Category: Written Media / Books

Oh my dogs that love gravy! I caught up. I will explain below.

I have not been able to get to all the news tabs I had opened, so each night I pushed them into the next morning.  I had several hundreds of open tabs, at least past the beginning of the month into last June.  Maybe 300+  But Ron left Sunday morning to go to NC to pick up his family and take them to see their brother in a nursing home under hospice care.   He does this at least once a year, often more.   This year with everything going on, it is a huge hardship drain on our finances.  But it is family, so …

So with Ron gone, no distractions over the simple needed chores (feeding cats, cleaning cat boxes, doing dishes, taking out trash) I have had all the free time to work on the computer.  I am now with this post caught up to Friday night / Saturday morning.   I hope to finish the next few days worth quickly, so I can tell everyone what my medical tests showed.  Spoiler I have minor heart damage, but seem to have a bad lung problem.  The first meme is my fav.   More later.    Best wishes and hugs 

DeSantis Rejects $377 Million In Federal Energy Funds
According to a green energy group, the rebates would have meant people in Florida would get “lower utility bills and healthier and more comfortable homes as well as lower greenhouse gas emissions.” Meanwhile, DeSantis has proposed millions in tax credits for people who buy gas stoves.

This used to be him. Hate does some strange shit to you…

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A ‘new breed’ of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

https://www.alternet.org/christian-nationalism-2661573247/

A ‘new breed’ of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

A 'new breed' of charter schools is spreading Christian nationalism — at taxpayers’ expense

Texas Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, speaks as students, educators and policy makers rally for school choice at the Texas Capitol on Friday advocating a voucher plan where parents could choose to remove children from low-performing public schools into better charter schools. (Photo by Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images)

Writen by Jeff Bryant and Independent Media Institute June 19, 2023

Charges that public schools are subjecting children to leftwing indoctrination are proving to be mostly over-hyped or not at all based in fact. Yet, there’s evidence, according to a new report, that a fast-growing sector of the charter school industry is engaged in indoctrination, only, in this case, the schools are instructing children in white, conservative ideology.

The report, “A Sharp Turn Right: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda” by the Network for Public Education (NPE), finds that charter schools that market to families a “classical” or “traditional” approach to schooling are essentially catering to parents and politicians that follow “right-wing ideology.”

Using keyword searches, news stories from local and national media, and examinations of charter school websites and other resources, the authors claim to have “identified a representative sample”—273 currently open charter schools—that resemble their definition of what constitutes a right-wing educational agenda.

The report authors offer this number with the caveat that “we are confident there are schools and even chains we missed.”

Two principal criteria the authors used to determine the political leanings of the schools were whether they offered what’s commonly called a “classical” curriculum or a “back-to-basics” curriculum and/or whether the schools’ websites made politically conservative or religious references or were “designed to attract white conservative families.”

Other evidence the authors looked for to determine a school’s political orientation was whether the charters’ owners or founders had publicly stated overtly conservative political beliefs or had substantial connections to right-wing individuals or advocacy groups.

Some charters blatantly signaled their education agendas by, for example, having a cross on their buildings or exhibiting religious symbols or hyper-patriotic messages in school common areas.

The report also accuses this sector of the charter school industry of enrolling mostly white and middle-class and wealthy families and discouraging attendance of low-income and non-white families.

“Unlike the entire charter school sector, the overall student body of these charter schools is disproportionately white,” the report states, citing evidence from the 2021-2022 school year that “more than 52 percent of the students who attended these charter schools were white, compared with 29 percent of all charter school students. Nationally, nearly one in four charter students is Black. In right-wing charters, Black students comprise only seven percent of enrollment.”

Students who were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch, a typical measurement of poverty, were also under-represented in these schools, making up only 17 percent of students enrolled in these charters “compared with 48 percent of all charter school students and 43 percent of the students in democratically-governed public schools.”

Moreover, these schools are a growing presence in the nation’s education system since the election of Donald Trump as president. “Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, the number of classical and right-wing charter schools has grown by 90 percent with 66 more schools in the pipeline,” the report assesses. “Forty-seven percent of the schools we identified opened since [his] inauguration.”

The report challenges the notion that charter schools are a bipartisan or even progressive issue, as they are often framed, and calls into question whether public school tax dollars should continue to pour into the charter industry.

“Charter schools took a sharp turn right and now serve a purpose never imagined by their early proponents,” the report concludes. “[T]hese new laboratories of right-wing thought are flourishing with the silent accord of charter school supporters on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum.”

A Threat to ‘Upend American Education’

The report comes at a critical time as the nation’s first religion-based charter school has been allowed to open in Oklahoma.

Up until now, “[charter] schools [were] deemed public by state law, and must be secular just like any other public school,” according to Chalkbeat reporter Matt Barnum. Allowing a religious charter to open—in this case, an online charter school affiliated with the Catholic Church—“is a direct challenge to existing charter laws, which critics say discriminate against churches and other religious entities,” Barnum states.

“The prospect of religious charter schools threatens to upend American education, far beyond Oklahoma,” Barnum continues, contributing to “the successful conservative campaign to allow more public funding to go to religious education.”

Also hanging in the balance, Barnum writes, is a current U.S. Supreme Court case—Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier—that would potentially rule whether charter schools are public or private actors. Should the court rule that charter schools are private entities, the ideologically conservative charters that NPE examines in its report would not only flourish; they would become even more blatant in their instruction of right-wing ideology and more restrictive in denying non-Christian, non-conservative, and LGBTQ+ students to enroll in their schools.

Indeed, the charter school chain at the center of this supreme court case, the Roger Bacon Academy, is examined extensively in the NPE report.

The report calls attention to the daily oath students at the schools are required to chant, in which they pledge to, among other things, “[guard] against the stains of falsehood from the fascination with experts … and from over-reliance on rational argument.”

The report also notes that the schools run by the company “emphasize a ‘traditional curriculum, traditional manners, and traditional respect’—‘more like schools were 50 years ago compared to now,’ according to one of its board members.”

While these calls for “traditional” education can seem non-controversial, NPE warns they are a type of “dog whistle” to convey a right-wing political agenda and a marketing strategy to “attract conservative families with Christian nationalist identities anxious to place their children in schools that reflect early- and mid-20th century values, pedagogy, and curriculum.”

Dog Whistles That Signal Right-Wing Ideology

Among the dog whistles the report cites are uses of the word “classical” in the schools’ branding and marketing and promises on their websites and other marketing materials to “[emphasize] Eurocentric texts and the study of Latin and Greek.” The report says these are signals for attracting conservative families and discouraging families who’d want their children instructed in a broader range of viewpoints and perspectives.

In classical schools that have overtly Christian personae, “the curriculum focuses not only on the Western canon—Homer to C.S. Lewis—but also on scripture,” the report states.

Other dog whistles the report describes include the use of “red, white, and blue decor, patriotic insignia, white students and teachers featured almost exclusively on [the schools’] websites, and the generous use of the word ‘virtue,’” in their marketing.

These are meant to “signal to families which students would be a ‘good fit’ for the school,” the report states.

According to NPE, “more than 80 percent of the new classical charter schools have websites designed to attract Christian nationalist families.”

Another type of charter school the report designates as overtly conservative offers a “‘back to basics’ curriculum without necessarily identifying the curriculum as classical.”

These charters use a similar marketing strategy of “[including] right-wing clues on their website[s] to attract families with Christian nationalist beliefs. Such clues include red, white, and blue school colors, patriotic logos, pictures of the founding fathers, using terms such as virtue, patriotism, and even outright references to religion.”

Sometimes the dog whistles the report describes come from the founders or leaders of the schools. One example came from the founder of the Tulsa Classical Academy who said his school is “a school that’s about justice, not ‘social justice.’ Virtue, not ‘virtue-signaling.’ Objective truth, not ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth.’”

As a result of these marketing tactics, the NPE report finds, “[These charter schools] are whiter and infused with Christian nationalist leanings and aligned with right-wing leaders who make no secret of their plans to turn back progress.”

Schools With Strong Ties to Conservative and Christian Ideology

The NPE report also cites numerous anecdotes showing the strong ties that many of these charters have to conservative, Christian ideology and right-wing advocacy groups.

One example the report points to is Great Hearts Academies, a company operating an extensive network of 34 classical charter schools in Texas and Arizona. In 2018, the report notes, Great Hearts enforced a policy requiring students to use bathrooms “corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates.” The company eventually reversed the policy after students formed groups to protest the policy, according to NPE.

Also, Great Hearts launched a network of “micro-schools,” as alternatives to public schools during the pandemic, according to NPE, some of which are “located in churches.” And the company announced in 2023 that it was opening a network of Christian private schools.

Another charter school chain the report identifies as being a conveyor of right-wing ideology is the extensive network of schools operated by Hillsdale College and its Barney Charter School Initiative.

The report references a 2022 series of articles by Kathryn Joyce in Salon, that reported that Hillsdale College, a small private college based in Michigan, “has inconspicuously been building a network of ‘classical education’ charter schools, which use public tax dollars to teach that systemic racism was effectively vanquished in the 1960s, that America was founded on ‘Judeo-Christian’ principles and that progressivism is fundamentally anti-American.”

Hillsdale’s Barney Charter School Initiative, according to the NPE report, was started with funding from the Barney Family Foundation and the fortune of Stephen Barney and his wife Lynne, who control the foundation.

The report states, “An examination of the foundation’s 990s reveals that in addition to its health and child-centered charities, it also generously funds right-wing think tanks, foundations, and even organizations that exist to create right-wing model legislation. Beneficiaries include Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, Hoover Institution, the Heartland Institute, State Policy Network, [EdChoice], and the Heritage Foundation.”

The Barney Foundation’s political leanings are reflected in the Hillsdale College’s curriculum, according to NPE. Hillsdale charters often teach the college’s 1776 curriculum, which, the report states, “disparages the New Deal and affirmative action while downplaying the effects of slavery. Climate change is not mentioned in the science curriculum; sixth-grade studies include a single reference to global warming.”

“Another feature of Hillsdale schools is the relative homogeneity of their student body: whiter and wealthier than public schools and other charter schools,” according to NPE. “During the 2021 school year, 66 percent of all Hillsdale-affiliated charter school students were white, and only 12 percent were eligible to receive a subsidized lunch, making Hillsdale charter families not only less diverse and more affluent than the public and charter sectors but even whiter and wealthier than the right-wing charter sector as a whole.”

What the Charter School Coalition Got Wrong

Although the NPE report asserts that the rise of right-wing charter schools “serve[s] a purpose never imagined by their early proponents,” it doesn’t fully explain how conservatives were able to hijack that purported original intent to serve their political means instead.

NPE credits the origins of the charter school idea to education professor Ray Budde, who, in the 1970s, had a “vision [that] states would give schools the authority to create innovative, experimental programs at existing schools.” But there is another origin story that more fully explains how charters became so vulnerable to right-wing co-option.

In her 2017 article for Democracy, journalist Rachel Cohen traced the origin of the charter school idea to, not Budde, but Ted Kolderie.

Cohen describes Kolderie as “quintessentially neoliberal” and a self-described “policy entrepreneur” who was “in the middle of discussions over school reform” in “the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.”

Under his direction, the Minnesota-based Citizens League, was “a powerful, centrist Twin Cities policy group,” according to Cohen, that advocated for “different ways to provide government services, including education.”

“One of Kolderie’s central ideas,” Cohen wrote, “was to ‘end the exclusive franchise’ of school districts providing public education. In several reports, he described the decline of public education as the direct consequence of public districts’ monopolistic power over schooling. His proposal: independent schools, accountable to parents through free market choice, and to the government through a set of contractual obligations. He specified that many different types of entities—universities, corporations, public school districts, nonprofits—should be able to manage these new schools, state law permitting.”

Among the proposals Kolderie and his organization pushed for was “cooperatively managed schools,” which Cohen described as being “strikingly similar to modern-day charters.”

Cohen described Kolderie not as a political operative but as a prominent leader of “technocratic centrists” who “focused on deregulation, disruption, and the hope of injecting free market dogmas into the public sector.”

Their vision, as Cohen described it, is that getting education right is not so much an ideological issue as it is about better systems engineering.

This vision, according to Cohen, was adopted by prominent policy leaders and politicians of both parties in the 1990s and brought about the powerful coalition of business leaders and moderate Democrats and Republicans that created and spread the charter school movement.

But what the charter school coalition got wrong is that education is not just about getting the system “right.” It’s also about values.

Sure, students need to learn how to read and do math. But students also need to learn how to interact with one another; how to care, not just for themselves, but for their fellow human beings; and how to contribute positively to their families and communities.

And if we want to live in a democratic society, that means teaching students about the values of an inclusive democracy that includes people of diverse cultures and beliefs.

But by creating an approach to education that was determined to be apart from, even opposed to, democratic values that are often imposed by public governance of schools, charter school proponents created empty vessels of education institutions that are void of the principles that are shared in a society that upholds a common good.

And we know what happens when there’s a void. As NPE’s report shows, the void is rapidly being filled by the same politically extremist faction that elected Trump and now threatens to impose an authoritative vision for the country.

“The only question that remains,” the report concludes, “is whether moderate, progressive, and liberal-minded voters and politicians recognize where the runaway charter movement is headed.”

This article was produced by Our Schools. Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Weeks of news over hundreds of open tabs. I only have 0ne more open window with 39 open tabs and I will be caught up as of Saturday. Only taken three days so far. Hugs

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Randy50311 days ago

Next time, instead of arguing whether America was founded on ‘christianity”, ask them why it is so important for them to make their (incorrect) point.
Okay, we were founded on Christian principles of slavery, and women as chattel with no vote, natives were stripped of their land and other rights, and only white male property owners could vote. Not to mention child labor was rampant, the majority of the country were small farmers, divorce was nearly impossible and so on.
Hurray! What is you want NOW? You want to reinstitute all of that? No, they will likely say, they just want “Christian principles” reinstitute. Like what? Name them, specifically. They will be likely more in line with Christian nationalism — no LBGT rights, minorities voting is restricted, reduction in social safety net, more deregulation and so on.
So now you can drill down — what does Christianity have to say about laws that control pollution, radioactive waste, plastics in our food, chemicals in the water you drink? They will give you mumbo jumbo about freedom, and all that. “”So why do we have to be a Christian nation” to achieve your goals of less regulation?
What it will likely come down to is morals and values. Again, we can hit hard back — you mean no divorce? Because Jesus had a lot to say about it. Premarital sex? Birth control? IF you want to talk about morals, let’s talk about children going to bed or to school hungry, of which millions do. What about the homeless? Again, we don’t need Christian nationalism to tackle those issues.
It wil come down to nothing at all — just a vague desire to make people go to church more, pray more, and be more aligned with god or something. “So you want to force people to pray?”
I could go on, but you just have to nail them down on specifics. Hawley is just about control — they don’t want drag queens, people having wanton sex, abortion, and all that. Force them to admit that.

Nice to know the GOP understands they don’t represent the USA
Do the Republicans know that they are not supposed to be working for Russia? Seems far too many do work for Russia.

Gregory In Seattle11 days ago

I remember in 2020 when they used the flag of the Russian Federation to decorate the Republican National Convention, which inspired me to make this meme.

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Wintercat11 days ago edited

GQP ads constantly have Russian troops, ships and MiGs because they use creative agencies in Russia, because few US agencies often full of GQP intended victims will do work for them.

Creative houses use the stock images they have on hand. That’s why so much Russian stuff shows up in their ads.

Flora DeMann Stogiebear11 days ago

When children first are taught the letters of the alphabet, the letters are capitalized. Maybe the MAGAs never got farther than that.

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Elagabalus2 days ago
Reminds me of the time Megyn Kelly got so flummoxed that Santa Claus was presented as black because in her worldview, Santa Claus was clearly white. What is it with conservatives and fictional characters?

Houndentenor Elagabalus2 days ago

It’s that thing when someone is so racist they can’t hear how racist they sound.

Chucktech Elagabalus2 days ago

See also: White Jesus

William2 days ago

I found this picture of the real new Snow White online.

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perversatile Rebecca Gardner2 days ago edited

Heads will crack open when they learn about the Black Madonna(s)

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If you read the articles on this it says that trump did not argue that the evidence was not there to show he committed a crime but that it was improperly gained. His lawyers are admitting to the crime basically. Hugs

Tick Tock

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“Library staffers were deluged with harassment and a bomb threat.”

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Talk about ego !!!!

“God doesn’t make mistakes”

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Family Leader is an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

Abortion should be freely available at any stage of pregnancy, on demand, without apology.

Reposting:

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“The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?”

― Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

How many of our congress is on the payroll of Russia. Hugs
Indeed trans men should sign up for selective service when they turn 18, just like all cis men. But then trans men should be able to use the men’s room, just like all cis men do.

The current law states that all persons either born in the US or (with few exceptions) legally resident when they turn 18, and identified as male at birth are required to register for the Selective Service when they turn 18, no exceptions. If you are an American citizen living abroad, you must still register. If you are a legal resident alien, you must still register. If you are in a prison or mental asylum, you must still register. If you are here under a diplomatic passport (say, a parent works at an embassy or consulate) or have a tourist or student visa, you do not need to register. People who were identified as female at birth are NOT required to register for the Selective Service, and in fact trying to register can get you in legal trouble for filing a “frivolous” legal document (not sure if it has ever been prosecuted, but it is in the regulations.)

If they are going to make transmen register, then they must also make transwomen exempt. They will also need to clarify at what point relative to the age of 18 this will kick in: is it enough to identify as trans, or will they need to have passed some benchmark in transitioning? What if a person comes out as trans after they are 18, but before they turn 25 (the age that your registration remains in effect)? And if transwomen are not exempt, they they should make registration mandatory for ALL 18 year olds regardless of gender identity: there is no longer any restriction from women serving in combat, after all. Maybe if their precious daughters are required to register, and fact the very serious penalties for not registering, we can finally get rid of this whole Selective Service idiocy once and for all.

I guess it was done the same way the former idiot allowed a bunch of Russian spies into the building.

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This is the country and leader the republicans love almost as much as Putin.

Because if you don’t acknowledge LBGTs exist, kids will stop being gay

This year in the U.S. the majority of books most often banned are by LGBT writers and writers of color.

Here’s a good report from the writers’ organization PEN on the state of censorship in the U.S.
https://pen.org/report/bann…

Full fucking racism and full on white supramacy.
How did people get it in their heads that they have a “right” to never be offended? That is not a right and never has been. Freedom of speech, remember? Astonishing how the “fuck your feelings” crowd so quickly turn around to demand safe spaces where their precious feelings are prioritized so much.
Didn’t a black woman in Texas get five years for voting just once?
I think they claimed she was ineligible for some reason. And it was a provisional ballot and was not counted. Further it was a poll worker that told her to fill out a provisional ballot.
Jesus isn’t in the Constitution either. Let’s start there.
Censorship by school boards is chipping away at the reality of LGBTQ history and our very existence. Good for Newsom.
They’ve already grabbed lots of the courts, then they want to control education (‘member how so many righties loves to quote hitler on this…) & inject religion into the schools – while wiping out all dissenting ideas & critical thinking – fast forward 10 years and VOILA – you have a whole generation of little christo-fascists that taxpayers are footing the bill to educate with xtian nationalist dogma. These wack job conservatives (an extreme minority) are proving too damn good at a multi-decade slow play here. People have to wake up.

A couple great short clips Randy sent me

How a Saudi firm tapped a gusher of water in drought-stricken Arizona

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/16/fondomonte-arizona-drought-saudi-farm-water/

Another example of out of control capitalism hurting the US people.   This should be illegal, hurting US public to provide for a foreign government.   Yet a large part of the Republican Party are paid by Putin to support the Russian position.  How much longer will the US sell out our own country, our own people, our own needs?  Hugs

Lax rules let the foreign-owned company pump water from state land to grow alfalfa for the kingdom’s cattle. After almost a decade, the deal is in jeopardy.

By 
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July 16, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
 
 
 
 
Water pumped from deep underground helps alfalfa grow at the Saudi-owned Fondomonte farm in the Butler Valley, in western Arizona. (Video: Erin Patrick O’Connor/The Washington Post)
 
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BUTLER VALLEY, Ariz. — A megadrought has seared Arizona, stressing its rivers and reservoirs and reducing water to a trickle in the homes of farmworkers near this desert valley.

But green fields of alfalfa stretch across thousands of acres of the desert land, shimmering in the burning sunlight. Wells draw water from deep underground, turning the parched earth into verdant farmland.

 

For nearly a decade, the state of Arizona has leased this rural terrain west of Phoenix to a Saudi-owned company, allowing it to pump all the water it needs to grow the alfalfa hay — a crop it exports to feed the kingdom’s dairy cows. And, for years, the state did not know how much water the company was consuming.

The lack of information was a choice.

Soon after the company, Fondomonte Arizona, arrived in the Butler Valley in 2015, state planners suggested asking the company to install meters and report its water use, according to a memo reviewed by The Washington Post. That way, the memo argued, the state could “at least obtain accurate information” on water drained from the valley — water that could otherwise serve as backup for booming urban areas.

 
 

But the proposal “hit a stone wall,” John Schneeman, one of the planners, told The Post. It was spurned, he said, by officials in the administration of then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) who were “cautious of tangling with a powerful company.” The proposal also ran headlong into a view, deeply held in the rural West, that water is private property that comes with access to land, rather than a public resource.

The inaction was an early sign of how state officials gave leeway to Fondomonte as a global fight for water took root in the Arizona desert. Leaving water unprotected amid a drought worsened by climate change has been a boon to Saudi Arabia, where industrial-scale farming of forage crops such as alfalfa is banned to conserve the Persian Gulf nation’s limited water supply.

 

A Post investigation — based on government documents and interviews with public officials, ranchers in the valley, farmworkers, and townspeople who live near the alfalfa fields — found that Arizona’s lax regulatory environment and sophisticated lobbying by the Saudi-owned company allowed a scarce American resource to flow unchecked to a foreign corporation. To advance its interests before the state, Fondomonte hired an influential Republican lawyer as well as a former member of Congress. And it sought to win over its rural neighbors, providing a high school with donations that included Fondomonte-sponsored sports bags and face masks emblazoned with the company logo to protect students from covid.

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Fondomonte’s farm in the Butler Valley uses water otherwise designated for possible transport to the state’s population centers

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David Kelly, Fondomonte’s general manager, said the company follows the same rules that govern farming operations throughout the state while going out of its way to save water and serve the community.

“All we ask is to be measured according to the same standards as every other farming leaseholder on state land,” he said in an email. “Fondomonte has developed Butler Valley to be one of the most efficient and highly productive farms in not only Arizona, but the entire Southwest. Our Butler Valley operation utilizes best-in-class irrigation technology and equipment with the oversight and diligence of an experienced management team.”

Fondomonte, he said, “should be heralded for its water efficiency.”

 
 
 
 
(Video: Erin Patrick O’Connor/The Washington Post)
Automated irrigation equipment waters alfalfa fields at Fondomonte’s farm in the Butler Valley, Ariz. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

State officials now acknowledge that decades of farming and explosive growth have dangerously diminished Arizona’s water reserves. The rising scarcity has deepened rifts between urban and rural communities and turned Fondomonte into a political flash point. The company is hardly alone in using state-owned land to irrigate crops: Fondomonte holds four of the roughly 20 state agricultural leases across Arizona’s three major transport basins, where state law allows transfer of water to cities. But its foreign ownership and strict limits on water use in its home country have fueled outrage here.

Last month, the new governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, unveiled a long-awaited study showing that groundwater in parts of the Phoenix area was insufficient to meet projected demand over the next century. Her administration also recently sought details about water use on state-owned land. Only after the state threatened to cancel Fondomonte’s leases last month did the company disclose how much it pumps annually in the Butler Valley, according to communications released as part of a public-records request. Its consumption is equivalent to that of a city of more than 50,000 people, experts said.

The governor’s aides are now preparing plans not to renew Fondomonte’s leases in the Butler Valley when they expire next year, according to a staff recommendation obtained by The Post. A decision has not been finalized. If Hobbs acts, a confrontation with the company could follow, with implications not just for foreign companies with interest in American natural resources but also for the future of agriculture as drought intensifies in the Southwest and cities clamor for rural water reserves.

The Saudi-owned farm has split the local community, where Holly Irwin, a La Paz County supervisor who has opposed Fondomonte’s presence for years, said that “foreign companies have come to take our water because they don’t have any left back home.”

But Fondomonte has unlikely allies, including a cattle rancher in the Butler Valley whose land abuts Fondomonte’s farm. Boyce Andersen said he generally is “an ‘America first’ type of person” but is now just as concerned about the valley’s water being “taken by Phoenix” instead of flowing to livestock and crops. He faulted Arizona, not the foreign-owned firm, for the grim trade-offs facing the state.

“Why did our government leadership allow this to happen?” he asked.

A Saudi conservation strategy
Fields of alfalfa stretch across thousands of acres of desert land at Fondomonte’s farm in the Butler Valley. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Fondomonte’s lush alfalfa fields represent a decades-old Saudi strategy.

An American engineer, Karl Twitchell, who cut his teeth in Arizona’s copper mines, served as an adviser to the first king of Saudi Arabia and led a U.S.-sponsored agricultural mission to the kingdom in 1942. That mission set in motion a years-long process of adapting desert farming methods honed in the American Southwest to similar conditions in Saudi Arabia.

Fondomonte’s parent company, Riyadh-based Almarai, was founded three decades later by a Saudi royal and businessman, Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer, and two Irish brothers. The food and beverage giant is still chaired by a member of the Saudi royal family. In 2011, it acquired Luxembourg-based Fondomonte, which was operating farms in Argentina at the time, capitalizing on rising global food demand.

The following year, the company incorporated Fondomonte Arizona and soon moved into La Paz County, one of the poorest and least-populated parts of the state. In 2014, it paid $47.5 million to purchase nearly 10,000 acres in Vicksburg, a town of about 500. In 2015, in the nearby Butler Valley, Fondomonte took over several agricultural leases, for the below-market rate of about $25 per acre. Those leases, totaling 3,500 acres of state land, will expire in February 2024 if not renewed.

Fondomonte also expanded to California, eventually purchasing more than 3,000 acres across the border from Arizona, near the town of Blythe. Its farming operation there is built on another precious water source, the Colorado River, a key artery for several states that governments have allowed to dwindle to dangerously low levels amid hotter, drier conditions and chronic overuse by farming regions in the Southwest.

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Fondomonte’s footprint

In Arizona, the company has farms in the Butler Valley and Vicksburg, while its California operation includes farmland near Blythe and a hay processing and storage facility in Calipatria.

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HANNA ZAKHARENKO/THE WASHINGTON POST

To advance its interests in Arizona, Fondomonte hired Jordan Rose, a lawyer and land-use specialist who leads one of the state’s top lobbying shops. Rose, a former finance chair of the Arizona GOP, helped run Ducey’s inaugural committee when he was elected governor in 2014. Ducey soon named her to a committee developing state groundwater policy, according to her website.

Rose later told an agribusiness trade association that Fondomonte “chose to invest” in La Paz County because of its favorable conditions for growing alfalfa, according to emails obtained through a public-records request. Those conditions include an average 310 sunny days per year and the ability to have a fresh cutting almost every month.

The Saudi firm’s arrival in Arizona showed how trade liberalization and improvements in transportation and logistics have allowed companies to control arable land all over the world and manage scarcity back home. Rising global food demand has put pressure on freshwater resources sucked from the ground in such large quantities that, according to a recent study, the Earth’s tilt has shifted.

 
 

In a 2014 corporate report, Almarai celebrated that Fondomonte’s expansion in Arizona put the company on track to import 100 percent of its animal feed — part of a “strategy for conservation of the Kingdom’s water resources.”

By contrast, Arizona groundwater is unregulated across rural swaths of the state. That includes the Butler Valley, bordered by the Buckskin Mountains to the northwest and the Harcuvar Mountains to the southeast, forming a 288-square-mile expanse known as a basin because of the water lacing underground sediment. Agriculture is possible in the valley, smack in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, thanks only to the water drawn through wells like soda through straws. Because of minimal natural recharge and scarce rainfall, water pumped from the basin is essentially mined, with no replacement.

The area is significant as shortages deepen because it’s one of the few basins from which water can be transported to growing urban areas. And the Butler Valley, where Fondomonte is the lone company leasing state land for agriculture, is key to planning because most of the land there is government-owned.

A failure to plan
An automated irrigation machine sucks up groundwater pumped into a canal to spray over alfalfa fields at Fondomonte’s farm in the Butler Valley. The valley is critical to Arizona’s water planning because nearly all of the land there is government-owned. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Arizona land planners raised alarms soon after Fondomonte’s arrival in the Butler Valley.

In the 2015 memo, state planner Schneeman and three others argued that Arizona was squandering a key water supply that could one day slake intensifying urban thirst.

A 2012 study had found that the basin held about 22 million acre-feet of water, or enough water to cover 22 million acres to a depth of one foot; but estimates have varied widely, with the volume also pegged at about 6.5 million. That would still be enough to supply all single-family homes in the Phoenix area for about 14 years. Whatever the exact supply, it was being sucked away every day by water-intensive crops.

A lot of money was on the line. The state was receiving about $50,000 a year by leasing the land to Fondomonte, the memo noted, but could make at least $1.2 million a year by selling the water to thirsty Phoenix. Such transfers are rare and procedurally complex, as well as deeply controversial, breeding resentment in rural parts of the state.

 
 

At the very least, the planners argued, Fondomonte should tell the state how much water it was pumping in the Butler Valley. Fondomonte, the memo advised, “may claim they are being unfairly singled out.”

The memo was addressed to Ducey’s land commissioner, Lisa Atkins, who did not follow its recommendations, Schneeman said. Kelly, the Fondomonte manager, said the company installed meters of its own accord but had not disclosed its consumption because its leases do not require such reporting.

Atkins said she could not remember the memo and declined to comment. Ducey, who recently launched a group promoting free enterprise, also declined to comment.

Two months later, as the Saudi-owned farm came under local criticism, Tom Buschatzke, the water resources director appointed by Ducey, published an op-ed telling readers of the Arizona Republic, “Don’t freak out about Saudi alfalfa.”

“Those folks have as much right as any other individual in the state of Arizona to grow their produce, grow their crops, sell them, export them,” he told the Associated Press at the time.

A pump draws water up from a well at the Fondomonte farm in the Butler Valley. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)
 
 
 
 
(Video: Erin Patrick O’Connor/The Washington Post)

Emails obtained through a public-records request show that Buschatzke received a note of praise from Rose, Fondomonte’s lobbyist. He thanked her, writing, “I know certain parties will continue to push at us on this.” Buschatzke declined to comment for this article.

Others in the state felt that Fondomonte was the one pushing — outmaneuvering understaffed agencies as it repeatedly made requests to add hay barns and employee accommodations while altering state land with new high-powered wells. Fondomonte’s leases entitle the company to reimbursement from taxpayers for certain upgrades — a sum that stands at about $7.4 million in the Butler Valley, company representatives say.

“My conclusion is that we should either cancel these leases or somehow get compensated for the staff time,” Chuck Vencill, a leasing specialist with the state’s land department, wrote to colleagues in 2016. He added that monetary penalties were “largely ineffective” because of the company’s wealth.

Kelly said the company’s upgrades were necessary for “a first-class farming operation with the best available technology.” He stressed that all improvements were approved by state officials and argued that the process was onerous only because the state “may not have been accustomed to its ag lessees being willing to invest in that level of improvement.”

A farm’s worth
The state of Arizona has leased this rural terrain west of Phoenix to Fondomonte to pump all the water it needs to grow alfalfa hay for export to Saudi Arabia, where the company’s owners are based, and to other foreign markets. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Figuring out the value of Fondomonte’s farms falls to La Paz County’s assessor, whose findings determine how much the company pays in taxes that support public schools and emergency services in the hardscrabble area.

County Assessor Anna Camacho and her small staff have struggled to keep up with Fondomonte’s upgrades, she said, because of infrequent access to the farms and the sophistication of the company’s equipment.

After a site visit in 2017, county appraisers decided that the cash value of the company’s operations had jumped from $7.8 million to $32.9 million. But Camacho said her office is still woefully undervaluing the company’s assets, on its owned and leased land alike.

Wells in particular are “extremely undervalued,” wrote one of her employees in 2019, in an email released as part of a public-records request. Handwritten notes on appraisal documents reflect difficulty understanding the fast-growing enterprise. “Housing?” a county official scrawled in pen on a valuation document for one parcel.

Eager for an accurate inventory of the company’s hay barns, Camacho took to the skies above Fondomonte’s farms in her husband’s Cessna plane last year to survey the property. She said she would like to audit all agricultural properties but does not have the resources to do so.

Alfalfa, a water-intensive crop, is a nutritious food for livestock. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)
Alfalfa is dried and stored at Fondomonte’s farm in Vicksburg, Ariz. The company says it exports 59 percent of the forage crop to Saudi Arabia and the rest to other international markets. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Fondomonte, whose consultants say the company has invested more than $270 million in its farms since arriving in Arizona, paid about $650,000 in taxes and other assessments to the county last year, records show. Kelly said Fondomonte has always been transparent with appraisers and pays its taxes “based on the assessed value of our assets.”

The company also is paying a modest rate to use state land. A 2018 study commissioned by the land department found that the market price per acre in La Paz County was $125, five times the amount Fondomonte was paying, according to a copy of the study, which was first reported by the Arizona Republic last year.

 
 

Current and former state officials said low land rents are not unique to Fondomonte and are meant to ensure that the land is leased and generates revenue. Kelly said Fondomonte has never negotiated rental rates but simply accepted the terms set by the state.

The real value of the land lies in the water underneath the desert terrain. Since 2015, state officials periodically have returned to the idea of asking leaseholders to report their water consumption, according to emails and interviews.

Repeatedly, they faced stiff opposition, not just from Fondomonte, but also from domestic farming and ranching interests, and from conservative state lawmakers, who believe water is a commodity controlled by individual property owners, not a resource to be managed collectively. Rusty Bowers, the former Republican speaker of the Arizona House, who was associated locally with his interest in water policy before becoming known nationally for resisting Donald Trump’s entreaties to overturn the result of the 2020 election in Arizona, said he was sympathetic to the opposition to metering and reporting water usage.

Farmers and ranchers, he said, worry that the state will one day divert water for public use. “Once it’s metered, it’s going to be taken,” he said.

A company town
A water truck pulls up to a Central Arizona Project canal, which diverts water from the Colorado River. A federal declaration of a shortage on the river meant some residents were no longer allowed to siphon from the canal. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

As scarcity sets in, Fondomonte is working hard to show locals the advantages of having a wealthy neighbor.

Andersen, the rancher who leases the acreage surrounding Fondomonte’s Butler Valley farm, has come to depend on water trucked from the company’s Vicksburg land after a shortage declaration on the Colorado River meant he no longer was allowed to siphon water from a diversion canal snaking through his ranch.

“Saudi Arabia is hauling water into that tank right there for us,” said Andersen, in a denim work shirt and with white hair poking out from under a cowboy hat, as he gestured at a 10,000-gallon storage tank.

Later, he corrected himself: “They want me to say ‘Fondomonte.’” Company leaders active in Arizona are all American or European, and Andersen said he has never met one of the farm’s Saudi owners.

“I would have preferred it was an American rancher” using the land, he said. “But, truthfully, there wasn’t an American rancher who was rich enough to be able to do what these guys have done.”

Martin Martínez drives with his ranching partner, Boyce Andersen, toward their land in Vicksburg. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)
Andersen, left, and Martínez next to water tanks at one of their cattle corrals in the Butler Valley. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

The company also has used its resources to supplement deficient public services in the area, building goodwill in the tiny towns that surround its fields.

One town is called Love, named for a veteran of World War I. Another is named Hope, where a sign advises departing travelers that they’re “now beyond hope.” And then there’s Salome, where local legend tells of a woman by that name who walked barefoot on the hot desert floor, dancing to her destination and giving the town the slogan “Salome — where she danced.”

On a mountain peak overlooking each town is the first letter of its name, painted in bright white. The paint for the “S” in Salome was paid for by Fondomonte, according to emails released by Salome High School.

 
 

The emails show how the high school, home of the Frogs, benefits from Fondomonte. When the company promised a $2,500 donation, the school’s superintendent and former athletic director, Kari Avila, wrote, “I want to cry right now lol.”

The school helped identify prospective employees for Fondomonte — in warehouse, field, maintenance, welding and construction roles, as well as for office duties that required a “good work ethic,” as Fondomonte’s commercial director, Padraig Lawlor, wrote to Avila. Company managers sought out Spanish lessons through the school and gained permission to use the weight room. “We need to get fit,” Lawlor quipped in an email.

Avila declined to comment. Kelly said multiple senior company managers live in La Paz County and value their ties to the community. (They did not use the school weight room, he said.)

Local tensions rise
A trailer park where some Fondomonte farmworkers live in Vicksburg. Residents say they have faced regular water interruptions, requiring them to buy bottled water and to haul water in buckets for taking showers. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Fondomonte says it employs 225 people at its farms in Arizona, making it one of the largest private employers in La Paz County. The workforce is supplemented by dozens of seasonal workers brought in on temporary visas from Mexico and the Philippines.

Three current employees who work the company’s alfalfa fields in Vicksburg said they complete 10-hour shifts, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., six days a week, with no overtime pay.

“All employees are compensated fairly and equitably in compliance with all local, state and federal labor laws,” said Kelly, the general manager. “Fondomonte prides itself as a quality employer within the communities in which we operate and the wider agricultural sector, and we provide industry-competitive pay and benefits packages for our employees.”

Some employees live in a sprawling trailer park arranged along dirt roads stippled by cactuses. Residents of these trailers say they have faced regular water interruptions, requiring them to buy bottled water and haul buckets to wash themselves.

“We go to Salome and fill up gallons of water, and we shower with that,” said Sebastian Esparza, 15, who lives in the trailer park across the road from Fondomonte’s Vicksburg farm.

Problems are plaguing the town of Salome, too. The well at a budget motel there is dry, locals said.

A large “S” is painted on a mountain in the town of Salome, Ariz. Documents show that Fondomonte paid for the white paint. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)
Luis Flores, 14, plays basketball at home in Vicksburg. He tried to apply for a job at the nearby Fondomonte farm but is too young this year. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

The drought punishing Salome and other parts of the Southwest began in 2000 and has resulted in what experts say is one of the region’s driest periods in the past 1,200 years. The warming atmosphere has scorched landscapes, diminished the snowpack and reduced the amount of runoff that makes it into the major reservoirs that sustain Arizona and Southern California. Although this past winter was unusually wet, scientists predict that water shortages will intensify as the climate continues to warm.

Local engineer Jim Downing, who manages the distribution of electricity to farms in the area, said Fondomonte has been unfairly singled out and cannot be blamed for all nearby water shortages, because different valleys have distinct aquifers. But pumping by Fondomonte and its predecessors in Vicksburg has affected adjacent wells, Downing said.

“They can impact other people’s wells, and they have,” he concluded.

 
 

Kelly, the Fondomonte manager, said the company doesn’t pump water in the towns with the most acute shortages and so can’t be blamed for interruptions there. “Water in the Southwest has always been an emotional topic, and we understand some individuals in the media and politics find benefit in blaming Fondomonte for regional water challenges,” he said.

The company’s foreign ownership adds to the outrage some locals feel. Andy Granger, a retired machinist stopping for groceries in Salome, said his view of Fondomonte “sounds racist” but can be summed up this way: “foreign people coming in and tapping into our resources and making a profit.”

Local anger is reaching a boiling point, warned Steve Hilsz, a former telephone repairman. As more and more people find their wells drying up, he said, “we’re going to have civil war out here.”

A complaint goes nowhere
Trucks outside the Fondomonte farm in Vicksburg are loaded with bales of alfalfa hay. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

The community’s anger is channeled by Irwin, a Republican and one of three elected supervisors in La Paz County. Because revenue generated from state land goes toward public education and other beneficiaries, the “discounted rate they’re getting on those leases takes away from the education of our kids,” she said during an interview at a diner in Salome.

Fed up, she sought an investigation last summer by the state’s then-attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican.

Days later, Brnovich’s office assigned La Paz’s county attorney to review the complaint, according to emails released as part of a public-records request. But a deputy county attorney, Jason Mitchell, told The Post that the office did not act. “Unfortunately, we were not able to look into the issues since, as a small office, we lacked the resources and an investigator to thoroughly do so,” he wrote in an email.

Irwin soon gained a new ally. During a campaign news conference last summer outside the state land department, Kris Mayes, a Democrat running to succeed Brnovich, vowed to investigate Fondomonte’s leases.

“We can’t afford to do dumb things with our water anymore,” Mayes, who took office in January, said in an interview. “And allowing a Saudi-owned corporation to stick a straw in the ground and pump millions of gallons of water to grow alfalfa for their cows in the Middle East is nothing short of outrageous.”

Holly Irwin, a county supervisor who has opposed Fondomonte’s operation for years, said that “foreign companies have come to take our water because they don’t have any left back home.” (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)
Fondomonte’s facilities in Arizona and California also serve as storage and drying hubs for hay that is trucked there from other farms. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

Fondomonte also mobilized. In August, Rose, the lobbyist, emailed what she called “some facts about Fondomonte” to an agribusiness trade association. She ticked through details of the company’s conservation methods and its impact on the regional economy.

“The fact that this farm has been singled out over all other similar sized State Land Dept farm leases that are sending crops overseas or to other parts of our country seems xenophobic at best,” she wrote.

This year, Fondomonte commissioned an economic and fiscal impact report from a Scottsdale-based consulting firm, according to records obtained by The Post. Fondomonte’s annual business activities in Arizona and California, the memo asserted, support 2,761 jobs, nearly $173 million in wages and more than $475 million in economic activity.

 
 

The company also stepped up its outreach to state lawmakers. Emails show that former congressman John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), a lobbyist newly hired by Fondomonte, sought a meeting in January with the chair of the state House’s natural resources committee, saying he was “assisting Fondomonte Arizona in its efforts to correct the misrepresentations that have been made.”

Shadegg did not respond to a request for comment, and Rose referred questions to the company.

When Hobbs took office as governor in January, she signaled that she would take on Fondomonte. In her State of the State speech that month, she pointed to a “Saudi Arabian conglomerate pumping local groundwater nearly unchecked in La Paz County” as evidence of a need to overhaul the state’s approach to groundwater management.

“We all know that’s not right,” she said.

Fondomonte took notice. Kelly, the general manager, sent a letter to the governor the following month warning her against targeting Fondomonte.

“Hasty decisions, based on misinformation, could drive Fondomonte out of Arizona and could imperil operations of all of the other farms operating with similar leases around the state,” he wrote. “Fondomonte would continue its operations in other states or other parts of the world, but hundreds of Arizona jobs and positive economic input would be wiped out and the negative implications for Arizona’s agriculture industry will be enormous.”

Meanwhile, Mayes, the new state attorney general, was putting pressure on other state agencies. During a Feb. 17 meeting, described by people present, she sharply criticized the leadership of the state land department, asking, as one person recalled, “What have you been doing for the past eight years?”

A looming showdown
For years, the state of Arizona did not know how much groundwater Fondomonte was consuming. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

In April, the land department wrote to leaseholders in the state’s transport basins saying it was conducting an analysis at the governor’s request and asking them, at long last, to provide detailed information about their water usage. At first, Fondomonte refused, responding in May that its leases did not require the company to track or disclose water usage.

But this time, Arizona’s land department insisted. On June 21, the state replied that it had the authority to obtain such information and noted that other leaseholders had voluntarily complied. The state gave Fondomonte nine days to release the data, vowing to “pursue any and all remedies,” even possibly “cancellation of your Leases.”

Fondomonte relented, telling the state that it had used 16,415 acre-feet of water last year at its farm in the Butler Valley. That’s enough to cover about 12,500 football fields with a foot of water. But Kelly said the amount is as much as a quarter less than the quantity used by the company’s predecessor in the valley.

 
 

The back-and-forth could be a prelude to a bigger break as the governor’s office draws up plans not to renew the company’s Butler Valley leases, specifically citing the importance of the basin’s groundwater as a backup for Arizona’s population centers. The company would continue to own land in Vicksburg and hold a lease in that area that runs until 2031.

The plans, which have not been finalized, would impose additional changes in transport basins, including the short-term extension of other leases combined with rent hikes, metering requirements and charges for water management. The goal, documents show, is to address the political anger over Fondomonte’s leases while not alienating other segments of the agricultural community.

The governor’s spokesman, Christian Slater, declined to comment on discussions about Fondomonte but said Hobbs was pursuing a “comprehensive and aggressive approach to managing our state’s water resources.” Kelly said the company was looking forward to continued discussions with the state.

The planning documents indicate that the governor’s office doesn’t know exactly how much water remains in the Butler Valley. But the documents say the results of a new study are imminent.

Schneeman, the state planner who first raised his concerns about Fondomonte in 2015, said he feared that any move now may be too late, after the state failed for years to put the water to its best use.

“That use,” he said, “would have been to conserve for the future.”

Alice Crites and Andrew Ba Tran contributed to this report.

Why are so many young people lgbtq+?

Very good CC.

CHAPTERS 00:00

Intro 01:38

Are the old people lying? 03:07

Is the world gayer now? 05:16

Is the world scary? 07:18

Is it an internet thing? 10:21

Could it be that we are missing people? 13:35

The world doesn’t seem that gay to me though? 15:51

Outro

St. Marys officials again threaten library because of LGBTQ books

St. Marys officials again threaten library because of LGBTQ books

Again highly religious fundamentalists got into positions of authority and are pushing their religious beliefs on the entire community.  Gerard Kleinsmith says he doesn’t like books about transgender people, he calls it garbage and feels it is his duty to remove all such books because god doesn’t make mistakes!    Think on that, other religious sects say it is OK that god created transgender people, yet their beliefs don’t matter, just his.    He is supported in this stance by the other members of St. Marys’ five-person city commission, a heavily religious group that attends the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, an extreme religious sect that broke away from the Catholic church.    Hugs

City commissioners says they don’t want ‘garbage’ on the public library’s shelves

BY: RACHEL MIPRO – JULY 11, 2023 12:12 PM

     

A view of books inside the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library in St. Marys

 St. Marys city commissioners have taken offense with a transgender book in the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector)

ST. MARYS — Gerard Kleinsmith says he hates the idea of censorship.

He just wants to pull the lease for the city’s public library because he doesn’t like books about transgender people.

As a city commissioner, he feels it is his duty to remove transgender content — “garbage,” as he refers to it. Kleinsmith said during a city commission meeting that removing the library was part of his job as a city official, emphasizing “God doesn’t make mistakes,” and his belief that people can’t change genders.

“My goal is to terminate the lease with the library,” Kleinsmith said. “If they want to have their library, so be it. Go do it. Find another building to do it in, I can’t stop that. My intention is not to stop that, but I will not ever vote for any taxpayer money, facilities, anything to be used anywhere that houses this kind of garbage.”

He is supported in this stance by the other members of St. Marys’ five-person city commission, a heavily religious group that attends the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, an extreme religious sect that broke away from the Catholic church. The commissioners have said at previous meetings that their views are influenced by their religious affiliation.

“Some things are wrong,” said commissioner Richard Binsfeld, during a city commission discussion about  transgender books and the transgender community at large. “If you live up to your morals, if you stand by your morals at all, you’d look at it and say, ‘Why do we have it?’”

The public library has been under scrutiny from local officials for months, narrowly surviving an attempt to pull the lease at the end of last year. Library director Judith Cremer said she and her staff were trying to work with the commissioners while remaining in accordance with legal guidelines for public libraries.

She’s still not sure why the commissioners have taken issue with the library in recent months when it had operated in its St. Marys location for decades without problems. Cremer has held her position since 2003, and until last year, this was a position without controversy.

“We’re not part of the city structure and the lease agreement is the only leverage that they have seemed to be able to find,” Cremer said. “They seem to be continuing down that road, which I’m disappointed with because we have still been here doing our job, trying to help people, trying to do summer reading, and I feel like it’s a misunderstanding of who we are. We are trying to do our job and we have followed the rules.”

While commissioners have no governing influence over the library, the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library would be forced to shift locations if the lease isn’t renewed, giving up a community spot it has held for decades and depriving St. Marys residents of easily accessible library material.

The library has been housed in St. Marys since the 1980s, operating on an annual lease with the city. The library acts as the headquarters for eight locations, including Alma, Alta Vista, Eskridge, Harveyville, Olsburg, Onaga, St. Marys and Westmoreland, with county residents funding the library through taxes.

An eight-member board of trustees provides oversight of the library’s operations, with Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee County commissioners appointing members to the board to serve four-year terms. The commission doesn’t have influence over board decisions.

The library formed an advisory group in an attempt to address community concerns with library materials, but efforts toward reconciliation have been unsuccessful.

The library’s lease renewal came up for debate last year because the library refused to accept a renewal clause asking for the removal of all LGBTQ and socially divisive books from the shelves. Facing intense public pressure, the commission in December renewed the lease for one year.

Now, city commissioners have renewed their campaign against LGBTQ books, despite federal legal protections for public libraries.

St. Marys City Commissioner Richard Binsfeld says the library's LGBTQ books conflict with his sense of morals
 St. Marys City Commissioner Richard Binsfeld says the library’s LGBTQ books conflict with his sense of morals. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector)

During the April city commission meeting, Kleinsmith raged against the book “Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition,” a coming of age story about a transgender teenager.

“This author is absolutely wrong. God does not make mistakes,” Kleinsmith said. “God cannot make a mistake. We can make mistakes. Mankind can make a mistake. God cannot make a mistake. … I will do everything I can to fight this kind of garbage.”

“If God makes you as a male, you are a male,” he added. “If God makes you a female, you are a female, no matter what.”

St. Marys Mayor Matthew Childs, who formulated the anti-LGBTQ renewal clause last year, said during the April meeting that the library’s contents would once again influence the commission’s decision to renew the lease.

“We don’t want transgender books in the library. … The elephant in the room is that we don’t want the library to be promoting certain types of material,” Childs said. “If the library is, we come back to the question, do we want to renew it at all?”

Sharon Brett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which warned commissioners to drop their censorship attempts during the first lease renewal discussion, said city officials need to remember constitutional protections.

“Each member of the commission should remember that their own discomfort with a certain book does not justify restricting its availability to everyone else in the community,” Brett said. “Not only is this potential censorship authoritarian, it has implications under even a basic reading of our First Amendment. We urge the commission to remember their obligations under the Constitution.”

Cremer said she and the library board had been trying to cooperate with the commission and concerned residents as much as possible.

“We’re providing services to the community,” Cremer said. “We’re taking care of the same people. I don’t see why there should be a problem.”

Following the April commission meeting, she sent a letter to the commissioners asking them to directly address their concerns with library staff, as they had a process in place to review book complaints.

Library staff are also participating in the advisory committee. Cremer said the library was sending regular updates about the library and the advisory committee’s work to the city commission.

But she is still fielding criticism from religious members of the community, including during a contentious June 28 library board meeting attended by Binsfeld and other St. Marys residents. 

“As we move forward, we would like to see that all LGBTQ+ media — whether audio files, movies, books, activities, etc. — be removed from this branch altogether and from any access, including online ordering and inter-library loans, to any minor through this branch,” resident Stephen Murtha wrote in a letter to library board members.

The library should reflect the community’s Christian majority, Murtha wrote.

Cremer said for the most part, these complaints were from a small segment of the population and that she hasn’t had problems or complaints from a majority of library customers.

But she is concerned about the future of the library.

“We have continued, even though that stress and controversy has been significant,” Cremer said. “My staff and I have continued forward just as we always have to provide those services, because it’s not the people that we’re serving, it’s not their fault, but they’re the ones that are going to be losing.”

OK Education Chief: “We Want The Bible In Schools” From JMG

OK Education Chief: “We Want The Bible In Schools”

Remember the governor of Oklahoma is a fervent fundamentalist Christian who has claimed the entire state for Jesus / his Christian god including the Native Peoples lands.  He has used the office of Governor to push his religion on the entire state.  The backstory of this Oklahoma Education Superintendent, Ryan Walters, is crazy.  He is not qualified for the office except he is also a fervent fundamentalist Christian nationalist.  The governor tried to have him hold the two highest positions over education but was blocked by that funny thing called laws.   It is time to take seriously this sneak effort to get fundamentalist die hard Christian nationalists in to state office at all levels as they have taken over schools up to governors offices.   They are the US Christian Taliban and the Christian moral police.   They are going to force their religion on everyone, make everyone live by their church doctrines / religious views no matter what religion or lack of that people have.  Just look at their insistence on Christian prayers and the Christian bible in public schools.   They want to enshrine their church doctrines and religious convictions into state laws that everyone will be subject to and have to follow.  Hugs

“Instead of allowing Biden and the unions to inject their ideology through graphic pornography like ‘Gender Queer’ and “Flamer,’ we want the Constitution, we want the bible in our schools where kids understand our nation’s history and what has made this country great. The reality is that the bible is a foundational document in our country’s history. Read the Founders, read their letters, listen to what these men and women said about why founding a country with the freedom of religion, the free exercise of religion was so important.” – Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters, today on Fox Business.

Last week Walters declared that the infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre should not be taught as having been caused by racism. Over 300 black people were murdered by white mobs and 10,000 were left homeless.

Last month Walters appeared here when he announced that Oklahoma’s public schools will soon have a mandatory daily prayer, the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and a mandatory high school course in “Western civilization.”

Walters, who was appointed state secretary of education by Christianist Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, faced calls to resign in 2022 after it was revealed that a Koch-funded group that advocates for privatizing public schools was paying him $120,000/year.

Stitt rejected calls for Walters’ resignation and attempted to reappoint him again earlier this year, but the state Senate refused to allow him to hold the elected superintendent and appointed secretary of education posts at the same time.

 

Chris Baker  Jean-Marc Canada – ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈan hour ago

The founding fathers wanted Freedom of Religion specifically so that government couldn’t force a specific religion down people’s throats. (E.g., the state religion of England was Anglicanism, the King being the head of state and the Church). Wasn’t it these same type of evangelicals who warned that JFK was going to be a President ‘controlled by the Pope’?

Octoberfurst 2 hours ago

I get so sick of these religious fanatics trying to cram their religion down everyone’s throat. This whole thing is BS! And it is totally unconstitutional! And no, the Bible was not one of our founding documents!

DJ  Octoberfurstan hour ago

He reads too much David Barton.

 

Amber LeMay 2 hours ago edited

“Instead of allowing Biden and the unions to inject their ideology through graphic pornography like ‘Gender Queer’ and “Flamer,’ we want the Constitution, we want the bible in our schools where kids understand our nation’s history and what has made this country great.

Ezekiel 23:20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Gregory In Seattle  Amber LeMay2 hours ago

How about the passage where Ezekiel mentions dildos?

You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold
and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in
prostitution with them. — Ezekiel 16:17

And I really could go on and on about the Song of Songs, that is literally soft core porn.

StarGmom  Amber LeMay2 hours ago

What, exactly, does the 2000 year old book say about our 250 year old nation?

Posthumously  StarGmoman hour ago

That was my thought. I don’t recall any mention of the United States.

CPT_Doom  StarGmom33 minutes ago

For most American “Christians,” it’s a 400 year old book written at the behest of a flaming homosexual, James VI/I.

Elagabalus  Amber LeMay2 hours ago

Here’s another one:

“You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.” Song of Songs 4:9

Gregory In Seattle  Elagabalus2 hours ago

Oh, that one is tame. How about the motorboating verse? “My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.” (1:13)

And the cunilingus verse: ““Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.” (4:16)

And fisting: “My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.” (5:4)

Hornbori  Elagabalusan hour ago

My gospel is found in Song of Songs 5:16 ~
“His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”

Gregory In Seattle  Amber LeMayan hour ago edited

The donkey’s verse is fun, but the context is so much more.

[Jerusalem] saw this, yet she was more corrupt than [Samaria] in her lusting and in her prostitutions, which were worse than those of her sister. She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, mounted horsemen, all of them handsome young men. And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. But she carried her prostitutions further; she saw male figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, with belts around their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers—a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust, and after she defiled herself with them, she turned from them in disgust. When she carried on her prostitutions so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister. Yet she increased her prostitutions, remembering the days of her youth, when she prostituted herself in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts. — Ezekiel 23:11-21
 
Sam_Handwich 2 hours ago

You can’t even get through the first chapter of that book without drunken incestuous impregnation. #Groomers

GENESIS 19

30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father

Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️  Sam_Handwich2 hours ago

There’s many holes in that first chapter, such as…

If God created Adam and Eve, and they had two sons…
Who did the son’s marry and procreate with?

I mean, we know about Eve’s temptation with a snake…
So what other animals did the boys get it on with?

Gregory In Seattle  Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️ an hour ago edited

The Holy Scriptures given an answer to what happened to Cain:

And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. — Genesis 4:15b-17

So, clearly, Cain left the part of the world created by God, moved to another place NOT created by God, and found a wife in a city of people some other deity created.

Ann Kah  Gregory In Seattlean hour ago

Nod was the part that god overlooked while creating “the whole world” and “all the animals”. He just didn’t notice that it had rolled under the couch while he was busy watching Adam and Eve, pre-fig leaf.

OwossoHarpist  Gregory In Seattle an hour ago edited

Creationists and other Fundamentalists claim that Cain’s wife was his sister, leading to an incestuous marriage. Dumb Idiot Ham claims that back then it’s OK to commit incest during the days before the fabled Flood. Although, he claims it’s wrong to commit incest now, how many of you would like to bet that one way or another, Ham approves incest and is trying to hide it through his writings, videos, placards, etc?

If you ask me I prefer to believe that Cain took a wife from a foreign nation instead of his own family. This implies that Adam and Eve and their sons weren’t the only humans around.

Gregory In Seattle  OwossoHarpist 40 minutes ago

But when was Nod created and populated? Genesis is VERY clear that Cain left the place from where God was and traveled to another land that was already populated. By his sister?

Ain’t it funny, how the “the Bible is literally correct and eternally true and must be believed and obeyed exactly as written” crowd have no problem making shit up to fit their own beliefs when the Bible clearly says something different.

Boreal  Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️2 hours ago edited

If you had faith you wouldn’t need to challenge ‘god’s word’ is the standard response by christstains to that question.

Boreal  Sam_Handwich2 hours ago

Gawd is okay with that. At least there is no homo sex going on.

clay  Boreal2 hours ago

There was that three-way between Abram, Sarai, and Tamar, but that was mff, so it doesn’t count. 😉

Ann Kah  clayan hour ago

And David and Jonathan were “just friends”.

Halou  Sam_Handwich2 hours ago

Then there are the two competing versions of the creation myth, both of which are in the book so both are canonical despite their inconsistencies.

On the one hand, god makes animals first, then creates humans after. Eve is created as a partner for Adam..

On the other hand god creates Adam first, then in trying to create a partner suitable for him, creates all the animals before finally deciding on creating a second human. Wanton bestiality, I suppose…

 

Christian Nationalists TERRIFYING Rhetoric is CREEPING into the Mainstream (And its getting WORSE)

Wow! Parent SILENCES Republican crowd during school board hearing in DEEP RED COUNTY

Parent and Democratic Chair of Hood County, Adrienne Martin, finally had enough of extremists in her deep-red community trying to get books banned and to inject religion into her child’s school and voiced her frustration to the Granbury Texas school board. Francis Maxwell reports.