(Authoritarians always go too far before they’ve made sure what they’re doing is legal. It seems that Gov. DeSantis came the closest to figuring that out, and setting himself up, though courts won’t back him. Still, he’s going until they make him stop. Anyway, I hope Oklahomans do hold the entire Board accountable, especially the Superintendent, and make him restore the inappropriate charges for his trips, too.)
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Legal experts tell News 4 the events of Wednesday’s Oklahoma State School Board meeting are unprecedented, and should alarm anyone with power to hold State Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education accountable.
Those events include Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters personally attacking multiple public officials by making verifiably false claims about them, and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office alleging Walters and the Board may have violated state law.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Oklahoma State School Board (OSBE) and Supt. Ryan Walters voted to table a decision on whether they would allow State Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) and other legislators to sit in on their executive session discussions, despite getting guidance from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office advising them they legally had to let the legislators in.
In comments made to reporters following Wednesday’s meeting, Walters seemed to be unaware the Attorney General’s Office had emailed him and all state school board members a letter with guidance on July 18.
Following the meeting, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office released a statement suggesting Walters and the board may have willfully violated Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act.
After the meeting, Walters also falsely claimed to reporters that Sen. Boren wants to “make it where we can’t remove pedophiles from classrooms.”
He also called Bixby Public Schools superintendent Rob Miller a “clown” when asked about claims Miller had made on social media.
Boren says she showed up to Wednesday’s meeting with one focus: to sit in on the second of two scheduled executive session discussions OSBE had on its agenda for the meeting.
The agenda indicated the board planned to use the first executive session to hold “confidential communications with board counsel concerning a request by Senator Mary Boren to observe all executive sessions of the Board on July 31, 2024.”
It said, in the second executive session, the board would “discuss possible action” on four separate issues involving the possible revocation of certain teachers’ teaching certificates.
The second executive session is what Boren said she wanted to observe.
According to the agenda, the board would first take a vote to enter the first executive session. After the board completed that session they were to vote to return to open session, and then discuss and take “possible action regarding the matters discussed” in the first session.
Boren expected, after the first session, the board would vote as to whether or not they would allow her to observe the second executive session.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses the crowd before publicly signing “Stop W.O.K.E” bill in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, on April 22, 2022. (Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis often says the Sunshine State is the place where “woke goes to die.” But a federal judge on Friday killed part of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act championed as standing up against “indoctrination.”
Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued a permanent injunction, saying the law that bans diversity training in private workplaces “violates free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” The ruling follows a three-judge appeals court panel’s March decision that upheld Walker’s original injunction. The State of Florida did not oppose the motion to make the ruling permanent.
Florida honeymoon registry company Honeyfund.com and Primo Tampa, a subsidiary of a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream franchisee, were among those who filed the lawsuit after the Legislature passed the law in 2022. Shalini Goel Agarwal counsel for Protect Democracy which filed the lawsuit on their behalf said the ruling is “a powerful reminder that the First Amendment cannot be warped to serve the interests of elected officials.”
“Censoring business owners from speaking in favor of ideas that politicians don’t like is a moved ripped straight from the authoritarian playbook,” she said in a statement.
“We have every right as a state to provide protections for employees and businesses to say if they are doing woke training which is basically discriminating against folks on the basis of race, you have a right to opt out,” he said. “It’s not a question of what the company can say. They can say whatever they want. But you have a right to not self flagellate. You have a right to not sit there and listen to that nonsense.”
Sara Margulis, CEO of Honeyfund.com, hailed the appeals court decision from March.
“We moved Honeyfund to Florida in 2017 because it was known as a business-friendly state,” she said in a statement. “Passing laws that seek to squash free speech like HB7 is not only a violation of The First Amendment but is also a losing strategy because businesses serve people of all backgrounds, walks of life, and political views. Therefore the law would have effectively hampered the ability of Florida businesses to grow and serve their market. I don’t think that’s what Florida really wants. It’s clearly not in line with American values. I couldn’t be happier that we stood up for free speech and business in the state of Florida.”
The legislation — HB 7, formally called the “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” — is also aimed at blocking school teachers and college professors from offering their opinions on what DeSantis described as “pernicious ideologies” that could potentially make students, because of their race, feel personally responsible for past racism, sexism, or other discrimination in the U.S. That part of the law also has an injunction and is awaiting a ruling from a higher court.
Critics have said it’s an attempt to stop meaningful discussion of the ongoing effects of longstanding systemic discrimination and topics including critical race theory and privilege. A slew of lawsuits were filed against the legislation including by professors, students and the ACLU. Courts have repeatedly blocked portions of the law.
According to the bill’s text, “[i]t shall constitute discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or sex under this section to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe” the following:
1. Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.
2. A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
3. A person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.
4. Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, national origin, or sex.
5. A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.
6. A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.
7. A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.
8. Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, national origin, or sex to oppress members of another race, color, national origin, or sex.
Matt Naham and Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
Rising temperatures mean dehydrated, exhausted kids, and teachers who have to focus on heat safety instead of instruction.
Originally published by The 19th (Republished with their republish link)
Angela Girol has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for over two decades. Over the years she’s noticed a change at her school: It’s getting hotter.
Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom which, like many on the East Coast, isn’t air-conditioned. When it’s hot, she said, kids don’t eat, or drink enough water. “They end up in the nurse’s office because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, their stomach hurts — all because of heat and dehydration,” she said.
To cope with the heat, her students are now allowed to keep water on their desks, but that presents its own challenges. “They’re constantly filling up water bottles, so I have to give them breaks during the day for that. And then everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “I’m losing instruction time.”
The effect extreme heat is having on schools and child care is starting to get the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on the issue. In April, so did the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit policy organization.
“The average school building in the U.S. was built nearly 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and child care centers were built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t require access to air-conditioning, or at least for a good portion of the year. Now we’re seeing that becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that is really important not just to their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.
Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own report detailing some of the effects heat has on kids. It notes that children have a harder time thermo-regulating and take longer to produce sweat, making them more vulnerable than adults to heat exhaustion and heat illness.
Kids don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and might need an adult to remind them to drink water or not play outside. Kevin Toolan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said having to constantly monitor heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those children don’t know how to handle it.”
To keep the classroom cool, he’ll turn the lights off, but kids fall asleep. “They are lethargic,” he said.
To protect kids, schools have canceled classes because temperatures have gotten too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more kids being absent from school, especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. One study from 2020 tracked the scores of students from schools without air-conditioning who took the PSAT exam at least twice. It found that increases in the average outdoor temperature corresponded with students making smaller gains on their retakes.
Both Toolan and Girol said that cooling options like keeping doors and windows open to promote cross ventilation are gone, thanks to the clampdowns in school security after 9/11 — and worsened by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheating classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” said Toolan. “At 100 degrees, it is very uncomfortable. Your clothes are stuck to you.”
The Center for American Progress report joins a call by other advocacy groups to create federal guidance that schools and child care centers could adopt “to ensure that children are not forced to learn, play and exercise in dangerously hot conditions,” Schneider said. Some states already have standards in place, but they vary. In California, child care facilities are required to keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, like Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on high-heat days. Schneider says federal guidance would help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.
In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed a letter making a similar request of the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect kids. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; encouraging states to direct more resources to providing air-conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information on heat hazards.
“We know that school infrastructure is being overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should be implementing, it’s going to be a little bit of the Wild West of actions being taken,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.
A longer term solution is upgrading school infrastructure but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide don’t have adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost around $4.4 billion.
Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat issue. In June, the New York State Legislature passed a bill now awaiting the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures like closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be canceled. A bill introduced last year and currently before California’s state assembly would require schools to create extreme heat action plans that could include mandating hydration and rest breaks or moving recess to cooler parts of the day.
Some teachers have been galvanized to take action, too. As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote. Over half will go to HVAC systems for some 500 schools in his district.
And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a main plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools in order to pay for things like air-conditioning. She was recently endorsed by the Climate Cabinet, a federal political action committee. “Part of the reason climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” she said. “I see how it’s negatively affecting my students.”
Idaho’s recently enacted bill encourages parents and children to bring legal action against schools and libraries that refuse to move certain material into “adult only” sections.
Books are displayed at the Banned Book Library at American Stage in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Feb. 18, 2023. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)
A recently enacted law requiring Idaho schools and libraries to remove materials that are “harmful” to minors infringes on the First Amendment rights of private entities, a group of private schools, privately-funded libraries, parents and schoolchildren say in a Thursday lawsuit.
House Bill 710 — which took effect July 1 after Governor Brad Little signed it into law in April — allows citizens and the government to file a lawsuit against any school or library that doesn’t move certain material into designated “adult only” sections within 60 days of a complaint.
“H.B. 710 is the product of a social climate in Idaho (and elsewhere) in which schools and libraries have been inaccurately and unfairly castigated and villainized for using and making available constitutionally protected materials with content that the state and some Idahoans disapprove of,” the plaintiffs say in the 57-page complaint.
The suit was brought by private schools Sun Valley Community School and Foothills School of Arts and Sciences, along with the Community Library Association, a privately funded public library, and Collister United Methodist Church, which operates a lending library.
The groups are also joined by a set of parents and two high school-age students, who say that they want access to these reportedly “harmful” books and other materials to further their education.
The plaintiffs say the law violates their First Amendment free speech rights and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. They ask the court to block enforcement of the law and to declare HB 710 unconstitutional.
“The act’s vague and overbroad definition of ‘harmful to minors’ conflicts with decades of settled constitutional law and extends well beyond the state’s limited authority to restrict the materials that private parties, like the private entity plaintiffs, may provide to minors,” they write.
Under the act’s definitions, the plaintiffs say, materials like health and sex education textbooks, literary works like Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and artworks like Michelangelo’s David would all be subject to removal, possibly based on arbitrary and subjective reasons.
“Even the Bible, if a defendant or citizen complainant subjectively believes members of their community would find them offensive,” could be targeted, the plaintiffs note.
The plaintiffs also take specific aim with a clause of the act that restricts materials that depict or represent “sexual conduct” — a definition that includes “any act of … homosexuality.”
Beyond the “vague and overbroad” definition of what constitutes “harmful for minors,” the plaintiffs also take issue with what they called the “incoherent” enforcement provisions outlined in HB 710. The act “fails to provide constitutionally meaningful guardrails on enforcement,” plaintiffs say.
“If a private entity plaintiff disagrees with the content-based assessment of the parent or minor and declines to segregate the challenged material, the parent or minor is authorized to file a civil suit against the private entity plaintiff and incentivized to do so by a cash reward and the availability of ‘actual damages,’” the plaintiffs write, referring to a provision in HB 710 that allows for a possible recovery of $250 and statutory and actual damages, if the complainant prevails in the case.
The government itself is also permitted under HB 710 to seek an injunction against any of the plaintiffs, who say this could lead to financial and reputational harm.
The plaintiffs name Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador as a defendant, alongside Jan Bennetts, prosecuting attorney for Ada County, and Matt Fredrick, prosecuting attorney for Blaine County.
HB 710 is not the first attempt Idaho legislators have made to restrict library access in the state. A version of the measure made it through the 2023 session but was rejected by Little.
In a letter after he signed HB 710, the governor commended the 2024 bill for having tighter definitions for restricted material and for lowering the recovery from $2,500.
“I share the co-sponsors’ desire to keep truly inappropriate materials out of the hands of minors,” Little wrote in April.
Libraries initially pushed back on the bill, citing free speech concerns and the financial burden it could levy, particularly on smaller libraries, but legislators stood by the measure.
“I can assure you that there is no book banning and there’s no book burning and there’s no book removal anywhere in this legislation. What we have to look at when you look at these libraries is that you have differing viewpoints and different opinions from taxpayers,” Representative Jaron Crane, a Nampa Republican and bill co-sponsor, said in committee, the Idaho Capital Sun reported in March.
A complete Christian take over if the US and an attempt to turn society back to 1850s mentality with a 1950s society. And if tRump wins, we all well have to start attending the hate church nearest us. The women in the back, on one side, black people in the back on the other, and white men in front to show their privilege. After church while the men relax the women and girls will be cooking meals. The gays will be converted in camps and if they still have the demon gays, the LGBTQ+, they will be removed from society. Hugs. Scottie
Heritage Foundation leader has long received spiritual guidance from group and his policy goals align with its teachings
Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president and the architect of Project 2025, the conservative thinktank’s road map for a second Trump presidency, has close ties and receives regular spiritual guidance from an Opus Dei-led center in Washington DC, a hub of activity for the radical and secretive Catholic group.
Roberts acknowledged in a speech last September that – for years – he has visited the Catholic Information Center, a K Street institution headed by an Opus Dei priest and incorporated by the archdiocese of Washington, on a weekly basis for mass and “formation”, or religious guidance. Opus Dei also organizes monthly retreats at the CIC.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, speaks at an event on 12 April 2023. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
In the speech – which he delivered at the CIC and was recorded and is available online – Roberts spoke candidly about his strategy for achieving extreme policy goals that he supports but are out of step with the views of a majority of Americans.
Outlawing birth control is the “hardest” political battle facing conservatives in the future, the 50-year-old political strategist said, but he urged conservatives to pursue even small legislative victories – what he called “radical incrementalism” – to advance their most rightwing policy objectives.
Kevin Roberts explains ‘radical incrementalism’ to advance rightwing policy objectives – video
Roberts gained notoriety this year as the leading force behind Project 2025, a foundation plan backed by more than 100 conservative groups that seeks to radically upend a broad range of policies if Trump gets elected again, from limiting abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights and dismantling the Department of Education, to ending diversity programs and increasing government support for “fertility awareness” programs, like ovulation tracking and practicing periodic abstinence, instead of more reliable contraception.
But Roberts’ personal ties to Opus Dei and the significance of his affiliation, have received far less attention.
Gareth Gore, the author of a forthcoming book on Opus Dei, called the Catholic organization “a political project shrouded in a veil of spirituality”. The group’s founder, Saint Josemaría Escrivá, saw his followers as part of a “rising militia”, Gore said, who were seeking to “enter battle against the enemies of Christ”.
“Like Project 2025, Opus Dei at its core is a reactionary stand against the progressive drift of society,” Gore said. “For decades now, the organization has thrown its resources at penetrating Washington’s political and legal elite – and finally seems to have succeeded through its close association with men like Kevin Roberts and Leonard Leo.”
Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society executive vice-president, speaks to the media at Trump Tower on 16 November 2016. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP
Leo is a conservative activist who has led the Republican mission to install the rightwing majority in the supreme court and finances many of the groups signed on to Project 2025.
Like Roberts, Leo also has links to the Opus Dei-linked CIC. In a 2022 speech accepting the CIC’s highest honor, the John Paul II New Evangelization award, Leo praised the center while also referring to his political opponents as “vile and amoral current day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who were under the influence of the devil.
Democrats, including Kamala Harris, have been sounding the alarm on Project 2025 to warn voters of what a second Trump administration could do.
“[Trump] and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. We know we have to take this thing seriously. And can you believe they put that thing in writing?” Harris said this week in her first presidential campaign rally, to laughter. “Read it. It’s 900 pages.”
Trump, for his part, has sought to distance himself from the project, though the people behind it have close ties to the former president, and the policies it envisions often align with Trump’s ideas. Roberts has said he is “good friends” with JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, and Vance has praised Project 2025 as having “some good ideas”. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, also wrote the foreword for Roberts’ forthcoming book, praising the author for articulating a “genuinely new future for conservatism”.
“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon,” Vance wrote.
JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on 22 July 2024 in Radford, Virginia. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Opus Dei does not disclose the names of its members. The group’s roots date back to a century ago, when the group was established in Spain in response to a clash between conservative Catholics and anti-Catholic socialism and communism in Spain. Decades later, the group was granted special status by the conservative pope John Paul II, who supported Opus Dei and saw it as a response to the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, a progressive church movement.
Some of Opus Dei’s special rights were revoked in recent years by Pope Francis, who is seen as a more progressive pontiff.
One of the core tenets of Opus Dei is that it does not believe in the traditional separation of church and state. Instead, said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, it believes the two ought to have a symbiotic relationship.
“They are secretive, so while they are not [outwardly] part of this [Project 2025] per se, it is not surprising at all that some of their members are part of it. They see this moment in politics – and the possibility of allowing ‘woke ideology’ to win – as fundamentally changing the nature of America, western civilization and Christianity,” Faggioli said.
He added: “Opus Dei is part of [a movement of] US conservative and traditionalist Catholicism that holds a view that the United States is the last bastion of Christendom, so that if the United States goes a certain way, so goes Christianity, and Catholicism.”
Indeed Roberts made it clear earlier this month that he believes the US is at a crossroads, and“in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”.
Asked whether it had a view on Roberts’ remarks or Project 2025, a spokesperson for Opus Dei told the Guardian in a statement: “Opus Dei is an institution of the Catholic Church that tries to help people come closer to God in their work and everyday lives. Opus Dei’s aims are purely spiritual and it does not endorse or have any opinion on any political project of any kind.”
Opus Dei is controversial not only in the US. Dozens of women from Argentina and Paraguay filed a complaint to the Vatican over labor exploitation and abuses of power they say they experienced after joining the group at sites in multiple countries. And reporting in Australia gave insight into schools run by Opus Dei, where former students allege their education left them with “psychological damage”.
Roberts’ personal background suggests his ties to Opus Dei are not just limited to the CIC. A school founded by Roberts in Louisiana, called John Paul the Great Academy, considers Opus Dei-founder Escrivá its “patron”.
Josemaría Escrivá, founder of the Catholic group named Opus Dei. Photograph: REUTERS
Roberts was also involved in an Opus Dei-affiliated high school leadership program in Austin, Texas. A website that tracks Opus Dei men’s activities called Where You Are included a profile of the high school program in Austin where Roberts appears to volunteer and “contributes significantly “ to the school’s career and leadership program.
Roberts was featured as a guest at another Opus Dei-linked school, the Camino Schools, in 2023. In introductory remarks before Roberts spoke, the school’s chairman, Bob Rose, praised schools that teach boys and girls they are “different”, they learn differently and are inspired by different things, and where boys are taught by “manly men” who serve as role models.
Roberts’ critics said concerns about his ties to Opus Dei were not connected to his identity or beliefs as a Roman Catholic.
“Kevin Roberts, like all Americans, has a guaranteed freedom to worship or not under our constitution,” said Lisa Graves, co-founder of Court Accountability, a non-partisan group that seeks to combat judicial corruption.” That is not at issue. What is of concern is how some powerful elites, like Roberts, who have failed to persuade the American people to embrace their agenda, seem eager to use the power of the executive branch to impose their personal religious views as binding law on other Americans – by barring abortion, using the government to endorse the rhythm method of contraception, even banning mention of ‘condoms’ in women’s preventative health, as well as assailing the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans.”
Heritage did not respond to a request for comment. The CIC did not respond to a request for comment.
During Roberts’ September 2023 speech, which received little notice at the time but is posted on the center’s YouTube page, Roberts detailed how conservative Catholics and their allies could advance US policy to end access to abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception.
Knowing the unpopularity of banning birth control – a harder political battle to wage than advancing anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage policies – he encouraged an incremental approach to pursuing this long-term goal.
“Even in a politically conservative setting, that can be a very difficult thing to advance,” Roberts told attendees at the CIC event. “A majority of Roman Catholics don’t believe in that teaching, if public opinion surveys are the case. And so it makes it very difficult to advocate for that.”
The faithful should practice the “gift of discernment” to know when to bring it up: “Sometimes the right thing at the right time to the right person isn’t the full teaching of humanity, right? It isn’t the full teaching of contraception. And recognizing that that’s not the time is no way turning into Judas. In fact, it’s being apostolic. And the very definition of the word, which is in modern common parlance, meeting someone where they are.”
In espousing his theory of “radical incrementalism”, or what he called the “enchilada theory”, he said it was critical for conservatives to work first to achieve a small part of a larger policy goal based on what’s politically possible at the moment. Sometimes, he said, having even half an enchilada could be a victory.
On abortion, he noted that Roman Catholics believe “no abortion can be morally justified”, but that even in conservative circles in the US, this is not a majority opinion, and it’s an “even more difficult position to hold” after the Dobbs decision. Using the “same vocabulary of our faith” in the policy arena has a negative effect on electoral outcomes, he said.
Roberts advised listeners not to accept the “narrative framing of the other side” on these issues. He said conservatives who are anti-abortion should stop talking about it the way the left wants them to and instead “talk about the fact that many of them want abortion to be legal until birth”.
Strategies of incrementalism and narrative framing don’t always apply, he added, because sometimes you just have to fight.
“Right now, we have to fight on religious liberty and, in particular, religious liberty as it relates to protecting institutions of faith,” he said. “And that’s not a time for strategic retreat. It’s not a time to be savvy, it’s not a time to be sweet. It’s not a time to develop friendships with the other side. It is a time to take our fist – figuratively, Father Charles – and bust them in the nose because they hate what you and I believe.”
My husband and I have five kids. Four are now adults and we have one still at home. We have raised wrestlers, football players, basketball players, and a softball player. We’ve had a cheerleader and two homecoming kings, but we never expected our last to hate sports and love theater. Let me tell you…it’s a breath of fresh air and I don’t have to take out special insurance riders for concussions and broken collar bones.
Our last kiddo is a theater kid and I love it.
I walked into my daughter’s yearly play performance a couple of days ago and saw a woman smiling at me as I passed. You have to remember that I am in a small town and if people know me, they also know my loud-mouth brand of politics, so I can be polarizing in person. If they know me, they like me or hate me. There’s no in-between.
So when I saw her smiling at me, I smiled back. Whew! She must be friendly. She said “Kamala” as I walked past. I turned back and said, “Kamala?” She responded with, “Yes, we Kam,” and her smile grew even bigger. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
Kamala.
That was the Friday night performance. My daughter also had a Saturday matinee. My husband and I sat closer to the stage for this one since we knew where to better see our kid as she sang and danced. As we sat down, a woman behind me said, “Jess!” I turned and she told me how much she appreciated me speaking out on rural issues. She held my hand as she told me how excited she was to hear Kamala would be the nominee. We talked for just a minute and I then turned back to see my husband scrolling Facebook marketplace as we waited for the play to begin…he’s always looking for a deal on an old car or a lawnmower. We need neither.
A couple of minutes passed when a former student (I adore her and her entire family) got my attention. Mrs. Piper! She introduced me to yet another woman who lives in my community and sat next to me nearly breathless in her excitement for the upcoming election. She asked how we could start organizing for 2024. How can we work to elect Crystal Quade as the first woman Governor of Missouri? How can we make sure abortion rights win on Missouri ballots? How can we organize in tiny Northwest Missouri to elect Kamala Harris?
Her eyes were clear and bright. She also held my hand while speaking. She and the other women were exhibiting something I had not seen in a long time…it looked like hope.
Adams County, Illinois.
I was asked to speak to a group of Democrats in Quincy, Illinois this week and I happily accepted. Quincy is a town just over the Mississippi River from Missouri. The landscape looks exactly like the corn and bean fields of Missouri, and it is just across the river, but I was suddenly bestowed with bodily autonomy and the rights of a first-class citizen as soon as I drove east across that muddy river.
“States’ Rights.”
The problem with driving several hours with only minutes to dress for an event? I am consistently dressing next to a toilet — changing out of my leggings or shorts and into a dress. I always hope for a stall with a hook to hang my things so I don’t have to drop my clothes onto a public bathroom floor. And, don’t even ask how I apply makeup while sitting on a toilet. I live a glamorous life, friend 😉
Anyway, I managed the toilet two-step and walked out ready to speak to a few people. The event organizer told me there are usually 50-60 people who attend.
As soon as folks started arriving for the event, I noticed it would be a bigger crowd than they had anticipated. The Adams County Dems had prepared enough food for 90 people — over and above what they hoped to host. They had over 100 show up. The organizer told me it was the biggest event they have had in years. I’d like to say it’s because people were there to hear me, but I know that’s not the case. People showed up because they were excited. They wanted to be around like-minded friends who are excited. They wanted to smile broadly and talk loudly. They wanted to hear others affirm what they felt.
They have hope.
I noticed a woman in a Kamala shirt…it had only been three days since Joe said he was stepping aside. I asked her if she had a Cricut machine in her basement. These folks are moving fast. Excitement.
I sat down at a table to eat my pulled pork sandwich before my talk and organizers from an abortion rights group were at the table already discussing the Plan B kits they send across the border to Missouri. One woman said they put together over 100 kits and sent them to bars in Missouri with a no-pay policy. If you need the kit, just walk in and ask. I was amazed at the work they are doing to help women in another state. My state. The first state to completely ban abortion after Roe fell.
Bless them.
The first speaker was a first-generation Mexican American who also served in the Army. He was fiery. He blew us away with his love of country and patriotism for a country that has not lived up to its potential. He reminded the audience that Democrats are patriots. That we are trying to live up to ideals that will pave the way for all to live freely in our country. He stands in the way of a Trump dictatorship.
I love to hear Dems remind us that the Republicans do not own patriotism or the flag. In fact, the leader of the Republican party is a shameful man who does not stand for American values. The audience came to their feet as he closed his message.
The next speaker was a young woman from rural Missouri. She is only 16, but she came with a speech that made me remember why Republicans want to ban books and ban the teaching of accurate history. She spoke of being a woman in a red state with an abortion ban. “Oh, to be a Woman.” She spoke of women activists and the suffrage movement. She is a woman of color and she spoke of the civil rights movement. She spoke of second-class citizenship and of her ability to see why politicians would want to oppress generations of women. Fear of our vote.
Republicans push fear while we move forward in hope.
And, this is where I should say something. Reader, you know I was in favor of Joe staying in the race, and this was the reason: Every time pundits and consultants spoke of Biden dropping out, they never named Kamala Harris. Her name did not appear on the lists for nomination, and I am not sure they would have ceded the nomination if Biden had not endorsed her as he did. If tens of thousands of us would not have immediately started donating and picking up the torch Joe had passed.
If we had not rallied behind the woman we hope to nominate for the presidency, I think we may have had another nominee and many Democrats would have felt the fracture in our party.
There is no fracture now. There is palpable hope and joy. Eyes are wide and clear and smiles abound. Folks hold my hand to tell me how excited they are to see where the party is going.
Scottie's Playtime 