other.

America was not born with this contemptuous spirit. Consider our founding Constitutional Convention. Two months after the assembly convened, it was on the verge of collapse from political gridlock. In the convention’s darkest hour, Benjamin Franklin showed true American spirit. He invited all delegates — federalists and anti-federalists — to his elegant mansion for dinner, perhaps in the hope that a venue change would help his colleagues overcome the stalemate. In the friendly environment of Franklin’s home, seasoned with ample food and humor, they were finally able to reach a compromise.

Unfortunately, such bipartisan camaraderie seems unimaginable today.

But, like my grandpa’s fences, the contempt that plagues our politics can be uprooted and replaced with bridges of bipartisanship. I suggest three building blocks to get us started.

Learn from our political counterparts:  We Americans dislike education in our political lives. We make our politicians pay at the ballot box for adapting to new knowledge. And studies have shown we are resistant to new learning that tends to undermine our closely-held political beliefs.

Such close-mindedness is self-defeating. Princeton researchers found the echo chambers we create for ourselves, including on social media, lead to even greater polarization.

Let’s buck the trend. Liberals, read an opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal or the National Review. Conservatives, try reading something from The New York Times or The Washington Post. Challenging, rather than constantly reaffirming, our political beliefs may help us refine our own thinking. We can all learn something new, even from those we oppose.

Love everyone:

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was a theologian and a Scholastic philosopher

To love one another, despite our political differences, is an act of will. As Thomas Aquinas said in his “Summa Theologica,” “To love is to will the good of another.”

Do we “will the good” of our political adversaries? The diatribes on social media or cable news suggest not. Our friends, politicians and political commentators are too often quick to denigrate the political opposition — sometimes resorting to ugly mudslinging.

Personal attacks are counterproductive. We need positive policies that promote prosperity, not shameful tactics that promote partisanship.

Take breaks from politics:  Finally, we need occasional breaks from cable news. Instead, use that time for quality socializing with loved ones. It’s good for us. Research shows that consuming too much political news damages our well-being.

James Madison (1751-1836) father of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. President from 1809-1817.

The last word:  In 1787, James Madison cautioned that the rise of a “factious spirit” amongst the American populace has the power to “inflame (mankind) with mutual animosity” and to “render them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.” That warning is especially relevant today.

Our country was founded on a strong tradition of camaraderie and compromise, not contempt and combativeness. We must restore this American tradition.

Let’s uproot the jagged fences that divide us. Let us rebuild with bridges that bring us together.

Brad Barber is a recent graduate of Brigham Young University and Harvard Law School. He is an attorney practicing in Salt Lake City.

Trump is exposed as unfit and unqualified during January 6 House Select Committee hearings

An echo opinion letter published in the Lowell Sun newspaper, in Massachusetts. "...no one around to change Trump's diaper!" 🤣

For those of us who are not followers of former guy Donald Trump, the January 6 hearings have actually not shown us much about Trump that was not already known. 

But, thanks to the courageous political leadership on the House Select Committee, the heaaraings they have done a great deal to illuminate the depths of Trump’s unsuitability, unqualifications and unfitness to hold the highest office in the land. It is difficult to overstate how much he has done to poison the well of civil discourse in American politics.

He didn’t like the results of the 2020, presidential election, he didn’t agree with them, he got mad, there was no one around to change his diaper, and here we are!

Despite all that, Trump's delusions deserves our compassion. Anyone with clear and present mental and psychological disorders — even as loathsome an individual as Donald Trump — deserve our sympathy as a fellow human being. But, sympathy is one thing. 

And if a person is egotistical, narcissistic, megalomaniac, amoral, unhinged, completely divorced from reality, heeds no voice other than his own, and thinks he is above the law, the last thing we should want is to see that person elevated to the office of president.

If the January 6 committee is building a case of criminal conduct to bring against Trump, it should recall that several people, mostly Capitol Police officers, died during or as a result of injuries sustained during the January 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol. Since the deaths would not have happened without the riots, and since Trump is directly responsible for the riots, he is therefore responsible for those deaths, and should be held accountable. 

In my opinion, the blood of those innocent citizens is on his hands.

Or, what about perjury — the act of lying under oath, which is a crime? The presidential oath includes the words: “… and I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” You could drive a bus between the words Trump spoke when he became president and the actions he took during his final month in office.

It confounds all reason that this disgraceful man still has followers who will vote for him and hang on his every word. If Trump should run again for president, there are Republicans who would support his candidacy. When Trump vomits all over the Constitution, there are self-described “conservatives” who will fall over themselves rushing to lick it up.


The day may still come when all the (black booted!) “Storm Trumpers” begin to wake up and realize that Trump doesn’t give a flying bleep about them or their lives or their circumstances. He cares about himself, and what he says, and what he wants. Someday the light will switch on and the Trumpsters (aka "Trumpzis") will get it. Then we’ll see a reckoning and a real riot. But, despite his promises, Trump will not be there with you.

— J.F. Dacey, in Lowell, Massachusetts

Michigan medical students take a stand to support abortion care

As a nurse, I wish abortions were rare. Nevertheless, the risks of making abortions illegal put women at risk of morbidity and death. In my opinion, the general public does not understand about how making all abortions illegal will cause many innocent women to suffer as a result of being forced to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy or others that may be forced to bear a fetus conceived as a result of rape or incest. 

Echo report published in Medscape Nurses

Dozens of University of Michigan medical students walked out of their white coat ceremony Sunday as a keynote speaker began to talk. 

A Twitter video showing the walkout has gone viral. By press time, the video had garnered more than 9.5 million views. 

In fact, the walkout comes days after more than 340 medical students at the school had signed a petition opposing the selection of Michigan assistant professor Kristin Collier, MD, for the ceremony because of her anti-abortion views, according to The Michigan Daily.

In response to the incident, a medical school spokeswoman told Medscape Medical News that Collier was chosen to be speaker "based on nominations and voting by members of the U-M Medical School Gold Humanism Honor Society, which is comprised of medical students, house officers, and faculty."

The press statement continued, "The White Coat Ceremony is not a platform for discussion of controversial issues. Its focus will always be on welcoming students into the profession of medicine. Dr. Collier never planned to address a divisive topic as part of her remarks. However, the University of Michigan does not revoke an invitation to a speaker based on their personal beliefs."

The university further stated that it remains committed to providing reproductive care for patients, including abortion care, which remains legal in Michigan following the recent US Supreme Court ruling overturning abortion rights, according to the statement by Mary Masson, director of Michigan Medicine public relations.

The state has an abortion ban, but a recent court order temporarily blocked enforcement of it, according to the statement.

In her speech, Collier recognized the divisiveness of the issue. "I want to acknowledge the deep wounds our community has suffered over the past several weeks. We have a great deal of work to do for healing to occur. And I hope for today, for this time, we can focus on what matters the most, coming together with a goal to support our newly accepted students and their families."

Following applause from the remaining audience, she continued to offer advice for the incoming students about how to thrive in their chosen profession.

Collier, a graduate of the medical school and director of its Health, Spirituality and Religion program, has 15.2K Twitter followers. She has been known to post anti-abortion sentiments, including those cited in the students' petition.

"While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion, an anti-choice speaker as a representative of the University of Michigan undermines the University's position on abortion and supports the non-universal, theology-rooted platform to restrict abortion access, an essential part of medical care," the petition reads, in part.

The petition states that the disagreement is not over personal opinions. "We demand that University of Michigan stands in solidarity with us and selects a speaker whose values align with institutional policies, students, and the broader medical community. This speaker should inspire the next generation of healthcare providers to be courageous advocates for patient autonomy and our communities."

For more news, follow Medscape on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Nurses unions at a critical place in Maine with decertification vote looming

Nurses unions have not improved the quality of patient care.  Moreover, the union movement in nursing has done nothing to improve patients' access to health care.  As a registered nurse, I have been unable to understand the value of having nurses unionized. What nurses need is the ability to provide expertly professional care by being authorized to use the full scope of their license to practice.

Nursing: " I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug", Florence Nightingale (1920-1910).

Maine nurses to vote on union decertification By Christian Wade / The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Nurses at one of Maine's largest hospitals will vote next month on whether to drop union representation they approved more than a year ago. A proposal would decertify the Maine State Nurses Association (in fact, this is dba, - "doing business as" because the name of the organization is real the California Nurses Association, affiliated with the SEIU)...as the union representative for about 2,000 registered nurses working at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, the flagship hospital for the state's Medicaid program, and other locations. 

Voting is expected Aug. 17 or 18.

The proposed decertification comes more than a year after 57% of nurses voted to unionize under the MSNA, a process that was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that oversees employment relations. The Maine union is an affiliate of National Nurses United, one of the largest nurses unions.

New rules adopted by labor board in 2020, allow unionized workers to request a decertification vote, but they must wait at least a year after the initial certification vote to put the referendum up for consideration by its membership.

The nurses who pushed for the vote are backed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which argues that the certification vote was approved by a "dubious" mail voting process. The decertification vote next month will be held in person at several locations.

"Maine Medical Center employees are more than reasonable in their desire to oust Maine State Nurses Association union officials, who came to power at the facility through a questionable mail-ballot vote and have failed to produce a contract in over a year," Mark Mix, the group's president, said in a statement.

"No health-care worker should be subject to the monopoly control of a union that they don’t believe serves their interests," he added.

The group argues that mail balloting elections "benefit union organizers" because of lower turnout among voters. It also argues that mail balloting has resulted in "post office errors that disenfranchise workers" and alleges that union organizers engage in "ballot harvesting" which "undermines the privacy of workers’ votes."

While the nurses have had union representation for more than a year, they have still yet to finalize a contract with the Maine Medical Center. That has led to recent job actions with nurses calling for improved working conditions and other workplace issues.

The foundation says it has provided legal advice to public sector workers in several states – including Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts – to "remove unwanted unions" from hospitals and other health-care settings.

But representatives of the nurses union say they are close to reaching a deal on a contract with the medical center, and predict that the decertification effort will fail.

"The question in this election is if nurses want to continue using their collective voice to make things better at Maine Medical Center, or hand all of the decision making power back to management," Todd Ricker, a chief negotiator with the Maine State Nurses Association, said in a statement on the upcoming vote.

"The strong majority of nurses wants to win this election, keep the union, and continue winning real improvements for their patients and themselves," he added

Protect women's lives by supporting pro-choice policy

Women will die as a result of the dangerous reversal of Roe V. Wade by the US Supreme Court!

Roe v. Wade reversal is outrageous; it’s time to vote!

An echo opinion letter published in the Summit Daily newspaper circulated in Frisco, Colorado.

Dear Editor, I was disappointed by the Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade. In thinking about it over the past couple of weeks, however, I’m now hopeful that the court decision will ultimately support the women who vote to uphold their right to abortion and protect them from being forced to carry to term a fetus conceived via rape or incest.

I’m an example voter. I have conservative family members that base their vote solely on the abortion issue. I personally didn’t think Roe would be overturned, so abortion hasn’t been a “litmus test” voting issue for me.

Well now it is!

Going forward, I will verify that a candidate is pro-choice before I vote for them. In Pew research (circa last month), 61% of US adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Reversing Roe will have the net effect of turning a lot of nonactivist moderates (like me) into activists. It is forcing everyone to rethink exactly where they stand and this will ultimately be a good thing for reproductive rights.

Just vote! From Tom Moore in Dillon, Colorado 

Republicans and Holocaust denial

Republicans are having difficulty deciding how they should think about Nazis and the Holocaust. 

Unbelievably, they even deny the actions they have publicly taken, propagate and then delete messages, verbally promote and legislatively limit teaching about what the Nazis did. They seem confused (Dah! ya'think?), but aren’t. Some Republicans cozy up to Nazis. Some Republicans, often the same ones, call Democrats Nazis. Many Republicans across the country are attacking the foundation of Holocaust teaching. These three arms of Republican behavior around the Nazis have a single result: (Danger!) to trivialize the Holocaust.

From 1933-1945 the world watched in shameful silence as the demonic anti-Semite, Adolf Hitler, attempted to exterminate the Jewish people from Europe.

Embracing Nazis always makes news. Carl Paladino, Republican nominee for NY Governor in 2010, Trump’s NY campaign chair in 2016, and current House candidate, is simply the latest fascist advocate. In a radio interview last year, which somehow did not become public news until this month, he praised Hitler: “He would get up there screaming these epithets and these people were just, they were hypnotized by him. I guess that’s the kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational. We need somebody that is a doer.” Paladino combines admiration for Nazis and old-fashioned American racism: in 2016, he hoped that Barack Obama would die of mad cow disease and suggested that Michelle Obama be “let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.”

Amazingly, the overlap between conservative Republicans and neo-Nazism has a long history. Former Nazis and neo-Nazis were founders of the Republican Heritage Groups Council in 1969, which excluded Black and Jewish Americans. 

Some Republican candidates in the 2018, elections were open Nazis, white supremacists and/or Holocaust deniers: Vox said 5, the Forward said 9. Illinois Rep. Mary Miller approvingly quoted Hitler the day before the January 6 riots, and recently won the Republican primary.

More Republicans stand next to Nazis without themselves praising Hitler. Arizona Republican office holders and candidates appeared at a 2021, rally organized by Matt Braynard, former director of data and strategy for Trump’s 2020, campaign, featuring Greyson Arnold as a speaker, who calls Nazis “the pure race” and supports the neo-Nazi group Stormfront. 

Mroeover, the Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin appeared this year at the America First Political Action Conference, which is hosted by white nationalists who express antisemitism and deny the Holocaust. She posed for pictures with Holocaust denier Vincent James Foxx. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stood proudly next to Nazi-sympathizer Nick Fuentes at the same conference, where he later praised Putin and Hitler.

White supremacy has become integral to Republican messaging. A Twitter employee in 2019 argued internally that getting rid of racist content would involve deleting Republican Party messages, including Trump’s: “on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material”. Prominent Republicans who have openly promoted the “white replacement theory” that Democrats are trying to replace real Americans with ethnic minorities in order to win elections include Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik. FOX’s Tucker Carlson has been the most vocal propagator of this theory. German Nazis could not have been so bad if our political celebrities want to take selfies with their American cousins and parrot their racist nonsense.

It only seems contradictory that for many Republicans, including those who happily consort with American fascists, “Nazi” is a favorite label for politicians and government employees they don’t like. Donald Trump, Jr., in 2018 said the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform was “awfully similar” to Nazi Party platforms. Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania nominee for governor, compared Democrats’ gun control proposals to the Nazis in 2018 and again this year. In June 2021, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry said Democrats were like Nazis who want to destroy America. Even though Trump’s most notable achievement was the development of a vaccine, Republicans as a Party have criticized every government effort to save lives through masks and vaccines. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert called government advocates of vaccinations “needle Nazis” and “medical brownshirts” in front of a cheering CPAC crowd in July 2021. Sen. candidate Josh Mandel in Ohio in April 2021 and Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson in January 2022 compared our government’s health policy to the Nazis. Lara Logan, a host on Fox News Media’s streaming service, said in November that Anthony Fauci “represents Josef Mengele”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene denounced the media for comparing Republicans to Nazis in May 2021, then said the Democrats were the “national socialist party”. When Nancy Pelosi announced rules in May 2021 requiring unvaccinated members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor, Greene said on a Christian Broadcasting Network program: “You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” After the American Jewish Congress tweeted back, “Such comparisons demean the Holocaust”, she insisted: “I stand by all of my statements; I said nothing wrong, I think any rational Jewish person didn’t like what happened in Nazi Germany, and any rational Jewish person doesn’t like what’s happening with overbearing mask mandates and overbearing vaccine policies.” She was so convinced of her imagery, she used it the next week in a tweet about one company’s vaccination policy: “Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s [sic] forced Jewish people to wear a gold star.”

Greene is not demeaning the Holocaust. Playing with Nazis, calling her opponents Nazis, and comparing herself to Jewish Holocaust victims all serve to diminish the Holocaust. Republicans are attempting to remake the Holocaust into a normal political event. If America’s doctors are like German Stormtroopers, if requiring one’s employees or our members of Congress to follow the most obvious public health rules is like murdering thousands of Jews and others every day for years, then the Holocaust as a singular event has disappeared.

Weeks later Greene apologized. As one of the most public faces of the Republican Party, she had gone one step too fast in pursuit of the Party’s goal of normalizing the Holocaust.

The Holocaust is a dangerous subject for American conservatives, because it was the mass murder of Jews by Christians. A few prominent Nazis espoused crackpot theories of Aryan paganism, and Polish Catholics and Russian Orthodox Christians were also slaughtered in vast numbers. But the murder of 6 million Jews was the culmination of centuries of official Christian persecution. Teaching about the Holocaust should begin with the Bible and must explain the violent antisemitism of nearly all Christian denominations right into the 20th century. Anti-Jewish racism was embedded in Christian European and American societies and their legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white Christians. The recognition of Christian responsibility for Western antisemitism and the Holocaust led every Christian denomination in Western Europe and America after 1945 to repudiate centuries of their own dogma.

The wave of Republican censorship of public school and university curricula in response to the sudden American reckoning on race after George Floyd’s murder purports to be about “critical race theory”. When Florida’s Board of Education banned “critical race theory” from public school classrooms one year ago, the Board seemed to protect Holocaust education by also banning any teaching that denies the Holocaust. But their language points in the opposite direction. Critical race theory “distorts historical events” by asserting “that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.” The Holocaust was caused by precisely such embedded white supremacy. And like American anti-Black racism, that white supremacy had deep roots in official Christianity.

I have seen my students become uncomfortable when confronted with facts about Christian persecution of Jews and Nazi admiration for American Jim Crow legislation in the 1930s as a model for the Nuremberg laws. The American eugenicist Madison Grant, whose 1916 eulogy for Nordic supremacy was entitled “The Passing of the Great Race”, was equally popular with American segregationists and Adolf Hitler, who called the book his “bible”. They were disturbed by the realization that German Jews, from the passage of Nuremberg Laws in 1935 until the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, were treated essentially the same as African Americans here, whose racial persecution continued unabated into the 1960s. That same knowledge frightens today’s right-wing Christians across the Western world. The Christian nationalist parties in Europe all seek to diminish the Holocaust, especially the role played by Christians in their own nations: those in power in Poland and Hungary, and those trying for power in Germany and France.

The literal wording of recent Republican censorship laws bans education that doesn’t exist. The fake narrative that critical race theory is taught in public schools is the basis of this wave of legislation. A different and broader invention imperils Holocaust education: the claim in Wisconsin’s 2021 law that it is necessary to forbid teachers from indoctrinating their students with the idea “that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex and that an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for acts committed in the past by other individuals of the same race or sex.” That kind of systematically damaging pedagogy was in fact integral to American education for centuries. The long racial reckoning which began in the 1960s demonstrated how white supremacy was written into all levels of educational curricula. The claim that American racism is over, the foundation of the attacks on critical race theory, ignores the continuing power and weight of adult Americans who were subject for years to those curricula, as I was.

Any hint that a teacher is promoting racial or gender superiority is likely to be called out without any help from new laws. The Republicans are not anxiously hunting for hidden examples of white supremacy or male superiority. That’s what they promote. They want their supporters to believe that they will reveal and defeat the teaching that blacks are superior to whites and that women are superior to men, exactly the kind of fake crisis that dominates the politico-cultural war.

Over years of interacting with teachers of the Holocaust, I never heard of any who told students that they bore “responsibility for acts committed in the past by other individuals of the same race or sex”. Holocaust teachers do mention that this was precisely what Christian churches had been saying for centuries about Jews. Such claims were fundamental to murderous persecution. But inducing guilt in today’s students is hardly useful in teaching history.

The discussions during the Republican effort in Louisiana to ban critical race theory display how the right-wing ideology of the Holocaust plays out at the state level. Republican state representative Valarie Hodges sponsored a bill in 2021 to mandate Holocaust education in Louisiana. Hodges was an avid promoter of the idea that Democrats are as bad as Nazis. She was part of the effort of conservative Republicans in the state to require the teaching of patriotic themes in American history and to block more teaching about America’s racial history. Hodges brought a Metairie resident to testify about the dangers of “communism” in our government: “To put it in Holocaust terms, the communists are now the Nazis and we are the Jews. They are the predators. We are the prey. We need to teach this history to our future citizens so we don’t end up like the Jews.” No Jewish organizations testified in favor of Hodges’ bill. The executive director of the American Historical Association, Jim Grossman, speaking for professional historians in America, recognized the ultimate goal. “You’re saying, ‘You have to teach the history of the Holocaust, but you can’t teach the history of institutionalized, deeply embedded racism in the United States.’”

Rep. Ray Garofalo, the head of the Louisiana House Education Committee, sponsored a bill barring teaching about institutional racism. He then slipped and said the right-wing truth: any lessons about American slavery should include “the good, the bad, the ugly”. Garafalo’s other unprofessional antics made him such an easy target, that the Republican Speaker of the House removed him as chair, and replaced him with another Republican. All the bills about mandating and preventing subjects in Louisiana public education ultimately failed.

The legislative history of Republican censorship in Arizona offers similar clues about what the issues are and what will be attempted in the future. Arizona Republicans in the state legislature are unanimously in favor of putting an amendment to the state’s constitution before the voters. The bill’s lengthy section B enumerates seven varieties of fake complaints about non-existent educational practices. The key is section A: teachers in public schools from elementary to high school: “may not use public monies for instruction that promotes or advocates for any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex”. The bill’s sponsor, Michelle Udall, argued that, “If a teacher can’t teach [history] without placing blame or judgment on the basis of race, they shouldn’t be teaching.” She was clear about what she meant: it will be okay to say that a mass murder in a Buffalo grocery story happened, but it would “not be appropriate” to say that the mass murderer was a white supremacist. Her bill would insure that such teachers could be personally punished. Republicans in the Arizona House and Senate unanimously voted in favor. The bill was signed into law as part of a budget whose main item was a tax cut for better-off Arizonans.

How does one teach the Holocaust or slavery without detailing the responsibility of particular human groups for inhuman treatment of fellow humans of other groups based on racist ideologies?

Conservative politicians can count on well-funded organizations to create the local crises around curriculum that alarm enough parents to get educators fired. Nearly 900 school districts across the country, educating one-third of all public school students in the country, were targeted by anti-CRT efforts from September 2020 to August 2021. The most thorough study of the nationwide campaign against teaching about race concluded: “The anti “CRT” effort is a purposeful, nationally/state interconnected, and locally-driven conflict campaign to block or restrict proactive teaching and professional development related to race, racism, bias, and many aspects of proactive diversity/equity/inclusion efforts in schools, while — for some — gaining political power and control. The conflict campaign’s loudest, most powerful voices caricature actual teaching and stoke parent anxiety in a quest to control both schools and government.”

The real danger that Republican curricular censorship presents to Holocaust teaching is not the occasional eruption of stupidity, as in Southlake, Texas. Texas House Bill 3979 requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. Gina Peddy, the executive director of curriculum and instruction in the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, told teachers,

“Just try to remember the concepts of 3979 . . . make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.” That caused a small scandal. Despite posing for photographs with Holocaust deniers, Republican politicians don’t yet demand that Holocaust denial become part of the curriculum.

But when Holocaust denial comes from within the community, from antisemitic parents, the new laws make teaching difficult. A North Carolina teacher wrote: “My SUPERINTENDENT asked us to advise students to ‘ask your parents’ rather than insist that the Holocaust was real. We received professional development to help us navigate this political environment safely. Our superintendent attended and told us to advise kids to ‘ask your parents’ instead of try to show evidence to a child whose family swears the Holocaust didn’t happen.”

New Republican laws and their emboldened approach to white supremacy will inevitably lead to an attack on any Holocaust teaching which goes beyond the discussion of prejudice to analyze the power of embedded racism and Christian white supremacy.

For Republicans, teaching the histories of America and of the Holocaust is too dangerous to allow. Those educations cause intellectual, then social disturbance. Both explain the role of embedded racism in Western society and the disastrous consequences. The Holocaust is over, and Christian nationalists all over Western society have been calling for Jews to get over it. But American racism and sexism are not. The success of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements in demonstrating the continuing influence of male and white supremacy has frightened Christian conservatives. They are using the inevitable discomfort of students learning that their predecessors committed genocide to try to sanitize the history they will learn.

The American Association of University Professors and the American Historical Association, along with other educational organizations, released a statement in June 2021 opposing the new rollout of bills restricting the teaching of history. The statement focuses entirely on “the role of racism in the history of the United States”. Thus far, Holocaust teaching has suffered only collateral damage in the Republican war against American history. But without trivializing Holocaust education into anodyne lessons on intolerance, Republicans will never be able to cover up the historical truth that critical race theory foregrounds: racism has been and may still be embedded in American life.

Today teachers of American history are the targets of Republican censorship. Holocaust teachers, you’re next.

A do nothing Trump response during the January 6 insurrection

Kinzinger: "Trump told White House staffer 'Mike Pence let me down'".

Opinion echo published by The Washington Post editorial board:
How Trump violated his oath on January 6, by doing nothing.

The real action of the prime-time hearing Thursday on the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was the inaction: the 187 minutes that President Donald Trump spent doing next to nothing while an armed mob of his supporters stormed the seat of government in a deadly insurrection.

Matthew Forbes Pottinger taking the oath with Rep. Li z Cheney during the July 21, January 6 Select Committee.

Thursday’s hearing was the eighth in a series that started in June, and though it sounded like the closing chapter to the case, the House select committee conducting the investigation has promised there’s more to come. For now, though, Thursday night was a fitting coda.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), both military veterans, took viewers through a minute-by-minute account of those more than three hours during which the commander in chief sat idly by as rioters tore through the chambers of Congress. Testimony from senior aides, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, revealed how Mr. Trump sat in the Oval Office dining room watching the horror unfold on Fox News, refusing to walk the mere steps down the West Wing hallway to the press briefing room to give the public statement condemning the rioters that his White House counsel, his chief of staff and even his family members begged him to make.

Thursday’s hearing was the eighth in a series that started in June, and though it sounded like the closing chapter to the case, the House select committee conducting the investigation has promised there’s more to come. For now, though, Thursday night was a fitting coda (i.e. "conclusion").

Reps. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), both military veterans, took viewers through a minute-by-minute account of those more than three hours during which the commander in chief sat idly by as rioters tore through the chambers of Congress. Testimony from senior aides, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, revealed how Mr. Trump sat in the Oval Office dining room watching the horror unfold on Fox News, refusing to walk the mere steps down the West Wing hallway to the press briefing room to give the public statement condemning the rioters that his White House counsel, his chief of staff and even his family members begged him to make.

The presenters argued Thursday that not calling off the assault was a dereliction of duty. That’s certainly true. Yet it was also something worse: an effective endorsement of that day’s horrific events, delivered in the form of all-too-meaningful silence, and punctuated with tweets that made clear exactly what the lame-duck leader was trying to communicate. 

"Pat"  Cipollone video deposition presented to the January 6th Select Committee investigation.

Pasquale Anthony "Pat" Cipollone is an American attorney who served as White House Counsel for President Donald Trump.

Most alarmingly: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary,” Mr. Trump wrote at 2:24 p.m., as his supporters on the National Mall chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” The impact was real: The emboldened mob was threatening enough that some members of the vice president’s security detail asked colleagues to tell their loved ones goodbye.

The new details shared Thursday are damning on their own, but they’re more damning still read alongside everything else the committee has laid out these past several weeks. TFG Trump’s campaign manager, his top campaign lawyer, his lead data analyst and even his attorney general told him he had lost the election. Instead of abating his efforts to overturn the results, he escalated them. He not only pressured officials to “find” votes for him, or to submit rogue slates of electors, but he also rendered the explosion of Jan. 6 all but inevitable by summoning his followers to Washington and directing them to the Capitol, knowing they would go to extremes for him.

That all this culminated in violence was no surprise, and no accident. TFG Trump had the power to start what occurred on January 6, and he had the power to stop it. Having exercised the former, he withheld the latter. This was indeed a violation of his oath of office — one that began the moment he realized he had lost the election, and one that continued until the disaster he invited had finally struck. Now the country must figure out what to do about it.