We've been wondering WTF is going on behind the scenes.

A couple of fascinating posts by Dr. Tracy A Peterson may point to some of it. Here's a bit about here from her Twitter bio:
She's a Los Angeles based Legal, Political & Cultural Analyst on TV and radio and has appeared on a number of shows and networks.
"After practicing law as a Trial & Appellate lawyer and investigator for 20 years, I earned a second doctorate and focus my research on implicit bias & corruption."

An earlier thread of hers I found enlightening was on how the media earn money, books, promotions based on such "scoops" and reporting – which incentivizes the behavior we're seeing with all the media, including some we're seeing on MSNBC.

https://x.com/TracyExplains/status/1813866352199057485

Red Wine & Blue

This evening I attended the most energizing, exciting virtual meeting. I just learned about the group today because I saw that Heather Cox Richardson was speaking about Project 2025 so signed up.

35K people attended the Zoom! And another 35K (so 70,000❗️in all) had signed up - apparently many like me just today. They’d added to their webinar package but didn’t have it big enough to accommodate anywhere near all those who wanted to attend.

They’re tremendous organizers, I was impressed. An effective hour, then they invited anyone interested and able to stay for small(er) group breakout sessions. They had breakout rooms, about five for swing states, so I attended the one for the other states. 9,200 stayed for that one, in fact people lingered after it was over for almost the full second hour.

Check them out: Red Wine & Blue (redwine.blue on the web or redwineblueUSA on social media including YouTube). They have several events a week of different types.

Their website got overloaded too, but after waiting a few hours it's available again.

Their philosophy is that it’s more fun getting stuff done together. 😊

Because 70 percent of Americans don’t know about Project 2025, they focus on relationships and personal connections with conversations on flipping that number so 70 percent (at least) do know. I especially liked it because I wouldn’t be wearing a partisan hat when talking to people regardless of their party.

That works best for me in a small red-violet town where I have lots of friends and acquaintances who are either of a different party or not particularly political. I suspect a number of them will be appalled when they know more about Project 2025, but if I was wearing my Democratic hat some might not be willing to listen.

Project 2025 for those looking for more of it's horrors in one place

I ran across a long but excellent thread on X by Emily Galvin-Almanza (a lawyer active in the public defender space) that is one of the better explanations of much of the ramifications of various Project 2025 proposals. Not exhaustive, but I learned new things of interest. It's not published anywhere else but I thought it merited wider circulation, so I put it in a single document. I wanted to share it here, but not without permission. I now have that. "sure go for it!" she said.

"It is considered sophisticated and educated to know only the bad

stuff about religion. Of course, that’s ironic because to only know the bad stuff is to not actually be educated."

"Half the time when I’m giving a public presentation, the first question about religion is a negative question. What do you think about Islam and violence? What do you think about the Catholic Church and the pedophilia crisis? Why do so many people of faith hate gay people? Particularly in the areas of America where people have higher levels of education, those are their first questions."

[…]

“Our society relies on religious communities to take care of people, to do addiction counseling, to do job training, to do hunger and homelessness work, to do refugee resettlement. We just don’t often tell the story of them doing that work. And I think that that’s a big problem.”

[…]

"In America, people build institutions — hospitals, social service agencies, colleges, whatever — out of the inspiration of their own faith identity, but the institution serves people of all identities. That is not a common ethos in human history.

But that’s the story of America. That is American pluralism at its best. That is civic cooperation."


Eboo Patel is an American Muslim who is the founder and president of Interfaith America. He was interviewed by Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican priest who has a religion column in the NYT as well as Christianity Today.


Behind a paywall unfortunately: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/09/opinion/patel-eboo-organized-religion.html

I once mainly knew the negative things about religion, especially Christianity. At least, if I knew some of the many contributions made by religious people and groups, the negative far outweighed the good in my mind. I was anti- both religion in general and Christianity in particular. This interview does a great job of reminding me of the positive role many faith communities have and still provide us.

After Sandy Hook, gun control looked inevitable. What happened?

Public opinion for gun control was very strong after the slaughter of children and teachers.

But the NRA was focus testing messages, I'd guess. The word that turned it around? Freedom. Once they started to talk about the personal freedom issue, things quickly swung away from controlling guns in spite of the horrific killings. Americans across the political spectrum are primed to value freedom. Polling shows freedom ranks 22 points above the value of justice.


Guess which party knows that and which one doesn't? (I knew you could.)

"Freedom" is used as a cover-all issue for Republicans. As they impose on the "freedoms" of the rest of America." (thanks, Kentuck).

They certainly used the message of freedom effectively with masks and the COVID vaccine.

Knowing that, what freedoms can gun control advocates claim? How about the freedom to be safe in our schools, banks, movies, concerts, churches, streets? Freedom to live in a society that is not the Wild Wild West or that is without the rule of law.

Freedom for your children to not be taken away from their families over transgender treatment. Freedom to make medical decisions for your children in the area of transgender care following medical advice. Freedom for transgender children from bullying. Freedom for teachers to refrain from "outing" children who may be LBGTQiA to parents or others.

Better than the justice argument on abortion, how about keeping the freedom to decide what our own lives are going to be like, freedom to decide whether and when to be a parent, freedom not to be forced to carry our rapist's baby, freedom to create the life we dream of?

Look, I once shared the prejudice.

Last thing I ever expected to be is a Christian. I despised what I thought was narrow-minded, cold-hearted judgementalism and couldn't conceive that that was the dark distortion only, from the abusers of power, who sought to control and profit.

There's a lot of money and power to gather by those who want to do that. But they can do that from all kinds of platforms, not just religion. Fame, beauty, politics, celebrity, music, propaganda, movie, entertainment, and sports, oratory – all can be turned into platforms for power, control, and profit.

While religion is extremely vulnerable to misuse and abuse and it is constantly being distorted and corrupted by many even now, that's not the sole story.

So many have been motivated by love, a desire for justice, the conviction that we are all brothers and sisters – no fear, no desire to exploit others or grift, nothing self-serving. And that's a trait of religion that is not being misused or abused, any of the great world religions. Like oratory can be used to inspire and uplift of demonize and tear down, the creative arts can do the same, or they can be perverted into a tool for spreading distrust, anger, fear, self-loathing, and self-destructive behaviors. We all know what political abuses occur, but politics can also be used to protect our peoples and our public lands, educate, rebuild, extend liberties, ensure opportunities, and much more. We've seen people who've used their beauty and fame for good as well.

Martin Luther King Jr. was one who risked and ultimately lost his life to work for justice, civil rights, and economic opportunities. He was empowered by his faith in God who the scriptures taught him had a passion for justice and for the poor. Not by fear, but by love.

So many more people of faith would not recognize the idea that fear or ignorance were behind why we believe and why we are then empowered to go out and do for others from love and the courage to believe in the positive power to effect change.

I myself started the journey as many of us do, from failure. But I was very antagonistic to religion. But I met warmth, acceptance, and love in visiting a church my husband was singing in one Sunday, and found no trace of the spiritual arrogance I expected or any attempt to convert me. But I was very resistant, until watching the PBS discussions between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer on the Power of Myth. Campbell said that all myths have in common that they are tackling mystery that is beyond human ability to put into words. Yet all of them have elements of truth that are a real reflection of that cosmic mystery. I wrestled with that idea for awhile and began to figure out what were the true parts. Love, doing for others, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance, humility, tenderheartedness, joy, authenticity, getting oneself out of the way.

It's fine to believe differently. I don't believe my beliefs are superior, but for me they've brought great meaning and joy as I'm sure other religious beliefs have brought for others. Our beliefs are positive, good for others, inclusive, seeing the divine in all Creation, not manipulating others, not seeking power for ourselves, seeking to do justice, love mercy, and resist evil. We recognize and wrestle with the temptations to get sidetracked by pride, anger, and other attitudes and behaviors, then are motivated to use tools to restore relationships when we have harmed them. We repent when we hurt others, ourselves, our Higher Power. We're imperfectly human, doing our best, and continuing to work toward doing better. Our faith should not be denigrated, it should be elevated in contrast to the distorted, misbegotten, manipulative, controlling use of fear and ignorance to grift.

Telling the counterfeit from the true is a skill that can only be learned by studying the true. Bank tellers don't study counterfeit bills, they study the genuine ones. Likewise, those being misled by the power-hungry would do very well to find those whose faith is genuine, selfless, loving, and accepting.

Trump FCC To Waive Ownership Rules For Murdochs

Chairman Pai has just announced a plan to waive media-ownership rules for Fox and allow the Murdoch family to control even more TV stations and newspapers in the New York City market.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is hellbent on doing as much damage as possible before the Biden administration takes office. And that includes doling out one last favor for Rupert Murdoch.

Fox asked the Trump FCC to permanently waive a restriction that limits Fox’s TV station and newspaper ownership in the New York City market — where the company already owns two local-television stations and one local newspaper. This move would make Fox’s ownership of WWOR, WNYW and the New York Post permanent — despite the agency’s own rules that prohibit one company from controlling this many broadcast stations and newspaper outlets in a given market.

Chairman Pai is trying to quickly push this Fox request through the FCC, allowing for public comment only until Dec. 4.


https://blogforiowa.com/2020/11/24/trump-fcc-to-waive-ownership-rules-for-murdochs/


So while Trump is posturing about how bad FOX News is, in reality he's doing them a BIG favor. What do you think he's going to expect in return? What a platform he will have for that 2024 run of his, as a frequent guest or just for their endless amplification of his every tweet.

FreePress.net put out an alert and petition this last week.

Oddly, most Americans have no idea what's going on.

We had our thirty-something son and his wife and their six kiddos visit for a few days last week. They were on their way back home after being on a vacation. When I brought up the children being separated from their parents at the border, they didn't know about it.

I was reminded of myself at that stage of life, busy with work, kids' activities, and paying scant attention to news sources. I was in my forties before I started focusing again. I say again because I was raised in a politically active family and volunteered for various candidates in high school, college, and beyond.

We have a large number of our compatriots who may have heard very little about Trump, Russia, Mueller, and have a long way to go before they'll understand or believe. It's hard to imagine, the way this has captured our attention, but they're pretty clueless. That is not connected at all to level of intelligence. We've got our work cut out for us between now and Election Day, even more than we may have realized.

I hope to be in an immigration courtroom by the end of next week.

An attorney (S.) who goes to my Methodist church is working to get assigned to assist immigrants with their court cases. My pastor knows the separation of kids and parents has had me in tears and made it hard to concentrate on much else. He suggests I go with S. and another church member who's planning to go.

I'm not an attorney, but he told me they need witnesses to immigration proceedings, taking notes. I told him I'm very slow as a note-taker and have an unreliable memory, but he encouraged me to go anyway. Having civilian witnesses to the proceedings seems to cause the judges to trend to a little more careful and to better outcomes for the immigrants.

I'm waiting to hear if S. has been able to set things up. We'd go for a couple of days. Not much but something. Too bad we don't live close. If we did, it could be an ongoing effort.

Will NATO be the next alliance broken by Trump?

Daniel Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro), former US Ambassador to Israel (2011-2017) and served under Obama on the National Security Council, posted a thread today. Coupled with the news that Trump has tasked a committee to assess the ramifications of pulling our troops out of Germany, this gave me chills! It seems so crazy – and completely likely with tRump.

…I don't think we are fully grappling with the possibility that we could be on the on the cusp of a completely new era, a fundamental reshaping of the international order. And I don't mean over the course of the Trump Administration. I mean by next week.

…Trump clearly wants to pull the US out of NATO. He doesn't believe in the alliance (or any alliances); he thinks our allies take advantage of us; he complains that NATO is worse than NAFTA(whatever that means); he seeks purely transactional relations with our closest partners.

…Our President doesn't know the history or strategy, doesn't listen to experts, personalizes everything & makes it transactional, & loves the drama of the outrageous move that dominates cable TV coverage. For him, pulling out of NATO is all gain, no cost.