How To Destroy A Government

Any lingering doubts about the good faith, patriotism or even sanity of the current Speaker of the House of Representatives can be put to rest. Mike Johnson is every bit as horrifying a culture warrior as many of us suspected. The fact that the Democrats stepped in on two occasions to save his Speakership was not evidence that they’d noticed some mitigating factors to his religious zealotry–it was, as many said at the time, an effort to keep government functioning at even its current minimal level.

Johnson has repaid that effort with a move that is unbelievably destructive–a move that is likely to destroy America’s intelligence capacity and erase any lingering trust our allies place in the United States.

I’ll let the Washington Post explain.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday appointed Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), two Trump loyalists who denied the results of the 2020 election, to the House Intelligence Committee, granting them oversight of the U.S. intelligence community and sensitive government material.

Seats on the committee are highly sought after in Congress and closely watched, as members have access to some of the nation’s most classified information and are charged with overseeing the spy agencies — including the intelligence gathering within the FBI — activities for which former president Donald Trump has routinely expressed disdain.

In case you’ve missed the “backstories” on these particular cult members, the Post has thoughtfully reminded readers.

First, Perry.

Perry, a hard-line Republican who previously served as the chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, played a key role in promoting false claims of election fraud and pushed the Trump White House and Justice Department to investigate baseless claims and prevent the transfer of power to President Biden. The FBI seized Perry’s cellphone records in 2022 as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to subvert the election, and Perry sought to block what the federal investigators would be able to access on his phone. In December 2023, a federal judge ordered that Perry disclose nearly 1,700 records from his cellphone to the investigation being conducted by special counsel Jack Smith. Perry’s lawyer has said that U.S. officials never described Perry as a target of their ongoing investigation in their discussions with the congressman, and he has not been charged.

Then, Jackson.

Jackson, a retired U.S. Navy officer who joined Congress in 2021, served as the physician to Presidents Barack Obama and Trump. He was demoted in rank from retired rear admiral to captain in July 2022 following a damaging Pentagon inspector general’s report that substantiated allegations about his inappropriate behavior as a White House physician. Jackson has denied the report’s allegations and claimed they were politically motivated.

Johnson isn’t even trying to hide what he intended to accomplish by appointing extremist goofballs and devoted MAGA cult members to this extremely sensitive panel. The appointments came one day after he threatened a “three-pronged approach” to retribution for Trump’s trial loss, and outlined his plan for allowing the Republican majority to “target the Justice Department, New York and other jurisdictions for investigating Trump — using, among other things, House oversight powers.”

As one House member was quoted,

“Neither of these two gentlemen is qualified for the intelligence committee. Neither should ever be near the intelligence committee. And it’s going to make cooperation between our counterintelligence operations and the intelligence services and the Congress much more complicated.”

Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, who served on the House select committee that investigated the january 6th insurrection, called the appointments “insane.”

So here we are, incredible as it may seem.

A once-respectable center-right political party–a party that used to fly under a banner of patriotism and “law and order”– is willing to compromise the security of American citizens, tell our allies we’re unreliable, and signal to our enemies that we are no longer serious about defending our place in the global order, all to demonstrate its loyalty to a convicted felon who cares nothing about America, or about anything but himself and his need for vengeance.

I shudder to think of the damage these unqualified clowns can do between now and November–and even after, if Republicans continue to hold power in either house of Congress. Continued GOP control of either the House or Senate would take us further down the road to failed nationhood.

Even assuming we avoid the unthinkable disaster that would be a second Trump administration–continued “leadership” by members of this White Christian Nationalist cult would mean we can kiss goodby to the America most of us grew up in.

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Indiana’s Legislature Doesn’t Get It

I often post about education, about which I have some firm convictions. I began my professional life as a high school English teacher, and ended it with 21 years as a college professor. Now that I am an elderly retiree, my focus has narrowed to a simple question: What is education and why does Indiana do so badly at it? (Among other deficits, we rank 43rd among the states in the percentage of our population with a bachelor’s degree.)

Most of us have come across the concept of Occam’s Razor–the principle that the simplest answer is usually the right one–and I’ve concluded that the answer to why Indiana’s legislature is so bad at education policy is, indeed, simple: the World’s Worst Legislature doesn’t know what education is. Hoosier lawmakers don’t understand the difference between education and job training, and they appear entirely unaware of the critical importance of public education in forming a “body politic.” 

I have posted numerous times about the insanity of Indiana’s voucher program, which siphons resources from public schools, increases civic polarization, evades the constitutional separation of church and state, and has utterly failed to improve student academic performance. Recently, we’ve also learned that, despite early promises about benefitting poor children, most families taking advantage of vouchers are upper-middle-class or wealthy.

The legislative drive to privatize education and send money to religious schools at the expense of both poorer Hoosiers and the state’s public school system is reprehensible enough, but last session’s changes to academic requirements underscored lawmakers’ confusion of job training with the purposes of a genuine education. (We had already seen that confusion when the legislature passed a “workforce development” bill giving high school students credit for substituting an apprenticeship with local businesses for academic coursework.)

During its last session, lawmakers modified the requirements for what is known as the “core 40” that high school students must take to graduate.

As Chalkbeat recently pointed out, at a time when too few Hoosiers have college degrees,

A plan to refocus Indiana’s graduation requirements on work experiences would eliminate a diploma linked to college-going without providing a clear alternative for students seeking postsecondary education.

There’s a lot to dislike about lawmakers’ most recent cluelessness, but allow me to focus on just two areas: science and civics. 

The requirement for science instruction has been reduced to two classes from six, and there are now no required courses.

In a world facing the enormous challenges of climate change, determined efforts to deny the efficacy of vaccines (and medical science generally), and multiple other conflicts that are the result of a widespread lack of scientific literacy, this is insane. It’s bad enough that many voucher students will be taught creationism rather than science, but to dramatically reduce required instruction in the scientific method is to turn out even those desired “worker bees” with a lack of the basic knowledge they’ll need to function (including their ability to remain employed!) in an increasingly technological world.

Worse still, citizens who don’t understand the difference between a scientific theory and a wild-eyed guess will be vulnerable to the anti-scientific claptrap spewed by climate-change deniers and culture warriors. Absent a basic understanding of how science operates, they will certainly not be informed voters.

Then there’s the reduction in social studies requirements.

Students will no longer be required to take economics, world history or geography–only government and U.S. History. To belabor the obvious, without an understanding of basic economics, students will be unfamiliar with a major element of both governance and history. In an increasingly inter-connected world, they will be able to graduate without understanding the all-important context of American history, or the multiple influences of global interconnections.

Education has been defined as the development of reasoning and judgment–intellectual preparation for a mature life. That preparation will include–but be much more extensive than– job training, and it should include knowledge needed for effective citizenship. One of the major purposes of the public school was–in Benjamin Barber’s phrase–to be constitutive of a public. Public schools were created in large part to create Americans from children coming into the classroom from diverse backgrounds. We abandon that essential task when we privatize schools and limit required instruction to job skills. 

Gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick–a life-long educator who previously served as Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction–left the Republican Party in part due to her profound and informed disagreement with the legislature’s super-majority over these issues. 

It’s one more reason to vote for McCormick. 

PS Another major reason to vote McCormick is her support for reproductive freedom. If you can, attend her Reproductive Town Hall in Indianapolis on June 11th, from 6:30 to 7:30 at IBEW Hall, 1828 N. Meridian Street #205.

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Jim Banks Is Wrong About Everything

In the run-up to Indiana’s primary election, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about far-right Congressman Jim Banks, and what I learned was pretty horrifying. Some of it was what we unfortunately have come to call “politics as usual”–financial shenanigans like the misuse of campaign funds. As I previously noted, an ethics watchdog has documented Banks’ use of a so-called “Leadership PAC” as a slush fund, allowing him to siphon funds from special interests into fancy meals, club dues and the like. (Yesterday, the Washington Post noted he has a million dollar home in Virginia, so elective office is evidently lucrative.)

More concerning are Banks’ culture war positions. Along with clowns like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Banks has doubled down on a pro-Trump, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-liberty performative politics.

Banks has made no bones about his desire for a national ban on abortion with no exceptions, not even for rape, incest or life of the mother. He has an A+ rating from Pro-Life America, and a 100% lifetime rating from the National Right to Life Committee. His voting record on abortion/reproductive health can be accessed here.

When it comes to guns, Banks is opposed to even the most modest efforts to control the proliferation of firearms. He opposes a renewal of the ban on assault weapons, and also opposes a federal “Red Flag” law. He supports concealed carry and has voted against background checks for private sales. His voting record on gun issues can be accessed here.

Banks calls climate change a “liberal hoax,” and the Biden Administration’s environmental efforts “a war on energy.” The League of Conservation Voters gives him a 1% lifetime rating. His votes on the environment can be accessed here. 

When it comes to labor issues, Banks gets a zero rating from the AFL-CIO. When he served in the Indiana legislature, he supported “Right to work” legislation (dubbed by labor as “Right to work for less.”) On vote after vote in Congress, he has voted against labor; a list of those votes can be seen here. 

Banks is still fighting against any expansion of healthcare coverage, and rejects medical science. He voted against the most recent expansion of Medicaid and supports legislation that would ban vaccine mandates. He has voted to repeal the ACA, and against legislation that would prevent insurers from discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions.  A review of all of his healthcare votes is here.

Banks has voted repeatedly against efforts to fund research into the effects of marijuana. (Those anti-research votes track well with his “know nothing” approach to all issues.) Banks’ votes on issues related to pot are here.

Unsurprisingly, Banks is also an extremist on immigration. He supports finishing Trump’s wall, eliminating federal funding for sanctuary cities, and deporting “criminal illegal aliens.” He opposes legislation granting amnesty for any undocumented persons (presumably including children currently protected by DACA) and opposes any expansion of guest-worker programs.

Banks is an out and proud White Christian Nationalist. He created the “anti-Woke” caucus in the House of Representatives and introduced legislation to outlaw any remaining affirmative action in college admissions. He has been dubbed “Focus on the Family’s Man in Washington.” He opposes all DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs. He has been especially vocal in his opposition to gay rights generally, and to trans children especially– in addition to his “Anti-Woke Caucus,” he has supported efforts to ban trans people from the military, prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports, and prevent medical personnel from treating children for gender dysphoria. He recently sponsored a particularly odious bill that would prevent agencies charged with placing children in foster homes from taking measures to see that gay and trans children not be placed with foster parents who have religious objections to homosexuality, saying that refusal to place those children in such homes was discrimination against religion. (Discriminating against gay children is evidently fine…)

Banks consistently attacks educational institutions of all kinds. He has vowed to investigate the National Association of Independent Schools, focusing on the group’s role in political advocacy and its tax-exempt status. He has threatened to “expose” what he calls widespread political indoctrination in America’s public schools, and has claimed that lawmakers have a “moral duty” to investigate the use of academic accreditation associations as “political tools by leftist ideologues.”

When Banks was in the Indiana legislature, he voted to allow instruction in creationism and supported the educational vouchers that send tax dollars to private, overwhelmingly religious schools.

And of course, he’s described Trump’s trial as “rigged,” posting on social media that “New York is a liberal sh*t hole.”

Having a Neanderthal like Banks as a Congressman is bad enough. Electing him Senator would be worse.

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The Year Of The Woman?

Are we finally approaching that much-heralded (but thus far elusive) “year of the woman”–a year that, despite previous predictions, has yet to materialize?

Maybe. It’s happening in other countries, even those with a deeply “macho” culture–in Mexico, a woman has been elected President. In the U.S., twelve states currently have women governors.

Here in regressive, Red Indiana, the Democratic Party will run an all-women slate of statewide candidates, a first. I have previously written about my enthusiastic support for Jennifer McCormick, the former Superintendent of Public Instruction currently running for Governor. I have not previously written about Valerie McCray, who defeated Marc Carmichael, the candidate I supported for U.S. Senate, or about the contest between two other women–Destiny Wells and Beth White–who are the only candidates vying for the Attorney General nomination.

So let me get to it.

I’ve previously explained why Jennifer McCormick, who will face Trumper Mike Braun in November, would be an excellent Governor. If you visit her website, you will note that she is focused on issues that actually concern Hoosiers, unlike Braun, who–like all MAGA culture warriors–talks almost exclusively about the federal issues he did little or nothing to address in his six years as a Senator.

I recently sat down with Jennifer and her equally impressive campaign manager, and was encouraged to learn that, not only is she personally compelling and right on the issues, she is running a savvy, organized and well-thought-out campaign.

I have also had the opportunity to meet with Valerie McCray and her campaign manager, both of whom noted the extent to which Hoosiers–at least, Democratic-leaning ones– seem to be favoring women candidates this year. (Evidently, voters unfamiliar with either of the Democrats’ Senate contenders overwhelmingly opted for the female candidate.) That phenomenon failed to help Suzanne Crouch, the only woman vying for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination–a reminder of the parties’ very different attitudes toward women.

As readers of this blog know, in the primary, I supported McCray’s opponent– an older white guy. (I firmly believe that voters should support candidates based upon their individual merits, rather than voting for an identity. I’ve known some pretty reprehensible women politicians.) That said, I was very relieved to find that McCray, whom I’d not previously known, isn’t only right on the issues  (see her excellent website), but is also energetic, informed, and thoughtful. That said, McCray’s biggest asset is actually her opponent, Jim Banks, who represents the most anti-American, anti-woman, theocratic aspects of the MAGA movement. (As I intend to explain in upcoming posts, Banks is very consistent–wrong about everything.) 

If Valerie McCray’s biggest campaign asset is Jim Banks, Todd Rokita will definitely fill that role for the eventual Democratic Attorney General nominee. I have posted about Rokita’s multiple deficits several times; he has been a consistent embarrassment to the legal profession and to the Hoosier State. He was a disgrace as a Congressman and has ignored his professional and ethical obligations as Indiana’s Attorney General, using the position (and taxpayer dollars) to feed his considerable ego while pandering to the far, far Right of the GOP. (Recently, several state senators called him “a hammer in search of a nail.”)

The specific merits of these candidates is important. Their campaigns, their performance in debates and on the stump, their fundraising–all of those traditional elements will matter, and matter a lot. But in addition to the normal horse-race factors, I come back to the question with which I began this post: will this be the year of the woman?

How angry are America’s women? How motivated? How many women who haven’t previously voted will register and cast their ballots in November? How many “good guys”–men who aren’t threatened by women’s growing equality, who care deeply about the status and health of their mothers, sisters and daughters– will signify that support by voting Blue? 

Hoping for a year of the woman is most definitely not an attack on men. It is endorsement of an equal civic partnership that benefits both men and women– and a refusal to return half the population to the subordinate status demanded by the GOP’s White Christian Nationalists.

In Indiana this November, voters will choose between a statewide slate of three talented and accomplished women and three out-and-proud MAGA misogynists and theocrats. This won’t be an election in which differences are minor. It also won’t be an election affected by gerrymandering–you can’t gerrymander a statewide race. 

Here’s an idea: If everyone reading this who cares about civic equality and women’s rights would send a few dollars to each of these women, we could demonstrate widespread support for a Hoosier year of the woman.

If Mexico can do this, so can Indiana.

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Speaking Of Indoctrination

A few days ago, I highlighted the growth of “below-the-radar” volunteer organizations working to inform citizens and get out the progressive (okay, the anti-lunacy) vote. I was encouraged to discover how many efforts of which I’d previously been unaware– were underway in Indiana and elsewhere.

But of course, what’s sauce for the goose…A post at Juanita Jean reported on a similar phenomenon--but from the Right.

Those of us who get our information from the (mostly) reliable traditional news sources have been made aware of the many semi-secret organizations working to replace secular democracy with Christian Nationalism–from groups of wealthy and ostensibly respectable businessmen to the considerably less “socially acceptable” militia members. The linked post offers yet another illustration of the well-known Republican predilection for projection– blaming others for one’s own behaviors. This is yet another example of the hypocrisy of those insisting that “libruls” and public schools are engaged in “indoctrination.”

As Half-Empty writes at Juanita Jean,

What do Sean Spicer, General Michael Flynn (ret.), Jack Posobiec, Dan Crenshaw, Mike Waltz, Dana Loesch, Dinesh D’Souza, and John Solomon all have in common?

If you guessed they were all January 6th supporters or TFG idolizers, you would be correct, but they also have one basic thing in common: they are all Kid Lit authors.

At least they are now.

All of the above and more belong to the new constellation of stars being offered by Houston-based Brave Books. Brave Books proudly offers “Pro-God, Pro-America children’s books.” They tout their books to be “faith-based children’s books teaching American values for a brighter future.”

Brave Books features such titles as “The Island of Free Ice Cream,” which instructs children “that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is,” and “Fame, Blame and the Raft of Shame,” which teaches children “the dangers of cancel culture.”

I kid you not.

As Half Empty notes, most parents of toddlers consider colorfully illustrated children’s books a must-have.  And such children are still in their formative years; they are not yet capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and far too immature to consider complications or shades of gray. Toddlers and very young children are ripe for socialization/indoctrination.

Early indoctrination of children is not a new concept. Early in the Soviet Era, children of the USSR were encouraged to join Little Octobrists (октября́та) in order to become lively, active, healthy, disciplined youngsters who subordinate themselves to the collective.

At about the same time, a similar program was offered in Germany called Deutsches Jungvolk and Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) for older male children.

The difference between then and now, obviously, is that in the present case, the children’s books are offered by a private business, and the earlier indoctrination programs were government run.

Apparently, however, even that distinction blurs.

While not government entities themselves, there are three examples of government-related organizations that do participate in indoctrination. In May 2023, the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) purchased $5,193.00 of these books in order to provide gift mementos to its donors. In November 2022, the Michael Waltz Campaign (FL – 06) bought $580.00 worth of books for supporters. In May 2022, the principal campaign committee of Matt Gaetz (FL – 01) purchased $2,555.80 worth for “supporter gifts.”

As Half-Empty notes, these GOP tactics amount to a “win-win” scenario:

authors get paid for their works, donors get rewarded for donating, and young children are told about the evils of boycotts and getting free stuff (eg., ice cream, EBT, Healthcare, and Social Security).

In this scenario, when you are in a majority, you maintain the majority by early indoctrination of future voters. If you find yourself in a shrinking minority, it is even more important to indoctrinate them.

I will admit to being dubious about the long-term success of these efforts at early childhood indoctrination. On the other hand, the parents who use these books (assuming that recipients of these GOP “gifts” are parents who actually do read to their children–or read at all) are likely to pursue other childrearing practices that reinforce the book’s “lessons.” Although the likely impact of this particular effort is low, its existence reflects the pervasiveness of GOP efforts to compensate for the party’s minority status–its determination to turn back the clock to a time when White Christian males dominated a patriarchal American society.

What worries me is that these sorts of underground efforts have to be considered in context: an extensive media (Faux, etc.) reinforcing Rightwing disinformation, a voting population that is largely civically-illiterate, and the persistent racism of a considerable portion of the American public.

It’s that context that keeps me up at night…

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