Christian nationalism is NOT Christian

It's becoming increasingly obvious:
Christian nationalists sound uncannily like the Ku Klux Klan.

Opinion echo published in Newsweek by Tom Van Denburgh

Christian Nationalism is hypocrisy!

In a video compilation, The Daily Show spotlighted the nearly identical language and views of Marjorie Taylor Greene -ugh! (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Tucker Carlson, and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. America, they believe, is a Christian nation that must stop "white replacement."

And today's white Christian nationalism is just like yesterday's. Rachel Maddow recently shined a light on America First Party founder Gerald K. Smith, specifically his 1950s statement, "When a Christian is nationalist, he becomes necessarily a Christian nationalist." Similarly, in July of this year, Greene rallied Republicans, "We need to be the party of nationalism. And I'm a Christian, and I say it proudly. We should be Christian nationalists."

Maddow then revealed Smith's claims of a "highly organized campaign to substitute Jewish tradition for Christian tradition," and about secretive forces trying to "enslave the white man" and "mongrelize our race" through "the intermixture of the black and white races."

Despite being informed about Smith's hate, Greene has only further embraced the "Christian nationalist" label.

A few days after the Maddow segment aired, Greene released a "Proud Christian Nationalist" T-shirt. The accompanying ad shows her clenching her fists, eager to inflict violence—just as the Christian nationalist insurrectionists did on Jan. 6, 2021.

That same month, another self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, Andrew Torba (CEO of Gab and a former consultant for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano) said Jews aren't welcome in the GOP: "This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country."

At its very core, Christian nationalism is a hateful, exclusionary ideology. It posits that America was, is, and must remain a Christian conservative nation, even if that means subjugating Jews, progressive Christians, atheists, Muslims, polytheists, and other groups white Christian nationalists place low in their hierarchy: people of color, LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants.

Torba, Greene, and Boebert are constantly saying this quiet part out loud, as they revel in their hate. 

Following a "white replacement" theory-inspired mass murder of 10 Black victims, Greene downplayed white supremacy as a problem. She even attended a white supremacist conference and, when challenged on it, doubled down. Boebert, for her part, engages in casual anti-Muslim and antisemitic bigotry, among other racist rhetoric. "Yes, there is definitely a replacement theory that's going on right now," she has said.

Meanwhile, the more secretive flank of the movement is panicking. They want to keep their immorality under wraps and are attempting damage control. On Oct. 12, the Christian nationalist Family Research Council (FRC) held a conference centered around the term "Christian nationalism" and how it's making them look bad. Because that's what they care about: optics.

"Over the last year, for the first time, Christians have started coming out and embracing the label of 'Christian nationalist'—Marjorie Taylor Greene for one. We should not embrace it," George Fox University professor Mark David Hall said at the event. "We should just simply identify ourselves as Christians. We are Christians. We are followers of Christ.

It's unsurprising that FRC (Family Research Council?- OMG!) wants to avoid the expression, "Christian nationalist." This hate group constantly traffics in coded language; to them, the word "family" means anti-LGBTQ and "life" means anti-abortion. Tony Perkins, FRC's president, no longer associates—at least openly—with David Duke and the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, which inspired shooter Dylann Roof to kill nine Black churchgoers. Recently, Perkins' secretive organization declared itself a church to hide its finances and extremist donors from the public eye. They want to turn America into a theocracy from behind the scenes.

Just like FRC, disgraced Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, founder of a Christian nationalist militia camp, has bristled at the label. "A lot of people hear your rhetoric, and they say you are a Christian nationalist. Are you?" he was asked during an interview. "What is that? I'm an Irish Catholic. I'm a follower of Jesus," he responded, channeling Hall's words.

This isn't the first time white Christian nationalists have tried to rebrand everyday Christians as being normal. 

In 2018, extremist bills flooded state legislatures. Activists were wondering what was going on. That year, journalist Frederick Clarkson uncovered the Christian nationalist campaign Project Blitz and its model-bill guide on the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation's website. Immediately understanding this campaign's importance, he published his findings.

Just like Greene and Boebert, the masterminds of Project Blitz delight in white supremacist imagery. The Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, David Barton's Wallbuilders, and the National Legal Foundation were clearly thinking of Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg when they came up with the campaign name. And, indeed, Project Blitz's goal has been to pump out as many state bills as possible at breakneck speed, preventing lawmakers and activists from opposing them all.

Project Blitz's guide instructs Christian nationalist lawmakers to ramp up in three phases:

1. Pass "religious heritage" bills—including mandatory "In God We Trust" school displays—which are expected to receive the least opposition;

2. Pass "religious history and freedom" bills—"Year of the Bible" and "Christian Heritage Week"—which purport that America was, is, and will always be a Christian nation;

3. Build off the momentum from the previous stages to pass bills that greenlight discrimination in the name of religion.

To fight Project Blitz's legislative playbook, a collection of secular, religious, LGBTQ, and reproductive rights organizations joined forces and formed the BlitzWatch Coalition.* So much bad press kept following the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation that the organization scrubbed the campaign from its website and went underground. There was even an attempt at a rebranding to "Freedom for All," but this failed miserably; investigative journalists, organizations, and activists would not let it off the hook.

During the midterms, Project Blitz has found new relevance. Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) tried to directly benefit from an "In God We Trust" bill. In 2018, Katie Hobbs (D) voted against SB 1289, which encourages schools to teach and post the Christian nationalist mottos "In God We Trust" and "Ditat Deus"("God Enriches"). One would have expected Lake to portray her opponent as "anti-religion," as Christian nationalist politicians have done in the past. But unfortunately for her, she misread the law and falsely claimed on social media, "[Hobbs] wants to purge the Pledge, Anthem & Constitution from our schools."

Even the conservative Washington Examiner called her out.
A campaign like Project Blitz provides white Christian nationalists the opportunity to paint their opponents as "anti-faith"—without most people understanding the source of these bills and their intention: build momentum to eliminate church-state separation and overturn laws protecting equality for women, religious minorities, people of color, and LGBTQ people.

What do Project Blitz and the FRC (Family Research Council) have in common? These are two of many shadowy groups pushing policies to erect a Christian state. They want to continue to operate under cover of darkness because that is the only way they can enact their deeply unpopular agenda.

Investigative journalists like Frederick Clarkson, Katherine Stewart, and Anne Nelson continue to monitor and report on these secretive groups. But the media as a whole must shine a brighter spotlight on this coordinated Christian nationalist network.

Sure, Greene might be more in your face. But these groups, left unaddressed, may prove even deadlier to our democracy. They're the ones pulling the strings in the background. As Clarkson has put it, "[S]unlight remains the best disinfectant."

Tom Van Denburgh is the communications director for American Atheists and a regular contributor to the LGBTQ publication, Out In Jersey.

Alert NYPD stop at least two men planning antisemitism attacks

Thank you New York Police Department!

But the threats are ongoing.

Echo report published in the Combat Antisemitism news:

New York City Mayor says the antisemitism threats are real.

Breaking - NYPD arrest Matthew Mahrer, age 22 and Christopher Brown, age 21 at Penn Station after the men made threats to New York Synagogues. The men, one wearing a swastika armband, were in possession of firearm, 30 rounds of ammunition, and a hunting knife. (Maine Writer: It is impossible to understand how any 22 year old, and 21 year old and (scroll) 18 year old could develop such unjustified aggressive feelings against a group of innocent people who almost certainly never did them any harm.)

Stop Antisemitism

Law enforcement authorities in New York City detected and thwarted a “developing threat to the Jewish community” over the weekend.

According to a CNN report, threats began appearing on a Twitter account on Nov. 12 and were traced on Friday to a computer at a veterinary clinic where one of the suspects worked.

“By early Saturday, the NYPD’s exhaustive intelligence-gathering led to the arrest by sharp-eyed MTA police officers of two individuals entering Penn Station, in Manhattan, and the seizures of a large hunting knife, an illegal Glock 17 firearm and 30-round magazine, and several other items,” New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell stated.

“As a joint investigation now continues to establish a strong prosecution, Police Department commanders are strategically deploying assets at sensitive locations throughout New York City,” she added.

The arrested men were identified as Christopher Brown, 21, of Aquebogue, New York, and Matthew Mahrer, 22, of Manhattan.

Brown is being charged with making a terroristic threat, aggravated harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon, and Mahrer faces a single charge of criminal possession of a weapon.

Last week, an 18-year-old New Jersey man, Omar Alkattoul, was arrested in connection with the publication of an online manifesto containing threats to attack a synagogue and Jews.

What will Rep. Kevin McCarthy say about racism, antisemitism and white supremacy?

House Republicans have a lot of explaining to do!

Where is Rep. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? He has some explaining to do!

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Karen Tumulty:

HELLO? Ya'think? No one is buying the idea that Donald Trump’s dinner last week at Mar-a-Lago with antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes was some sort of aberration — even if Trump’s claim is true that Fuentes showed up unannounced in the company of rapper (and fellow antisemite) Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

That Trump would meet with bigots and conspiracy theorists was very much on brand for someone who sees loyalty to himself as the only character trait that matters. Trump, after all, claimed moral equivalence (“very fine people on both sides”) between the neo-Nazis who chanted in Charlottesville that Jews would not replace them and a group of counterprotesters, one of whom was murdered.

Which means things like the Mar-a-Lago dinner are surely going to continue to happen as Trump forges ahead with his bid for the GOP’s 2024, presidential nomination. 

And, with each instance, the far-right extremists who spew hate will continue nudging their way from the fringes into the mainstream of the (growing old!) Republican Party.

In the wake of the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterm elections, it is plainly self evident that the party has a “Trump problem.” 

But, there is a deeper problem, and that is the (growing old and older.....!) Republican Party itself.

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

(Can somebody cut and paste the statements made by Utah Senator Mitt Romney and former  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to give "dummy come alive" Rep. McCarthy as a rubric for his own statement?)

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s. 

As former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye put it to me, today’s Republicans still think they can “outrun the crocodile.”

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel issued a statement: “As I had repeatedly said, white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.”

But depressingly few were willing to even mention Trump himself.

One welcome exception was outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). who told CNN: "I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that is setting an example for the country or the party to meet with an avowed racist or antisemite. 

And so it’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen. And we need to avoid those kinds of empowering the extremes. And when you meet with people, you empower.” 

Another was Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who said on NewsNation: “President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table, and I think he should apologize.”

Come January, there will be fewer Republicans left in Congress willing to speak out when Trump does what he keeps doing. That in itself is a testament to where the party has positioned itself with regard to the crocodile, given how many of those who did take issue with him were either wiped out in Republican primaries this year or chose to retire.

And those who have followed Trump’s example in associating themselves with extremists and their ideas will have more clout within the institution. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke at a conference organized by Fuentes, later claiming (as Trump has about last week’s dinner) that she didn’t know who he was; House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has promised, if he becomes speaker, to restore her committee assignments, which the Democratic-controlled House stripped the Georgia congresswoman of in 2021 because of her incendiary comments.

Meanwhile, don’t expect much by way of correctives to be offered as the GOP gets ready to elect its next party chair in January. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Trump to run the party after the 2016 election and who has been a model of obeisance to him since, has indicated she plans to run for another term.

There is grumbling in the party about McDaniel’s win-loss record, with South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem telling Fox News: “I don’t know a party that can continue to lose like we have and keep their jobs.” But none of them talked-about alternatives — who include defeated 2022 New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and MyPillow chief executive and leading election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell — represent a turn away from Trump.

So Republican leaders should quit deluding themselves about the possibility of moving on from the former president, who continues to bring the worst people into their fold. They are along for the ride — even as it takes them over a cliff.

Democrats cannot be politically asleep about 2024

Maine Writer opinion: Democrats must jump start 2024, and if Biden is the candidate (even if he is not!) then the campaign needs an enthusiasm injection!  

Echo opinion editorial by Matt Bai published in The Washington Post: 

President Joe Biden became 80 years old on November 20th.

I’ve long been amazed at how quickly a talking point can become accepted wisdom, even when it makes no sense, and even when believing it can be perilous for a political party.

Lately, I’ve heard a few senior Democrats making the same argument about their party’s 2024 presidential nomination — that not only can President Biden beat Donald Trump or another Republican, but that he is probably the only Democrat out there who can.

Which would be persuasive, if it didn’t ignore pretty much everything we know about modern politics.

President Biden boarding Air Force One, needs an inspirational reelection message.

I’m not saying Biden wouldn’t win, or that he hasn’t earned the right to run again. Being underestimated is the recurring subtext of Biden’s career. Time and again, he has proved the prognostications wrong — most recently in this month’s elections.

After almost a half-century as an understudy, Biden is now clearly his party’s leading man. Aside from more polarizing contemporaries such as Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, no other Democrat has the national stature to glide easily into the role of standard-bearer.

And, as Biden likes to point out, he is the only candidate who has managed to beat Trump. In fact, it’s been a quarter century since Democrats won a presidential campaign without Biden on the ticket. Think about that.

But just because you’ve won before doesn’t mean you will again. There’s plenty of recent history to suggest that renominating Biden would be reckless, for both the party and the country.

The cliché about presidential elections — that they’re about the future and not the past —happens to be true. Biden will be closing in on 82 by the fall of 2024, which would easily make him the oldest nominee in history. His pace and stamina remain impressive, but if anyone says he seems a decade younger than his age, they’re being kind.

Given those conditions, you would have to think that being an incumbent, in our time of perpetual dissatisfaction, is more a curse than a blessing. 

Consider this: In the first seven decades of the 20th century, only two incumbents lost a presidential campaign (but, wait, this is not really fair, because the Roosevelt administration governed during World War II, when a presidential change would have been strategically impactful to the alliance). 

In the 50 years since, nine sitting presidents have appeared on the ballot, and four of them (Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush, Trump) have lost.

Three of those four presidents — all but Trump — lost to governors who promised to reform Washington from the outside.

To this point, Biden’s presidency has the feel of Gerald Ford’s or George H.W. Bush’s. He’s solid and statesmanlike, reassuring but uninspiring. His fate, like theirs, might be determined by factors beyond his control.

If Trump isn’t the nominee in 2024, Republicans will very likely choose a candidate — whether it’s Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or someone else — who fits the classic outsider profile. That would stack up well against Biden’s main weaknesses — age and establishmentarianism. (Maine Writer opinion- Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer alert! She should take advantage of this political moment!)

Biden's approval ratings, even at a feel-good moment for his party, hover around 40 percent, which is historically low. The odds that he will govern during a recession over the next two years, on the other hand, are alarmingly high.

President Biden needs a public relations campaign director who can summon large and enthusiastic crowds to greet his arrivals on Air Force One because enthusiastic imagery is paramount! 

Given those conditions, you would have to think that being an incumbent, in our time of perpetual dissatisfaction, is more a curse than a blessing. Consider this: In the first seven decades of the 20th century, only two incumbents lost a presidential campaign. In the 50 years since, nine sitting presidents have appeared on the ballot, and four of them (Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush, Trump) have lost.

Three of those four presidents — all but Trump — lost to governors who promised to reform Washington from the outside.

To this point, Biden’s presidency has the feel of Gerald Ford’s or George H.W. Bush’s. He’s solid and statesmanlike, reassuring but uninspiring. His fate, like theirs, might be determined by factors beyond his control.

If Trump isn’t the nominee in 2024, Republicans will very likely choose a candidate — whether it’s Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or someone else — who fits the classic outsider profile. That would stack up well against Biden’s main weaknesses — age and establishmentarianism.

But even if Trump regains his hold on the party, the strongest contrast Democrats could offer would probably be someone younger, less familiar and untethered to the economy he or she would inherit.

It’s true that no Democrat fitting that description has a national following right now (with the possible exception of Pete Buttigieg, who might retain some outsider cred despite being the transportation secretary). But that’s what campaigns are for.

The longer Biden waits to make a decision, the longer he freezes the field of potential outsiders, and the less time any of those Democratic candidates would have to introduce themselves to the country.

In other words, with every day of uncertainty that passes, the more Biden’s re-nomination becomes the only viable option.

Which is why, were I someone like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, both of whom just won clear victories in their states, I’d start running now.

I’d make clear to anyone who asked that I would defer to Biden in the event that he’s actually running by the fall of 2023. But in the meantime, I’d go out and behave very much like a candidate for president, giving high-profile policy speeches and showing up in primary states.

That way, among the Biden alternatives, I’d have the news media mostly to myself for a while, and I’d already know what policies were resonating with voters if the president decided to step aside at the last minute.

No aspiring candidate should assume that Biden will end up running for reelection, even if he says he will. 

And, the leading Democrats shouldn’t assume that re-nominating the president is the safest course for 2024.

In reality, it might be the riskiest thing they can do.

Guess who came to dinner at Mar-a-Lago? Now you see him but then you don't!

So, was Fuentes at the "white's only" racist Trump dinner or not? By Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu, an echo essay published in Axios:

Trump talks with evil white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his (insane) Mar-a-Lago dinner.

Cliché truism: "Those that deny history are doomed to repeat it." Stop white supremacy and Holocaust denial now! 

Unbelievably, former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper "Ye", formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

(Pundit Donna Brazile said on the ABC news This Week with Martha Radditz, "If I were advising Trump, I'd have given Ye a gift certificate to MacDonald's before inviting him to Mar-a-Lago". In fact, the disgusting optics about the dinner are revolting for everyone and for the Mar-a-Lago marketing image, where the Trumpster hides out but lives in luxury, with tax payer subsidies, just because the #FormerGuy lives there.)  

Why it matters? Trump's direct engagement with a man labeled a "white supremacist" by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024, candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president's embrace of extremists.

Fuentes, who frequently promotes racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, had been spotted with Ye at Mar-a-Lago, but reports erroneously suggested he did not have dinner with the former president. ❓

What they're saying? "Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about," Trump said in a fake news statement.

A Trump spokesman did not provide comment on additional reporting about the dinner. Fuentes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America - including at Mar-A-Lago," White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said Saturday, in a statement.

"Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned,” the statement added.

Holocaust deniers eating at Mar-a-Lago with the former guy because they - ie., Ye and Fuentes- are collaborating on a 2024, campaign to run for president❓❓  Ye and Trump? 💀 OMG!

Behind the scenes: A source familiar with the dinner conversation told Axios that Trump "seemed very taken" with Fuentes, impressed that the 24-year-old was able to rattle off statistics and recall speeches dating back to his 2016, campaign.

Paraphrasing the conversation, the source said Fuentes told the president he preferred him to be "authentic," and that Trump seemed scripted and unlike himself during his recent 2024 campaign announcement speech.

Trump responded, “You like it better when I just speak off the cuff," the source said. Fuentes replied that he did, calling Trump an "amazing" president when he was unrestrained. "There was a lot of fawning back and forth," the source added.

Fuentes told Trump that he represented a side of Trump's base that was disappointed with his newly cautious approach, especially with what some far-right activists view as a lack of support for those charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.Trump didn't disagree with Fuentes, but said he has advisers who want him to read off teleprompters and be more "presidential." Notably, Trump referred to himself as a politician, which he has been loathe to do in the past.
Fuentes also told Trump that he would crush potential 2024 Republican rivals in a primary, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump asked for Fuentes' opinion on other candidates as well.

Trump at one point turned to Ye and said, "I really like this guy. He gets me," according to the source."To be honest, I don't believe the president knew who the hell [Fuentes] was," the source added.

Trump asked if Fuentes was on social media such as Truth Social, the former president's alternative to Twitter. Fuentes told Trump that he was on Truth Social, but had been banned from the social media platform Gettr because Trump adviser Jason Miller, the CEO of the company, wasn't a fan of his.  (Maine Writer's two cents "Yuk!" Miller is a bottom feeder sleeze!)

Trump asked whether it was because Fuentes was on the "fringe" of his supporter base, the source said. Fuentes acknowledged that he was, saying he's "one of those people who got banned from everything." (Ya' think?) 

Duh!

Driving the news: Ye, whose Twitter account was recently restored by Elon Musk (OMG!) after being restricted for anti-Semitic comments, posted a video on Thursday night titled "Mar-a-Lago debrief.

"Ye claims in the video that Trump was "really impressed" with Fuentes because "unlike so many of the lawyers and so many people that he was left with on his 2020, campaign, he's actually a loyalist."

A source familiar with the conversation told Axios that Trump took a phone call during the dinner, and his demeanor toward Ye seemed to change when he got off the call. 

Trump made some nasty comments about Ye's ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, and told the rapper to pass them on.

Ye, who has lost major sponsorships over his anti-Semitism and recent far-right associations, has said he wants to run for president in 2024. 

"Ye" in 2024 ❓❓

Moreover, the (dumpster!) rapper claimed that Trump started "screaming" at him at the dinner and told him he would lose — "most perturbed" by Ye asking Trump to be his running mate.

(Maine Writer- Donna Brazile should charge the Trumpster's failured advisors for her good advice, at an hourly rate of the high cost of one entrée on the Mar-a-Lago menu.)

Between the lines: The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that Fuentes was not present at the Mar-a-Lago dinner with Ye, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Ye tweeted out a screenshot of a group text with Fuentes on Thursday night, in which a censored participant accuses a Trump adviser of being the source for the Daily Beast story.

Disgraced far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who appears with Ye in his "Mar-a-Lago debrief" video, is also in the "YE24" group chat.

Flashback: Truth Social, Trump's dumpy social media platform, sparked backlash by verifying Fuentes' social media account in February.

Fuentes first gained notoriety after attending the white supremacist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
Trump was heavily criticized at the time for his response to the racist violence.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting and a statement from Trump and the White House.

Republicans want to investigate "windmills" but instead they must save DACA

An echo opinion letter published in the San-Diego Union Tribune newspaper, in California.  

Published on November 24, 2022

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals* program is in grave peril, and Congress must act before the end of the year to create permanent protections for the hundreds of thousands of people who were brought to this country as children, making it the only place they have ever called home. DACA recipients, “Dreamers,” are our health care providers, teachers and care workers.

They hold essential jobs that strengthen our communities. Ending DACA could leave labor market sectors already experiencing shortages in even worse conditions.

Moreover, without permanent protections, families will be separated, which is heartless and cruel. An estimated 300,000 U.S. children have at least one parent who is a DACA recipient.

Unless Congress acts, these children could lose their parents to detention or deportation! This is an opportunity for bipartisanship in Congress to support Dreamers and keep families together!

Americans have supported a legislative fix for nearly a decade. It is long overdue and critical to our community.

Beverly Marston in Carlsbad, California

*Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provides temporary relief from deportation (deferred action) and work authorization to certain young undocumented immigrants. DACA was created on June 15, 2012, by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Although Republicans already put out fake news releases about how they want to bring their version of accountability to Congress, their agenda is the equivalent of fighting the Cervantes version of windmills. Instead of creating problems, the growing old party needs to resolve them.

A Midterm 2022 sigh of relief from immigrant Americans

Through My Lens echo opinion by Abdi Nor Iftin: 

Iftin graduated from Boston College with a degree in Political Science in 2022. He currently lives in Portland, Maine, where he works as an interpreter for Somali immigrants, is a regular newspaper columnist.

A happy ending to 2022 for Maine's immigrants

A Somali proverb goes like this: "Be a mountain or lean on one".  This is what was ringing in my mind as text messages came in after the midterm elections.  People felt inspired and both those of us who elected feel proud and partnered in the joys and hopes of others. 

No doubt, the best Christmas gift I could have wished for arrived the day after Election Day.  As a Maine voter, I feel fulfilled. We were able to reject Paul LePage, a governor who attacked the Black and immigrant communities across Maine during his term. This time, we have more immigrants in office in the state, unlike when the former governor was in office. Once again, Maine brings pride to many communities and many countries.

In fact, the results were watched closely not only in Maine but throughout the United States and beyond. As the results came in the celebrations were coming in different at languages in the group chats.  "Hambalyo" is the Somali word for "congratulations" and it was everywhere I looked. Somali Americans are making history once again in Maine, Ohio and Minnesota but uniquely at the state level in Maine. While other Somalis who won seats in other parts of the country seem to have secured city council seats, two Somali Americans were elected to the Maine Legislature, Mana Abdi of Lewiston and Deqa Dhalac of South Portland, and they became the center of the conversations.

There is no legislative body in Somalia, which has suffered from more than 30 years of civil war.  I feel lucky to be engaged in these conversations and talking about what having Somali Americans in state government means to us. Representation matters and we are slowly seeing it in Maine. We desperately need immigrants in the sate Legislature and on city councils as well as in other offices, who can communicate in languages Maine's minorities speak, and connect with their stories and backgrounds. 

These seats now taken by the Somali Mainers and other immigrants are not easily won. They are hard earned even if won without a competing candidate. The Somali community has tolerated a lot - too many hateful words from the former governor, a pigs head thrown into a mosque, being told to only speak in English here- but this election proves we are here to stay and we are here to be who we are: proud Mainer's and proud of where we come from.

When I moved to Maine eight years ago, LePage was the governor. Not a single Somali American held office in the state. There was no representation in Maine. It was hard to feel at home. Instead, it was easy to feel like a stranger, not belonging here, not able to vote and not represented.  I wanted to become a naturalized citizen and can celebrate casting my vote. 

As the New Year arrives, Maine's immigrant students will return to classes motivated to be involved in Maine politics, because they see a way to do that here. They have mountains to lean on. With the Maine's different communities, we can all create the state we want to live in together without worrying that someday someone will tell us that we are foreigners.   

Found in echo opinion stacks- Antisemitism has evil tentacles

This opinion echo by Karen Gardner was found while searching for blogs to feature on Maine Writer. If I had the ability to give "blogger echo awards", this would be one of the finalists.

By the way, this Maine Writer blog has achieved over 401,000 views. I'm blogging and proud to echo!

My Turn: Lessons from history by Karen Gardner published in the Greenfield Recorder newspaper, in Massachusetts.

Ms. Gardner wrote: In case you don’t know, I’m Jewish. 

And I don’t classify myself that way because I attend synagogue or participate in religious ritual, since I do not.

I’m Jewish because my parents were Jewish and so it’s in my blood. I was born right after World War II, during which 6 million Jewish people were murdered for no other reason than that they were Jewish. Over 1 million of them were shot to death, while the rest were systematically rounded up, sent to camps, gassed, and burned in ovens by the Nazi regime in Germany and the countries it had invaded.

And when I say systematically, just imagine the huge mechanism that must have been devised to accomplish such a heinous act of hatred and inhumanity. 

And then try to imagine the enormous participation — in one way or another — of thousands, maybe millions of people in that endeavor, for it couldn’t have happened without them.

How could so many people be so convinced that the mass killing of Jews was the right and necessary thing to do? With lies, of course, through the endless cycle of lies, conspiracy theories, and misinformation repeated over and over again until the lies became “facts.” A political party used those lies to win elections to govern the country, bringing Adolf Hitler, an insane, anti-Semitic, but terribly shrewd man, to power. The result? A previously democratic nation, though a relatively new one, became an authoritarian one, bringing another world war and the murder of millions of innocents.

This hatred of Jews has been around for centuries. We have been accused of everything from kidnapping and eating children, to being the shadowy financial support behind every bad thing that happens anywhere in the world. And these beliefs continue today, of course. The fear and hatred of Jews is just one of many conspiracy theories that when repeated often enough end up converting once rational people into believers, no matter how crazy the theory may be.

So, I was not surprised to read the story in this newspaper (Greenfield Recorder) about a recent virtual Board of Health meeting to discuss a proposed vaccination mandate in Northampton, Mass. 

(Unbelievably!) Some online participants made anti-Semitic comments, one of which referred to the five-member all-volunteer health board members as “unelected, rich Jewish doctors.” One participant had that very popular neo-Nazi epithet “Jews Will Not Replace Us” as his Zoom name. And, of course, there were swastikas displayed as well.

I may not have been surprised to read about this horrible incident, but I was frightened. How could I not be? And I’m not just frightened for the Jews in this country; I’m frightened for all minority and marginalized people as well. I have often been told that what happened in the past could not possibly happen here, but I’m sorry to say that I no longer believe that.

There is a fairly large segment of our population who believe the constant and continuing lies that the 2020, election was stolen, despite formidable evidence proving its legitimacy. The lies that we cannot trust our leaders to provide for free and fair elections just keep coming and the people keep believing.

We have passed a one-year anniversary of the January 6th  insurrection at the U.S. Capitol; and since that horrifying event we have witnessed the disintegration of the Republican Party.

Republican elected officials have descended into a spineless group of sycophants who will do whatever it takes, lawful or not, to stay in power and in the good graces of the former president, a wannabe autocrat, and of his base of true believers.

Sabbath Peace 

This leaves us with only one real political party, the Democratic Party, that continues to be engaged in the difficult task of governing this country for the benefit of its people. The Republicans have ceased any efforts to make the lives of their supporters, or anyone else, better during this very difficult time of COVID and economic hardship. They are now interested only in winning elections, no matter the method involved. And if they do win in the November midterm elections and take control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate, or both, we will be looking at the end of our democracy. This is how it happens, just like it did so many years ago in Germany.

It can happen here.
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.

P.S. In Maine Writer's opinion, in the tentacles of history, evil antisemitism has endured the cruelty of eons of oppression, and persecution and pogroms against a group of humans who, truth be told, are the source of all Christendom. This cannot be tolerated.

Go Go Gretchen Whitmer!

Democratic victories in Michigan show the way to 2024

Echo opinion editorial published in the Los Angeles Times  by LZ Granderson

In the 2022, election, voters in Florida saw their governor working hard toward a 2024, run for the presidency. (IMO: DeSantis is tied to Trumpty-Dumpty)

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer with her husband Dr. Mark Mallory and their family. 

For Michigan’s reelected leader, Gretchen Whitmer, it looks more like 2024 is coming toward her.

As far as I’m concerned, DeSantis began to prepare his White House bid the day President Trump lost.

In June 2019, DeSantis had visited Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on the third anniversary of the mass shooting that left 49 dead. He promised $500,000 for a permanent memorial. He looked at the photos of the victims, many of whom were Latino and/or queer. He wrote: “Florida will always remember these precious lives.”

Now there’s a signature law from this governor that discourages teachers from talking about those precious lives.

What’s changed?

Oh, that’s right. Trump lost. DeSantis saw an opportunity for advancement if he tacked to the right.

So no one was too surprised to see DeSantis use the momentum from his landslide victory this week over Charlie Crist — a political retread who was more sacrificial lamb than opposition — to look presidential.

However, what was surprising was the result in my home state of Michigan. Not only did voters return Whitmer to the driver’s seat, but this time they also gave her the keys by putting her party in charge of the Capitol as well.

It’s been 40 years since Democrats controlled both chambers and the governor’s office. On the flip side, Republicans most recently held that power from 2011 to 2018. Before that, it was 1999 to 2002. It happened in the mid-’90s as well. But by flipping both House and Senate on Tuesday, voters have given Democrats the most power they’ve had in the state since I was in elementary school. A lot of that had to with protecting abortion rights, something Whitmer’s opponent vowed to strip away. 

Whitmer rose to fame in 2013, after a passionate speech on the Michigan Senate floor defending abortion rights.

If President Biden decides not to seek reelection, do not underestimate her chances for the Democratic nomination and the White House. She outraised her opponent, Tudor Dixon, who was endorsed by Trump and financially backed by his Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and her family. Whitmer was also greatly aided by the Democratic Governors Assn., which has emphasized that the party needs not only Michigan but also her.

It’s not money, ads and maneuvering that win elections. The voters have to trust you. And those in Michigan also voted blue for attorney general and secretary of state.

But she wasn’t elected and reelected governor because of a speech. She’s a contender.

“Stunning” doesn’t begin to describe the turnaround from 2016, when Republicans flipped Michigan and fueled Trump’s victory in the electoral college.

Now it’s about nailing the audition. That’s what this moment is. An audition. The party did something in Michigan it hadn’t done since the era of “Thriller.” Eyes will be on Whitmer. The governor has an opportunity to show the rest of the country what a Whitmer administration could look like, what her brand of progressive policies would look like and how she handles the criticism of those policies now that the heat’s been turned up.

I think we already have a sense of what a DeSantis administration would have to offer.

“Michigan’s future is bright,” Whitmer said at her victory party, “and we are about to step on the accelerator.”

Great.

Now, where is she planning to go?

@LZGranderson

Gracious retirement living beware - Florida is sinking!

Are hurricanes and global warming putting the Florida retirement dream at risk? An essay published in The Conversation* by Robin Faith Bachin (A professor of history at University of Miami):

In the marketing brochure it says, "Wellington Bay, Florida offers a lifestyle rich with opportunities to enjoy life to its fullest." (Except when Florida is hit by category 3-5 hurricanes!)

Over the past century Florida has seen rapid growth, with less than one million residents in 1920, and more than 22 million today. 

Why so many people have moved to Florida – and into harm’s way?

Many new residents were retirees who relocated to the state either full time or as seasonal snowbirds – residents who flock south for the warmer winter weather and then return to their home states for the summer.

But are hurricanes putting the Florida retirement dream at risk? 

Following Hurricane Ian, a ferocious storm that slammed the state late in late September, 2022, Dr. Robin Bachin, Founding Director of the Office of Civic and Community Engagement and an Associate Professor of History at the University of of Miami, wrote an article for The Conversation on the topic you can read here:

Why so many people have moved to Florida – and into harm’s way

Hurricane Ian barreled ashore with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph) on Florida’s southwest coast on Sept. 28, 2022.

The storm’s powerful winds and torrential rains reduced entire communities to rubble, killing more than 120 people, including many who drowned in floodwaters resulting from the nearly 18-foot (5.5-meter) storm surge. Bridges connecting Sanibel, Captiva and other barrier islands with the mainland flooded and crumbled, isolating those areas.

Estimates of the economic toll are still preliminary. But as a historian who studies South Florida’s cities and environment, I’m certain that the havoc Ian wreaked will make it among the worst storms on record, along with Harvey and Maria in 2017 and Katrina in 2005.

And based on how Florida has responded to similar devastation in the past, I highly doubt that Ian will do much to slow the pace of the state’s rapid population growth in the near future.

Snowbirds are changing their routes:  Over 22 million people currently live in Florida. That’s about 37% more than the 16 million who resided in the state in 2000. And, demographers project that the population will continue increasing, to about 25 million within the next decade. Florida consistently ranks as the top destination for Americans who relocate to another state.

But many Florida residents spend only the winter months there, returning when the climate warms up back home. In the weeks that followed the storm, analysts were predicting that most of these annual short-term residents – called snowbirds – will not forgo their annual voyage. Instead, many say they’ll simply shift their migratory course and land somewhere else in Florida.

South Florida real estate agents are bracing for stronger-than-usual demand for seasonal rentals in Dade and Broward counties on Florida’s southeast coast, which escaped Ian’s wrath. The extra interest is leading to further spikes in the already overheated real estate markets in places like Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Today’s new and part-time Floridians are drawn by the same factors that have lured settlers and snowbirds for a century: warm weather and waterfront views, along with lower taxes and fewer regulations than in other parts of the country.

Draining the swampland: Early developers didn’t let inhospitable environments deter them. In the decades after the Civil War, they transformed the peninsular state’s mosquito-ridden, alligator-occupied swampland into hotels, homesteads and farmland.

Florida promoters lured tourists and settlers alike with promises of wealth, land and leisure, whether their sales pitches had to do with citrus and sugar, or sun and sand. Engineers used modern technology to accomplish the large-scale transformation and make way for unprecedented land speculation and development.

Everglades drainage began in earnest in the 1880s when a wealthy Philadelphian named Hamilton Disston created the Okeechobee Land Co. to develop a system of canals that would facilitate “land reclamation.”

Disston purchased over 4 million acres the state had designated as uninhabitable swampland in exchange for US$1 million and his promise to transform it. In 1881, The New York Times called this “the largest purchase of land ever made by a single person in the world.”

His gambit sparked Florida’s first real estate boom. In fact, Disston sent brochures around the country, and to people as far away as Scotland, Denmark, Germany and Italy, that touted Florida’s “inexhaustibly rich lands” and an “equitable and lovely climate where merely to live is a pleasure, a luxury heretofore accessible only to millionaires,” according to Frank B. Sessa’s 1950, history of greater Miami.

Disston and others began selling reclaimed land to railroads, farming interests and land developers. By the early 20th century, inland drainage was giving rise to the sugar, citrus and winter vegetable industries.

The drainage made it possible for the railroad magnates Henry Flagler and Henry Plant to extend their railroads to southeast and southwest Florida, respectively. Train travel greatly expanded opportunities for tourists and new residents by the late 19th century.

Stormy weather from the start: Attempts to control water on the ground, however, couldn’t curtail weather-related hazards. In 1926, a hurricane slammed into Miami, leaving more than 390 people dead and causing property damage of more than $76 million.
A Western Union telegram from Jessie Wirth Munroe, a survivor, read like a text from someone who had endured Hurricane Ian: “We are safe. Water front completely destroyed.”

Subsequent storms wrought greater devastation.  A 1928 hurricane killed over 2,500 people just south of Lake Okeechobee, most of them Black farmworkers laboring in the new agricultural town of Belle Glade, which was washed away.

In 1935, a Labor Day storm hit the Civilian Conservation Corps camps in the Florida Keys, where workers, many of them World War I veterans, were building a highway that would link mainland Florida to Key West.

“Clinging to beds, using mattresses as overhead cover, the people of the Keys had watched large rocks roll about like pebbles, buildings crumble like houses of cards, water lift up houses and carry them off,” wrote Helen Muir, a journalist who moved to Miami in 1934 and chronicled the city’s growth. “The hurricane moved in like a giant mowing machine and leveled everything.”

No stopping the newcomers: Yet people kept coming, especially after World War II and the advent of widespread air conditioning.

Many of the close to 3 million people who arrived between 1940, and 1960, were veterans who had trained in South Florida during World War II.

In addition, millions more immigrated from the Caribbean and Latin America as transportation become easier and cheaper.

In particular, people fleeing political persecution and economic instability in places such as Cuba, Haiti and, more recently, Venezuela and Central America have settled in Florida.
Rebuilding and rebuilding

Though each storm seemed to threaten the population boom, the new arrivals tended to stick around. Civic boosters, business leaders and policymakers have invariably promised to rebuild.

After Hurricane Andrew, anther Category 5 storm, slammed into South Florida in 1992, the state imposed a stronger and more uniform building code. The authorities invested in additional storm preparedness efforts after the spate of hurricanes hit the state in 2004.

Could these patterns change after Hurricane Ian? (Hurricane Ian was a large and destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane that was the deadliest hurricane to strike the state of Florida since the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.)  

Hurricane Ian 2022

Windstorm insurance premiums were climbing beyond the reach of many homeowners before it hit. Analysts predict that premiums will continue to rise, making it harder for residents to afford to remain in Florida and even more challenging for new homebuyers to secure policies.

It remains to be seen if the pro-growth mentality and belief in technological innovation that have shaped Florida’s history can forestall the challenges of climate change and the increasingly severe storms it brings about in the decades ahead.

P.S. "as early as 2050, when much of the Florida coastline would be underwater, depending on what the results of newer data might say. Flooding would affect Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay and any other major center touching saltwater."

The Conversation:  Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.