Our Children are at Stake

Bear with me: There are action items at the bottom of this post.

It’s time to wake up, pay attention, and push back. School Board elections can no longer be ignored as sleepy backwaters. Doing your research, talking with friends, filling out your ballot and turning it in is suddenly very important. What follows pertains to just one School District, Central Valley, but what is happening in Central Valley is part of a nationwide effort quietly rising in many Districts. 

Background on CVSD: The voters of the Central Valley School District elect five School Board members (two or three in each successive odd numbered year). They serve four year terms with no term limits. Candidates running for a position on the CVSD School Board are elected by the voters of the entire School District, but where they live among the five geographic areas, sometimes referred to “internal” districts, determines the candidate or candidates against whom they are eligible to run. (City of Spokane readers take note: this is NOT the way elections for District 81 School Board work.) Two of the current five members CVSD Board, those representing internal Districts 5 and 2, decided by May of 2021 that they would not seek re-election this year. Only one candidate filed to run for a school board seat from internal District 2 before the August Primary, Teresa Landa. As a sole candidate for the position, Ms. Landa’s name did not appear on the primary ballot. In internal District 5 three candidates filed before the August primary, all of them conservative Republicans. Pam Orebaugh and Rob Linebarger, a rabidly right wing pair, won the “top two” primary. Allied in their intent, these two are now the only printed choices for this position on the November ballot. Like many off-off year August primary elections, this year’s primary was marred by poor turnout. Only a quarter of the registered voters in CVSD turned in their ballots–and, of those, the votes were sprinkled almost evenly among the three candidates. The two winners, Pam and Rob, have now recruited a third candidate, Brett Howell, who filed (after the August Primary was over) to run as a write-in against the internal District 2 candidate, Teresa Landa. Clearly, the three of them hope to occupy 2 of the 5 seats on the Board for the next four years. So far, this probably sounds like run-of-the-mill politics, but, perhaps, a little more heated and calculated than what one might imagine for school board races. 

On Monday, August 23, the Central Valley School Board held a meeting that was forced to adjourn after 30 minutes. A belligerent vocal minority of those attending refused to wear masks in open defiance of the state-wide mask mandate then in place. Although the Spokesman article failed to note their presence, Pam and Rob, likely the organizers of the anti-mask group, stayed on to address their followers after the meeting adjourned. In this video, Rob, i.e. Mr. Linebarger, is seen firing up his approving crowd. It is a revealing performance you ought to watch:

https://www.facebook.com/ChalichForChildren/videos/this-video-was-taken-august-23rd-after-the-cvsd-school-board-was-forced-to-stop-/1004052080442312/

Mr. Linebarger’s conspiracy-laden oration speaks for itself. This is not a man interested in the intricacies of school budgets and discussion under Roberts Rules of Order. This is a man who sounds primed for revolution, armed, if necessary. Pam, i.e. Ms. Orebaugh, is also present, seen intermittently sitting to the far right in the screen view and referred to as an ally. At 01:54 she walks across the room behind Mr. Linebarger. 

The group that supports the ideology of Pam and Rob maintain a closed Facebook page on which Pam Orebaugh is the Administrator. (It’s called the Central Valley School District Parent’s [sic] Coalition. Consider joining. It would be illuminating.) They also constructed a website devoid of original content that serves as a donation portal for their 501(c)(3), Washington Citizens for Liberty. I urge you to click and explore. The site is devoid of identifiers. It contains only click-through content under the “NEWS” button that takes the reader off-site to The Defender, Populist Press, and The National Pulse. Never heard of any of these “news” outlets? Neither had I. None of the three offers any clarity about who funds them (not that it requires much money to aggregate crazy-making, glossy articles on the web). A brief visit to The National Pulse offers some idea of the backing: there is a prominently linked article highlighting Steve Bannon’s “Local Takeover Strategies”. Pam and Rob, it seems, are following Bannon’s playbook.

Pam and Rob’s group, Washington Citizens for Liberty, is registered as a nonprofit, a 501(c)(3). Non-profits are not required to disclose their donors. Status as a non-profit also means that major donors receive a tax break paid for by you and me. In the post school board meeting video, Rob (Mr. Linebarger) rails against “propaganda” and brainwashing. Ironically, he and his followers blindly trust the blatant propaganda inspired by Bannon and his crew that is linked on the Citizens for Liberty website. These folks’ critical reading skills are so poor they cannot read the writing on the wall of the rathole into which they have descended. 

It is frightening enough such ratholes exist and that otherwise good people have descended into them, but it is even more frightening to think that such folk might acquire seats on a school board while disguised as reasonable people with critical thinking skills. 

Leaked internal emails and meeting minutes state the intent of Washington Citizens for Liberty’s fundraising and organizing. The group, led by candidate Rob Linebarger and disguised as a non-profit, is organized entirely around opposition to, and denial of, mask and vaccination efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19. Donated money will be used to mount campaigns to recall members of the CVSD school board and to work for a referendum to limit the governor’s powers. How this is not a dependent political action committee is beyond me–but enforcement of campaign finance law is a slow and halting process.

Fortunately, the election of far right Republicans to the District 5 and District 2 seats of CVSD is not a done deal. A much revered coach, civics, and social studies teacher at Central Valley High School, Stan Chalich, (pronounced with a soft ‘a’) is running as a write-in candidate for District 5. When he retired in 2017 following forty-nine years of service his career and background was covered in this Spokesman article. This is an exciting development. Chalich has the name recognition to pull this off–if a concerted effort is made on his behalf.

Here is electoral math: There are 65,972 registered voters in the Central Valley School District. Only a quarter of those voters turned in a ballot in the August Primary. Linebarger and Orebaugh and the third candidate each got roughly only 5,000 votes. It is a fair bet that many of those votes came from people who had not done much homework on the background of any of the candidates, rather than out of particular commitment to any of the three. The results of the November general election will greatly depend on turnout. The task before the November election is to make as many Central Valley School District registered voters as possible aware of the stakes in this election, the ideology of the contenders on the ballot, and the availability of a willing and excellent write-in candidate, Stan Chalich–and how to spell his name. 

The tools are the same ones Stan, Pam, Bannon, and Washington Citizens for Liberty are using: information about these candidates spread on electronic media, print media, and word of mouth–buzz. You can help salvage this election from these people.

Visit Candidate Stan Chalich’s new campaign website:

www.chalichforchildren.com/

Visit, like, and share his campaign’s Facebook page.

Donate to Stan Chalich’ campaign using PayPal at https://www.chalichforchildren.com/donate

Educate your friends and relatives about the down-the-rathole extremism of Pam and Rob. 

At stake is the civil functioning of the Central Valley School Board. Other school boards are not immune. These are national tactics. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Stuff I didn’t know–and is worth knowing

Public education is essential to our humanity, our society, and our country. Providing public education is a complex undertaking. It is far, far more than just arguing over mask mandates and vaccinations (although you wouldn’t know that from some of the candidates running for school board director positions this year–see subsequent posts). Public education comprises nearly fifty percent of the Washington State budget. 

For a hint at the complexity, there are 256 school districts in the State of Washington all of which function under the umbrella of the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, led by Superintendent Chris Reykdal. The 256 districts are divided into nine geographical Educational Service Districts (ESDs). (See map.) Each of the 256 districts has both a number and name. Spokane Public Schools is also “District 81” and Central Valley School District (serving a large part of the City of Spokane Valley, mostly south of I-90, plus Liberty Lake) is also “District 356” (See another map or, better, an interactive map.) None of these districts conform neatly to the municipal (city and town) boundaries of the areas they serve. Spokane Public Schools, for example, extends south into Spokane County beyond the southern limits of the City of Spokane. Central Valley School District includes Liberty Lake.

When we as voters chose among candidates for the “director” positions (aka members) of one of these local school boards we are choosing among people volunteering for a time-consuming and unpaid job. A bill in the Washington State legislature in 2013 would have provided a salary of $42,000 annually. It did not pass. 

Candidates for school board director positions fall into two categories: 1) Selfless individuals who wish to serve the children and parents of their community. These folks often have some background in education or community service. They understand some of the complexity. or 2) People with a particular ideological axe or two to grind. In the school board elections we face this fall there are a number of candidates whose primary interest is to rail against mask mandates and what they imagine as the public school curriculum. The takeover of local commissions and boards by the far right nationalist wing of Republican Party is encouraged locally and regionally by followers of Steve Bannon’s “precinct strategy”.

School boards in Washington State are governed by state law, the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Title 28A, “Common School Provisions”. Much of what the local school board can and cannot do is spelled out there, but within those bounds each school board has the power to write and revise its own bylaws. 

The manner in which directors (members) are elected to local school boards varies from district to district. For example, the directors of the Board of SPS (Spokane Public Schools, District 81) serve for six year terms while directors of the Board of CVSD (Central Valley School District, District 356) serve four year terms. Residents of District 81 may file to run for any one of the five positions on the SPS Board regardless of their address. Residents of CVSD can only run for the CVSD board position associated with the particular geographic sub-district in which they live. 

Regardless of the CVSD sub-district requirement, candidates for school board for both SPS and CVSD run for the their position full-school-district-wide. In District 81 a candidate must look for votes from among what are currently 155,069 voters. That is the largest registered voter pool for any position on the election ballot anywhere in Spokane County in this year’s off-off year election–by a factor of more than two. The SPS registered voter pool is three times the number of registered voters (52,464) to whom a candidate for City of Spokane City Council for District 3 (NW Spokane) must appeal. Contemplate that. School board races usually attract less financial support and less press coverage than City Council races–and yet school board candidates have to search for votes among three times as many voters. 

CVSD’s (Central Valley School District’s) registered voter count is 65,972. That’s roughly the same number of registered voters (67,699) as those a candidate for City of Spokane Valley City Council faces (unlike the City of Spokane, City of Spokane Valley Council candidates are elected City-wide, not by District). The counts of registered voters are similar, but they are not the same voters, e.g. while CVSD includes the City of Liberty Lake, it misses parts of the City of Spokane Valley.

Out of these pools of registered voters typically only a fifth to a quarter of them bother to turn in a ballot in the August primary. Unless we voters are willing to let our school boards be taken over by far right ideologues, it behooves us to pay better attention to the candidates and the details of school board elections, especially this November. Meet the candidates, check out their backgrounds, share information with in-district friends and relatives, buzz a little on social media, and contribute money and time to the campaigns of the candidates who are equipped to do the better job. The future of our children depends on your involvement.

I plan to offer some detail of the school board races in SPS and CVSD in subsequent posts, but for the many of you who read this email who do not vote in these districts: do your homework on the candidates in your own districts–do it now. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The meanings of words matters

What does the average Republican mean when they accuse Democrats of “socialism”? Is there any common understanding among those who hear the term? I suspect that for many older Americans “socialism” conjures up dire memories of the Cold War, the “communist threat,” and George Orwell’s 1984. Those images offer only a slim connection to the dictionary definition of socialism:

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

In the United States we are, by almost any measure, a far cry from “the means of production, distribution, and exchange” being owned by the community. Professor Heather Cox Richardson, in a post I urge you to read in full, puts Republican shrieking against “socialism” into perspective: 

If this measure [the “second” infrastructure bill, the $3.5 trillion bill] passes, it will expand the ways in which the government addresses the needs of ordinary Americans. It updates the measures put in place during the New Deal of the 1930s, when Democrats under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt shored up nuclear families—usually white nuclear families—by providing unemployment insurance, disability coverage, aid to children, and old age insurance.

After World War II, people of both parties accepted this new system, believing that it was the job of a modern government to level the economic playing field between ordinary men and those at the top of the economic ladder. Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon expanded government action into civil rights and protection of the environment; Democrats Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter expanded education initiatives, health care, anti-poverty programs, civil rights, and workers’ rights.

But opponents insisted that such government action was “socialism.” In America, this word comes not from international socialism, in which the government owns the means of production, but rather from the earlier history of Reconstruction, when white opponents of Black voting insisted that the money to pay for programs like schools, which helped ordinary and poorer people, must [by necessity] come from those with wealth, and thus redistribute[d] wealth. They demanded an end to the taxes that supported public programs.

The Republican Party has been captured, at least since Reagan’s election in 1980, by those wishing to dismantle social programs dating back as far as the establishment of a public education system. 

My laptop’s dictionary points out that people mean different things by “socialism”:

The term “socialism” has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market. The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended toward social democracy.

The next time you hear “socialism” used as an accusation ask the speaker how they define “socialism”. Don’t prompt them. Be patient. Don’t accuse–or propose. The response might be interesting. Are they really just spouting Republican orthodoxy about “the untrammeled workings of the economic market” that they imagine might be had with no taxes, no governmental programs, and no regulation whatsoever–or are they still worried about the “communist threat” that informed their youth? 

Socialism is a word that lights up different images in different minds. Get a handle on what the word means to you and enquire what it means to people who hurl the word as an accusation.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

As North Idaho hospitals go into triage mode, schools open without masks

Prominent on the front page of the Wednesday, September 8, Spokesman was the headline “Idaho enacts crisis care standards”.¹ On page one of the same print edition’s Northwest Section a headline read, “Business as usual for Idaho schools.” This second article was adorned with a supra-heading “Masks are rare as schools open in COVID-19-ravaged Kootenai County.”

Children under age twelve are not vaccinated as the vaccine is not yet available for this age group. Only a small percentage of students over age twelve in North Idaho and the NE counties of adjacent Washington State are vaccinated. (The overall county vaccination rates in these counties stand at 35% or less.) By now it is abundantly clear that Covid-19 is primarily spread by aerosols and droplets released by breathing, speaking, and singing, especially in indoor environments. It is also abundantly clear that masks reduce the dose of the virus that is dispersed by those infected and also reduces the dose inhaled by those who are not yet infected. The mask policies of North Idaho schools are little more than a tepid suggestion in favor of wearing them. Without masking, schools are a caldron perfectly suited for infecting the maximum number of children and their families. 

With hospital wards filling up, the lack of a school mask mandate is insanity based in ideological denial. Sufficient numbers of anti-science, far right Republican ideologues have attained positions on boards in North Idaho over the years that there is no will to counteract their anti-scientific drivel. For example, North Idaho College (NIC) President Rick MacLennan issued a campus-wide mask mandate that officially lasted just four days before the Board of Trustees of NIC, in a contentious meeting, rescinded it.² Wilson Criscione, in an Inlander article which I highly recommend reading, put it this way:

Just four days into the semester, however, the board of trustees voted 3-2 to rescind the mask mandate. The board’s new majority, which gained control in the November 2020 election by riding a wave of right-wing distrust of higher education, took advantage of a new Idaho law that appears to give elected trustee members the authority to dictate operational decisions in response to the pandemic — an authority that previously was held by the college president.

MacLennan’s contract as NIC’s president is now held hostage by the board over the mask issue—and the wish of the far right’s new 3-2 majority on the board to demonstrate its dominance. 

And now, MacLennan’s future at the college may be in jeopardy, as the board won’t renew his contract and keeps delaying an ominous discussion of MacLennan’s employment.

This is what happens when voters don’t do their homework and fail to vote accordingly in elections for offices they deem obscure. (This is a cautionary tale for the Spokane Public School’s [District 81] Board elections coming up in November that I plan to cover next week.)

Meanwhile, North Idaho hospitals are having to practice “crisis care standards” due to the overload of patients, nearly all of whom are unvaccinated, people in need of critical care for severe cases of Covid-19. In common English, “crisis care standards” means triage, a term most often used in frontline military hospital units or hospitals in the midst of a natural disaster. In triage mode, patients deemed most likely salvageable are awarded scarce beds and treatment. Patients who would otherwise have been admitted may have to be turned away, and those deemed near death may have their supportive care re-directed to those with a higher chance of survival. 

So under “crisis care standards” hospital committees may be faced with heartrending decisions over which patient receives scarce resources. How is it possible to chose between a thirty-five year old unvaccinated mother of four who has been intubated in the intensive care unit for a month or the forty year old father of three who presents to the emergency room with a myocardial infarction and an unstable heart rhythm? 

These are impossible choices that may be made necessary by rampant misinformation about vaccines and right wing, office-holding ideologues nixing mask-mandates in the name of “Liberty!” What can you do? Advocate for vaccines and masks. Then pay attention to the electoral landscape. Get acquainted with the ideologies of the candidates. Talk with your friends about what you’ve learned and vote accordingly.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry 

There is a general election this year, 2021, with a ballot turn-in date of Tuesday, November 2. These are off-off year elections (that is, neither presidential nor congressional), at least in Washington State. Mostly, the positions in contention are local: city councils, school boards, fire districts, and some judgeships. Moreover, they are, in most cases, nominally non-partisan positions, candidates don’t appear on the ballot with “Prefers Republican Party” or “Prefers Democratic Party” behind their names. 

In August, while roughly three quarters of registered voters in Spokane County sat out the primary election, the other quarter chose those who will appear on the General Election ballot this November. You can see the certified results for all the races in Spokane County by clicking here. Do not fall in the trap of predicting the results of the General Election based on the numbers from the August primary. The November results will hinge on some combination of the preferences expressed by the votes in the primary and which other voters are motivated to vote in the November General Election. Typically, a third to a half more voters turn in ballots in November than in August in these off-off year elections, more than enough to change the results from those suggested by the primary. Complacency based on primary results is a mistake.

In the City of Spokane one City Council seat in each of two districts is up for grabs: In District 1 (NE) it’s Naghmana Sherazi¹ v. Jonathan Bingle. In District 3 (NW) it’s Zack Zappone v. Mike Lish. In District 2 (South Hill plus) Betsy Wilkerson will be on the November ballot unopposed. (Her expected opponent, CMR’s Tyler LeMasters, failed the residency requirement.) 

Residents of District 2 (South Hill plus), since they don’t get to chose between two candidates on the November ballot, might be tempted to relax. That, too, would be a mistake. The election results in Districts 1 (NE) and 2 (NW) could, if we don’t pay attention, tip the City Council in coming years toward scrapping the Comprehensive Plan (a scrapping favored by the realtors and developers, who are spending a lot of money in an attempt to change the Council composition) or shift the Council toward coddling the extremists from the Covenant Church as they push their theocratic agenda on the doorstep of Planned Parenthood. 

So who do you canvass for, contribute money to, and encourage your friends to vote for? Ironically, one of the best measures of extremism is provided by precisely those folks who would like you to believe that far right Republicanism equals belief in the teachings of Christ, WeBelieveWeVote.com. Dig into the details and you are likely to find that claimed equivalence is an insult to Christians and Christ. The WBWV page on the Spokane races neatly lays out the choices for City Council and the Board of Spokane Public Schools. On that page I recommend voting only for those who “Did Not Respond”. To understand why, click on “More>>” to the right of the name of one of the candidates who did respond, scroll down to the bottom and click the “Survey Responses” button. Read through the statements of “Core Beliefs” (1-3) and “Position Statements” (4-14) for which the level of agreement defines WBWV’s “alignment ”. 

Jonathan Bingle, candidate for City Council from District 1 (NE), for example, as part of his Christianity, wholeheartedly agrees (10 out of 10) with this statement (#5): “Elected officials have a duty to resist unelected bureaucrats who try to impose controversial mandates, such as forced mask wearing, quarantining the healthy, and vaccination passports.” I do not recall that as a Christian precept, cited Bible verses notwithstanding. 

Mr. Bingle also indicates his ten out of ten agreement with this statement under “The Poor and Needy” (#12): 

“Government officials should leave the provision of housing, rehabilitation, and other social services to individuals, families, and private organizations that are better equipped to directly help the homeless. Additionally, local officials should support law enforcement with proper funding, good-faith negotiations, and responsible accountability.”

His agreement suggests that Mr. Bingle dismisses the idea that government exists, in part, to help society cope with problems like homelessness and substance abuse—except through law enforcement and incarceration. 

A candidate who refuses to respond to WBWV’s survey seems more likely one who subscribes to values I recognize as Christian than the “aligned” ideologues who put their right wing politics on display clothed in WBWV’s thin veil of Christianity .

My picks for people to support in these races are Zack Zappone and Naghmana Sherazi for City Council and Melissa Bedford and Riley Smith for SPS (District 81) School Board. 

Remember these names. Visit their websites. Support them. Conversely, check out WBWV’s survey for the detailed politico-religious ideologies of the opposing candidates. 

If you have read this far and you’re registered to vote somewhere other than the City of Spokane or in District 81, use the underlined links above to learn the names and investigate the leanings of the candidates on your ballot.²Check out their webpages and their endorsements. Visit the Public Disclosure Commission for information on who supports the candidate financially. Don’t put it off. Talk with your friends and relatives about your conclusions. The night before the election due date (November 2) is not the time to do your homework. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry1

It is Naghmana Sherazi rather than Luc Jasmin against Jonathan Bingle on account of a difference of just 4 votes! The 4 vote difference in the machine count held up during the hand count, putting the lie to the national Republican unsubstantiated bluster about election fraud. Jim Camden’s article in Spokesman concerning these election results is worth reading, especially if you’re inclined to be suspicious about election administration.2

Caution is recommended in the general rule to vote only for those who “Did Not Respond” on the WBWV listings. For example, Ben Wick in Spokane Valley gets a 79% alignment with WBWV. However, the webpage of Wick’s opponent, Brandon Fenton, who did not respond, reveals his extremism almost immediately. In my book, the endorsements of Rob Chase, Bob McCaslin, and Rod Higgins are poison. 

There is a general election this year, 2021, with a ballot turn-in date of Tuesday, November 2. These are off-off year elections (that is, neither presidential nor congressional), at least in Washington State. Mostly, the positions in contention are local: city councils, school boards, fire districts, and some judgeships. Moreover, they are, in most cases, nominally non-partisan positions, candidates don’t appear on the ballot with “Prefers Republican Party” or “Prefers Democratic Party” behind their names. 

In August, while roughly three quarters of registered voters in Spokane County sat out the primary election, the other quarter chose those who will appear on the General Election ballot this November. You can see the certified results for all the races in Spokane County by clicking here. Do not fall in the trap of predicting the results of the General Election based on the numbers from the August primary. The November results will hinge on some combination of the preferences expressed by the votes in the primary and which other voters are motivated to vote in the November General Election. Typically, a third to a half more voters turn in ballots in November than in August in these off-off year elections, more than enough to change the results from those suggested by the primary. Complacency based on primary results is a mistake.

In the City of Spokane one City Council seat in each of two districts is up for grabs: In District 1 (NE) it’s Naghmana Sherazi¹ v. Jonathan Bingle. In District 3 (NW) it’s Zack Zappone v. Mike Lish. In District 2 (South Hill plus) Betsy Wilkerson will be on the November ballot unopposed. (Her expected opponent, CMR’s Tyler LeMasters, failed the residency requirement.) 

Residents of District 2 (South Hill plus), since they don’t get to chose between two candidates on the November ballot, might be tempted to relax. That, too, would be a mistake. The election results in Districts 1 (NE) and 2 (NW) could, if we don’t pay attention, tip the City Council in coming years toward scrapping the Comprehensive Plan (a scrapping favored by the realtors and developers, who are spending a lot of money in an attempt to change the Council composition) or shift the Council toward coddling the extremists from the Covenant Church as they push their theocratic agenda on the doorstep of Planned Parenthood. 

So who do you canvass for, contribute money to, and encourage your friends to vote for? Ironically, one of the best measures of extremism is provided by precisely those folks who would like you to believe that far right Republicanism equals belief in the teachings of Christ, WeBelieveWeVote.com. Dig into the details and you are likely to find that claimed equivalence is an insult to Christians and Christ. The WBWV page on the Spokane races neatly lays out the choices for City Council and the Board of Spokane Public Schools. On that page I recommend voting only for those who “Did Not Respond”. To understand why, click on “More>>” to the right of the name of one of the candidates who did respond, scroll down to the bottom and click the “Survey Responses” button. Read through the statements of “Core Beliefs” (1-3) and “Position Statements” (4-14) for which the level of agreement defines WBWV’s “alignment ”. 

Jonathan Bingle, candidate for City Council from District 1 (NE), for example, as part of his Christianity, wholeheartedly agrees (10 out of 10) with this statement (#5): “Elected officials have a duty to resist unelected bureaucrats who try to impose controversial mandates, such as forced mask wearing, quarantining the healthy, and vaccination passports.” I do not recall that as a Christian precept, cited Bible verses notwithstanding. 

Mr. Bingle also indicates his ten out of ten agreement with this statement under “The Poor and Needy” (#12): 

“Government officials should leave the provision of housing, rehabilitation, and other social services to individuals, families, and private organizations that are better equipped to directly help the homeless. Additionally, local officials should support law enforcement with proper funding, good-faith negotiations, and responsible accountability.”

His agreement suggests that Mr. Bingle dismisses the idea that government exists, in part, to help society cope with problems like homelessness and substance abuse—except through law enforcement and incarceration. 

A candidate who refuses to respond to WBWV’s survey seems more likely one who subscribes to values I recognize as Christian than the “aligned” ideologues who put their right wing politics on display clothed in WBWV’s thin veil of Christianity .

My picks for people to support in these races are Zack Zappone and Naghmana Sherazi for City Council and Melissa Bedford and Riley Smith for SPS (District 81) School Board. 

Remember these names. Visit their websites. Support them. Conversely, check out WBWV’s survey for the detailed politico-religious ideologies of the opposing candidates. 

If you have read this far and you’re registered to vote somewhere other than the City of Spokane or in District 81, use the underlined links above to learn the names and investigate the leanings of the candidates on your ballot.²Check out their webpages and their endorsements. Visit the Public Disclosure Commission for information on who supports the candidate financially. Don’t put it off. Talk with your friends and relatives about your conclusions. The night before the election due date (November 2) is not the time to do your homework. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry1

It is Naghmana Sherazi rather than Luc Jasmin against Jonathan Bingle on account of a difference of just 4 votes! The 4 vote difference in the machine count held up during the hand count, putting the lie to the national Republican unsubstantiated bluster about election fraud. Jim Camden’s article in Spokesman concerning these election results is worth reading, especially if you’re inclined to be suspicious about election administration.2

Caution is recommended in the general rule to vote only for those who “Did Not Respond” on the WBWV listings. For example, Ben Wick in Spokane Valley gets a 79% alignment with WBWV. However, the webpage of Wick’s opponent, Brandon Fenton, who did not respond, reveals his extremism almost immediately. In my book, the endorsements of Rob Chase, Bob McCaslin, and Rod Higgins are poison. 

Texas’ new law, Senate Bill No. 8, the so-called “Texas Heartbeat Act” is breathtakingly disingenuous. The law relies on a legal twist to take away a legal right—while claiming to do no such thing. The law specifically enjoins all levels of the executive branch of government from becoming involved in any way in the enforcement of the law. The law thereby avoids any complaint that “the state” is taking away the civil right to abortion affirmed by Roe v. Wade, based on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (one of the post Civil War amendments). Instead, enforcement of S.B. No. 8 is outsourced to individuals bringing suit in the civil judicial system. The law offers private parties legal grounds to threaten anyone even remotely aiding a women in obtaining an abortion with what amounts to legal extortion: “If you even council a woman about getting an abortion, I will take you to civil court. I will entangle you for weeks or months in a suit that could cost you at least $10,000 and reimbursement for my legal bills in bringing the suit. At a minimum it’ll cost you your time and your own legal fees. (Why don’t you just hand over some money and we’ll settle this quietly out of court?)” The tactic is sickeningly clever. You can read about its origins and the lawyer who hatched the idea here. 

This new Republican tactic, at a minimum, provides self-righteous busybodies with the power to intimidate. At its worst it contains whiffs of the vigilantist informers we recall from the McCarthy era in our 1950s, the East German Stasi, and from Orwell’s 1984. 

As Heather Cox Richardson writes in her post copied below, this new Texas law is just part of a decades-long effort by the Republican Party to undermine civil rights. What I though I understood about the purpose of the U.S. Supreme Court—that one of its main functions was to ensure for the people in all the states the civil rights articulated in the U.S. Constitution and all of its Amendments (not just the ones in place before the Civil War)—is now at stake. Republicans are closing the door on the hopeful America in which I thought I grew up, an America in which the federal judiciary protected the rights of all its citizens.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

I encourage you, if you have not already, to sign up for Professor Cox Richardson’s daily email. 

September 3, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

The new anti-abortion law in Texas is not just about abortion; it is about undermining civil rights decisions made by the Supreme Court during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The Supreme Court declined to stop a state law that violates a constitutional right.

Since World War II, the Supreme Court has defended civil rights from state laws that threaten them. During the Great Depression, Democrats under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to use the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net—this is when we got Social Security—and promote infrastructure. But racist Democrats from the South balked at racial equality under this new government.

After World War II, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Republican appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower, and Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Republican appointed by Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court set out to make all Americans equal before the law. They tried to end segregation through the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision prohibiting racial segregation in public schools. They protected the right of married couples to use contraception in 1965. They legalized interracial marriage in 1967. In 1973, with the Roe v. Wade decision, they tried to give women control over their own reproduction by legalizing abortion.

They based their decisions on the due process and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War. Congress developed this amendment after legislatures in former Confederate states passed “Black Codes” that severely limited the rights and protections for formerly enslaved people. Congress intended for the powers in the Fourteenth to enable the federal government to guarantee that African Americans had the same rights as white Americans, even in states whose legislatures intended to keep them in a form of quasi-slavery.

Justices in the Warren and Burger courts argued that the Fourteenth Amendment required that the Bill of Rights apply to state governments as well as to the federal government. This is known as the “incorporation doctrine,” but the name matters less than the concept: states cannot abridge an individual’s rights, any more than the federal government can. This doctrine dramatically expanded civil rights.

From the beginning, there was a backlash against the New Deal government by businessmen who objected to the idea of federal regulation and the bureaucracy it would require. As early as 1937, they were demanding an end to the active government and a return to the world of the 1920s, where businessmen could do as they wished, families and churches managed social welfare, and private interests profited from infrastructure projects. They gained little traction. The vast majority of Americans liked the new system.

But the expansion of civil rights under the Warren Court was a whole new kettle of fish. Opponents of the new decisions insisted that the court was engaging in “judicial activism,” taking away from voters the right to make their own decisions about how society should work. That said that justices were “legislating from the bench.” They insisted that the Constitution is limited by the views of its framers and that the government can do nothing that is not explicitly written in that 1787 document.

This is the foundation for today’s “originalists” on the court. They are trying to erase the era of legislation and legal decisions that constructed our modern nation. If the government is as limited as they say, it cannot regulate business. It cannot provide a social safety net or promote infrastructure, both things that cost tax dollars and, in the case of infrastructure, take lucrative opportunities from private businesses.

It cannot protect the rights of minorities or women.

Their doctrine would send authority for civil rights back to the states to wither or thrive as different legislatures see fit. But it has, in the past, run into the problem that Supreme Court precedent has led the court to overturn unconstitutional state laws that deprive people of their rights (although the recent conservative courts have chipped away at those precedents).

The new Texas law gets around this problem with a trick. It does not put state officers in charge of enforcing it. Instead, it turns enforcement over to individual citizens. So, when opponents sued to stop the measure from going into effect, state officials argued that they could not be stopped from enforcing the law because they don’t enforce it in the first place. With this workaround, Texas lawmakers have, as Justice Stephen Breyer noted in his dissent, “delegate[d] to private individuals the power to prevent a woman from…[exercising]…a federal constitutional right.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was more forceful, calling the measure “a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.” And yet, the Supreme Court permitted that state law to stand simply by refusing to do anything to stop it. As Sotomayor wrote in her dissent: “Last night, the Court silently acquiesced in a State’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents.”

A state has undermined the power of the federal government to protect civil rights. It has given individuals who disagree with one particular right the power to take it away from their neighbors. But make no mistake: there is no reason that this mechanism couldn’t be used to undermine much of the civil rights legislation of the post–World War II years.

On September 4, 1957, three years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, a crowd of angry white people barred nine Black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The white protesters chanted: “Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate.”

In 1957, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used the federal government to protect the constitutional rights of the Little Rock Nine from the white vigilantes who wanted to keep them second-class citizens. In 2021, the Supreme Court has handed power back to the vigilantes.

Why are some so staunchly critical?

Jerry LeClaireSep 3

I was brought up as a mainline Protestant in the United Methodist Church in Wisconsin. Even as a teenager I was aware of a church hierarchy, a governing structure above the individual church congregation level that exerted at least some control over the conduct and preaching of pastors of Methodist Churches. This governing structure is what makes the United Methodist Church one of the mainline Protestant “denominations.” In contrast, “non-denominational” Christian churches characteristically have no such oversight. A preacher in many a non-denomination setting is free to lead based on his or her own emphasis and interpretation of scripture. Such a preacher is limited only by his or her charisma, his or her ability to convince followers of the biblical truth of what they have to say. Most mainline Protestants would be startled to listen to some of the preaching in these churches, preaching that bears little resemblance to anything recognizable as a Christian message, preaching with an emphasis, for example, on the importance of the Second Amendment. (I don’t recall Jesus recommending the bearing of arms.) Two such churches that stand out for me are the Covenant Church on the the near north side of Spokane and the Candlelight Christian Fellowship in Coeur d’Alene, both of which have been active and vocal in the anti-vaccination/anti-mask movement during the Covid pandemic. 

The article copied below was written by John Fea, an Associate Professor of History at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. I found Professor Fea’s article enlightening about the linkage of Fundamentalist, non-denominational Christianity and the anti-vaccination movement. 

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Jesus is My Vaccine

by John Fea

September 2, 2021

Recently someone close to me, a devout evangelical Christian, texted to explain why he was not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. “Jesus went around healing lepers and touched them without fear of getting leprosy,” he said. And if this reference to Luke 17:11-19 was not enough to convince me that followers of Jesus were immune to COVID-19, he added St. Paul’s words in Romans 8:2 to his biblical argument against vaccination: “The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

These are not the only Bible verses I have seen and heard evangelical Christians use to justify their anti-vaccine convictions. Other popular passages include Psalm 30:2 (“Lord, I called to you for help, and you healed me.”); 1 Corinthians 6:19 (“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?”); and Leviticus 17:11 (“For the life of a creature is in the blood.”).

What is going on here?

Earlier this week I was talking to a reporter who covers the public health beat. He was working on an article about American Catholics seeking religious exemptions to vaccine mandates issued by their school districts and places of employment. Many of these exemption-seekers are asking local Catholic priests to write letters on their behalf, not unlike students who show up to class following an absence with notes from their doctors. (Most Catholic archdioceses are refusing to provide such letters.)

The reporter asked me if evangelicals were also seeking exemption letters from their pastors. The question gave me an opportunity to explain some basic differences between Catholic and evangelical approaches to biblical interpretation.

Unlike Roman Catholicism, with its ecclesiastical hierarchy and official doctrinal pronouncements emanating from the Vatican, evangelicalism has no such organizational structure. As Calvin University historian Ronald Wells once quipped, “I wanted to resign from evangelicalism. But I didn’t know where to send the letter.”  

Indeed, American evangelicals resist most forms of organizational control. How does one coral the Holy Spirit when it moves in the hearts of God’s people? The New Birth cannot be contained—it is a spiritual experience that transcends man-made religious institutions. Why listen to a bishop over the direct voice of God?

When it comes to the use of the Bible in public life, evangelical Christians take the Protestant Reformation to its logical conclusion. In the sixteenth century, Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther translated the Vulgate, a Latin version of the Old and New Testaments that only educated men (mostly priests) could read, into the language of the common people. As ordinary Europeans read the Bible—many for the first time—they inevitably began to interpret it as well. 

Although Protestant communities in the immediate wake of the Reformation proved successful in shaping the way their members understood the scriptures, in the early United States biblical interpretation became more free-wheeling, individualistic, and unhinged from such communities. Small differences over how to interpret the Bible often resulted in the creation of new sects. 

As the United States grew more democratic, Protestant men and women brought their ever-expanding freedoms to bear on their reading of the Bible. The Pope, they argued, required his followers to abide by authoritative readings of the sacred text, but Protestants had the liberty to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, using little more than their own common sense. Protestantism, and especially the evangelical brand of Protestantism sweeping the country through the religious revival that historians have called the Second Great Awakening, was a religion of freedom.

I told this reporter that while Catholics turn to priests to explain their faith to health officials, school administrators, and employers, evangelicals need no such mediators. All they have to do is pick a few Bible verses, manipulate those verses so that they speak directly to the subject of COVID-19 vaccination, and then reference the novel interpretations on a religious exemption form. 

But even evangelicals do not develop their religious arguments against the vaccine, or anything else for that matter, in isolation. Throughout United States history they have turned, almost in cult-like fashion, to charismatic celebrities who build their followings by baptizing the political or cultural propaganda they promote in a sea of random Bible verses. Like the early Corinthian church, some evangelicals follow Paul, others follow Apollos, others follow Cephas, and still others claim to follow Christ (I Corinthians 3:12). Without an ecclesiastical hierarchy to reign them in, these evangelical pied pipers have little accountability. 

Megachurch pastors, televangelists, conservative media commentators, and social media influencers have far more power over ordinary evangelical Christians than their local pastors, many of whom feel powerless when they try to encourage their congregations to consider that God works through science. 

When I ask evangelical anti-vaxxers how they come to their conclusions, they all seem to cite the same sources: Fox News (especially prime-time hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham), Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur, Salem Radio host and author Eric Metaxas, Tennessee megachurch leader Greg Locke, or a host of fringe media personalities whom they watch on cable television or Facebook.

Of course, modern American evangelicals have always used the Bible to defend views that are out of the mainstream. Today they oppose vaccines. Ten years ago they insisted that Barack Obama was the Antichrist and claimed that Jesus was going to return on May 21, 2011. Back then we dismissed them as cranks or at most objects of curiosity worthy of a news story or two before reason banished them to the fringes of American life. But this is no longer true.

Social media allows evangelical conspiracy theorists to become influential through their scripture-laden, anti-vaxxer rants. By catering to these evangelical celebrities in an attempt to garner their votes, the Trump presidency empowered them and their irresponsible uses of the Bible.  

We are now seeing the dark side of Martin Luther’s Sola Scriptura. When the Bible is placed in the hands of the people, void of any kind of authoritative community to guide them in their proper understanding of the text, the people can make it say anything they want it to say. 

Jesus is my vaccine!

John Fea is Executive Editor at Current.

Why are some so staunchly critical?

Jerry LeClaireSep 3

I was brought up as a mainline Protestant in the United Methodist Church in Wisconsin. Even as a teenager I was aware of a church hierarchy, a governing structure above the individual church congregation level that exerted at least some control over the conduct and preaching of pastors of Methodist Churches. This governing structure is what makes the United Methodist Church one of the mainline Protestant “denominations.” In contrast, “non-denominational” Christian churches characteristically have no such oversight. A preacher in many a non-denomination setting is free to lead based on his or her own emphasis and interpretation of scripture. Such a preacher is limited only by his or her charisma, his or her ability to convince followers of the biblical truth of what they have to say. Most mainline Protestants would be startled to listen to some of the preaching in these churches, preaching that bears little resemblance to anything recognizable as a Christian message, preaching with an emphasis, for example, on the importance of the Second Amendment. (I don’t recall Jesus recommending the bearing of arms.) Two such churches that stand out for me are the Covenant Church on the the near north side of Spokane and the Candlelight Christian Fellowship in Coeur d’Alene, both of which have been active and vocal in the anti-vaccination/anti-mask movement during the Covid pandemic. 

The article copied below was written by John Fea, an Associate Professor of History at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. I found Professor Fea’s article enlightening about the linkage of Fundamentalist, non-denominational Christianity and the anti-vaccination movement. 

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Jesus is My Vaccine

by John Fea

September 2, 2021

Recently someone close to me, a devout evangelical Christian, texted to explain why he was not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. “Jesus went around healing lepers and touched them without fear of getting leprosy,” he said. And if this reference to Luke 17:11-19 was not enough to convince me that followers of Jesus were immune to COVID-19, he added St. Paul’s words in Romans 8:2 to his biblical argument against vaccination: “The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

These are not the only Bible verses I have seen and heard evangelical Christians use to justify their anti-vaccine convictions. Other popular passages include Psalm 30:2 (“Lord, I called to you for help, and you healed me.”); 1 Corinthians 6:19 (“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?”); and Leviticus 17:11 (“For the life of a creature is in the blood.”).

What is going on here?

Earlier this week I was talking to a reporter who covers the public health beat. He was working on an article about American Catholics seeking religious exemptions to vaccine mandates issued by their school districts and places of employment. Many of these exemption-seekers are asking local Catholic priests to write letters on their behalf, not unlike students who show up to class following an absence with notes from their doctors. (Most Catholic archdioceses are refusing to provide such letters.)

The reporter asked me if evangelicals were also seeking exemption letters from their pastors. The question gave me an opportunity to explain some basic differences between Catholic and evangelical approaches to biblical interpretation.

Unlike Roman Catholicism, with its ecclesiastical hierarchy and official doctrinal pronouncements emanating from the Vatican, evangelicalism has no such organizational structure. As Calvin University historian Ronald Wells once quipped, “I wanted to resign from evangelicalism. But I didn’t know where to send the letter.”  

Indeed, American evangelicals resist most forms of organizational control. How does one coral the Holy Spirit when it moves in the hearts of God’s people? The New Birth cannot be contained—it is a spiritual experience that transcends man-made religious institutions. Why listen to a bishop over the direct voice of God?

When it comes to the use of the Bible in public life, evangelical Christians take the Protestant Reformation to its logical conclusion. In the sixteenth century, Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther translated the Vulgate, a Latin version of the Old and New Testaments that only educated men (mostly priests) could read, into the language of the common people. As ordinary Europeans read the Bible—many for the first time—they inevitably began to interpret it as well. 

Although Protestant communities in the immediate wake of the Reformation proved successful in shaping the way their members understood the scriptures, in the early United States biblical interpretation became more free-wheeling, individualistic, and unhinged from such communities. Small differences over how to interpret the Bible often resulted in the creation of new sects. 

As the United States grew more democratic, Protestant men and women brought their ever-expanding freedoms to bear on their reading of the Bible. The Pope, they argued, required his followers to abide by authoritative readings of the sacred text, but Protestants had the liberty to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, using little more than their own common sense. Protestantism, and especially the evangelical brand of Protestantism sweeping the country through the religious revival that historians have called the Second Great Awakening, was a religion of freedom.

I told this reporter that while Catholics turn to priests to explain their faith to health officials, school administrators, and employers, evangelicals need no such mediators. All they have to do is pick a few Bible verses, manipulate those verses so that they speak directly to the subject of COVID-19 vaccination, and then reference the novel interpretations on a religious exemption form. 

But even evangelicals do not develop their religious arguments against the vaccine, or anything else for that matter, in isolation. Throughout United States history they have turned, almost in cult-like fashion, to charismatic celebrities who build their followings by baptizing the political or cultural propaganda they promote in a sea of random Bible verses. Like the early Corinthian church, some evangelicals follow Paul, others follow Apollos, others follow Cephas, and still others claim to follow Christ (I Corinthians 3:12). Without an ecclesiastical hierarchy to reign them in, these evangelical pied pipers have little accountability. 

Megachurch pastors, televangelists, conservative media commentators, and social media influencers have far more power over ordinary evangelical Christians than their local pastors, many of whom feel powerless when they try to encourage their congregations to consider that God works through science. 

When I ask evangelical anti-vaxxers how they come to their conclusions, they all seem to cite the same sources: Fox News (especially prime-time hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham), Grace Community Church pastor John MacArthur, Salem Radio host and author Eric Metaxas, Tennessee megachurch leader Greg Locke, or a host of fringe media personalities whom they watch on cable television or Facebook.

Of course, modern American evangelicals have always used the Bible to defend views that are out of the mainstream. Today they oppose vaccines. Ten years ago they insisted that Barack Obama was the Antichrist and claimed that Jesus was going to return on May 21, 2011. Back then we dismissed them as cranks or at most objects of curiosity worthy of a news story or two before reason banished them to the fringes of American life. But this is no longer true.

Social media allows evangelical conspiracy theorists to become influential through their scripture-laden, anti-vaxxer rants. By catering to these evangelical celebrities in an attempt to garner their votes, the Trump presidency empowered them and their irresponsible uses of the Bible.  

We are now seeing the dark side of Martin Luther’s Sola Scriptura. When the Bible is placed in the hands of the people, void of any kind of authoritative community to guide them in their proper understanding of the text, the people can make it say anything they want it to say. 

Jesus is my vaccine!

John Fea is Executive Editor at Current.