WHO ELSE DOESN'T BELIEVE THE SO-CALLED OFFICE OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS PETEY ANNOUNCED WILL BE IMPARTIAL TOWARDS OTHER RELIGIONS.

 Surely I'm not the only one out there who's wondering what the hell is an office for religious affairs doing at the damn Pentagon.

On his State of the Force Address at the Pentagon on September 30, 2026 Secretary of "Defense" Petey announced the opening of an Office of Religious Affairs office at the Department of Defense. It is an office that will report directly to him.  He claims that this new "office" will "advocate for military chaplains and religious support"  and that it "will not compel religious participation, favor one faith, or diminish the rights of personnel of any faith or lack thereof." However, he also claims that, with this office, the DOD is "putting on the armor of God" and that "while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual." 

With that statement alone Petey Hague- I mean Hegseth and his minions are opening room for a truckload of questions and outright concerns. This is especially true when one factors in that Petey's own pastor has given prayer services at the Pentagon and that the DOD reduced the number of "recognized religions" in the U.S. military from over 200 to about 31 with almost two thirds of those religions being different denominations of Christianity. With these in the background it is understandable for most people who pay attention to be concerned with the sudden "Office of Religious Affairs" at the DOD.

The first concern is the most obvious. The United States is supposed to be a country that has freedom of religion. In fact, the First Amendment claims that "Congress shall make no law, respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." While some people (mainly the mostly white conservative christians who have tried to turn the U.S. into a extremist christian nation with theocratic leanings) have tried to claim that such clauses only apply to Christians precedents have interpreted them to apply to all religions almost since the start of the country back in the late 1700s. 
The establishment of an "Office of Religious Affairs" at the DOD is problematic on this issue alone. 

Despite Secretary of Duh-fence Petey's rhetoric his actions seem to give this an appearance of favoring interpretations of the christian faith similar to his own over other religions, people who don't believe, or even Christians who have a more mainstream and less extreme interpretation of their faith and the man in charge of the Department - who is also the person said Department will answer to. 

This leads us to the next concern regarding this "office" and whether it will protect freedom of religion or not. The fact it will only answer to Petey and not have any independent oversight, even within the DOD, to hold it to account. Over the past year or so  there have been monthly Christian worship services at the Pentagon. The most alarming of these happened earlier this year when Petey had his own pastor give prayer service in the Pentagon auditorium. His pastor is a Christian nationalist by his own admission, and is on record supporting repealing women's right to vote, wants to make homosexuality a crime, and has argued in the past that antebellum was Biblical. 

Then there is,as mentioned earlier, the reduction of recognized religions from over 200 to around 30 or so with two thirds of them being different denominations of Christianity. While it didn't completely remove non christian beliefs the fact that it divided different religions in and of themselves rather than different sects within one faith makes one wonder if they're slowly figuring out ways to remove all the other non Christian religions form the recognized list but haven't figured out how to yet. Also, the removal of atheism from the list of recognized beliefs adds another issue since it may give the impression that someone in the military could potentially be penalized if they don't believe. All of this while serving a country that's supposed to have freedom of religion - a freedom that courts have interpreted to mean all religions as well as the freedom not to believe in any religion.

With these taken into account it's understandable why a lot of people, including us, have a deep dark feeling that Petey and his minions will use this office to try and force the military into following his particular interpretation of Christianity. Though on the surface they can claim they're not favoring one religion over another when put into practice and taking what faiths are removed it becomes apparent that they're leaning in that direction and may want to use the military as some sort of missionary force to shove the beliefs of whomever's in charge down the throats of not just our enemies in battle but possibly down all our throats as well.

This is something all law abiding Americans need to be alarmed about in a land where church and state are supposed to be separate for the sake of both church and state.

Here's hoping I'm jus tbeing alarmist here but I'm also aware that when American citizens are told to be eternally vigilant against those who may be against our freedom there's a possibility that this is what they had in mind to be observant and alert about.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ESTABLISHMENT'S CURRENT FRAMING OF THE COUPUBLICANS IS CONCERNING TO SAY THE LEAST (OR A FEW THOUGHTS ON WHY THEY SHOULD STOP COWERING AND FIGHT)

 It's June 23, 2022 as I type this. We are just slightly over four months away from the 2022 midterm election - and the the Democratic party mainstream appears to be hanging on by a thread.

Decades of catering to the middle of the road Road White soccer moms in the suburbs instead of the people who historically make up their base have created a situation where the party has largely failed to gain that vote and has partially damaged the power of Labor teachers and civil rights organizations that decades ago made up their base. As a result, mainstream wisdom is predicting a big win for the Coupublicans this November with third-party winning either one or both houses of Congress in the process.

Meanwhile, on a variety of issues, establishment Democrats appear to be playing from behind when it comes to messaging.  From the various culture war issues that the American right-wing seems to rely on this bread and butter even issues of the economy and energy issues the dumb seem to accept the right-wing messaging spread through the corporate own mainstream media rather than go out and create their own or fight back.

Part of this lies in the fact that the democratic party establishment manage to hold on to what power they had through constant appealing to the center instead of standing on what they're supposed to stand for. While this strategy was successful in earning money from wealthy donors it also gave the party at appearance of being wishy-washy and wimpy in the eyes of many people.

So what does this have to do with the Democratic party establishment today? Even as they're facing a crucial midterm election establishment Dems sing to go out their way to point out a difference between who they call "typical Republicans" and the Mad Fuhrer (Now currently in Exile @) Mar-A-Lago. On the surface it is an old political ploy play in a way to get votes On The Other Side by claiming they're not like the guy at the top of the ticket. While an approach like this may have worked somewhat in the past it is a dangerous road to go down to in an age of political polarization like the last twenty or so years.

In the 2016 election, for example, this approach almost cost them the Senate as a number of GOP voters either voted for Biden or left the top of the ticket blank but still voted for Coupublicans in the Senate and House races. On the surface right now it appears they're going to try the same tactic for the 2022 midterms.

What the strategy leaves out is that, to varying degrees, each of our two major political parties how shockingly different attitudes towards the other one. Establishment Democrats have often gone on record claiming the need for a strong opposition party; an understandable point but one seemingly at odds with the current political climate. Mainstream Coupublican politics, meanwhile, has gotten increasingly wrapped up in conspiracy theories such as QANON and the like and as such have been feeding the worst amongst them (and their supposed belief that all Democrats are a satanic cabal who do sick things to children [all without any actual concrete proof] and need to be wiped off the face of the Earth). As you can see, the two parties are not the same when it comes to how they regard each other.  One is showing respect to the other in a dignified way and the other is increasing engaged (either out of a sincere belief or in bad faith messaging to gain votes) with bad faith based arguments that dehumanize their political opposition and appear to be edging closer and closer to being fascism adjacent.  It also means that the Democratic party establishment I may be blind to the fact that these conspiracies are somewhat of an existential threat and and they can't be reasoned with.

So what do the Democrats need to do? First up they need to fight and fight hard against the Coupublicans instead of hoping to chip away at a few of their votes. Now is not the time to try and claim that the average person in the opposition party can be reasoned with and is not as extreme ask the guy who led them for 5 plus years (especially since many of them either hope to vote for him again or are looking at someone equally as extreme such as Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, for example). They need to try and get has many of the Dems in office as possible and not cave when it turns out an establishment Dem loses a primary or something like that.

It's not that the Democratic party establishment is incapable of fighting. In fact, they can be quite vicious when they need to be. Unfortunately, they are more likely to be aggressive when fighting progressives on their side(such as the Congresspeople involved in what's called The Squad or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I know Bernie's technically an independent but it still qualifies)) than their political enemies on the other party that are way more willing to go for the throat. If they really want to win that shit has to stop, they need to focus some of that anger they spew towards non moderates on their side and aim it at the Republicans. More often than just during a campaign ad a month before election.

At this point the good news is nothing is absolutely certain. The January 6th select Congressional committee hearings actually found the domes leading on the issue rather than catching up with right-wing framing in regards to the coup attempt year-and-a-half ago. While there is no guarantee that this will win over those few moderate Republicans left (who appear to be getting more and more rare by the minute) it has managed to put on the map pure Earth than there was during the first hearing a couple weeks back (according to polls a majority of Americans claim to want the Mad Fuhrer prosecuted for his role leading up to the January 6th coup attempt). But there is still four months until the midterm elections and a lot can change between now and then.

What is true when all is said and done is that the Democratic party establishment needs to stop its constant catering to the middle and fight like hell to make sure they went in November.  The fact that the progressives in the HOuse and Senate the Dems often tend to attack in one way or another were the ones fighting hardest to try and make President Biden'[s agenda happen while "moderates" such as Senators Joe Machin (WV) or Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) do almost more damage to Biden than the GOP does a lot of times is proof that they need to get the courage and adapt to changing political times.  If that means speaking to more and doing things for more average people than their  wealthy donors they need to take that step.

It's up to them to do so. Nobody else can do it for them. While I cannot see how the midterms will turn out I can say that if the Coupublicans when one or both houses of Congress then this country's future will be very bleak indeed.

The Little Bit Late But Still Kinda Relevant Religious Freedom/War on Religion Post

In the past month or so (give or take a couple weeks) there has been a lot of people crying split vodka over the issue of "religious liberty" as it pertains to whether religious hospitals and universities should be required to cover the cost of contraception in employee health plans. Even with President Obama's compromise which let women deal directly with insurance companies on the issue, social and political conservatives are still acting as if Obama and his administration are personally placing steel toed non sweatshop labor union made jackboots on the necks of people of faith.

The argument made against this is it violates the conscience of believers of certain religions to do this simple step. However, there is one simple fact that isn't noted. While individual churches most likely (pastors being the exception) only hire people from within their own congregation, religious hospital s and colleges usually don not. Those institutions try to get the best people with religious belief not as high on the criteria. Thus, for example, it's entirely possible that a Catholic hospital has employees of varying religious faiths (including those who don't believe at all). Because of this (and an argument that they serve the public), saying that requiring contraception coverage violates a conscience clause of sorts become less plausible than it would for a church. Thus, what may be a "violation of conscience" for an employer (or more likely someone in HR) may be fine for someone employed at said institution.

The other issue here is that this is already law in a number of states and has been pretty much a non-issue until now. So why now? Is it really about religious liberty or is it more red meat for the election coming up. When Newt Gingrich implies that Obama is bending over backwards for Muslims and extremists while persecuting Catholics one has to wonder (then again, Newt is known for being full of shit whenever he speaks so that might not be the best example). Between this and what appears to be a race to the bottom in state legislators proposing bills that range from claiming single parenting is child abuse to an Arizona proposal that would mandate an employee tell their boss why they need the pill, and the mixture of treating women as less than human while throwing red meat to a base whose quest for total purity has chased away the moderates and those willing to talk to the other side can almost make one physically ill.

Right now, things are at a strange state. While Republicans in Washington try to backpedal, on the state level this keeps moving forward. And while they may have shown their support for "religious freedom" (provided you believe in their interpretation of God), this become less about conscience and more about stabbing whoever in the back to get your way. At that point, we all lose.

This Should Scare Us - School Textbook Edition

It's interesting (and very scary) how the culture war continues in this country. I was taking a break from looking for work today and came across something that should scare everyone. Apparently, the Texas State Board of Education is planning for new history text books that have a definite right wing bias but remove any mentions of those deemed liberal.

Under their plans, the text books would include mentions of Newt Gingrich (former Speaker of the House leader of the so-called "republican revolution" of the mid 1990s), and Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum founder) among others. Who do they want to remove from the textbooks? Several reviewers have mentioned removing United Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez.

The question is who else will be swept from history books?

At first glance, one would assume this is a localized example and that those of us who don't live in Texas shouldn't be concerned with it. However, one thing I didn't know until today is guess which state plays a large role in setting national standards for school textbooks?

Now I have a bit of disillusionment towards how things are taught in America's prison, I mean school, system. I do believe the late Frank Zappa's view on schools having a search and destroy program aimed at wiping out any hint o creative thinking amongst kids. However, this takes things to a level even my skepticism couldn't imagine.

Does this need to be fought? Hell yes. Hopefully this won't make it out of the Texas legislature and the rest of us won't have to worry about it. However, it does remain one more instance of how regardless of Obama and his allies' push for bipartisanship and moving forward, the conservatives still have every intention of making sure the "culture war" continues.