January 25, 2022

Patriot Front's cameo at March For Life echoes an alarming historical alliance

By Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of We Testify, and Lizz Winstead, co-creator of "The Daily Show" and the founder and chief creative officer of Abortion Access Front


On Friday, anti-abortion organizers once again held the March for Life, an annual gathering on the National Mall featuring anti-abortion rights leaders and schoolchildren bused in from across the country. Although attendance numbers have waned in recent years, and despite a pandemic, organizers took to the stage Friday to boast about their political wins. Not surprisingly, the decadeslong effort to reshape the Supreme Court and potentially re-criminalize abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade was front and center. The speakers appropriated social justice language, claiming that the anti-abortion rights movement is one of love, “equality in the womb” and “pro-life is pro-woman” and that the “real racists” are those of us who stand against state-sanctioned violence and coercion and believe everyone should be able to decide whether, when and how to grow their families.

That’s the version of the rally they want you to see. What was happening offstage was far more insidious, even as it was historically predictable.

During the rally, videos began circulating on Twitter showing white supremacists, including members of Patriot Front — an extremist outfit that believes the white population is being replaced and needs to get its birthrates up — walking with other March for Life attendees; the uniformed and masked “patriots” carried shields and waved banners that read “Strong families make strong nations.” In other videos, attendees can be seen thanking Patriot Front members for attending and “supporting the right to life,” telling them to “be safe out there” and accepting their flyers. The crowd was jovial; as one woman reportedly told a photojournalist who explained that Patriot Front was a Christian fascist organization, “Well, as long as they're pro-life.”

Of course, after the videos circulated, the national March for Life organization issued a statement disavowing Patriot Front’s attendance, reiterating its stance for “equality in the womb.” However, that condemnation falls flat considering members of Patriot Front have been attending the March for Life since 2017 and made a well-publicized appearance at March for Life’s Chicago event this month.

And Patriot Front wasn’t the only white nationalist group in attendance; the Groypers, a white nationalist group led by Nick Fuentes, who is being investigated over the role he is alleged to have played in the Jan. 6 insurrection, also attended, donning crucifixes and “America First” flags.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/patriot-front-s-anti-abortion-advocacy-march-life-sends-clear-ncna1287952

January 25, 2022

The backlash against rightwing evangelicals is reshaping American politics and faith

What if I were to tell you that the following trends in American religion were all connected: rising numbers of people who are religiously unaffiliated (“nones”) or identify as “spiritual but not religious”; a spike in positive attention to the “religious left”; the depoliticization of liberal religion; and the purification and radicalization of the religious right? As a sociologist who has studied American religion and politics for many years, I have often struggled to make sense of these dramatic but seemingly disconnected changes. I now believe they all can all be explained, at least in part, as products of a backlash to the religious right.

Since the religious right rose to national prominence in the 1980s, the movement’s insertion of religion in public debate and uncompromising style of public discourse has alienated many non-adherents and members of the larger public. As its critics often note, the movement promotes policies – such as bans on same-sex marriage and abortion – that are viewed by growing numbers of Americans as intolerant and radical.

In a 2002 article, sociologists Michael Hout and Claude S Fischer argued that a significant trend in American religion – the skyrocketing number of people disaffiliating from religion – could be partly explained as a political backlash against the religious right. In the two decades since this article was published, a wealth of additional evidence has emerged to support its general argument. Sociologists Joseph O Baker and Buster G Smith summarize the sentiment driving this backlash: “If that’s what it means to be religious, then I’m not religious.”

While pathbreaking, this research has been relatively narrow in its focus. This is because it has typically started with the puzzle of the rising “nones” and worked backward in search of a cause, landing on backlash against the religious right. I wondered what would happen if we flipped this question around, and started with the rise of the religious right and public concerns about its radicalism. We could then consider the varied ways that backlash against it has manifested, including but not limited to the rise of the “nones”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/25/the-backlash-against-rightwing-evangelicals-is-reshaping-american-politics-and-faith
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I'm not a "none", I'm an Orthodox Christian, but I'm seriously backlashing!

January 25, 2022

A rookie cop mistook my sons for gang members and searched them at gunpoint. Where's our justice?

My boys were taught that the police officers who protect and serve our communities are to be respected and trusted. That trust was destroyed on Jan. 8, 2018, when they were stopped at gunpoint, forced to lie on the ground, handcuffed and searched.

On this cold, rainy night the boys had spent the evening with their grandparents and were walking the short distance back to my house. This walk home turned into a nightmare that still haunts them to this day because an inexperienced police officer in Springdale, Arkansas, overreacted to a dispatch report about some alleged gang members who had fled during a traffic stop earlier that evening.

When officer Lamont Marzolf encountered my kids, who were just 12 and 14 at the time, he could have acted in a professional manner, asked them some questions, and it would have been readily apparent (1) they didn’t come close to matching the description of the suspects, and (2) they were just young kids walking back to their mom’s house after spending time with their grandparents.

In a just and reasonable world, this conversation between my children and officer Marzolf would have resolved the situation and everyone could have gone on with their lives. Instead, he jumped out of his patrol car, drew his weapon, pointed it at my children and escalated the situation beyond all bounds of decency.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/01/25/my-sons-police-gunpoint/6608849001/
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Let's talk about lousy training! And these were even white kids! Qualified immunity is BS

January 25, 2022

Trump Supporters Left Death Threats for Election Workers. We Called Back.

“Well, Tennessee is watching you, Mr. Rick,” a voicemail said. “I'm just right over the border. We're watching you all closely.”

Another one had a similar message: “Hey Rick, watching this video of you on YouTube. You need to get your act together or people like me really may go after people like you.”

And yet another: “I hope they hang your fucking ass.”

After the 2020 presidential election, hundreds of threatening messages, emails, and voicemails were left for elections workers across the country. This is especially true in election hotspots like Georgia’s Fulton County, where officials were harassed for months over the phone and by email. Local law enforcement has not held anyone accountable, and some workers fear continued harassment in future elections.

Importantly, these calls weren’t anonymous. Instead, they were made by people from across the country who believe the false conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump—and that election workers in Fulton County were to blame for massive electoral fraud.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dg5p5/trump-supporters-death-threats-election-workers

January 24, 2022

Some types of baby formula in short supply, frustrating parents

Some kinds of baby formula are getting harder to find in parts of the country, leaving parents of young children frustrated and scrambling for alternatives.

"We've noticed it being difficult to find maybe a couple months ago — two, three months ago — and then just recently we can't find it," San Francisco resident Irene Anhoeck told CBS News.

She and her husband, Mario Anhoeck are the parents of Marlo, a 10-month-old boy. And since she can't breastfeed, the couple have fed Marlo a liquid infant formula from Similac, which they said is now in short supply.

"We've tried all the local Targets. We checked Costco, Costco online, Walgreens, Long's. Can't find it anywhere," Irene Anhoeck said.

Many parents around the country are reporting the same thing: bare shelves or very low stocks of baby formula — from New York to Washington state. The Infant Nutrition Council of America acknowledged there are some supply issues.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-formula-supply-parents-shortage/

January 24, 2022

Plowy McPlowface has a job to do

This week, another winter storm is streaking across the northern Plains and the Midwest, dropping a few inches of snow. And it's so cold outside, iguanas are falling out of trees.

But this won't stop Plowy McPlowface, one of Minnesota's famed snowplows. Through frosted windows and low visibility, these trucks plow on. Here's what it is like to drive in such harsh conditions.

"Your visibility is low, it's snowing, freezing, your windshield wipers are clacking along trying to keep the windshield clean."
Dan Pendergast is one of the drivers of the 800 snowplows in Minnesota. And in the Twin Cities where he drives, they can see as much as 51 inches of snow in a single season.
"Here in Minnesota, things can happen so fast. It can switch from rain to snow to ice very quickly and it's hazardous," says Pendergast.
In Minnesota, snowplows are given names and snowplow drivers are local celebrities. Plowy McPlowface, Darth Blader and F. Salt Fitzgerald, just to name a few.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/weather/frozen-iguanas-pancake-ice-snow-midwest-cold-wxn/index.html
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Might as well have some fun with miserable weather

January 24, 2022

Aaron Rodgers lost way more than a chance at the Super Bowl this season

Aaron Rodgers, the outspoken quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, had a statistically marvelous season.

In December, he threw his 443rd touchdown, passing Brett Favre to become the Packers’ all-time record holder. He also became the first player in the team's history to be named to 10 Pro Bowls. In all, his 37 touchdowns this season and only four interceptions are enough to make him the presumptive favorite to win MVP at his ripe age of 38.

But Rodgers had a humiliating season, regardless — and not just because he mustered a pedestrian 225 passing yards in his final performance, a 13-10 playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. When we look back on his year, everything Rodgers did on the field will be overshadowed by his selfish flouting of Covid-19 safety measures, his arrogant political rants and his exhausting victim mentality.

A rehash, shall we?

Rodgers was sidelined after testing positive for Covid on Nov. 3. Since the NFL has allowed Covid-positive players to continue playing if they’ve been vaccinated, Rodgers’ absence was a clear sign he hadn’t received the shots. This surprised many, since he’d previously — and evasively — claimed he’d been “immunized” against the virus. Then, after being called out for being deceitful, he accused a “woke mob” of trying to “cancel” him. Doctors be damned, in Rodgers’ view, he knows who the true “experts” are.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/aaron-rodgers-playoff-loss-covid-biden-rcna13284
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"Karen" Rodgers

January 24, 2022

'Climate of fear': Fla. school district cancels professor's civil rights lecture over critical race

'Climate of fear': Fla. school district cancels professor’s civil rights lecture over critical race theory concerns


A Florida school district canceled a professor’s civil rights history seminar for teachers, citing in part concerns over “critical race theory” — even though his lecture had nothing to do with the topic.

J. Michael Butler, a history professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, was scheduled to give a presentation Saturday to Osceola County School District teachers called “The Long Civil Rights Movement,” which postulates that the civil rights movement preceded and post-dated Martin Luther King Jr. by decades.

He said that he was shocked to learn why the seminar had been canceled through an email Wednesday but that he wasn’t surprised because educators feel increasingly intimidated over teaching about race.

Less than 24 hours before Butler was informed of the cancellation, a state Senate committee advanced legislation Tuesday at the behest of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to block public schools and private businesses from making people feel “discomfort” when they’re taught about race. DeSantis also wants to empower parents to sue schools that teach critical race theory.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/florida-school-district-cancels-professors-civil-rights-lecture-critic-rcna13183
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Thanks, DeSatan!

January 24, 2022

Tennessee deputy found fatally shot inside burning home

A 22-year-old sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee was found shot dead inside her burning home Sunday, officials say.

Deputy Savanna Puckett did not report to her assigned shift at 5 p.m., the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

A deputy then visited her Springfield home to check on her and found the residence “engulfed in flames," the agency said.

The deputy tried to enter the home but couldn’t due to the blaze.

Firefighters arrived and entered the home, where they found Puckett shot, according to the sheriff's office. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-deputy-found-fatally-shot-burning-home-rcna13257
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Check the boyfriend.

January 24, 2022

Texas woman arrested after allegedly trying to buy another woman's child for $500,000 at Walmart

A Texas woman has been arrested last week after allegedly attempting to buy a woman's child at a Walmart store, police say.

Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, was arrested Tuesday and charged with sale or purchase of a child, a third-degree felony, according to jail records.

Taylor allegedly approached a woman who had her baby in a car seat and one-year-old son in a shopping cart at the self-checkout section of a Walmart in Crockett, about 120 miles north of Houston, on Jan. 13.

Taylor allegedly commented on the woman’s son’s blonde hair and blue eyes and asked “how much she could purchase him for,” according to the probable cause affidavit obtained by NBC News.

The mom "tried to laugh this comment off, thinking Taylor was joking. Taylor told her that she had $250,000 in the car and she would pay that much for him. (The mom) told her no amount of money would do,” the affidavit stated.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-woman-arrested-allegedly-trying-buy-another-womans-child-500000-rcna13282