Category: Uncategorized

The Bannon Local Takeover Strategy at Work in the Current Elections

Notice: The WeBelieveWeVote.com Primary Voter Guide 2023 is now available. WBWV’s “alignment rating” is a strong indicator of adherence to the latest themes of the Republican culture wars, not an indicator of the Christian values with which I was raised. A high “alignment rating” is a red flag. Use WBWV as a guide to Republican extremism.

School Boards:

School boards are the new culture war battlefields. The strife is showing up on the local ballots you just received for the August 1 Primary Election. Until recently, it was rare in Spokane County for a seat as a school board director to attract more than two candidates. As a result, primary election ballots in Spokane County rarely featured more than one school board director contest. In striking contrast, the Spokane County Voters’ Pamphlet for the upcoming primary election contains fourteen pages of candidates school board director positions on six different school boards. That’s nearly a third of the publication. We who support public education ignore this at our peril.

Public school board “director” (member) positions are unpaid, time-consuming, unglamorous positions helping to manage the big picture of budgets and administration of public schools. Historically, school board director positions attract civic-minded individuals with a strong interest in supporting the mission of public education, not culture warriors intent on imposing an extremist ideology. 

The right wing effort to take control of school boards is fueled by a confluence of motivations often ginned up by fear-mongering propaganda. The takeover movement received a significant boost during the pandemic by feeding on manufactured anger over vaccines and masks. Those motivators have now morphed into some combination of opposing “comprehensive sex education”, “Critical Race Theory”, DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion), SEL (Social Emotional Learning), and opposing any support for LGBTQ+ youth. Support for book bans may be subtle or overt. Softer ideological signaling is couched as support for “parental rights”, and “school choice”. 

With the waning of the red flag issues of masks and vaccine mandates it has become more challenging to sort out the school board director candidates motivated by hot-button, ginned-up issues from those with a genuine interest in fostering public education. Nipping off these ideologues in the current primary election ought to be easier than dealing with them in the November General Election—but the sheer number of candidates in some of these races makes that daunting. To that end, one group has searched through campaign materials and provided a rating system to identify “problematic candidates” for director positions. Limiting the list to Spokane County and only those who appear in the primary election (for now), the major red flags pop up in the Medical Lake School District. Indeed, the Spokane County Voters’ Pamphlet lists seventeen primary candidates for a mere four seats. Seven (listed below) of these seventeen primary candidates are considered “problematic” based on publicly available materials. 

Here’s a map of the Medical Lake School District:

Consider contacting people you know in the Medical Lake School District with the suggestion NOT TO VOTE for these candidates in the primary. There are better candidates available in all but the Director District No. 1 race. In that race I would favor Spillman over Johnson based on this Spokesman article. 

In the Cheney School District No. 5 position Ivan Khala is similarly identified as “problematic” on more subtle grounds. Mr. Khala is the single interviewee for this position on a podcast listed on “Right Spokane Perspective” (June 20), a Facebook group that backs folks like Mike Fagan and Rod Higgins. 

When the November General Election comes these listings of problematic candidates for school board director positions will expand—and I will try to address them.

When a school board majority is taken over by ideologues, the consequences can be grim, costly, and time-consuming. Voters in the Richland School District (Tri-cities) have gone to the trouble mounting a recall of three school board directors, including Semi Bird, now a far right Republican candidate for Washington governor in 2024. The recall appears on this August 1 Primary ballot. Recall proponents had to first run the gauntlet all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court, where their recall charges were deemed factually and legally sufficient. Then they gathered 18,000 signatures to place the recall on the ballot—a major, all-hands-on-deck effort. 

In neighboring Idaho a special recall election will be held on August 29th in the West Bonner County School District (including Priest River, Priest Lake, and Blanchard) after a 3-2 board majority of far right ideologues gained control in a sleepy election. They promptly appointed Branden Durst, a proponent of dismantling public schools, “an unqualified serial political entrepreneur and self-described ‘Christian populist’ who had previously been subject to a domestic violence protection order”, as the district’s superintendent. Read more about Mr. Durst here. 

Pay attention to school board elections this year—or risk the kind of strife and threat to your community’s educational opportunities that are demonstrated by these recalls.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Orientational Aids–Find Your Way Through the Rhetoric

Ballots for the August 1 Primary Election in Washington State were mailed out this week. They ought to appear in your mailbox by this weekend. I hope this post offers tools you can use to orient yourself in this down-ballot, odd-numbered year, sometimes obscure election. 

Guide Links

A lot of information follows that you might find useful or interesting, but if you’re in a hurry to fill out your ballot my best recommendation is the progressivevotersguide.com. It is especially good for the City of Spokane, less informative for the City of Spokane Valley. Unfortunately, it is mostly silent on other municipalities in Spokane County and on most school board and fire district races.

Vote.wa.gov is very much worth a visit to explore your particular ballot. (See paragraphs below for much more detail on navigating that site.)

In most elections I also consult what I consider to be a valuable negativevoting guide, webelievewevote.com, but when I checked yesterday morning it was still “undergoing an update”. You might want to check in case they complete their update.

A Note on School Board Director Elections

Next Monday’s will attempt to address the School Board Director candidates that appear on these ballots. School boards have become a battleground. Vote well. There are at least three school districts in our region that are engaged in acrimonious recall efforts because they elected a board majority that is taking a wrecking ball to the school district. Recalls are much more challenging, costly, and divisive than electing reasonable people in the first place.

General Orientation and Some Rambling

These newly-mailed ballots are due to be turned in before Tuesday, August 1. They determine which two candidates advance to the Tuesday, November 7, General Election. (See P.S. below for more detail on how this works and why.) Orienting oneself in the electoral landscape is challenging for two reasons: 1) only those offices that have three or more candidates appear on the ballot and 2) the offices that appear on the ballot are for a hodgepodge of overlapping electoral districts: municipal (city) offices; school board “directors”, aka “members”; fire district “commissioners”; and various locally voted municipal and fire district “propositions”, some which involve bonds and levies. As a consequence, your neighbor across the street might receive a slightly different ballot (or none at all) based on differing electoral districts. (See APPENDIX below for links to the various district maps.) 

With all that, the August 1 Primary can be a bit obscure. Traditionally, on time ballot turn-in for the August 1 Primary is a rather low percentage of the ballots sent out. That’s a problem (think of the far right Steve Bannon exhortation to take over government from the bottom up—in this election that would be school boards and fire districts). Fringe candidates with a well-developed social media presence can advance to the November General election with only modest support thanks to voter inattention to the Primary election. That limits choices available to the broader electorate that pays attention in November. (This is also a prime argument in favor of Ranked Choice Voting.)

A Note on “Non-Partisan”

The offices that appear on this Primary ballot are nominally “non-partisan”. That is more than a little deceiving in our partisan landscape. Dyed-in-the-wool Republican ideologues running in the City of Spokane, for example, put out purposefully deceptive election signage with blue coloring and “non-partisan” prominently displayed (See Shawn Vestal on City of Spokane elections and Nate Sanford of The Inlander here and here.) 

“Your Spokane County Official Local Voters’ Pamphlet” and Vote.wa.gov

Many of us already received “Your Spokane County Official Local Voters’ Pamphlet”. It covers all the candidates and propositions that appear on a Primary ballot in any part of Spokane County. It is worth your time to check your registration and your particular electoral landscape by going to vote.wa.gov, keying in your name and birthdate, and clicking “Voters’ Guide”. The displayed page should offer you links to useful information about the candidates on your particular ballot.

Arguably the most useful link found at your vote.wa.gov page is the link to “Candidate Contributions”. Click on “Voters’ Guide”, then on the candidate’s name and find the “Contributions” link on the right side of that official candidate page. That link takes you to the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC). With a little bit of clicking around the PDC webpages you can learn who backs a candidate, which often gives a strong clue as to connections and party affiliations. For example, click “See Contributions” on City of Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward’s PDC page. The majority of major “individual” contributions (limited to $1200 per election per person contributing) come from names associated with developers, builders, and real estate agents. Some of these same individual donors will also contribute a lot of additional money to what are called “Political Committees” in Washington State (think “Political Action Committees” on a federal level), Committees that can make “‘independent’ expenditures” on behalf of candidates. These “Political Committees”, often with obscure names like “Spokane Good Governance Alliance” financed by a few wealthy donors, will bombard you with ads on TV, radio, paper fliers, and social media this election season. Pay attention to what organization it is that is trying to influence your vote.

Bottom line: do some homework, get informed, talk up what you find out with friends, relatives, and neighbors, and vote. Learn more about your location’s electoral landscape.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Confusingly, not all the offices up for election this cycle appear on the Primary ballot. This can leave the voter wondering where the candidates are that they’ve been reading about. Here’s the answer: If there are only two candidates for a particular office they will first appear on the General Election ballot for November. What’s the game here? People steeped in electoral politics understand there are advantages to having their favored candidate appear in the Primary. Having a place on the Primary ballot enhances name recognition for the General; appearing on the Primary ballot gives donors a chance to contribute another $1200 directly to their favored candidate (the contribution limit is per election), money that could not otherwise be legally collected; and the vote tally from the Primary is an indicator of support (even if a wobbly one). One suspects that some candidates who never really mount a campaign are put forward (and, perhaps, the candidate registration fees paid) by electoral operatives solely for the reasons outlined. 

APPENDIX-LINKS TO MAPS FOR ELECTORAL ORIENTATION

WA/Spokane/City/County/District Maps:

A great interactive map for WA State CDs and LDs: [the Legislative and Congressional Districts are not at issue in this election cycle. They’ll appear next year.]  http://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/

City of Spokane, City Council District Map: https://my.spokanecity.org/opendata/gis/council-districts/

Spokane County School District Maps: https://cp.spokanecounty.org/scout/map/
(This is SCOUT, a digital map system with a huge amount of information maintained by Spokane County. It takes a computer screen and some time to acquire a few moderately nerdy map manipulation skills. For school districts select “Elections Features/School Director Districts” in the pulldown menu that looks like a stack of papers. You may also want to uncheck “Property Features/Parcels” under that same pulldown. School Director Districts appear and disappear depending on magnification. Select “Districts” below the map so that when you click on a particular location more specifics for that location will appear in the table below the map. All of this is easier when you’re actually doing it than it sounds from the description.

Spokane County Fire Districts: http://www.interceptradio.com/wiki/index.php/Spokane_County,_WA . You can also work backward on the SCOUT map by clicking on a location. The Fire District will appear on the table below the map for that location and then, by clicking “Show”, the extent of that location’s Fire District will show on the map. The City of Spokane’s Fire Department is overseen by City government rather than by community-elected board members.

Republican Disregard/Ignorance of Data

Local Republican electeds and candidates are using only their own prejudgment when they claim—or imply—that most homeless people in Spokane come from elsewhere. They ignore the fact that the last address of far more than a majority of homeless people in Spokane was local—the fact of which Republicans and your neighbors should be frequently and pointedly reminded. Government must be based on fact rather than deep-seated, erroneous prejudices. The actual, not-often-enough-repeated data is below.

The Point-In-Time Count, conducted in the last ten days of each January, is mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] of the executive branch of the federal government—and it is the very best objective data available on the homeless population. This is slide 4 from the presentation of the January 2022 Spokane Point-in-Time Count. 

The data gathered from the residents of Camp Hope, the now-closed encampment of homeless residents near Freya and I-90 that once numbered over 600 is even more revealing—and contrary to Republican data-less prejudgment. The following is quoted [with permission] from Maurice Smith’s forthcoming book, A Place To Exist: The True and Untold Story of Camp Hope and Homelessness In Spokane:

Of the 467 badged residents of Camp Hope, 83% said they came from “greater Spokane” (within 20 miles of the City), while 70.7% said they came from the City of Spokane. ENDNOTE: These numbers were fairly consistent with the 2022 Point-In-Time Count which found that 74% of those interviewed said they came from Spokane County. 79% of those from Spokane County said they came from the City of Spokane. 

Local Republican electeds and candidates either intentionally or wrecklessly ignore the data, playing to deep-seated fears. 

“There are more homeless people coming to Spokane because we are a compassionate community, and the weight of it is crushing downtown and all around the city,” [Kim] Plese [Republican candidate for City of Spokane City Council President] says. [The italics are mine.]

Incumbent City of Spokane Mayor Woodward, “I think we need to get to the point where we’re working to make homelessness less comfortable and get people connected to services.” (Were they “too comfortable”, one must suppose, she fears would attract more needy people.)

Former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich in a September 22, 2022, letter to the Washington Secretary of Transportation in which he threatens to forcibly clear Camp Hope: “My plan is to provide bus tickets to the location of each residents’ [sic] choice, allowing them to reunite with family and to assist them in recovery.” (The pseudo-compassionate “plan” fails on the data that 83% of Camp Hope residents were already in their county of origin.)

Current City of Spokane Valley City Council Member Rod Higgins: They should just “move on to someplace that calls themselves a sanctuary city or something like that”. 

Even more pointedly, according to the chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, Valley Assembly of God Pastor Brian Noble, it isn’t even the responsibility of government to consider the safety of homeless people. In his mind it is the responsibility of private non-profits (those without government funding) and churches—but, of course, not his church. 

The image of homeless people Republicans feel the need to project is that of lazy people looking to live off the “public dole”, an “other” that we must be careful not to attract to “our” city by offering too much in the way of shelter and services, lest we be overwhelmed, taken advantage of. In the Republican mind these homeless folk are, by and large, invaders of our fair city, attracted here to feast off our too ample public teat. We must take great care not to be seen as offering too much “comfort”, lest we attract more of them.

This mindset of othering the homeless (or the poor or people of color or…) as outsiders, essentially as non-citizens, plays well to some. “The system must be working. I’ve got mine. My home value has shot up. I’ve got my retirement lined up. I’m not responsible for those ‘other’ folk, those interlopers, those mentally ill, drug-taking ne’er-do-wells who lack all initiative to better themselves. The last thing I want to do is to understand the mechanism that rendered them homeless.” 

When you fill out your ballots (primary ballots are mailed this week) watch for this data-denial—and don’t be fooled by “non-partisan”-labelled campaign signs with blue trim. These people will all pay lip service to looking favorably on the Spokane Regional Authority for Homelessness, Housing, Health and Safety’s proposal. If elected, they will likely balk at supporting it for reasons of their underlying data-poor prejudgment. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Consider mobility. Once a person is rendered homeless, out on the street or in one’s run down car or aged RV with all that remains of one’s belongings, just how mobile is that person? In that circumstance it is hard enough to protect one’s “stuff” while trying to make connections to basic local help. For most of these people the thought of traveling to, for example, sunny San Diego to “live the good life on the public dole” is unimaginable. That sort of mobility common to those with the means to travel, is nothing more than a pipe dream to those living on the streets.

Is this the soul of the national and local Republican Party?

Brian Noble wears at least two hats. He is the Pastor of the Valley Assembly of God Church on E. Broadway just east of Sullivan Road in Spokane Valley. He is also the new chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, as a result of a Steve Bannon-inspired political coup in January of this year. (A coup you can read about here.) 

On May 18, 2023, Chairman Brian Noble interviewed City of Spokane Valley City Council Member Rod Higgins in a Facebook video posted to the SpokaneGOP’s Facebook page. Perhaps a third of the twenty-one minute video was a discussion between Higgins and Noble of the issue of homelessness, particularly as it affects Spokane Valley. Higgins comments centered on the common Republican lines asserting that providing any services to the homeless is “an enablement,” that the homeless need to rely on their “personal responsibility,” and that most homeless people, the supposed “9 out of ten who are mentally ill, drug addicted, or ‘just want to live on the street’” should just “move on” to someplace that calls themselves a “sanctuary city or something like that”. (Watch the video to for the full effect.) As a frequent flier with Cecily Wright’s Northwest Grassroots, a local far right organization that memorably hosted the white supremacist James Allsup, I suppose no one would expect anything less from Higgins. 

But then SpokaneGOP Chairman and Pastor Brian Noble felt the need to chime in:

[9:25] Brian Noble: “In fact when you look at it [taking care of the homeless] from a gigantic worldview, you know, the government’s primary job is the safety of its citizens—and it’s the church’s responsibility, the benevolence, of/for those citizens. And so, ahhh, I think when we back up, you know, there comes accountability when you do that through the nonprofits or the churches, right?  And I’m not thinking nonprofits that are just nonprofits based only, that are funded, by the government—but a “true” nonprofit.”

That seems perfectly clear. Our homeless neighbors—to Pastor Noble—are apparently not citizens of this country, since their safety, like surviving unhoused in the cold or the heat, avoiding starvation, protecting themselves from depredations by lawless people—for him—that doesn’t come under the rubric of the government’s primary job of ensuring the “safety” of its “citizens”. 

For “Pastor” Noble, no government money should be spent taking care of these non-citizens. Any help they receive ought to be supplied by churches or by “true” non-profits, defined as groups that receive no government-provided funds. Hmmm. One might imagine a line of mega-church pastors, including “Pastor” Noble, engaged in homeless outreach spurred on by the Christian spirit, right?

Well, one had best re-think that. Here’s Pastor Noble in his own words a little earlier in the video expounding on his interaction with homeless people:

[6:10] Brian Noble: “I know at Valley Assembly where I pastor I know that every day we’re addressing the issue [of homeless people]. We’re asking people to sleep somewhere else or, you know, as compassionately as we can, we’re giving them water or something to drink or eat and then trying to get them to move along, you know. It’s definitely an issue in the Valley as well.”

[8:00] Brian Noble: “We try to…you know…we try to show compassion but it’s very limited—and to get them to move along. We’re not disrespectful or anything, but we are firm—you’re not gonna be sleeping in our stairwells or whatever!”

Can Brian Noble hear the twisted-ness of his own statements? This, apparently, is the “Christianity” of the far right leadership of the local Spokane County Republican Party, a party that tasks church charity with helping the homeless—but sports a “Pastor” who quickly adds, “But not my church!” Listen for this contorted rhetoric and avoid the candidates who espouse in the lead up to the August 1 Primary Election due date. After all, Brian Noble speaks for the local Republican Party. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I cannot now retrieve it, but early on in her administration I vividly recall Mayor Woodward, who poses as devout, quoted in a news article expressing surprise and disappointment that more churches hadn’t stepped up to the task of feeding and housing homeless people.

Echoes of the media manipulation and doubt-seeding of the Liar-in-Chief

Given the news-absorbing public’s attention span (and presumed thirst for the sensational) the actual verification of accusations is far less important politically than making the accusation and getting it out in the news. This is the way impressions are made, impressions that stick with voters, real people who have lives and lack the time and persistence to follow up and fact check. 

What follows is an excerpt from an article written by Emry Dinman that appeared in the Spokesman May 30, 2023, before Camp Hope closed early on June 9th. The article was entitled “Camp Hope will close by June 30 as leaders project blame for duration of camp”. Mr. Dinman, as a good reporter should, not only records the accusation but includes pushback from the accused party. [the Bold is mine]:

“But [the agreed upon June 30th closure of Camp Hope] is better than the initial proposed closure at the end of this year,” she [City of Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward] said. “I always say you get more through compromise than you do drawing a line in the sand.”

Woodward added that Camp Hope has been a “disaster” to those living there and the surrounding community, placing the blame for creating the camp squarely at the feet of Julie Garcia, founder of Jewels Helping Hands, which helped lead protests in 2021 that led to the creation of the encampment. Woodward added that she believes Garcia intentionally kept the camp open so she could continue receiving state funds for its management.

“Julie will see the end of her contract, which is $1.6 million [none of which, BTW, came from the City of Spokane], paid fully to her [no, it was paid to the non-profit, Jewels Helping Hands], by the end of June,” Woodward said. “She had no desire to close the encampment any time sooner than that.”

[Jeffry] Finer [attorney representing JHH against Spokane City and County lawsuits] wrote that the $1.6 million contract covered all services provided by Jewels Helping Hands and its staff, and that Garcia received a $40,000 salary.

Woodward, who clearly feels threatened by Julie Garcia’s activism, commitment, and success, is quick to accuse, with no basis, in an apparent effort to demonize. Just ten days after Woodward’s unfounded and gratuitous speculation of malfeasance, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that:

She [Woodward] learned of the camp’s early closure [three weeks early, on June 9th] [only] from reporters seeking comment, and initially scheduled a press conference inside the camp.

or that:

She [Woodward] then changed her plans and told reporters she would be waiting outside a nearby restaurant to answer questions.

Even more impressive in the baseless, but newsworthy, accusation department, then Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich was awarded this headline in the Spokesman on October 21, 2022: “Knezovich asks state to audit ‘financing,’ ‘communication’ regarding Camp Hope”. The article, by Garrett Cabeza, leads off with:

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich wants an audit of the financing and communication related to Camp Hope.

In a letter to the Washington state Auditor’s Office, Knezovich named two homeless service providers, Jewels Helping Hands and the Guardians Foundation, along with state agencies playing a role at Camp Hope.

In a letter last month to the Washington Department of Transportation, Knezovich said he planned to contact the FBI “with respect to possible public corruption, the misuse of public funds, and the circumstances surrounding the formation of this camp. It appears the formation of this camp was merely an effort to ‘pass the buck’ to the citizens of our County and the City of Spokane,” Knezovich wrote in the letter.

Garcia called Knezovich’s request of an audit “absolutely ridiculous,” and said she is unsure what the sheriff is trying to accomplish.

And then there is current City of Spokane Valley City Council Member (CM) Rod Higgins. In a Facebook video interview (start at 3:40) conducted by Brian Noble, “Executive Pastor” of the Valley Assembly of God Church and current chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, CM Higgins engages in this astounding flight of projection:

The homeless issue is one that probably is not going to be immediately solved—for one reason—it has become a big business. It has become profitable to some people. And if you don’t believe that take a look at what was known as Camp Hope. $25 million dollars went there. $25 million dollars seems to have gone with no visible positive effect. Now that may be an overstatement. Maybe somebody gained from it. I have a suspicion who did, the people who originated Camp Hope did… and I won’t use names right here. 

Even a tiny bit of fact checking by Higgins would have revealed the vacuity of the lie to which he sneeringly gives voice (See P.S.)—but the smear takes flight, and, undoubtedly, those inclined to trust that Higgins has inside knowledge as a public official will accept it as fact.

The sad thing about these Republican officials is that each is in a position in government with ready access to data and information that contradicts their dark insinuations. One must presume that they either have not taken the time to gather the actual data—a stark failing for a public official holding a position of trust—or they choose to ignore the available data and hurl unfounded accusations in the pursuit of political power. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. For reference, the dispersement of the 24.5M dollars that came from Washington State’s Right of Way (ROW) funding to Spokane is detailed below. Note the 2M went to Woodward’s congregate warehouse, i.e. the Trent Shelter (TRAC). Of the funds administered by Empire Health Foundation, 1.6M was subcontracted to the non-profit Jewels Helping Hands (JHH). JHH used the money to hire people and provide basic services to the residents of Camp Hope, services that the Woodward administration withheld (e.g. water, toilets, a tent for emergency shelter). Nine point two million went to acquisition and renovation of the Catholic Charities Catalyst facility—a long term investment. Higgins’ ignorant accusations (or are they outright lies made knowingly for political gain?) are total bunk worthy of your outspoken, conspiracy-minded, Trumpist uncle at Thanksgiving, not a city official who should know better.

Her “USA Act”–another radical, dangerous proposition to remake government

At the bottom of McMorris Rodgers’ June 23, 2023, “Weekly Newsletter” email targeted to her devoted followers she writes:

As Congress rolls up its sleeves and gets to work on the budget, I’m glad to report that we are making great progress to include my Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act. This is legislation I’ve led on for years to get spending under control by eliminating wasteful ‘zombie’ programs that are running on autopilot without being reauthorized by Congress. 

“Zombie” programs! Oh my! We must eliminate them! But wait, who are these “Zombies”, anyway? It turns out that these un-reauthorized programs include (or have recently included) programs like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the National Weather Service, and the Federal Election Commission. A “Zombie Program” is another clever Republican turn of phrase—useful for propaganda to rouse ire but not so impressive on a closer look. 

McMorris Rodgers’ presentations lauding her deceptively named “USA Act” (many dating back to 2016 when she was hatching this bill) conveniently avoid offering examples. That’s another well worn Republican tactic we should recognize: advocate generally for cutting spending (saving our “hard-earned tax dollars” is popular), but avoid recommending specific cuts—because cutting back on, say, Social Security benefits is really unpopular. McMorris Rodgers cleverly obfuscates in another more subtle way: she rails against unnamed “unauthorized” programs, when, in fact, all these programs were authorized by legislation—but they are now beyond their legislatively specified term for re-authorizing them. Congress, in its current manifest dysfunction, hasn’t gotten around to the re-authorizing task that an earlier Congress set for itself. Meanwhile, of course, Congress, in its annual budget process, sees fit to appropriate funds to be spent on these programs—because most are important and defunding them would be politically unpopular. 

One might imagine that McMorris Rodgers, having established that some programs are beyond their term of authorization, would use her legislative power to bring, say, the Federal Election Commission up for re-authorization—but actual floor debate and re-authorization is definitely not her intent. Her “USA Act” would hold hostage these programs by mandating a sequence of automatic spending cuts and, after three years, expiration of any program on whose re-authorization Congress had failed to enact. How clever! Let’s put cancelation of un-reauthorized federal programs on autopilot. That way McMorris Rodgers and her Republican/Libertarian colleagues can crow about cuts in spending while avoiding blame for the cancellation of any specific program. The funding for the National Weather Service was just cut by 15%?? Well, that’s just the way the law works—those evil Dems must have caused it!

McMorris Rodgers’ “USA Act” (H.R. 1518 in the current Congress) (see actual text) is a Trojan horse in the service of Steve Bannon’s intent to “dismantle the administrative state” and Grover Norquist’s mandate to shrink government to a point where it might be “drowned in a bathtub”—all to be achieved by legislative autopilot. With the background presented above, read McMorris Rodgers’ web page on the USA Act—and note the support statements by a list of Libertarian dark money think tanks, including Heritage Action and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity. Way back in 2016, pre-Trump, McMorris Rodgers even managed to co-opt Jake Tapper of CNN to blather in a hyperbolic segment about “Zombie Programs”. (The lesson: well-constructed and focus-group-tested Republican propaganda can be used to sell soap—and raise voter ire.)

McMorris Rodgers projects the image of a smiling, gracious soccer mom as she uses deception to push for legislation that would dismantle government. The USA Act, along with other legislation she fervently supports, like REINS, are clear examples of the what radical Republican/Libertarians would enact if they ever regain full control of the federal government. Vote her out in 2024.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. The terms authorization, re-authorization, and appropriations—and their applications to the federal budget process—are explained in a well-balanced article in Politico from 2016 “Meet your unauthorized federal government”. I recommend it. Note the absence of the catchy word “Zombie”—and that word’s associated mental imagery. The message of the article is the sober one that Congress isn’t doing the job of reauthorization that it set for itself. The solution is to do that job—which, thanks to the dysfunction the Republican controlled House has recently demonstrated in full—is not happening. The solution is not to use the problem as an excuse to hold essential programs hostage to legislatively required expiration. 

P.P.S. If you really want to get down into the weeds, the Congressional Budget Office is tasked with keeping track of un-reauthorized programs. You can read the CBO’s complicated eight page summary for fiscal year 2023 here. The Politico article recommended in the P.S. is a much better explainer, but the CBO paper offers the depth of detail.

And a Runner Up

Jay Kuo is another Substack author whom I respect. His essay today, pasted below, I thought was spot on for our current times. Kuo’s short bio: “Admitted before the Supreme Court and 9th Circuit. A.B. In Political Science (Stanford) J.D. (UC Berkeley). Board member, Human Rights Campaign. CEO of The Social Edge. Composer of Allegiance on Broadway.”

Here’s the link to his Substack:

https://substack.com/@jaykuo

I urge you to subscribe.

A very close runner up for me is Robert Reich’s True patriotism is the opposite of Trump’s White Christian Nationalism, Reich’s Substack post for the Fourth of July. It is spot on—as are all his columns and lectures (on Youtube). Reich is a brilliant and prolific economist and educator, and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. (He is also famously, self-deprecatingly, and endearingly short of stature (due to a rare genetic disease), living proof that brilliance can come in small packages…

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Here’s Jay Kuo, but don’t forget to click and read Reich as well.

Independence

by Jay Kuo

Jul 4

Today, a personal essay.

When I was little, my Ba would bring out fireworks for the Fourth of July. He acquired them in places like Maryland, where our family would go summer camping on the state beaches, and brought them across state lines to our little suburban enclave in upstate New York. As soon as it was dark enough out, many of our neighbors would gather, the area kids eager to see what Mr. Kuo had in store that year. Sparklers for sure. Sometimes big noisemakers. And always more than a few showstopper rockets with brilliant flourishes of color. He would hand them out to us to dole out to the other children without a thought to liability.

The 1970s were a crazy time.

It didn’t occur to me until much later that there was some irony here. We were the only Chinese American household in the area. With four kids and a house on the corner of two main streets, our family was the center of activity for Tioga Terrace. And on July 4, Ba would bring the magic, developed centuries ago by people who looked like us, gunpowder mixed carefully with binding and coloring agents, bringing wonder and delight.

I understood we were celebrating the independence of America from the British Crown, and I most clearly remember the bicentennial celebration that took place in 1976. Our schools had focused heavily on American history that year, yet most of my understanding of what had transpired 200 years before still came from watching our Founding Fathers sing about it in the movie 1776.

Musical theatre has always been in my DNA.

In that merry portrayal, the heroes of the revolution were towering figures: debonair, erudite, romantic, able to find gallows humor at the darkest of hours. I remember best the musical number around whether slavery should be condemned in the words of the Declaration. It was a terrifying and bewildering song. What did molasses and rum and Bibles have to do with Roots? And I remember vividly poor Thomas Jefferson, the author of that brilliant document, being called out for still practicing slavery on his property.

“I have already resolved to release my slaves,” said a quietly thoughtful Jefferson.

I sincerely believed that earnest and brave man, who thrilled his colleagues with the playing of his violin, his adoring wife Martha swooning to the tune. He was a noble man, to be admired.

We didn’t learn the real truth about Jefferson, or about any of the Founding Fathers, in class. And it wasn’t taught to me in college either, even though I was a political science major. The first person to challenge my view of our any of the Founders was a Black colleague I met during my RA training, who had brought up that we don’t ever teach real history. She cited the story of Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of the many slaves he owned—a girl he had raped when she was just 14 years old.

I didn’t want to believe it. The Declaration of Independence, and its famous author, were sacred in my mind. The principles they espoused were of the highest order. And in my mind, July 4th was my favoriteholiday, next to Christmas. For one day, Ba was cooler than all the other dads, and at least for that day we were the most popular kids in the neighborhood, even though we were not fully American—at least, that’s how it had always felt.

Once the veil was pierced, however, the truth began to burn holes through my mind. I began to question a great deal of the mythology that had been spoonfed to me, really to all of us. Christopher Columbus, that was a shocker. Manifest Destiny. The Chinese Exclusion Act. The Tulsa Massacre. The internment of Japanese Americans. With each revelation, it was hard not to become deeply and irretrievably cynical about our history and the way our country has always acted toward the most vulnerable in America.

There’s a strange thing that happens when you come out the other end of all that. I began to wonder how they did it. How did people like Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and even my own hero George Takei still have anything left of faith and belief in this country, after all it had done to them, their families, their communities?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

That all people are equal. That we all possess “unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those words were revolutionary in their time. And they indeed spawned a revolution. Despite my great disillusionment, they still inspire and hold true for me today. That’s the power of the enduring promise of America. Not that we will always, or even most of the time, get things right, or that we won’t stumble our way into dark and nearly hopeless chapters of genocide, slavery, internment, and yes, growing Christofascism today.

Loving the promise of America isn’t the same as loving what it has done and still does to break that promise, over and over. But I’ve come to appreciate the high value of maintaining our gaze upon that North Star, the one that still shines for liberation, fairness and equality. That the promise has now endured nearly 250 years speaks to our collective and deep desire for hope, even in the face of broad and dehumanizing injustice and inequity.

The America that our white, propertied, slave-holding male Founders envisioned isn’t what we’ve got today. But that’s because we’ve improved upon that vision. For me, the America of tomorrow is a truly multi-racial, multi-denominational, pluralistic democracy, a place of opportunity and prosperity, with no one left behind. That is the vision that sustains me. It’s the one where my Chinese father could hand out fireworks on July 4 to excited, white kids and seem the most American of all the dads.

We inherited both a sacred promise and a big mess from those who came before, and we’re still working on both. That fact that it is so very hard, and we have so very far still to go, is strong evidence of the incredible value of that promise. This is evidenced in great part by how fiercely others will fight with all they have to keep us from it.

But nothing worth fighting for was ever won without a fight. And in the end, the enemies of our unalienable rights will fail. That is the faith I keep.

Happy Independence Day. Our fight continues.

— Jay