#Johnson Amendment

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alice Herman at The Guardian:

Striding on stage to thunderous music and strobing pyrotechnics, Charlie Kirk thanked God for Donald Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election during a speech that set the tone for a Jesus Christ-filled weekend at AmericaFest, Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) annual gathering which drew 20,000 rightwing politicians, media figures and activists. “We cannot take credit for what happened on November 5,” said Kirk, the firebrand director of TPUSA. “Who deserves credit is God Almighty.” Kirk wrapped his speech on a similar note. “Is God done with this country? Now I can say confidently, no, God is not done with America.”

The third annual AmericaFest was a victory lap for TPUSA, the group that took on the bulk of the Trump’s ground game during a 2024 campaign that secured him a second presidency. With its star-studded cast of Christian commentators, rightwing media superstars and a keynote address Sunday morning by Trump himself, AmericaFest showcased the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement’s vision for Christian power and its commitment to mobilizing more conservative evangelicals into the Republican party base. That was evident from the first night on, when every speaker that followed Kirk on stage invoked Christian doctrine. Ben Carson, the 2024 Trump campaign’s national faith chairperson, lamented the nation straying from Christianity and proclaimed that it is “time to come back to it”. Even Steve Bannon nodded to the idea that Trump’s presidency had been God-ordained – and suggested it could be prolonged to what would be an unconstitutional third term. He wrapped his comments by yelling “Trump 2028! MSNBC, fuck you”, and told the crowd: “Divine providence works through Donald Trump as its instrument.”

And when an audience member asked Ben Shapiro how he would feel, as a Jewish person, about the Christian Bible being taught in public schools, the conservative commentator replied: “I think it’s great.” He called the Bible the “seminal document of western civilization”, and added that he believes “all of America is built on biblical values”. Evangelicals have not always received Trump warmly. The divorced, serial philanderer who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E Jean Carroll outraged conservative Christians when he launched his first bid for the White House in 2015. But with the theological justification that he was an imperfect tool for God’s will on earth, many came around to the candidate – and evangelicals have formed a key segment of his base ever since. The rest of the weekend focused largely on Christian power. Vendors promoted companies such as Patriot Mobile (“America’s ONLY Christian Conservative Wireless Provider”). Panelists led faith-focused breakout sessions and strategized the role of evangelicals in electoral politics. And there was Faith Night, the Saturday evening mainstage event, featuring a lineup of pastors and rightwing Christian influencers who decried secularism and prayed for an American revival spearheaded by Trump.

Although Christianity dominates religious belief in the US, with more than 65% of Americans identifying as Christian, according to 2023 survey data by the Public Religion Research Institute, presenters at the TPUSA event invoked longstanding, if unfounded, anxieties about systematic Christian persecution in the US to promote policies restricting LGBTQ+ rights and transferring political power to the church. “For Christians in America, the race for freedom is more than a sprint – it is a marathon,” said the narrator of a promotional video for Pacific Justice Institute, an organization that the Southern Policy Law Center calls a hate group for its role in advocating against LGBTQ+ inclusion as well as promoting practices like conversion therapy. During the group’s 45-minute presentation, Pacific Justice Institute legislative counsel Janice Lorrah alleged the outgoing Joe Biden White House had “declared war on people of faith” and offered a note of optimism about Trump’s campaign promise to create a taskforce dedicated to rooting out anti-Christian bias.

During another strategy session, TPUSA field organizers focused on evangelical voter turnout and electoral strategy, chatting about what worked and what didn’t during the 2024 campaign season – and how the group could continue to mobilize churches into partisan politics. Registering voters in churches was an easy way to engage evangelicals and boost Republican turnout because “you’re going to a place that you know you will be registering conservatives,” said one Wisconsin panelist. Some pastors that the group tried to engage, though, worried about risking their church’s tax-exempt status by participating in partisan electioneering – a practice that the IRS forbids churches and other 501c3 non-profits from engaging in.

[...]

Presenters on the Turning Point Faith panel highlighted an ongoing effort by the organization to help pastors establish political 501c4 organizations, parallel to their churches, to participate in partisan politics. On a big screen at the front of the conference room, attendees could scan a QR code, sending them to a registration page titled “501c4 application” and a form to fill out with their name, phone number, the name of the church and the church’s address – plus a section for interested participants to jot down notes. The push parallels efforts by right-leaning Christian activists to do away with a law that prohibits churches and other 501c3 organizations from endorsing and donating to political candidates. Without such restrictions on electioneering, experts warn churches – which are not required to file 990 forms disclosing financial information to the IRS – could become conduits for large sums of untraceable money into political campaigns.

Ending that law, known as the Johnson amendment – was top-of-mind for Gene Bailey, the host of the Christian television program FlashPoint, who recorded interviews live from the Phoenix Convention Center during AmericaFest. “We’re looking to see [the Johnson amendment], once and for all, gotten rid of,” Bailey told the Guardian. “We need it to be resolved in the courts, versus another executive order.” Bailey’s talkshow, which promotes the political ideology that biblical Christianity should rule over society and government, occupied a more marginal place in the conservative movement a decade ago.

The weekend highlighted the common cause that Catholics, reformed Protestants and nondenominational charismatics – Christians who embrace prophetic visions, speaking in tongues and other direct experiences with the Holy Spirit – have found in the conservative movement. “Historically, there’s a lot of infighting inside of the spaces,” said Tim Whitaker, host of the progressive Christian podcast The New Evangelicals and a prominent critic of Christian nationalism. Now, groups that “couldn’t be farther apart in terms of theology [are] speaking under the same organizational umbrella”. One group of Christians were not welcome: progressives, and anyone whose theology strayed from the stringently anti-trans and pro-Trump messaging of Turning Point USA.

At Turning Point USA's AmericaFest this past weekend, the event was a jubilant celebration of Donald Trump's victory and a mobilization tool for Christian nationalism.

[abcsministries]

Illegal Immigrants and Immorality Destroying America! Let's Take Back America! Part 1

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the turn of the century and even before then I have noticed a downward spiral in American society with increasing crime rates and other problems. I attribute this downward spiral to two factors: illegal immigration and immorality. This will be the first of two blogs discussing the issues with possible solutions. In this first article, I will address the problems associated…

[diabolicflame93]

Trump's Rhetoric on Christian Persecution in America

Discussion regarding Trump's rhetoric around Christian persecution in America. Focusing on his recent Turning Point speech.

Trump continues to try to appeal to evangelical Christians and their perceived persecution. CW: Homophobia. Racist Language. In the past he’s made wild claims that Christian conservatives will be hunted down by law enforcement while Hamas runs their cities. (Speech to CPAC in early 2024 about what America would look like if he isn’t elected) “While weaponized law enforcement hunts for…

[cynicalclassicist]

These evangelicals cheering on Trump really are pretty scary people.

🤮

[coochiequeens]

Woman’ is not an ambiguous term open to an evolving interpretation.” - the attorneys representing the women who want to keep the sorority house they pay $8,000 for male free.

By Genevieve Gluck December 14, 2023

The female complainants at the center of a lawsuit to have a trans-identified male removed from a sorority at the University of Wyoming have re-filed their appeal, demanding the court clearly define the word “woman.” Artemis Langford, previously known as Dallin, was accepted into Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) last September, spurring several women to file a lawsuit to have him removed.

In August, the case of Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity was dismissed on the basis that re-defining “woman” to include males was “Kappa Kappa Gamma’s bedrock right.” Despite hearing testimony from the women, some of whom stated Langford had “watched” them undress with an erection, Judge Alan Johnson rejected the women’s request to rescind Langford’s admission into the sorority.

However, on December 4, the young women filed an appeal to have the dismissal reversed, arguing that Langford’s presence in the sorority house “caused emotional distress in a personalized and unique way,” and demanding that the court clearly define the word “woman.”

In the appeal, the women reassert that Langford displayed “strange and sexual behavior” towards them, and caused them a level of discomfort and anxiety amounting to personal injury. It reiterates claims that Langford had been filming and photographing the women without their consent and had displayed a visible erection while in the house.

“Specifically, Langford’s unwanted staring, photographing, and videotaping of the Plaintiffs, as well as his asking questions about sex and displaying a visible erection while in the house, invaded Plaintiffs’ privacy and caused emotional distress in a personalized and unique way. And thus Plaintiffs have pleaded a viable direct claim. This Court should therefore reverse the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ derivative and direct claims,” the appeal reads.

Some of the allegations are a reiteration of previous claims, which Langford’s attorney, Rachel Berkness, has attempted to portray as both false and discriminatory during court proceedings. In June, Berkness filed a motion to dismiss the sorority women’s claims against Langford as “frivolous and malicious,” stating: “The allegations against Ms. Langford … were borne out of a hypothesis in search of evidence and pieced together using drunken party stories. Ms. Langford is not a victim; she is a target.”

The initial suit, filed at the end of March, had asserted that Langford, who is 6’2″, had been voyeuristically peeping on the women while they were in intimate situations, and, on at least one occasion, had a visible erection while doing so.

“One sorority member walked down the hall to take a shower, wearing only a towel … She felt an unsettling presence, turned, and saw [Langford] watching her silently,” the court document reads.

“[Langford] has, while watching members enter the sorority house, had an erection visible through his leggings,” the suit says. “Other times, he has had a pillow in his lap.”

As evidenced by his Tinder profile, Langford is “sexually interested in women.” It was further stated in that Langford took photographs of the women while at a sorority slumber party, where he also is said to have made inappropriate comments.

“At a slumber party, Langford ‘repeatedly questioned the women about what vaginas look like, [and] breast cup size,’ and stared as one Plaintiff changed her clothes,” reads the appeal. “Langford also talked about his virginity and discussed at what age it would be appropriate for someone to have sex… And he stated that he would not leave one of the sorority’s sleepovers until after everyone fell asleep.”

Langford was also said to have taken pictures of female members “without their knowledge or consent.” Some of the women noted that they had “observed Langford writing detailed notes about [the students] and their statements and behavior.”

In May, a judge twice prohibited the women from suing anonymously, while stipulating that Langford’s identity should remain protected. Langford was referred to by the pseudonym “Terry Smith” and male pronouns in the legal documents. Six of the women then refiled the lawsuit under their own names, and are requesting that the court void Langford’s membership in KKG.

“It is really uncomfortable. Some of the girls have been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. Some girls live in constant fear in our home,” one of the sisters, Hannah, told Megyn Kelly during an interview on her podcast.

Rather than addressing the privacy and safety concerns of the women in KKG, who had each paid $8,000 to live in the sorority house, “Kappa officials recommended that … they should quit Kappa Kappa Gamma entirely.”

In June, the sorority filed a motion to dismiss the suit, calling it a “frivolous” attempt to eject Langford for “their own political purposes.” According to the motion, the women suing were flinging “dehumanizing mud” in order to “bully Ms. Langford on the national stage.” The sorority invited the women to resign their membership “if a position of inclusion is too offensive for their personal values.”

In the motion, lawyers for Kappa Kappa Gamma attempted to depict the suit as an attempt by “a vocal minority” to impose their views on Langford and the rest of the sorority members.

“Perhaps the greatest wrongs in this case are not the ones Plaintiffs and their supporters imagine they have suffered, but the ones that they have inflicted through their conduct since filing the Complaint,” they wrote. “Regardless of personal views on the rights of transgender people, the cruelty that Plaintiffs and their supporters have shown towards Langford and anyone in Kappa who supports Langford is disturbing.”

The recent appeal against the suit’s dismissal, filed on behalf of the young women by Sylvia May Mailman of the Independent Women’s Law Center, the Law Office of John G. Knepper, Schaerr Jaffe LLP, and Cassie Craven of Longhorn Law firm, details several alleged violations of the sorority sisters’ rights, as well as KKG’s own policies.

“The question at the heart of this case is the definition of ‘woman,’ a term that Kappa has used since 1870 to prescribe membership, in Kappa’s governing documents,” the appeal states. “Using any conceivable tool of contractual interpretation, the term refers to biological females. And yet, the district court avoided this inevitable conclusion by applying the wrong law and ignoring the factual assertions in the complaint.”

It goes on to note that from 1870 to 2018, KKG defined “woman” to exclude “transgender women” and that any new definition may not be enacted without a KKG bylaw amendment.

Numerous examples are given of rules put forward by the sorority which use the term “woman,” with the attorneys maintaining that “‘woman’ is not an ambiguous term open to an evolving interpretation.”

KKG leaders who approved Langford’s membership have “subverted Kappa’s mission and governing documents by changing the definition of ‘woman’ without following the required processes.” Kappa President Mary Pat Rooney’s legal team has argued that Langford’s admission into the sorority was based on a 2015 position statement which asserts that KKG “is a single-gender organization comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.”

However, the women’s legal appeal points out that KKG can only change its membership criteria by amending its Bylaws, a process which requires a two-thirds majority approval vote by a Convention of board members. As a Convention to amend Bylaws to reflect the position statement was never held, the appeal states, Langford’s acceptance into KKG is a violation of accepted policies.

KKG leadership is also accused of using “coercive” tactics during the process of voting Langford into the organization in September 2022. After an initial anonymous vote conducted via Google poll failed to result in Langford’s acceptance into the sorority, Chapter leaders developed a second, non-anonymous voting system in which multiple sisters changed their votes because of “fear of reprisal.”

In addition to denying women anonymity, Wyoming chapter officials, after consultation with Kappa’s leadership, had told members that voting against Langford’s admission was evidence of “bigotry” that “is a basis for suspension or expulsion from the Sorority.”

Curiously, prior court documents also reveal that Langford was admitted to KKG despite not even meeting their basic academic eligibility requirements. 

While KKG requires applicants to have a 2.7 Grade Point Average (GPA), Langford only had a 1.9 at the time he submitted his membership request, and was not on a grade probation. The legal complaint notes that this indicates Langford’s application was “evaluated using a different standard.”

In November, two longstanding alumni members of KKG revealed they had been expelled in an apparent retaliation for advocating that membership be restricted to females only. Patsy Levang and Cheryl Tuck-Smith had been members of the sorority for over 50 years, and had contributed to fundraising efforts for the organization.

Despite their long history of supporting KKG, Levang and Tuck-Smith were voted out by the sorority’s national leadership on November 9. Levang had been the past Kappa Kappa Gamma National Foundation President, while Tuck-Smith was an active contributor and organizer.

The women’s removal came after they had been vocally opposed to the admission of Langford to the KKG chapter at the University of Wyoming, and had supported a lawsuit launched by members of that sorority to have him removed.

Since news of the lawsuit first became widely circulated, Langford has received ample sympathetic coverage in mainstream media, with one MSNBC host labeling him “brave and unique.” In a recent profile by the Washington Post, Langford was given a platform to accuse the sorority sisters involved in the suit of lying while being compared to women who had historically been denied the right to a basic education.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: The Truth About Christmas | Real Time with Bill Maher

Finally, New Rule: Praise Jesus, it's a Christmas miracle. For the first time in the 21 year history of this show we are on in December, which gives me a chance to explain to everyone something I've always wanted to expound upon in this show.

You know that whole thing about Jesus being born on December 25th? Well it's a crock of shit. Now, this is not an attack on Jesus. Although, he was a nepo baby. But also a revolutionary philosopher with a beautiful message. As to whether he's a God, that's up to you.

But if the subject is "Gods born on December 25th," we have enough of those for an entire Jeopardy category.

He was the Egyptian god who took the form of a falcon. Who is Horus?

He is the god from ancient Persia born bearing a torch. Who is Mithra?

He is the Greek god of rebirth. Who is Adonis?

He was the fertility god in Cleopatra's time. Who is Osiris?

This Greek deity was known for having a good time. Who is Dionysis?

So you may be asking - those are all real by the way, I think that was the problem, they think I'm making this up but I'm not - why do all the gods want the same birthday? Well, because December 25th was a pagan holiday coming a few days after the shortest day of the year, when primitive peoples noticed that the days were starting to get longer again, and so a cause for celebration.

Cut to:

And that's the story of Christmas. A holiday I love by the way. The tree, the presents, the music, the Christmas memories with my sister and our cousins filling the bong with eggnog. It's the only time of the year it's okay to put alcohol in milk. Christmas is fun if you just accept it's pretend time. Like a Hollywood wedding.

Yes, I love Christmas and always have. Just don't try to make me take it seriously.

And that is what has been going on a lot lately here in America. We have a new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who says America is actually a Biblical Republic and that he's even got a flag picked out that hangs outside his office, and which also could be seen in the mob on January 6th. Mike also says, "the separation of church and state is a misnomer," and congresswoman Lauren Boebert concurs saying she's, "tired of this separation of church and state junk." So too Marjorie Taylor Green, who says, "I say it proudly, we should all be Christian nationalists."

Now I know it may seem like this is just a few crazies, but I gotta tell you, dumbass Republicans who believe horrible ideas are like ants: there's always more that you can't see.

And in in fact, these ideas are no longer the fringe. According to a recent survey, over half of Republicans are either adherents of Christian nationalism or sympathetic to it. And they agree with statements like: "The US government should declare America a Christian Nation," and "Being Christian is an important part of being truly American," and "God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society."

I'm sorry but I don't want anyone exercising their dominion over me unless I pay them and we've established a safe-word.

Boebert says, "The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church." Well, no and no. Neither one is supposed to direct the other. That's what separation of church and state means.

Republicans, Jesus fucking Christ. First you stop believing in democracy - Senator Mike Lee said it, among others. Trump lives the idea every day, and here we have the Speaker of the House saying it. And now Republicans also don't believe in the separation of church and state? Does anyone in that party remember what fucking country you're living in?

We're the place that stakes so much of our greatness on being the first to specifically prohibit having a state religion. There are dozens of countries that have an official religion. There's 13 where being an atheist is punishable by death. Four have "Islamic" right in the title of the country.

And maybe that warms the hearts of the TikTok crowd who lately have found heroes in Hamas and Osama Bin Laden. But that's not us. That's not what we do here. I get it you kids like to switch things up. But I can only handle one side at a time being ridiculous about religious fanaticism, and right now I've got my hands full with Mike Johnson.

Because Mike Johnson has the power to actually make laws. And I don't want my global warming policy decided by someone who is rooting for the end of the world so we can get on with the Rapture. And who once filed a legal brief before the Supreme Court arguing that what he called "deviant same sex intercourse" should be a crime. Even the lesbian stuff?

Mike thinks God personally chooses, raises up our leaders, which is a very dangerous thought, because then when you lose an election you think it's just another of God's tricks to test your faith. Like fossils. Mike says, "We began as a Christian nation." We didn't. Did you miss that day in home school, Mike? If you don't know that the pilgrims came here to get away from the Church of England then you don't know, literally, the first thing about our country. Mike says, being a Christian nation is, "our tradition," and, "it's who we are as a people."

It's not. We're the people who have a First Amendment which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." And we have an Article Six which says, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office."

So, I take these people at their word when they say that they think we should be Christian nationalists. But then they have to take John Adams at his word when he wrote, "the government of the United States of America is not an any sense founded on the Christian religion."

But I still love Christmas!

--

Introduction The rising influence of Christian nationalism in some segments of American politics poses a major threat to the health of our democracy. Increasingly, the major battle lines of the culture war are being drawn between a right animated by a Christian nationalist worldview and Americans who embrace the country’s growing racial and religious diversity. This new PRRI/Brookings survey of more than 6,000 Americans takes a closer look at the underpinnings of Christian nationalism, providing new measures to estimate the proportion of Americans who adhere to and reject Christian nationalist ideology. The survey also examines how Christian nationalist views intersect with white identity, anti-Black sentiment, support of patriarchy, antisemitism, anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-immigrant attitudes, authoritarianism, and support for violence. Additionally, the survey explores the influence Christian nationalism has within our two primary political parties and major religious subgroups and what this reveals about the state of American democracy and the health of our society.

==

Freedom of religion and freedom from religion are the same thing.

[haggishlyhagging]

“The ERA went down in defeat in Illinois on June 22, 1982, but not before those of us in the galleries had had the rare good fortune to witness one of the most stunning performances in history. Monica Faith Stewart, a Black legislator from Chicago's South Side, stood and spoke with a feminist defiance equaled only by Sojourner Truth. She, like us, knew the House would reject the ERA. There was no reason not to tell it like it was:

. . . . I don't stand here to petition your yes vote, because what is your constitution to me? The Declaration of Independence was drafted by a man who, yes, was a founding father; who, yes, was a great economist; but yes, he was a slave holder, and yes, for 37 years, he went into the bed of his slave, who he thought was the perfect woman. Why? Because she was a slave. And so gentlemen, what is your constitution to me?

. . . . You can vote this amendment up or down; quite frankly, it doesn't make any difference to me. I think you are acting as people of your class and tradition have always acted, and you know what? It won't matter, because we've survived much worse than this. Back when I was in school, we had a saying, that if things didn't go the way you liked them in the classroom, we'd meet you outside at 3:15. And so, white males of the world, it is now 3:15. I represent the majority of people on this planet who are women, the majority of people on this planet who are of color, and you cannot have your sovereignty any longer. Why? Because I say so!

Up in the galleries, the applause fairly exploded as hundreds of us rose to our feet as one, stamping and shouting. Overcome with admiration for her, and with gratitude, heartsick and angry and proud, we turned and wept in one another's arms.

When the Illinois House defeated the ERA that day— by only five votes: 103 to 74 (the 103 votes were cast in favor of the ERA, but with Illinois' anti-democratic 3/5 requirement, we were the losers) — national ratification was impossible. The long decade of hoping and dreaming and struggling for justice was over. We agreed that there was no point in continuing the fast. So at our last press conference the next morning, we broke it officially, toasting one another and the press with grape juice in plastic wine glasses.

In the meantime, back at the motel, reporters wanted to know what we had learned from this. I said that what I had learned—again—was that women cannot trust men to represent us. We cannot work through men. "It's like trusting the slave-holders to represent the slaves," I told the scribbling pencils. Whatever lingering illusions I might have had about the representativeness of the government of the United States of America died quietly and forever that day. When the ERA went down, women all over the country lost their faith in God: how could a loving, just God not have heard and answered women's most fervent, most passionate, most righteous prayers? they asked. This did not trouble me. What I lost were the last wispy shreds of my faith in this system of government.”

-Sonia Johnson, Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation

[nodynasty4us]

From the November 19, 2023 opinion piece by Kimberly Wehle:

His legal track record is revealing, showing that Johnson can take different positions on constitutional issues depending on who the parties are. For instance, Johnson has been a fervent advocate of First Amendment protections — for Christians. When nonreligious secularists brought a religion-based challenge, he took the other side, defending the government. (Johnson has called secularists “atheists” who pressure government officials to censure God-based viewpoints.)

So while Johnson’s legal career reflects decades of arguing for free speech and free expression of religion, it has consistently been for the same religion — and not evidently in furtherance of an even-handed legal principle that would protect all religions equally (in addition to the right to reject religion altogether). Johnson’s theory, summed up, appears to be what might be dubbed, “the First Amendment for me but not for thee.” As he has described it in his own words, “the founders wanted to protect the church from the encroaching state, not the other way around.”

But only when that church is Christian.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Clay Jones]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 30, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 31, 2024

On Tuesday morning, on his social media outlet, former president Trump encouraged his supporters to buy a “God Bless The USA” Bible for $59.99. The Bible is my “favorite book,” he said in a promotional video, and said he owns “many.” This Bible includes the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also includes the chorus of country music singer Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA,” likely because it is a retread of a 2021 Bible Greenwood pushed to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of 9-11.

That story meant less coverage for the news from last Monday, March 25, in which Trump shared on his social media platform a message comparing him to Jesus Christ, with a reference to Psalm 109, which calls on God to destroy one’s enemies.  

This jumped out to me because Trump is not the first president to compare himself to Jesus Christ. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson famously did, too. While there is a financial component to Trump’s comparison that was not there for Johnson, the two presidents had similar political reasons for claiming a link to divine power.

Johnson was born into poverty in North Carolina, then became a tailor in Tennessee, where he rose through politics to the U.S. House of Representatives and then the Senate. In 1861, when Tennessee left the Union, Johnson was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who remained loyal to the United States. This stand threw him into prominence. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln named him the military governor of Tennessee. 

Then, in 1864, the Republican Party renamed itself the Union Party to attract northern Democrats to its standard. To help that effort, party leaders chose a different vice president, replacing a staunch Republican—Hannibal Hamlin of Maine—with the Democrat Johnson.

Although he was elected on what was essentially a Republican ticket, Johnson was a Democrat at heart. He loathed the elite southern enslavers he thought had become oligarchs in the years before the Civil War, shutting out poorer men like him from prosperity, but he was a fervent racist who enslaved people himself until 1863. Johnson opposed the new active government the Republicans had built during the war, and he certainly didn’t want it to enforce racial equality. He expected that the end of the war would mean a return to the United States of 1860, minus the system of enslavement that concentrated wealth upward. 

Johnson was badly out of step with the Republicans, but a quirk of timing gave him exclusive control of the reconstruction of the United States from April 15, 1865, when he took the oath of office less than three hours after Lincoln breathed his last, until early December. Congress had adjourned for the summer on March 4, expecting that Lincoln would call the members back together if there were an emergency, as he had in summer 1861. It was not due to reconvene until early December. Members of Congress rushed back to Washington, D.C., after Lincoln’s assassination, but Johnson insisted on acting alone.

Over the course of summer 1865, Johnson set out to resuscitate the prewar system dominated by the Democratic Party, with himself at its head. He pardoned all but about 1,500 former Confederates, either by proclamation or by presidential pardon, putting them back into power in southern society. He did not object when southern state legislatures developed a series of state laws, called Black Codes, remanding Black Americans into subservience.

When Congress returned to work on December 4, 1865, Johnson greeted the members with the happy news that he had “restored” the Union. Leaving soldiers in the South would have cost tax money, he said, and would have “envenomed hatred” among southerners. His exclusion of Black southerners from his calculus, although they were the most firmly loyal population in the South, showed how determined he was to restore prewar white supremacy, made possible by keeping power in the states. All Republican congressmen had to do, he said, was to swear in the southern senators and representatives now back in Washington, D.C., and the country would be “restored.”

Republicans wanted no part of his “restoration.” Not only did it return to power the same men who had been shooting at Republicans’ constituents eight months before and push northerners’ Black fellow soldiers to a form of quasi-enslavement, but also the 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole people rather than three fifths of a person, giving former Confederates more national political power after the war than they had had before it. Victory on the battlefields would be overturned by control of Congress.

Congressional Republicans rejected Johnson’s plan for reconstruction. Instead, they passed the Fourteenth Amendment  in June 1866 and required the former Confederate states to ratify it before they could be readmitted to the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment put the strength of the national government behind the idea that Black Americans would be considered citizens—as the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision had denied. Then it declared that states could neither discriminate against citizens nor take away a citizen’s rights without due process of the law. To make sure that the 1870 census would not increase the power of former Confederates, it declared that if any state kept men over 21 from voting, its representation in Congress would be reduced proportionally. 

Johnson hated the Fourteenth Amendment. He hated its broad definition of citizenship; he hated its move toward racial equality; he hated its undermining of the southern leaders he backed; he hated its assertion of national power; he hated that it offered a moderate route to reunification that most Americans would support. If states ratified it, he wouldn’t be able to rebuild the Democratic Party with himself at its head. 

So he told southern politicians to ignore Congress’s order to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, calling Congress an illegal body because it had not seated representatives from the southern states. He promised white southerners that the Democrats would win the 1866 midterm elections. Once back in power, he said, Democrats would repudiate the Republicans’ “radicalism” and put his plan back into place. 

As he asserted his vision for the country, Johnson egged on white supremacist violence. In July, white mobs attacked a Unionist convention in New Orleans where delegates had called for taking the vote away from ex-Confederates and giving it to loyal Black men. The rioters killed 37 Black people and 3 white delegates to the convention. 

By then, Johnson had become as unpopular as his policies. Increasingly isolated, he defended his plan for the nation as the only true course. In late August he broke tradition to campaign in person, an act at the time considered beneath the dignity of a president. He set off on a railroad tour, known as the “Swing Around the Circle,” to whip up support for the Democrats before the election. 

Speaking from the same set of notes as the train stopped at different towns and cities from Washington, D.C., to New York, to Chicago, to St. Louis, and back to Washington, D.C., Johnson complained bitterly about the opposition to his reconstruction policies, attacked specific members of Congress as traitors and called for them to be hanged, and described himself as a martyr like Lincoln. And, noting the mercy of his reconstruction policies, he compared himself to Jesus.  

It was all too much for voters. The white supremacist violence across the South horrified them, returning power to southern whites infuriated them, the reduction of Black soldiers to quasi-slaves enraged them, and Johnson’s attacks on Congress alarmed them. Johnson seemed determined to hand the country over to its former enemies to recreate the antebellum world that northerners had just poured more than 350,000 lives and $5 billion into destroying, no matter what voters wanted. 

Johnson’s extremism and his supporters’ violence created a backlash. Northerners were not willing to hand the country back to the Democrats who were rioting in the South and to a president who compared himself to Jesus. Rather than turning against the Republicans in the 1866 elections, voters repudiated Johnson. They gave Republicans a two-thirds majority of Congress, enabling them to override any policy Johnson proposed.

And, in 1868, the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, launching a new era in the history of the United States.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[ophilosoraptoro]

What Edward Snowden just said about the DEEP STATE should WAKE US UP

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nikki McCann Ramírez at Rolling Stone:

On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a show of selectively exiting the presidential race and throwing his support behind Donald Trump, hailing the former president as a champion of free speech. Less than a week later, Trump is already promising to crush First Amendment protections if elected in November.  On Monday, Trump complained about pushback to a proposal to sentence people to a year in jail for burning the American flag.  “I wanna get a law passed […] You burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. Gotta do it — you gotta do it,” Trump said.  “They say, ‘Sir, that’s unconstitutional.’ We’ll make it constitutional.”

People may tell Trump that jailing anyone who burns the flag is unconstitutional because burning the flag is protected by the First Amendment. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that while the desecration of the flag may be objectionable, “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” RFK Jr. has long claimed that the government is censoring him in various ways, and on Friday blamed his failed attempt at a viable run for the presidency on “16 months of censorship, of not being able to get on any network really except for Fox.”

Kennedy added that the Democratic Party had “become the party of the war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, big money.” He cited Trump’s stances on free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on children as his justification for endorsing the former president. “These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” he said. The endorsement may have also had something to do with Trump’s receptiveness to bringing Kennedy into his administration if he wins. Earlier this month The Washington Post reported that Kennedy’s campaign had attempted to secure meetings with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to discuss a potential role for him in her administration should she win the White House — to no avail. Kennedy held similar discussions with the Trump campaign in the time period surrounding the Republican National Convention. 

Avowed 1st Amendment enemy Donald Trump seeks to restrict the 1A if he is elected this November.

If you want to see the 1st Amendment protected, vote Kamala Harris!

[evilmark999]

"I'll go to my deathbed knowing that they lied. They looked into the State Senators' eyes - and the people of Georgia and people of America - and lied to them about this - and KNEW they were lying - to try to keep this charade going on, that there was fraud in Georgia..."

When Tucker Carlson said, "this is not a conspiracy theory," and when Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity and the rest of the entertainment sycophants still at FOX echoed and continue to echo those same kinds of statements, then you can take it to YOUR deathbed that it IS all a lie, that they're ALL liars - from top to bottom - that they're ALL very KNOWINGLY liars, and don't deserve to be trusted to tell one iota of the truth. Ever!

Just like Donald Trump. And just like Rudy Giuliani. And just like every other christofascist MAGA supporter. Knowingly liars. Full stop!

Write all of their names down, and never forgive, and never forget. They are ALL very KNOWINGLY deceiving everyone that isn't one of them, and will look YOU or anyone or EVERYONE in the eye without a care at all...

Too many names. I ran out of tags...

[suzilight]

The First Amendment of the Constitution stipulates that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In a letter referencing that amendment, Jefferson referred to it as "a wall of separation between Church and State."

Speaker Mike Johnson's worldview goes as far as to cast the US not as a democracy but as a “biblical” republic, as he stated in a 2016 interview. 

[nationallawreview]

Supreme Court Holds That the Eighth Amendment Does Not Prevent Enforcement of Local Camping Bans, Authorizing a Significant Shift in Local Policies on Homelessness

Until recently, local policies on homelessness have been guided by two controversial rulings from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: Martin v. Boise (9th Cir. 2019) 920 F.3d 584 and Johnson v. City of Grants Pass (9th Cir. 2022) 50 F.4th 787.[1] However, the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson(2024) 603 U.S. ____, is likely to transform local jurisdictions’ policy…

[aetsher]

Bad news. KOSA advanced.

Continue calling your representatives and tell them to vote no on KOSA. It passed the Senate Commerce Committee, not the full Senate, we still have time.

STOP KOSA NOW.

Edit: July 29: The full Senate is voting on KOSA TOMORROW! Please call your representatives and senators to vote no! PLEASE!

Edit: July 30: Senate passed KOSA! The House vote is next. Contact your representatives to vote no now! PLEASE!

Edit: August 1st: KOSA IS DEAD! For now. It may pop up again. Be on the lookout, if it does pop up again, tell your senators and representatives to vote no!

Edit: September 13: KOSA MIGHT RETURN! Follow the instructions on this post PLEASE!

Edit: September 20: KOSA PASSED THE HOUSE COMMITTEE AND ONTO THE HOUSE FLOOR!! This happened on September 18th, I am a bit late and for that I'm sorry. But it’s not over! FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS POST, PLEASE!!

Edit: September 27: THIS ENTIRE POST STILL APPLIES! THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER, WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE TO FIGHT! PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO VOTE NO! PLEASE!!

Edit: October 6: @the-vampire-fish-queen said, “Do want to point out Congress is not in session right now but come back around 11/12/24. Also, the Republican leadership is fighting over the bill.” WHICH IS VERY TRUE!

FOR REPUBLICAN REPS:

FOR DEMOCRAT REPS:

Edit: October 25: The Heritage Foundation KNOWS that Kosa will REMOVE Pro-Abortion and Trans content IF Trump wins. It has also come to my attention, that from what people have heard from the House of Representatives, Kosa will MOST LIKELY not move on. The keywords there are most likely, keep fighting!

[govtshutdown]

Senator Johnson's amendment fails, now to Senator Lankford's amendments

Motion is tabled, 51-47, amendment by Senator Johnson (R-WI) that would cut funding to sanctuary cities.

Next amendment by Senator Lankford (R-OK) to cut funding to a hospital that performs "late-term" abortions. Voice vote fails.

Next amendment by Senator Lankford (R-OK) , calling for detention of immigrants that are considered a national security threat. Voice vote fails.

Yes, I'm cutting down on the posts. I'm exhausted and this is all a waste of time.