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Biblical Basis For War Matt Shea

(click to see the pdf of the document)

Dear Group,

The belief systems, the worldview, of the people who claim to represent us at all levels of government deserve close examination. These belief systems reflect on their constituents. Check this out: on November 14, the Spokesman published a letter to the editor by Stevan Alburty of Liberty Lake:

Now that Matt Shea and his Biblical babble have enabled him to be re-elected, I am even more encouraged to proceed with my imaginary plan to hire about 100 bulldozers and raze the entire Spokane Valley from Freya to Barker in one cold swoop.

Start over, I say. It’s physically and intellectually a wasteland, a strip mall of gargantuan proportions. Its allegiance to a fanatic such as Mattt Shea is justification enough for my fantasy of its demolition.

Matt should spend less time trying to fulfill his prophecy about “killing all males,” and spend a little more time on urban planning.

Hmmm. That might be a little overblown. I did quite a lot of canvassing in the City of Spokane Valley in the two weeks leading up to the November election. I followed the national and local coverage of Matt Shea and his worrisome manifesto, “Biblical Basis for War,” a tract I first encountered in a Spokesman article on October 31st, just six days before the election. Regardless of the national news coverage of Mr. Shea’s extremism, many I spoke with in the City of Spokane Valley barely recognized the name, Matt Shea, much less any detail of his ideology.

I smiled reading Mr. Alburty’s letter to the editor, but his way of thinking is a trap. The re-election of an incumbent is more a matter of name recognition and party affiliation than a test of the incumbent’s belief system. We tend to imagine everyone is paying as much attention to these things as we are. We need to get over that. 

When Matt Shea was confronted with his manifesto (reproduced above) his response was: 

“First of all, it was a summary of a series of sermons on biblical war in the Old Testament as part of a larger discussion on the history of warfare,” Shea said in a Facebook Live video on Wednesday. “This document, in and of itself, was not a secret. I’ve actually talked about portions of this document publicly.”

Well, today I bring you the document itself. If you haven’t already read it where it is posted above, I urge you to do so. There is no question of it’s authenticity. I downloaded it from the link in the October 31st article in the Spokesman. Here is the direct link to the online pdf. Read it for the full effect. Shea’s defense of his outline as an academic exercise, one part of a series of sermons, is absurd. Sections “10 Rules of War” and “11 Organizational Structure for War” are not academic or sermonic, they are a modern day prescription with modern day issues and terminology,

The controversy over this document broke only in the last days of the election. It had a modest effect on the voting I will address in a later post, but the document did not have enough time or promotion to sink into the consciousness of the average voter. That will take time…and it will only happen if we absorb its contents and spread them. 

Mr. Alburty’s letter to the editor is premature. His bulldozer fantasy neglects the nearly 30,000 LD4 voters who cast ballots for Ted Cummings, and others who voted for Shea only because he “Prefers Republican Party,” voters blissfully ignorant of Shea’s extremism. Even some staunch local Republicans have denounced the man, notably Sheriff Knezovich and Bob McCaslin Sr. (McCaslin Jr.’s father and a former Senator from LD4, now deceased.) Others have accepted Shea’s endorsement (McMorris Rodgers, for example) or even defended Shea’s document (Rob Chase). One hopes McMorris Rodgers’ lack of discrimination will eventually catch up with her, but for now she is too much a chicken to repudiate Shea risk losing the votes of his extremist followers. (Or does she agree with Shea while she remains careful not to be too open about it?) 

Read “Biblical Basis for War.” Talk it up. Spread it around. [Download from here.] This document is no dry exercise in Biblical interpretation or academic discussion of the history of armed conflict. It is a prescription for modern day religious warfare. No denial from Shea should change that plain fact.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. On a picky note, Mr Alburty’s bulldozers had better start at Havana St, not Freya. If they start pushing east from Freya they will plow up part of the City of Spokane and part of Legislative District 3 before entering LD4 and the City of Spokane Valley, the territory he says he wants to level. Review the LD boundaries using this interactive map. Orient yourself!

Dear Group, Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy friends and family and all the things for which we can still be thankful.  If you’re concerned how conversation around the Thanksgiving meal might go, there’s a great article in the New York Times entitled “How to Have a Conversation With Your Angry Uncle Over Thanksgiving” It is part humor and part just good advice. If you have a few minutes you can spare from Thanksgiving preparations it might be interesting to check it out. It might save you some discomfort… (may be hidden behind a paywall). Keep to the high ground, Jerry

Dear Group, Today I offer a story without a lot of commentary. It is the story of Steve Berch, a Democrat, who just won a seat in the Idaho legislature, winning 54.5% of the vote against a five term entrenched Republican in what had been considered a deeply red legislative district, LD15, just west of Boise. Here’s the link: The article is entitled “Persistence.” It appeared on November 9 in the Daily Kos. For a better presentation of Mr Berch than the photo in the Daily Kos article visit here. I offer this story hoping all the Democratic candidates for offices in eastern Washington whom I’ve met in the last two years will have a chance to read it. All of them I’ve gotten to know a little are decent, honest folk, people with expertise and life experience with which I can identify and resonate. None is a career politician. Each of them put an enormous amount of time, energy, and personal funds into their election effort. Nearly all faced a disappointing result…at so far.  I hope all of them take heart in this story of Steve Berch (as well as the story I told of Georgia’s Congressional District 6 that I told a few days ago). There is a crying need to take back our country. There is a lot of new found energy in eastern Washington to do just that, energy fueled by these candidates who stepped up and ran for office in a region of Washington State where Democrats were beginning to feel abandoned, overtaken by the din from the Washington Policy Center, some “Christian” preachers, Rush Limbaugh, and the incumbency of the McMorris Rodgers regime.  I thank all the intrepid citizens who stepped up and ran. They and we have learned a lot…a lot we can build on in the next go-round.  Talking with voters on their doorsteps I heard, “You send them to ____, and over years they become part of the corrupt system that is no longer working. I’m not going to vote at all. It’s hopeless.” They spoke of term limits. There are few specifics with which I agree with McMorris Rodgers. but we share partial agreement on this: standing for election every two years can and should be an effective term limit. The problem with that is several fold: 1) Incumbents have many inherent advantages, including money, established connections, and influence, 2) Voters bias toward incumbents based on name recognition and reluctance to change, 3) when an incumbent stumbles there has to be an attractive replacement at the ready in the next election.  Steve Berch’s story of persistence is a study in all of that: Over several elections, thousands of doors knocked and people talked with he developed name recognition, gathered monetary support, and came ever closer to a majority of the votes. I have not studied his campaign in detail, but I suspect Mr. Berch benefited from voter anger over the incumbent’s persistent and vocal disapproval of Medicaid expansion–an issue front and center in the form of an Idaho ballot initiative, Prop. 2. Mr. Berch was on the ballot, armed with name recognition and an opinion when the incumbency shield of his five term opponent cracked over the Medicaid expansion issue.  No one can win an election if they are not on the ballot. An incumbent running effectively unopposed is an incumbent empowered to follow his or her worst instincts.  Thanks to all those Democrats, especially those first timers, who ran in eastern Washington this election. May it be that many of them are willing to try again. Many of us, knowing them better than we did, will still be here and ready to support them.  Keep to the high ground, Jerry

Dear Group,

The 6th Congressional District of the State of Georgia has had an outsize influence on the U.S. House of Representatives for decades through the men it has sent there. For twenty years (1979-1999) Georgia’s CD6 was held by Newt Gingrich. Gingrich succeeded Tom Foley as Speaker of the House (1995-1999) after Foley fell to Nethercutt in 1994. Gingrich was the author of the infamous “Contract with American.” He is arguably the man most responsible for pulling the Republican Party toward the flapping right fringe…and for the poisonous political polarization from which we now suffer. (More on him in a later post.) Gingrich’s stepping into Foley’s shoes is only one of several places were GA-CD6 and WA-CD5 (i.e. we in eastern Washington) intersect. 

Georgia CD6 elected Dr. Tom Price to the House in 2004, the same year McMorris Rodgers sailed into Congress on George Nethercutt’s coattails. Dr. Price, an orthopedist turned politician, was a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act starting with its becoming law in 2010. In the 2012 presidential election, after Price had served four terms, he faced a redrawn district following the 2010 census. No problem. The redrawing left him with a district political analysts judged had only shifted 3 points from a Republican lean of 66% to 63%. It was secure enough for Dr. Price to retain his seat in 2012 with 65% of the vote, in 2014 with 66%, and 2016 with 62% regardless of the new boundaries.

McMorris Rodgers ran unopposed for vice-chair of the House Republican Conference in 2009 (after Barack Obama’s first win). From that position, as a young, supposedly tech savvy up-and-comer, she was instrumental in “expand[ing] the party’s digital imprint.” In late 2012 the Republicans were reeling from the re-election of Barak Obama, a re-election fueled in part by a 18 point lead with female voters. From her position as vice chair McMorris Rodgers saw her chance: She bid to become chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, the position for which she was touted as “the most powerful Republican woman in the country” for several elections, including the most recent one. In vying to become chairwoman she was at the time one of only 24 Republican woman serving in Congress (there will be even fewer come 2019, 17, maybe less, depending on re-counts).

McMorris Rodgers’ opposition for the chairmanship position’s closed door vote in late 2012 was none other than Dr. Tom Price of Georgia’s CD6, an old (15 years her senior) white man, precisely the image the voters had just rejected nationwide.  (see The Atlantic, September 19, 2014.)

Despite his loss to McMorris Rodgers for the chairmanship, Dr. Price’s CD6 seat seemed secure following re-elections in 2014 and 2016 by margins greater than 20 percent. Trump’s handlers must have had that in mind when, in February 2017, Trump appointed Price to oversee dismantling the Affordable Care Act as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price lasted just seven months, resigning amid scandals involving a million dollars of taxpayer money spent on private jets and major conflicts of interest surrounding his dealings in health care stocks. (wikipedia)

Do you remember the young (31yo), well-spoken Democrat, Jon Ossoff, who ran against a Republican woman (age 56), Karen Handel (Georgia’s Secretary of State), to replace Tom Price in GA CD6? In a widely watched Special Election held June 20, 2017 Handel won by around 7000 votes on a base of votes cast of 260,000, a spread of under four percentage points.  Handel’s victory over Ossoff was a major disappointment…but last week the Democrats got their revenge: Karen Handel (R) (after just 17 months in office) lost the Georgia CD6 seat to Lucy McBath (D) a black 58 yo gun control advocate who has never held public office. The margin of victory was only a little over 3,000 votes, but, get this, turnout was high, with nearly 317,000 votes cast, 57,000 more than in the Special Election.  

We will take our victories where we find them. This is one is worth savoring…

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. More on the home front, as McMorris Rodgers’ star slowly sinks toward the horizon, she stands to be replaced as Chairwoman of the House Republican Conference by another of the dwindling number of Republican U.S. Representatives, Liz Cheney (R-WY). Ms. Cheney is the daughter of the former Vice President to GW Bush, Dick Cheney. She has served in public office only since January 3, 2017 when she was elected to U.S. House. She is a former Fox News contributor who has been a substitute host for the Hannity show. Ms. Cheney is the single Representative from the State of Wyoming, representing the small and deeply conservative population of the state, only 580,000 people (compared to the national average of 733,000). From this secure minor perch, Liz Cheney can serve as more of a attack dog for Trump than McMorris Rodgers could. You can read more of Ms. Cheney’s hyper-partisanship in her wikipedia biography.

Dear Group,

McMorris Rodgers returns today to Congress to serve in the lame duck Republican majority in the House of Representatives. They have only sixteen days of “D.C. Work Week” scheduled before year’s end. (Of course, they may do damage in that time, but the time is limited.) On January 3, 2019, as the 116th Congress (1/3/2019-1/3/2020) is seated, McMorris Rodgers and her ideology are condemned to minority status. Gone are the smiling photo-ops with her president. She will no longer appear over the right shoulder of Paul Ryan, looking determined and serious. Gone is the supposed power and influence Stacey Cowles referenced in his Spokesman endorsement. Will Trump consult with McMorris Rodgers over legislative priorities? Why would he bother? All that is left is to pretend to the imagined “bipartisanship” so often on her lips during the campaign. She is left to contemplate the “Republican agenda,” the “momentum” over which she crowed to a Breitbart reporter in the heady early days of the 115th Congress (In Her Own Words), a time when she extolled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the repeal of the Individual Mandate of the Affordable Care Act, and (oh, joy!) the opening up of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and drilling.

What is left of McMorris Rodgers’ excitement? During the campaign she abandoned her “money in your pocket” mantra lauding the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It was as if she had hadn’t ever been excited about the bill that broke the budget with a huge tax giveaway to corporations and the already obscenely wealthy. 

Her tune, indeed, the tune of the whole Republican/Libertarian Party changed on healthcare. For years she had pushed for outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), pre-existing conditions and all. She had spoken with excitement about overturning the Individual Mandate of the ACA. Instead, by the end of the campaign, McMorris Rodgers, smiling soccer mom of a child with Down Syndrome, “took offense” at the idea she would ever consider jettisoning Pre-Existing conditions. Offense or no, it didn’t keep her from countless efforts to repeal, derail or dismantle the ACA. At the end of the campaign it finally penetrated her news bubble that her actual voting record was at odds with the soft, generic, centrist Christian mom image she wished to present. So she took a page from the Republican playbook: Never apologize, never argue the facts, never admit to reality, never defend. No, instead, go on the offense or, at the very least, pose as self-righteously “offended.”

The Republican/Libertarian ideology has not changed. They still believe blowing up the deficit will produce “trickle-down” economic benefit. They still believe corporations and the rich suffer under under an unjust tax burden. They still believe the Prosperity Gospel: the greater one’s wealth the greater one’s moral worth.They still believe in the holiness of an unfettered, “free market” that will fix everything, even fix the market distortions in health care, health insurance, and pharmaceuticals where no such free market exists.

The Republican/Libertarian ideology has not changed, but for McMorris Rodgers to keep her seat, she has been forced by this election to pay attention, to modify the tune she sings, to not just pander to the extremists in her base. She was forced to peek, however briefly, out of her Fox News bubble, to acknowledge the existence (even if not to acknowledge the veracity) of other views held by many in her district.

It is with considerable relish I read “House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) will not seek another term in leadership following the loss of the GOP majority in the House.” in The Hill from November 8. From the same article: ”Members have been frustrated for a long time with the tired messaging coming out of conference and the election made it even clearer that a new direction is needed,” one senior GOP aide told The Hill.” So much for McMorris Rodgers’ vaunted strengths (See The Atlantic, September 19, 2014) in messaging and communication technology she advertised when she beat Tom Price (more on him in a later post) for the position of House Republican Conference Chair in late 2012…

For this McMorris Rodgers’ reality check we can thank the efforts of Lisa Brown, great Democratic candidates all over eastern Washington, the rebirth of the local Democratic Party, ourselves, our time and our money. Many were the electoral disappointments for us in eastern Washington this election cycle, but take solace that the tide is starting to shift. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Here’s the link to watch this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwxQYQB1zD0&feature=youtu.be  I guarantee it is worth the eleven minutes to watch the whole thing. Dear Group, Steve Schmidt, the guy in the video above is the best spoken, clearest thinking defector from the Republican Party whom I have heard. He clearly expresses every fear I have of this President and the Republican Party that is in his thrall. Mr. Schmidt has a lot of good company in other Republican intellectuals including George Will and Max Boot. Mr. Schmidt clearly calls out the threat the Trump presidency represents. You can read a brief biography of Mr. Schmidt here.  In the opening of the interview Mr. Schmidt says “Trump is stoking a cold civil war in this country, and it has turned hot on the periphery,” speaking of the synagogue massacre and the Trump devotee who sent bombs to a long list of Trump’s avowed enemies. I am in full agreement with Mr. Schmidt. He cites (as I have) William F. Buckley, Jr.as the Republican intellectual who kept “the crazies out of the conservative movement.”  “This whole caravan in the last week of the election is a giant lie. This is Trump’s Reichstag fire.” Does McMorris Rodgers’ education even include William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Reichstag fire? How many modern day Republicans know any of this history or these people? Do any of them pay attention to the  Lest you wonder if any of this has any local relevance, remember Matt Shea stoking “holy war;” he, Heather Scott over in north Idaho, and others pushing for a 51st State, a state with an ascendant white Christian majority. Consider the local assault weapons auctions at Spokane and Stevens County Republican gatherings this last year, and the cadre of crazies sharing movies and extremist propaganda with Northwest Grassroots in Greenbluff, hosted by the then chairwoman of the local Republican Party, Cecily Wright, and attended by Republican frequent fliers, including but not limited to,  Rod Higgins (City of Spokane Valley), Rob Chase (former Spokane County Treasurer), Matt Shea and McCaslin Jr. (of LD4). Watch the video. Then roll up your sleeves. There is much work to do. You might start by attending the League of Women Voter’s forum advertised above. Keep to the high ground, Jerry

Dear Group, Today some have the day off for Veterans Day, a U.S. holiday properly celebrated on November 11th, yesterday, a holiday meant to honor military veterans. November 11 this year is particularly notable as it marks the centennial of the end of the war the original Veterans Day was meant to commemorate. Why November 11th? A bit of history many overlook: Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day. To my parents and their families who actually fought in or lived through World War I the name never changed. It remained Armistice Day in recognition of an event still vivid in personal memory. The Armistice that ended World War I was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. What U.S. school student today even knows what forces led to the senseless carnage of gruesome trench warfare, the first broad use of machine guns and poison gas, and the loss of an estimated sixteen million lives, in short, a horrific war?  World War I was hailed at the time by President Wilson as “the war to end all wars.” What irony it was then, when in 1954 President Eisenhower renamed the day “Veterans Day” so as to subsume in that day the honoring of the veterans of two more hideous conflicts that had since occurred, World War II and the Korean conflict.  Harken now to the aspirations of our blowhard-in-chief, the man who proposed with great fanfare a military parade in Washington, D.C., on Veterans Day this year, a parade to rival the Bastille Day parade he had seen in France. This aspiration from a man who ducked military service on account of bone spurs, a man who has never known anything remotely reminiscent of the privations of war… Lest you have forgotten Trump’s proposed parade, visit Newsweek from March 10, 2018. Cooler heads evidently prevailed over our narcissistic boy president envisioning metal-treaded tanks grinding up the streets of Washington, D.C. in an appeal to his sense of power. The plans have been greatly scaled back. You can read about them here. Meanwhile, Trump uses the military and our tax dollars as part of his propaganda offensive against immigrants…and against the possibility that brown people might one day become citizens and vote in numbers that would challenge the Republican minority currently supporting him. He sends active duty military to the Mexican border to reinforce and interdict the dwindling and demonized “immigrant caravan” still weeks away. He sends active duty military in numbers double the highest estimates of caravan. HIs message: “Be afraid, be very afraid. Those evil brown people are coming for your wives and children!” With his grandstanding, Trump uses taxpayer dollars to serve his propaganda goal…and makes a mockery out of the military for which he poses as having reverence. This weekend I honored my forefathers who served in the wars in which the United States took part…and I grew ill contemplating that their efforts have somehow led to a president the like of which we see now. Keep to the high ground, Jerry