Written in Protest
Deconstruction is a valid Christian practice. Ask Martin Luther.
Deconstruction has long been seen as a healthy expression of Christian faithfulness.
Martin Luther posting his 95 theses in 1517, painted by Ferdinand Pauwels in 1872. 

Image via Wikimedia/Creative Commons

January 5, 2022
By Andre Henry

(RNS) — I wonder what Pope Leo X would’ve tweeted about the Reformation, had Twitter existed in the 16th century. Would he accuse John Calvin of being on a desperate search for street cred? Would he reduce Luther’s 95 critiques of the papacy to “church hurt”?

Such are the epithets Christian leaders today are using against the bogeyman known as “deconstruction.” A buzzword in Christian circles, the term serves as a catchall for the many ways Christians are interrogating, reevaluating and often shedding Christian doctrines, values and practices they find outdated, problematic or just plain harmful.

Those who dismiss deconstruction as “a fancy word for doubt” or demonize it as heresy or apostasy are making a crucial error: Deconstruction has always been part of Christian practice and has been seen through history as a healthy expression of Christian faithfulness.

Parroting the Reformation era slogan sola scriptura (“Scripture alone”), deconstruction’s critics suggest that the Bible is sufficient to provide guidance, not just in matters of faith, but even to remedy social evils that our readings of those very Scriptures have been essential in creating, such as systemic racism.

RELATED: Philip Yancey on the blessing of deconstruction

But the Christian Bible itself contains some of the earliest cases we have of deconstruction. One potent example comes from the Book of Acts, in which the apostle Peter breaks a religious taboo to visit a Roman centurion named Cornelius. “It is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean,” Peter confessed to Cornelius upon his arrival.

The apostle is referring to a vision from God he experienced the previous day, in which he saw a cloth laden with all kinds of animals deemed unclean in the Hebrew Bible. When a heavenly voice told him to eat from the spread of forbidden animals, Peter refused, until the voice admonished Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Peter was following Scripture and keeping tradition to the best of his knowledge, but God gave him new information that demanded he reevaluate what those texts and traditions mean, and what faithfulness to God looked liked in his new context. The scene demonstrates that Scripture and tradition are at times insufficient resources to determine what faithfulness to God looks like.

Before the Reformation, Christians relied on church councils, and eventually the authority of bishops and popes, to clarify matters of doctrine and practice. Even after the schism, some Protestants recognized the need for more tools to define orthodoxy. Methodism uses a theological concept called the “Wesleyan quadrilateral,” in which Scripture is the basis for authentic Christian practice, but only in concert with tradition, reason and personal experience.


Photo by CongerDesign/Pixabay/Creative Commons

Indeed, the notion of sola scriptura arises from the greatest deconstruction movements in church history: The reformers called out the church of their day, interrogated and rejected papal authority, wrestled with the nature of the sacraments and reevaluated the place of Scripture in the life of the Christian.

Luther’s case in particular illustrates where the motivation to deconstruct often comes from. A devout biblical translator, he felt that the ecclesial practices of his time were deeply incongruent with the faith he discerned in the pages of Scripture. He called for reform because he took the text and the faith seriously. Had the religious authorities listened to him, Luther might have died a Catholic. Instead, they pressured him to recant and excommunicated him when he wouldn’t.

The Protestant reformers aren’t my heroes, but I relate to this part of their stories. I, too, was once a devout student of theology, poring over the Scriptures in the privacy of my bedroom as a boy, my dorm room as a college student and my apartment as a New York City minister.

So while deconstruction opponents rail against critical race theory, CRT scholar Kimberle Crenshaw didn’t teach me that God cares about social justice; the Book of Exodus did. God heard the cries of a stigmatized and subjugated people in the brickyards of ancient Egypt and rescued them.

The psalms reiterated that lesson when they envision God admonishing Israelite leaders to “defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

The prophets taught me the same lesson when Amos announces on God’s behalf, “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Jesus taught me that God cares about social justice when he told stories like the one about the good Samaritan or when he told religious leaders that giving to the poor is like giving to Jesus himself. The apostle John taught me this when he presented a vision of God smashing the Roman empire to bits as angels shout “Hallelujah.”

So when recent anti-racist movements made it clear that the violence of chattel slavery has found an afterlife in America’s criminal legal system, I joined the protests and raised my voice against it — not just as an act of self-preservation, but as an act of Christian faithfulness.

I was surprised and disillusioned to see the level of Christian apathy and antipathy in response to the movement for Black lives: to be told that social justice isn’t part of the gospel. Worse, I was demoralized to witness the overwhelming evangelical support for Donald Trump, a candidate praised by the nation’s most overt white nationalists. I tried to reason with my evangelical siblings, until it became clear that the institutions were not likely to change. Had they listened, I might still be an evangelical Christian today.

While I’m thankful for Jemar Tisby’s work, I didn’t need to read his book “The Color of Compromise” to come to the conclusion that Christianity, as understood and articulated by many white Americans, could never be the cure for systemic racism. Those who stole Indigenous land and for centuries killed to oppose Black freedom often did so with the Bible in hand.

Deconstruction is the only logical way for victims of Christian violence to work out liberative Christian traditions of their own. Otherwise, it’s impossible to reconcile the blood-soaked history of Christianity with a healthy and liberating spirituality.

RELATED: With this much rot, there’s no choice but to deconstruct

Despite its urge to demonize deconstruction, the church is to be blamed for losing so many of the faithful. Christian leaders who claim to take Scripture too seriously to abide deconstruction should heed the apostle Paul’s words: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Christian churches have long participated directly in systems that have harmed and continue to harm millions of marginalized people. They continue to refuse to confess or repent of these sins or to champion the oppressed.

This is why the faith is losing legitimacy. The Christianity preached by the likes of John MacArthur, Josh Buice, Albert Mohler, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler and other prominent white pastors has been weighed and found wanting.

Their attempts to get us to stop thinking critically about the sins and shortcomings of their institutions only confirm that something is deeply wrong. As a theology professor of mine once said, “A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.”

The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life takes on vaccine skeptics on social media

The Pontifical Academy for Life has become the most attacked Vatican department online

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The Pontifical Academy for Life logo, left, and a CDC illustration of a coronavirus. Courtesy images

January 5, 2022
By Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In a tweet laden with backstory and pointed frustration, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life defended the COVID-19 vaccine and called out those who spread “malinformation” to discredit the vaccine as peddling “pure nonsense.”

The Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican’s think tank dedicated to protecting life from conception to natural death, took to Twitter on Tuesday (Jan. 4), using its official account to criticize “Catholics” who insult the think tank and its president, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia. “#COVID-19 exists, and the only way to return to normal is to get #vaccinated,” read the tweet.

The statement on social media pushed back specifically against critics who draw a direct line from abortions to the vaccines, saying “abortions have nothing to do with” the vaccines, and insinuating the opposition is instead born from the culture wars in the United States, home to many vocal papal critics.

Speaking by phone with Religion News Service on Wednesday, the spokesperson for the academy, Fabrizio Mastrofini, said the tweet — which has generated considerable pushback — was a response to media articles and online critics who oppose the Vatican’s support for vaccines.

On Dec. 22, the academy published a document addressing the impact the pandemic has had on children and advising a more holistic effort by Catholic and lay institutions to promote the well-being of minors. Beyond encouraging the accompaniment of families suffering due to COVID-19, the document seemed to support the vaccination of children over the age of 5, which is already underway in Europe and the United States.

The document was criticized by many who believe the vaccines are immoral. While the vaccines do not contain fetal cells, fetal cell lines were used during testing. The Vatican department overseeing doctrine deemed some vaccines “morally acceptable” and Pope Francis has backed global vaccinations efforts, calling getting jabbed “an act of love.”

The Vatican’s support for vaccination has not convinced some Catholics who have voiced their opposition in news articles, blogs and tweets, which “led to an avalanche of insults toward the academy and the pope on twitter,” Mastrofini said.

Mastrofini acknowledged the Pontifical Academy for Life is “the most attacked department in the Vatican,” but he believes this is because it’s “the only one who answers back.” All Vatican departments have some form of social media presence, but they tend not to engage with their audience and limit themselves to communicating information and updates.

Fabrizio Mastrofini. Photo via the Pontifical Academy for Life

But there are other reasons why the academy is the preferred target of disgruntled Catholics. “We are perceived as the spearhead of Pope Francis’ reform,” Mastrofini said. “This is an attempt to intimidate us. They try to scare us because they want us to be silent and not speak on controversial issues,” he added.

To understand why some Catholics, especially conservatives, hold a grudge against the academy, it’s necessary to go back to 2016 — when Pope Francis enacted a shake-up of the group’s composition, organization and objectives.

Pope Francis chose not to renew the mandate of some of the most vocal culture warriors in the academy and appointed instead academics from a diverse and pragmatic background. He also limited their term to five years and — most significantly — eliminated the oath of fealty to the Catholic magisterium, allowing people of different faiths to become members of the academy.

This last change was considered “the great betrayal for conservative Catholics,” Mastrofini said.

Pope John Paul II created the academy in 1994 to study the legal and moral questions surrounding life in light of Catholic doctrine, but its main priority was combating abortion.

RELATED: Pope on new year: Pandemic is hard, but focus on the good

Francis has expanded the focus of the academy, telling members on the academy’s 25th anniversary they need to embrace a “global bioethic” that addresses human life in its relation to technology and the environment while maintaining “abortion and euthanasia as extremely grave evils.”

“Before all else, we need to enter into the language and lives of men and women today, making the gospel message incarnate in their concrete experiences,” Francis said.

Mastrofini said the academy and Paglia are used to the haters on social media and so far have not held back because of it.

In September 2020, the think tank published a tweet with a picture displaying Michelangelo’s “Pietà” with Mary holding a Black Jesus to raise awareness of racism as it dominated the political discourse in Italy and abroad at the time. The academy published a tweet in April of last year in honor of the late theologian Hans Küng, known for his criticism of papal infallibility as well as his questioning of priestly celibacy and the Catholic ban on contraception. Both these tweets were met with pushback online.

As the Vatican enters a new year and Pope Francis prepares for the next step of his reform, the academy continues to raise the questions of its mandate in this new age — planning conferences and events focused on care for the sick and dying, and equal vaccine distribution globally.

RELATED: Observers, detractors and preachers of religion who died in 2021

‘Refusal to engage’: Gen Z sees gap in support of LGBTQ+ rights among faith groups

Those looking for accepting communities may need to look outside of traditional houses of worship.
LGBTQ+ issues are one of several issues that younger generations feel they care about more than faith groups. (iStock/Getty Images)

January 3, 2022
By Josh Packard, Robyn Henderson-Espinoza

(RNS) — It’s no secret that the young people born in the late 1990s and the first decade of this century are proving to be an activist generation, taking deeply to heart causes such as Black Lives Matter, gender equity, racial justice and environmental justice.

But of the values that they cared about most, a recent report by Springtide Research Institute found, Generation Z believes their faith communities are most falling short when it comes to LBGTQ+ rights. In Springtide’s study, The State of Religion & Young People 2021, the largest gap between what respondents felt “I care” about and “faith groups care” about came in regard to LGBTQ+ rights, showing a 27% difference.

Generation Z is coming of age at a time when the majority of Americans support gay rights, about half a decade after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. At the same time, a growing percentage of the U.S. population identifies as LGBTQ+, including one in six Gen Zers, according to a recent survey. In all 71% of Gen Zers told Springtide they care about LGBTQ+ rights.


The growing support for LGBTQ+ rights has been occurring among people of all faith groups. A 2018 study from PRRI found that solid majorities of all major religious groups in the U.S. support laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. In 2021, hundreds of faith groups and their leaders joined half of Americans in supporting the Equality Act, a bill that would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

RELATED: Students at Catholic colleges leave with less positive attitudes toward gay people than their peers – but that’s not the whole story

This message isn’t getting through to Gen Z. When asked if they think faith groups care about LGBTQ+ rights, only 44% of them agreed.

Why, despite growing support among Americans across all faiths, do less than half of Gen Zers believe faith groups care about LGBTQ+ rights?

“Many people believe that associating with a faith that is anti-LGBTQ+ makes them just as immoral as homophobic and transphobic religious leaders,” shared Faryn, 16, who identifies as Catholic.

“There is a refusal to engage fully,” said Matthew Blasio, age 22, who has no religious affiliation but identifies as spiritual. “There is superficial acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities, but the language regarding LGBTQ+ acceptance in churches is often full of qualifiers, still regarding us as an ‘other.’”


Research focusing on young people and their relationships with religion found a disparity between how much an individual reports to care about and how much they think the faith community cares about different issues. Graphic courtesy of the Springtide Research Institute

When pastors do engage, Blasio said, LGBTQ+ Gen Zers often feel the effort is insincere. “Sometimes religious leaders act with forced love, pretending to lower themselves to our level, just to seem like heroes. It’s more of a selfish love, riddled with misunderstandings.”

These testimonies are not dissimilar from Robyn’s own experience as a young person in church, who was told they had an “allergy to myself” for embracing the term queer. Springtide’s research shows that religious leaders have a long way to go to create the conditions of acceptance that will make LGBTQ+ people feel welcome.

Given the clear evidence that Gen Z genuinely desires community, it is the more astonishing that churches and other faith groups continue to refuse to make room for differently sexed and differently gendered persons. The more work faith communities can do to create containers that can hold folks’ complexities, the better they will be able to present themselves as a true community.

Community is more than gathering; it is more than numbers. Community is about belonging to self and other, a kind of democratized space and place that creates conditions for radical flourishing. The Rev. Richard Rohr says, “Everything belongs”; so how do we belong together? We need to begin asking people what they need in order to belong. If we don’t create the kinds of relationships that help people articulate what they need and want, faith leaders aren’t doing their jobs.

These accepting communities may be outside of traditional houses of worship. Part of Robyn’s work with the Activist Theology Project has been to help create the Activist Theology Porch, an app where we are convening people and having conversations. There are all sorts of folks who have joined in an effort to build a democratized space for spiritual belonging and nourishment. People are finding that yes, they can belong somewhere with other folks who are trying to do good in the world.

Offering anything less, Springtide’s findings suggest, runs the risk of alienating a large portion of Generation Z, who find a lack of support for LGBTQ+ rights to be immoral and hypocritical.

RELATED: Gen Z is looking for meaning this holiday season, but maybe not where we expect

“I have no interest in uprooting my beliefs and values for the benefit of someone else feeling that they’re saving me. If someone is less than, or has less rights, just because of how they were born, yet their god is supposed to love everyone equally, then their god must not be the one for me or my friends,” said Blasio.

Indeed, supporting LGBTQ+ rights could be an opportunity for faith groups to earn the trust of Gen Z.

If faith groups can work toward taking concrete action to dismantle the systems that perpetuate the discrimination LGBTQ+ people continue to experience, it could make the difference between a generation that proceeds into adulthood turned off by institutions or a generation willing to pursue relationships within faith communities and allow faith leaders to walk alongside them.

(Josh Packard is executive director of Springtide Research Institute and the author of “Church Refugees.” He can be contacted @drjoshpackard. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, (@iRobyn) is a politicized theologian and public ethicist in Nashville, founder of the Activist Theology Project and author of “Body Becoming: A Path to Our Liberation.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

NO BORDERS NO WALLS NO ONE IS ILLEGAL

Pope Francis: ‘I Would Like to Present Saint Joseph to You as a Persecuted and Courageous Migrant’

By CNSNews.com Staff | January 5, 2022 


(Screen Capture)

In the audience he held at the Vatican on Dec. 29, Pope Francis presented the Holy Family as a group of migrants, describing St. Joseph in particular as “a persecuted and courageous migrant.”

Today I would like to present Saint Joseph to you as a persecuted and courageous migrant,” said Pope Francis. “This is how the Evangelist Matthew describes him. This particular event in the life of Jesus, which also involves Joseph and Mary, is traditionally known as ‘the flight into Egypt.’”


“King Herod learns from the Magi of the birth of the ‘King of the Jews,’ and the news shocks him,” said the pope. “He feels insecure, he feels that his power is threatened. So, he gathers together all the leaders of Jerusalem to find out the place of His birth, and begs the Magi to inform him of the precise details, so that--he says falsely--he too can go and worship him.

“But when he realised that the Magi had set out in another direction, he conceived a wicked plan: to kill all the children in Bethlehem under the age of two years, which was the period of time, according to the calculations of the Magi, in which Jesus was born,” said Pope Francis.

“In the meantime, an angel orders Joseph: ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (Mt 2:13),” said the pope. “Think today of the many people who feel this impulse within: ‘Let’s flee, let’s flee, because there is danger here.’”

The pope eventual spoke of things happening today.

“Today I think we need a prayer for all migrants; migrants and all the persecuted, and all those who are victims of adverse circumstances: be they political, historical or personal circumstances,” said Pope Francis.

“But, let us think of the many people who are victims of wars, who want to flee from their homeland but cannot; let us think of the migrants who set out on that road to be free, so many of whom end up on the street or in the sea; let us think of Jesus in the arms of Joseph and Mary, fleeing, and let us see in him each one of the migrants of today,” he said.

“Migration today is a reality to which we cannot close our eyes. It is a social scandal of humanity,” said the pope.


Here is the full transcript of the English translation of the pope’s address at his audience on Dec. 29:

“Catechesis on Saint Joseph - 5. Saint Joseph, persecuted and courageous migrant

“Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

“Today I would like to present Saint Joseph to you as a persecuted and courageous migrant. This is how the Evangelist Matthew describes him. This particular event in the life of Jesus, which also involves Joseph and Mary, is traditionally known as ‘the flight into Egypt’ (cf. Mt 2:13-23). The family of Nazareth suffered such humiliation and experienced first-hand the precariousness, fear and pain of having to leave their homeland. Today so many of our brothers and sisters are still forced to experience the same injustice and suffering. The cause is almost always the arrogance and violence of the powerful. This was also the case for Jesus.

“King Herod learns from the Magi of the birth of the ‘King of the Jews,’ and the news shocks him. He feels insecure, he feels that his power is threatened. So, he gathers together all the leaders of Jerusalem to find out the place of His birth, and begs the Magi to inform him of the precise details, so that - he says falsely - he too can go and worship him. But when he realised that the Magi had set out in another direction, he conceived a wicked plan: to kill all the children in Bethlehem under the age of two years, which was the period of time, according to the calculations of the Magi, in which Jesus was born.

“In the meantime, an angel orders Joseph: ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him’ (Mt 2:13). Think today of the many people who feel this impulse within: ‘Let’s flee, let’s flee, because there is danger here.’ Herod’s plan calls to mind that of Pharaoh to throw all the male children of the people of Israel into the Nile (cf. Ex 1:22). The flight into Egypt evokes the whole history of Israel beginning with Abraham, who also sojourned there (cf. Gen 12:10); to Joseph, son of Jacob, sold by his brothers (cf. Gen 37:36) before becoming ‘ruler of the land’ (cf. Gen 41:37-57); and to Moses, who freed his people from the slavery of the Egyptians (cf. Ex 1:18).

“The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt saves Jesus, but unfortunately it does not prevent Herod from carrying out his massacre. We are thus faced with two opposing personalities: on the one hand, Herod with his ferocity, and on the other hand, Joseph with his care and courage. Herod wants to defend his power, his own skin, with ruthless cruelty, as attested to by the execution of one of his wives, some of his children and hundreds of opponents. He was a cruel man: to solve problems, he had just one answer: to kill. He is the symbol of many tyrants of yesteryear and of today. And for them, for these tyrants, people do not count; power is what counts, and if they need space for power, they do away with people. And this happens today: we do not need to look at ancient history, it happens today. He is the man who becomes a ‘wolf’ for other men. History is full of figures who, living at the mercy of their fears, try to conquer them by exercising power despotically and carrying out inhuman acts of violence. But we must not think that we live according to Herod's outlook only if we become tyrants, no; in fact, it is an attitude to which we can all fall prey, every time we try to dispel our fears with arrogance, even if only verbal, or made up of small abuses intended to mortify those close to us. We too have in our heart the possibility of becoming little Herods.

“Joseph is the opposite of Herod: first of all, he is ‘a just man’ (Mt 1:19), and Herod is a dictator. Furthermore, he proves he is courageous in following the Angel’s command. One can imagine the vicissitudes he had to face during the long and dangerous journey and the difficulties involved in staying in a foreign country, with another language: many difficulties. His courage emerges also at the moment of his return, when, reassured by the Angel, he overcomes his understandable fears and settles with Mary and Jesus in Nazareth (cf. Mt 2:19-23). Herod and Joseph are two opposing characters, reflecting the two ever-present faces of humanity. It is a common misconception to consider courage as the exclusive virtue of the hero. In reality, the daily life of every person requires courage. Our way of living – yours, mine, everyone’s: one cannot live without courage, the courage to face each days’ difficulties. In all times and cultures, we find courageous men and women who, in order to be consistent with their beliefs, have overcome all kinds of difficulties, and have endured injustice, condemnation and even death. Courage is synonymous with fortitude, which together with justice, prudence and temperance is part of the group of human virtues known as “cardinal virtues”.

“The lesson Joseph leaves us with today is this: life always holds adversities in store for us, this is true, in the face of which we may also feel threatened and afraid. But it is not by bringing out the worst in ourselves, as Herod does, that we can overcome certain moments, but rather by acting like Joseph, who reacts to fear with the courage to trust in God’s Providence. Today I think we need a prayer for all migrants; migrants and all the persecuted, and all those who are victims of adverse circumstances: be they political, historical or personal circumstances. But, let us think of the many people who are victims of wars, who want to flee from their homeland but cannot; let us think of the migrants who set out on that road to be free, so many of whom end up on the street or in the sea; let us think of Jesus in the arms of Joseph and Mary, fleeing, and let us see in him each one of the migrants of today. Migration today is a reality to which we cannot close our eyes. It is a social scandal of humanity.

Saint Joseph, you who have experienced the suffering of those who must flee you who were forced to flee to save the lives of those dearest to you, protect all those who flee because of war, hatred, hunger. Support them in their difficulties, Strengthen them in hope, and let them find welcome and solidarity. Guide their steps and open the hearts of those who can help them. Amen.”

Violence isn’t the only way Christian nationalism endangers democracy

The threat of voter suppression is perhaps more destructive because its influence is more subtle and its effects more consequential.
Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. The mob proceeded to breach the Capitol.

 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

January 5, 2022
By Samuel L. Perry


(RNS) — One year ago at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the world witnessed one way in which Christian nationalism imperils American democracy. We’ve all seen photos and footage of the mob violence perpetrated by Americans waving Christian flags, clad in Christian clothing, saying Christian prayers. As some increasingly isolated and radicalized religious conservatives react to their loss of power, the threat of their political violence is real. But it is not the only way Christian nationalism jeopardizes our democracy.

The fact is, Christian nationalist ideology — particularly when it is held by white Americans — is fundamentally anti-democratic because its goal isn’t “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Its goal is power. Specifically, power for “true Americans like us,” Christians in an almost ethnic sense, those who belong — the worthy. Stemming from this, the most salient threat white Christian nationalism poses to democracy is that it seeks to undermine the very foundation of democracy itself: voting.

We can see this connection long before the 2020 presidential election or recent efforts to restrict voter access throughout the country. As historian Anthea Butler recounts, at a 1980 conference Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Moral Majority, spoke about electoral strategy to Christian right leaders including Tim LaHaye, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell Sr. and then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.

Weyrich famously explained:

“Many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome. Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

In Weyrich’s own words, the goal of these Christian right leaders wasn’t more Americans exercising their democratic rights. The goal is “leverage” and, with it, victory. Over the next few decades, Weyrich and other organizations he co-founded, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, tirelessly promoted legislation to restrict voter access, guided by the belief that voting must be controlled, lest the wrong sorts of people determine the outcome.

In a recent study I conducted with co-authors Andrew Whitehead and Josh Grubbs, we documented this same strong connection between Christian nationalist ideology and wanting to limit voter access. We surveyed Americans just before the November 2020 elections and thus before Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” began to dominate the narrative on the right. We use a scale to measure Christian nationalism that includes questions about the extent to which Americans think the government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation, that America’s success is part of God’s plan and other such views.

Even after we accounted for political partisanship, ideological conservatism and a host of other religious and sociodemographic characteristics, Christian nationalist ideology was the leading predictor that Americans felt we already make it “too easy to vote.”

You may ask, “Who exactly is voting too easily?” The obvious answer is the bogeyman trope of fraudulent voters — those pets, dead people and undocumented immigrants Trump warned about in spring 2020. This myth of widespread voter fraud is decades old and has been thoroughly debunked numerous times. Yet, unsurprisingly, we also found that Christian nationalism is the leading predictor that Americans believe “voter fraud in presidential elections is getting rampant these days.” And it bears repeating: Americans who affirm Christian nationalism already felt this way before the 2020 presidential election.

But other evidence suggests Christian nationalism doesn’t just hope to exclude fraudulent voters. For adults who believe America should be a “Christian nation,” their understanding of who should vote is even more narrow. For example, we asked Americans whether they would support a policy requiring persons to pass a basic civics test in order to vote or a law that would disenfranchise certain criminal offenders for life. These questions hark back to arbitrary Jim Crow restrictions white Southerners used before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Once again, Christian nationalism is the leading predictor that Americans would prefer both restrictions.

But why?

Part of the reason for this is, as Weyrich explained in 1980, electoral leverage. Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism likely assume persons excluded by civics tests and lifetime felon disenfranchisement (younger Americans and ex-convicts who are disproportionately Black) would be political threats, not allies.

Yet another reason also involves how white Christian nationalists view voting in general. In data we collected in August 2021, we asked Americans to indicate whether they felt voting was a right or a privilege. Though constitutional language repeatedly states voting is a right for citizens, Americans still debate the issue. As I show in Figure 1, the more Americans embrace Christian nationalism, the more likely they are to view voting as a privilege (something that can be extended or taken away) rather than a right (something that shall not be infringed). Indeed, at the extreme end of Christian nationalism, the majority hold this view.


“Figure 1: Predicted percentage of Americans who view voting as a privilege rather than a right across values of Christian nationalism.” Courtesy graphic

Other evidence beyond voter access suggests Christian nationalism inclines Americans to favor institutional arrangements that preserve their political power. In the same October 2020 survey we used for the earlier study, we found that the more white Americans affirmed Christian nationalist ideology, the more likely they were to reject the popular vote as a means of selecting the president, to favor the Electoral College and to disagree that gerrymandering needed to be addressed to ensure fairer congressional elections (see Figure 2). Why? Almost certainly because these arrangements currently give white, rural, conservative Americans an electoral advantage even when they are numerical minorities. Again, the goal is power, not fairness or democracy.


“Figure 2: Predicted percentage of Americans who hold various views about the electoral college, popular vote, and gerrymandering.” Courtesy graphic

As scholars of right-wing political movements point out, democracy is gradually eroded under some ideological covering, one that stokes populist anxiety with menacing tropes about cultural decline and justifies anti-democratic tactics to “save” or “restore” the nation — to make the nation great again. In the United States, white Christian nationalism is that ideological covering. In the minds of white Americans who believe America should be for “Christians like us,” increasing ethnic and religious diversity is a threat that must be defeated for God to “shed his grace on thee.”

Moreover, Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism already thought voter fraud was rampant before November 2020. Today, in the aftermath of Trump’s “Big Lie” about a stolen election, which is still believed by over 80% of the most ardent believers in Christian nationalism, electoral integrity is viewed as hopelessly compromised. Thus, they see restricting voter access to those who prove worthy, and maintaining institutional advantages provided by the Electoral College and gerrymandering, as necessary strategies for preserving power and preventing what they see as their own imminent persecution under a Democratic administration.

The threat of Christian nationalist violence like what we saw on Jan. 6 is real. Yet because such threats are so obvious and shocking, and the role of Christian nationalism in them is so blatant, they make gaslighting about them more challenging. (Though Republican leaders are certainly trying, just the same.) In contrast, the threat of Christian nationalism as an ideological covering for voter suppression is perhaps more destructive because its influence is more subtle and its effects (electoral outcomes) are more consequential. Demagogues like Trump will no longer need to mobilize Christian nationalist violence after an electoral loss once they’ve ensured they’ll never lose in the first place.

(Samuel L. Perry is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of two books on Christian nationalism, including the award-winning “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States” (with Andrew L. Whitehead) and the forthcoming “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy” (with Philip Gorski). The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Ahead of the Trend is a collaborative effort between Religion News Service and the Association of Religion Data Archives made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation. See other Ahead of the Trend articles here.

Blaze TV Host Claims ‘Zionist Movement of America’ is Sponsoring CPAC
By Jackson Richman

MEDIATE

Jan 5th, 2022

BlazeTV host Elijah Schaffer decried foreign influence in U.S. politics while calling out the nonexistent “Zionist Movement of America” for sponsoring the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in addition to blaming Israel and other countries for exploiting “the greed of Americans.”

During Tuesday’s episode of The Blaze’s You Are Here, although Schaffer called out countries – including Qatar, China, Russia – for influencing U.S. politics, by including the Jewish state of Israel in his rant about foreign influence, he echoed the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish and Israeli control of U.S. policy.

Organizations similar to the nonexistent “Zionist Movement of America” that actually exist include the American Zionist Movement and the Zionist Organization of America, with the former being a group that works with both sides of the political aisle and the latter being on the right.

In addition to supporting Zionism, both organizations seek to support the Jewish people not only in Israel but also in the United States — in such was as combating anti-Semitism. Neither organization has been a sponsor at CPAC.

The only Zionist organization to be a sponsor at the conference was the right-wing Chovevei Zion a few years ago. Chovevei Zion is now Amariah, which not only supports Zionism but also conservative principles including limited government and free markets.

After talking about the time he refused $10,000 from Qatar, though he said he initially considered it, Schaffer talked about the time he went “to CPAC and it was like, ‘CPAC, presented by like the Zionist Movement of America. And I’m like ‘Why is the group whose sole interest is the success of Israel the biggest supporter of American conservative politics. That seems super off.'”

He continued:


“Like, I was like, ‘Why is the biggest group not patriots of America or like for Heritage Foundation or like For a Better Country or like the Claremont Institute or just something. I’m like why is it a foreign country who wants their country to be the best is the one promoting and funding our politicians and our groups.’”


“For a Better Country” does not exist.

Schaffer continued:


“And then, I sort of seeing on the Left similarly with like China and similar things, and I’m going ‘So you have like Israel on both sides, China more on the Left but then sometimes China on the Right and then you have Russia more on the Right but sometimes on the Left’ and then I’m going ‘with Israel, China and Russia and some of these smaller countries, I’m going, ‘Everybody’s getting paid from these guys through lobbyists, like they’re funding the lobbyists and the lobbyists are paying the people.’

I’m going ‘Oh my gosh, nobody cares about this country. We’re not America First ‘cause we’re China, Israel and Russia First.’ Like we’re not … people don’t care ‘cause that’s who’s funding. And they’re smart. They took the greed of Americans and they’re selling out our country for the interests of foreign nations.

Saying that Israel, which is America’s closest Mideast ally, “took the greed of Americans and they’re selling out our country for the interests of foreign nations,” as Schaffer did, echoes the anti-Semitic trope of the Jews having influence over foreign governments and global institutions.

MEDIATE AND BLAZE ARE RIGHT WING SITES

Cuban Foreign Minister Denounces US Actions Against Tourism

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is investigating Airbnb’s compliance with U.S. sanctions on Cuba and it could face “significant” lawsuits and fines. | Photo: Twitter @CigarAficMag

Published 5 January 2022 

Recently, the digital lodging platform Airbnb paid a fine of 91,000 dollars imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for accepting guests in Cuba and violating sanctions against Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Wednesday denounced the actions by the government of the United States to affect the recovery of Cuba's tourism, as part of its strategy of economic asphyxiation.

RELATED:
Cuba's Monetary Overhaul Enters Second Year Amid US Sanctions

Rodriguez wrote on his Twitter account that these measures are intended to hide the fact that, unlike in the United States, in Cuba the income from that sector is used for the people’s benefit.

Recently, the digital lodging platform Airbnb paid a fine of 91,000 dollars imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for accepting guests in Cuba and violating sanctions against Cuba.

According to the government’s entity, the company admitted having received payments from U.S. travelers to Cuba outside the 12 categories authorized by the White House.



In 2015, the company launched its services in Cuba, but the restrictive measures subsequently adopted during the administration of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) and maintained by the current Biden administration limit the scope of its business.

Former National Security Advisor under President Barack Obama (2009-2017) Ben Rhodes called the fine “stupid, counterproductive and Trumpian” as it denies U.S. citizens the ability to facilitate revenue directly to Cubans and establish connections between the two peoples.

Progressive Caucus Endorses High Court Expansion

13 A COVEN

The Supreme Court (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

By Brian Freeman 

NEWSMAX

Wednesday, 05 January 2022 

The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday endorsed a bill that would expand the Supreme Court by four seats, saying the legislation is needed in order to restore balance to the court, The Hill reported.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the current court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, was “filled by a partisan, right-wing effort to entrench a radical, anti-democratic faction and erode human rights that have been won over decades.”

Jayapal added in a statement that “in recent years, this court has gutted the Voting Rights Act and public sector unions, entrenched unconstitutional abortion bans, and failed to overturn the blatantly discriminatory Muslim Ban. As a co-equal governing body, Congress cannot sit by while this attack on the Constitution continues unchecked.”

House Democrats introduced the bill, called the Judiciary Act of 2021, last April, but its progress was slowed down over the summer after a presidential commission set up to review the proposal illustrated the lack of academic agreement regarding the wisdom of reforming the bench or what steps would be advisable, according to The Hill.

In October, the bipartisan commission said that one of the main risks in expanding the Supreme Court was potentially undermining its legitimacy.

Sarah Lipton-Lubet, executive director of Take Back the Court Action Fund, expressed support for the endorsement by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to Common Dreams.

“Progress on everything from reproductive freedom, to voting rights, to climate change, racial justice, immigration, and the future of democracy itself, requires us to rebalance this court,” she said. “And today’s endorsement from the Progressive Caucus is a loud and clear message that we will not let this hyperpartisan 6-3 stolen court stand in the way of that progress. We will meet the urgency of the moment and expand the court.”

Science skepticism appears to be an important predictor of non-compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies

2022/1/5 
© PsyPost


Attitudes about science were associated with compliance with shelter-in-place policies during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, according to research that analyzed anonymous cell phone location data. The study indicates that regions where people are more skeptical of science tend to adhere less strictly to stay-at-home orders. The findings have been published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, social scientists quickly became interested in studying factors that impact compliance with government policies that mandate physical distancing.

“Since we are from economics and public policy backgrounds, we were naturally interested in studying individual behavior in response to public policy in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We got the idea for the paper when state governments across the U.S. started introducing shelter-in-place policies in a staggered fashion in March 2020,” said study author David Van Dijcke, a PhD student at the University of Michigan.

“We realized we could use the variation in the timing of when those policies were introduced to trace out their effects. Since it was apparent to us that non-compliance with the policies — people not staying at home — would be an important issue for their efficacy, we started thinking about what might affect such non-compliance. While we look at science skepticism, other studies have found important roles for partisanship and poverty as well.”

“Around the same time, we stumbled across SafeGraph, the company that provided us with the anonymized mobile device data that we used to estimate the extent to which people were staying home,” Van Dijcke said.

The researchers measured responses to the shelter-in-place policies at the county level by analyzing location data from more than 40 million mobile devices across the United States.

Van Dijcke and his team used data from a previous study on climate change opinions, which aggregated data from 12 nationally representative surveys, to assess science skepticism. The surveys included responses from 12,061 individuals in total and the data were used to estimate the percentage of people per county who agreed with the statement that global warming is caused by humans.

Because of the lack of granular geographic data on science skepticism, “we used belief in anthropogenic (human-made) global warming as a proxy for science skepticism and validated this measure by benchmarking it against measures of science skepticism from other, smaller-scale datasets,” Van Dijcke explained.

Those other datasets included the American Values Survey, which asks respondents the extent to which they agree with the statement “I am worried that science is going too far and is hurting society rather than helping it,” and the World Values Survey, which includes survey items such as “We depend too much on science and not enough on faith.”

The researchers found that the proportion of people who stayed at home after shelter-in-place policies went into effect tended to be higher in counties with lower levels of skepticism compared to counties with higher levels of science skepticism.

Previous research has found that shelter-in-place policies tended to be less effective in regions with a greater share of Donald Trump voters. But Van Dijcke and his colleagues found that their results held even after controlling for political partisanship.

“The main takeaway is that whether or not people stayed at home during the first COVID-19 lockdowns in the States depended to a significant extent on whether they were skeptical about science,” Van Dijcke told PsyPost. “That is the case irrespective of people’s political affiliation, income, education, etc. We also find some evidence that science skepticism undermined compliance with other public health interventions during the pandemic, such as mask-wearing and vaccination. We think these are important findings since they underline the importance of science education and communication, as well as the danger of misinformation about these topics.”

“A caveat to our study is that it applies to the United States during the first wave of the pandemic, and thus may not be generalizable beyond that setting,” Van Dijcke noted. The study examined the proportion of people who stayed at home between March 1 and April 19, 2020.

But the most important limitation of the study is the fact that the researchers had to rely on belief in anthropogenic global warming as their primary measure of science skepticism.

“An obvious lacuna to fill is the availability of large-scale, representative data on science skepticism that can be mapped to granular geographies in the United States such as counties,” Van Dijcke said. “I think the pandemic has forcefully demonstrated how detrimental science skepticism can be to the implementation of public policy. Such data would open the way for a large array of additional questions regarding science skepticism to be studied, since researchers could link it to any other data available at the county level, most prominently Census data.”

However, the results are in line with another study published in Nature Human Behaviour, which found that people with lower levels of trust in doctors, scientists, economists, professors, and experts were less likely to engage in behaviors intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The study, “Science skepticism reduced compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies in the United States“, was authored by Adam Brzezinski, Valentin Kecht, David Van Dijcke, and Austin L. Wright.

A Year After the Insurrection, Where's Accountability for Accomplices in Congress?
Big biz withholds cash, while Thompson takes aim at Pence, Hannity

By Keith Reed




Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaks with the media after the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 27, 2021.Photo: Jose Luis Magana (AP)

Thursday marks a year since thousands of losers stormed the U.S. Capitol, trying to keep an even bigger loser in office. They failed, despite doing about 150 million times more damage than it would have taken for every cop in DC to open fire had the crowd been mostly Black. Some of the insurrectionists are sitting in jail now, though not nearly enough have been tracked down and tried and sent there. Their hero, exiled from DC in shame, is free to spend his post-presidency at his own posh Florida resort.

But while Trump is gone–for now–and as more of his followers get carted off to jail, 147 of his biggest co-conspirators in an attempt to hijack an election are still sitting members of Congress. All of them are Republican elected officials and all of them voted against certifying a duly-won election of the American presidency. And now, seven of the biggest companies in the country are cutting off their funding.

The website Popular Information dialed up almost 200 companies to find out if they stuck to their word about no longer campaign contributions to the sitting lawmakers who tried to undermine the peaceful transfer of power. Here’s what they found.

Popular Information contacted 183 companies and asked if their corporate PACs would suspend donations to the 147 Republican objectors in 2022. There are seven companies that have explicitly pledged to withhold PAC funding to the Republican objectors in 2022:

Airbnb: Airbnb told Popular Information it would not donate to the Republican objectors in 2022.

BASF: “BASF is committed to staying with our approach for the remainder of the 2022 election cycle.”

Eversource Energy: “[W]e intend to uphold that pledge.”

Lyft: “Yes, we plan to uphold this pledge.”

Microsoft: “[W]e are committed to our pledge”

Dow: “This suspension will remain in place for a period of one election cycle (two years for House members; up to six years for Senators), which specifically includes contributions to the candidate’s reelection committee and their affiliated PACs. Dow is committed to the principles of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.”

American Express: Last year, American Express told Popular Information that its PAC would never donate to the 147 Republican objectors again.

79 big firms in total kept the commitment they made a year ago, but another 58 haven’t, according to Popular Info.

In the meantime, Rep. Bennie Thompson’s Jan. 6 committee wants to know what Trump’s other closest buddies knew and when they knew it. CNN reported on Tuesday that Thompson wants former VP Mike Pence and Sean Hannity of Fox News to testify.

From CNN

The idea that the former vice president would voluntarily throw himself back into the controversy by testifying appears far-fetched, however. He has painstakingly spent the last year putting space between himself and the infamy of January 6 as he struggles to keep himself viable for a possible future Republican presidential campaign. Still, various Pence aides have begun engaging with the committee, including his former chief of staff Marc Short, whom CNN reported last month is cooperating.

Thompson spoke to CNN moments after the committee fired off another request for cooperation, calling on Hannity, a prime-time Fox News opinion star, to discuss dozens of texts it says he sent to Trump and the President’s team in the days surrounding January 6. The messages once again lay bare the propagandistic synergy between the conservative network and the Trump White House. It also suggests that the panel is willing to go after the most high-profile witnesses and brave significant political controversy in its quest to tell the story of January 6.

Controversy, maybe. But how about full accountability?

The Propaganda Engulfing Jamal Khashoggi
January 5, 2022

As’ad AbuKhalil writes this “friend” of Western journalists was close to the ruthless regime, even to the commander of his own eventual assassination squad. He will always be remembered as the obedient servant of various Saudi princes and as an early champion of bin Laden.

By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News


With great fanfare and laudatory reviews in mainstream media, Showtime released the documentary Kingdom of Silence last year about the life and death of Jamal Khashoggi. A cult has been constructed around the person of Khashoggi throughout Western media (but not in Arab media) and the documentary distorts not only the history of the man but even his resonance in the Arab world.

The documentary does not measure up to the standards of a journalistic film, and it does not adhere to fairness and diversity of opinions. It is hagiography through and through. Not one critic of Khashoggi was interviewed, and a retired U.S. diplomat managed to represent the Saudi regime’s point of view. The voiceless Saudi opposition (which had no links to Khashoggi) remained so.

Lawrence Wright plays a major role in the film, commenting not only about Khashoggi but also about Arab politics (Wright has no knowledge of Arabic and no training in Middle East studies although he writes on “terrorism” for The New Yorker and wrote a script for the movie, the Siege, which upset the bulk of the Arab-American community).

Wright, like almost all Western journalists, refers to Khashoggi as a “friend”—as do most people who appear in the film (am I the only one left who does not call Khashoggi a friend?). This raises a question: here was a man who dedicated his life to the service of various Saudi princes and was as a “friend” of members of the DC media establishment. Would any of those journalists dare refer to a journalist working for Syrian or Iranian propaganda outlets as “a friend?”

Their closeness to Khashoggi over the years implicates them in the way they subject pro-U.S. despotic regimes to less scrutiny than to regimes opposed to the U.S.. This type of journalist holds particular scorn for despotic regimes that aren’t part of the American order in the Middle East.

Was Khashoggi really a friend to all those people mentioned in the documentary? How many friends can one accumulate in a lifetime? This is ironic because the real friends of Khashoggi in Arab (mostly Saudi) media denounced him or distanced themselves from him after his death, while Western journalists strived to claim the closest friendship.

Supported Saudi Crackdown

Kingdom of Silence doesn’t even promise to tell the story fairly or honestly. An actual close friend of Khashoggi’, Maggie Mitchell Salem, managed to describe his polygamous deception as “romantic.”

What you don’t hear in this documentary is about the decades Khashoggi devoted to the service of Saudi propaganda while men and women were beheaded for holding the wrong views. There is just one scene in the film in which you see Khashoggi on U.S. television defending a crackdown by the Saudi government. He defended shooting protesters because they weren’t killed.

This “friend” of Western journalists was close to the ruthless regime, even to the commander of his own eventual assassination squad. They got to know each other when the commander served as an intelligence man at the Saudi embassy in London where Khashoggi was chief of propaganda operations after Sep. 11.

[Ed.: Kingdom of Silence is by Alex Gibney, who made a thoroughly misleading documentary about Julian Assange in 2013, that among things portrayed Assange as paranoid about being extradited to the United States.]

No Professional Standards Allowed

Newspaper clip showing Khashoggi (center) as Arab News correspondent in Afghanistan, 1980s.

Kingdom of Silence manages to discuss how much Khashoggi cared about the journalistic profession and its standards when he worked for decades as a journalist in Saudi Arabia—of all places. But there are no professional standards allowed in Saudi regime media, and all newspapers serve as mere mouthpieces for various princes.

Khashoggi knew how the media game is played and always attached himself to a prince at certain moments. He worked first for Prince Khalid Al-Faysal, before serving his brother, Turki Al-Faysal. He knew the latter when he was chief of Saudi intelligence and Khashoggi was a “correspondent” “covering” Osama bin Laden and his “struggle” against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. (There is a picture of Khashoggi from that era holding an AK-47, and he may have fought alongside bin Laden and his band of religious fanatics).

The lines between Saudi journalism and intelligence were very thin; an editor of two Saudi newspapers, Jihad Khazen, admitted that he used to receive “reports” from the Saudi intelligence chief and that he would publish them as articles in Al-Hayat (a defunct mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan). Toward the end of his career, Khashoggi attached himself to Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, who quickly fell out of favor when Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman took over. That was the true story of Khashoggi’s “dissent” or defection. His mentor-prince was no longer favored.

Dangerously Close to the Brotherhood

There is a missing element in the documentary, which applies to all discussions about Khashoggi in the Western press. Khashoggi was no advocate of democracy as he posed in his last year, conveniently for his stint at The Washington Post. He was at odds with Riyadh by being very close to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Qatar. His name is being circulated and honored (through various institutes and academies that bear his name) by the Qatari regime.

Kingdom of Silence claims that Khashoggi was a supporter of the “Arab Spring.” That was not true at all. His stance on the Arab uprising was a an exact replica of the stance by Qatar: the regime supported uprisings only in countries where the Muslim Brotherhood had a good chance of seizing power, and it opposed democratization where the Brotherhood had none.

For that, the Qatari regime and Khashoggi personally supported the brutal Saudi-Bahraini crushing of the rebellion in Bahrain in 2011. There is an unspoken agreement in the Western press to never mention that Khashoggi (the early fan and advocate of bin Laden) was politically close to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Qatar. In fact, several of the people who spoke in the documentary about Khashoggi were people who are also close to either Qatar or the Muslim Brotherhood (or to both, as in the case of Tawakkul Karman).

Glamorizing the Man

Jamal Khashoggi in still from Kingdom of Silence. (Showtime)

The film is part of an effort underway to glamorize and embellish the life of Khashoggi. Many members of the Western establishment in Washington are excessively trying to honor his memory. Perhaps some—as Maggie Mitchell Salem admitted in the documentary—feel guilty because they wanted him to be a “native” voice who could frustrate Donald Trump’s policies toward the Kingdom. Of course, Joe Biden has continued the same pro-Saudi policies as his predecessor but with little opposition or consternation from the mainstream media.

Western media wants to turn Khashoggi into an Arab hero. Some may owe him a debt because he facilitated the work of Western correspondents inside the Kingdom. But the notion that he was some pan-Arab symbol of political courage is laughable. Khashoggi is remembered—and will always be remembered—as the obedient servant of various Saudi princes and as an early champion of bin Laden.

Wright maintains that Khashoggi was the only Saudi dissident when there are thousands of courageous men and women who languish in Saudi prisons; their names unknown to the likes of Wright and other Washington hacks.

One can’t dismiss the decades Khashoggi’s service to the crown simply because in the last year of his life he wrote vapid, unoriginal articles about the virtues of democracy (in general terms and without holding the U.S. and Western powers accountable for their complicity in the lack of democracy in the Arab world).

There is another Khashoggi documentary in the making and Qatar and Western media will continue to keep his name afloat. Championing Khashoggi is safe because he never took positions that were offensive to the U.S. government.

Kingdom of Silence reminds us that he supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and took overtly sectarian stances when it was in the interest of the U.S.-Israeli alliance. Khashoggi wasn’t consistent in his messaging in Arabic and English and those who watch the documentary will get yet another confirmation that Khashoggi’s articles in The Washington Post were not really authored by him.

The documentary spoke little about the dissent in Saudi Arabia that has existed long before the ascension of King Salman to the throne. Contrary to claims by Khashoggi and by this documentary, repression in the Kingdom did not start with Muhammad bin Salman.

What is different is that bin Salman killed a journalist who was close to Western media. That is crossing a red line, not beheading of scores of people in public squares in Riyadh. Western media may champion Khashoggi all they want but they can’t turn a decades-long propagandist for the Saudi regime into a hero.

As`ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New War on Terrorism (2002) and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004). He tweets as @asadabukhalil

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

UK Deployed 31 Nuclear Weapons During Falklands War

British warships in 1982 were armed with dozens of nuclear depth charges in a nuclear-free zone in Latin America, Richard Norton-Taylor reports.

Argentinian soldiers and Falklanders in 1982. (Wikimedia Commons)

By Richard Norton-Taylor
Declassified UK

January 5, 2022

The revelation is contained in a new file released to the National Archives. Marked “Top Secret Atomic,” it shows that the presence of the nuclear weapons caused panic among officials in London when they realized the damage, both physical and political, they could have caused.

The military regime in Argentina claimed the Falkland islands and invaded on April 2, 1982. The U.K. government under Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval task force to the South Atlantic to retake the islands.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) minute, dated April 6, 1982, referred to “huge concern” that some of the “nuclear depth bombs” could be “lost or damaged and the fact become public.” The minute added: “The international repercussions of such an incident could be very damaging.”

Nuclear depth bombs are deployed from navy ships to attack submerged submarines.

The unidentified official who wrote the minute continued:

“The secretary of state [John Nott] will wish to continue the long-established practice of refusing to comment on the presence or absence of UK nuclear weapons at any given location at any particular time.”

Heated Row

The existence of the weapons provoked a heated row between the MoD and the Foreign Office. The latter asked the MoD to “unship” the weapons. The Navy refused to do so.

The MoD noted the principal arguments in favour of keeping the weapons on board. It stated:

“In the event of tension or hostilities between ourselves and the Soviet Union concurrent with Operation Corporate [the codename given to liberating the Falklands] the military capability of our warships would otherwise be severely reduced.”

One document in the file says there was no risk of an “atomic bomb type explosion.” But there was a threat of the “disposal of fissile material” if any of the weapons was damaged which could lead to up to 50 “additional deaths” from cancer.

Even if there was no pollution in the event of a damaged or sunk nuclear weapon the Argentinians might get hold of nuclear technology and “we might have had to face acute embarrassment in the non-proliferation field,” recorded a MoD official.

Keeping Secret

August 1981: A British Harrier jet takes off from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Invincible during fleet exercise in Norfolk, Virginia. (U.S. Navy)

A plan to offload the weapons at the British base on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean was rejected by the Navy. It said this would delay the passage of the task force to the Falklands and that the operation would not be kept secret.

Instead, the weapons were transferred from the frigates and destroyers to the larger aircraft carriers, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, where the weapons could be better protected. Prince Andrew served as a helicopter pilot on Invincible during the war.

By the middle of May 1982, the Hermes had 18 nuclear weapons on board and Invincible 12, while the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, Regent, had one, according to the file. The ships were within the “total exclusion zone” imposed by Britain around the Falkland Islands, the documents say.

The file does not say whether any of these were “inert” surveillance rounds used to monitor the “wear and tear on the weapons”, as academic Lawrence Freedman put it in his Official History of the Falklands Campaign, published in 2005.

PRISON NATION USA
The embattled Trump-era head of federal prisons is stepping down under political pressure

C. Ryan Barber

Michael Carvajal, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the coronavirus response on June 2, 2020. 

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Photo


Michael Carvajal, a Trump holdover, is stepping down as head of federal prisons.

Carbajal has faced criticism over chronic mismanagement and abuse of inmates.

Sen. Dick Durbin has called for Carvajal's dismissal and questioned his commitment to reform.

Michael Carvajal, the Trump-era head of the federal prison system, is stepping down after months of calls from Democrats for his dismissal, a source familiar with the matter told Insider and the Justice Department later confirmed.

Carvajal has announced his retirement but will remain the Bureau of Prisons director for an indefinite period as the Biden administration searches for a successor, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said late Wednesday.

A longtime correctional officer, Carvajal was named director of the Bureau of Prisons in February 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr, just months after Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in federal custody. Carvajal was previously the bureau's assistant director for correctional programs, a post with oversight of emergency planning and a variety of other prison activities.

"We are very appreciative of Director Carvajal's service to the department over the last three decades. His operational experience and intimate knowledge of the Bureau of Prisons – the department's largest component – helped steer it during critical times, including during this historic pandemic," said Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley.

Carvajal's tenure was marked by the rampant spread of coronavirus within the federal prison system, blistering reports from the Justice Department's internal watchdog, and criticism over staffing shortages and poor working conditions.

As a holdover from the Trump administration, Carvajal found himself on treacherous footing following the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

In June, the Associated Press reported that senior Biden administration officials had discussed ousting Carvajal.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called as recently as last month for Attorney General Merrick Garland to remove Carvajal, saying he "has shown no intention of reforming the institution."

Speaking on the Senate floor, Durbin also cited Epstein's death at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, a facility that was shuttered earlier this year, and reports of misconduct by prison staff.Durbin pointed to an Associated Press investigation that found more than 100 federal prison workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019.

US prisons director resigning after crises-filled tenure

By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the federal Bureau of Prisons is resigning amid increasing scrutiny over his leadership in the wake of Associated Press reporting that uncovered widespread problems at the agency, including a recent story detailing serious misconduct involving correctional officers.

Michael Carvajal, a Trump administration holdover who’s been at the center of myriad crises within the federal prison system, has told Attorney General Merrick Garland he is resigning, the Justice Department said. He will stay on for an interim period until a successor is in place. It is unclear how long that process would take.

His exit comes just weeks after the AP revealed that more than 100 Bureau of Prisons workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden charged with sexually abusing an inmate. The AP stories pushed Congress into investigating and prompted increased calls to resign by lawmakers, including the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Carvajal’s tumultuous tenure included the rampant spread of coronavirus inside federal prisons, a failed response to the pandemic, dozens of escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.

“We are very appreciative of Director Carvajal’s service to the department over the last three decades,” Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement. “His operational experience and intimate knowledge of the Bureau of Prisons — the department’s largest component — helped steer it during critical times, including during this historic pandemic.”

The administration had faced increasing pressure to remove Carvajal and do more to fix the federal prison system after President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to push criminal justice reforms. The Bureau of Prisons is the largest Justice Department agency, budgeted for around 37,500 employees and over 150,000 federal prisoners. Carvajal presided over an extraordinary time of increased federal executions and a pandemic that ravaged the system.

After the AP’s story was published in November, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin demanded Carvajal’s firing. Several congressional committees had also been looking into Carvajal and the Bureau of Prisons, questioning employees about misconduct allegations.

In a statement, Durbin, D-Ill., said Carvajal “has failed to address the mounting crises in our nation’s federal prison system, including failing to fully implement the landmark First Step Act,” a bipartisan criminal justice measure passed during the Trump administration that was meant to improve prison programs and reduce sentencing disparities.

“His resignation is an opportunity for new, reform-minded leadership at the Bureau of Prisons,” Durbin said.

Carvajal, 54, was appointed director in February 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began raging in federal prisons nationwide, leaving tens of thousands of inmates infected with the virus and resulting in 266 deaths.

COVID-19 is again exploding in federal prisons, with more than 3,000 active cases among inmates and staff as of Wednesday, compared with around 500 active cases as of mid-December. All but four BOP facilities are currently operating with drastic modifications because of the pandemic, with many suspending visiting.

Carvajal also oversaw an unprecedented run of federal executions in the waning months of the Trump presidency that were so poorly managed they became virus superspreader events.

Biden administration officials had discussions about whether to remove Carvajal in the spring, after the AP reported that widespread correctional officer vacancies were forcing prisons to expand the use of cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.

The agency’s staffing levels reached a critical point under Carvajal and officers at several facilities have held protests calling for him to be fired. But Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said recently that she still had confidence in him.

Carvajal, an Army veteran, worked his way up the Bureau of Prisons ranks. He started as a correctional officer at a Texas federal prison in 1992 and was the warden of the federal prison complex in Pollock, Louisiana, before being promoted to regional director in 2016, assistant director in 2018 and director in 2020.

Carvajal’s departure was celebrated by some of his own employees, who say the federal prison system has suffered under his watch.

“Destructive actions by Carvajal have crippled this agency to the point of uncertainty, like a tornado leaving destruction behind,” said Jose Rojas, a leader in the federal correctional officers’ union. “He was a disgrace to our agency. Good riddance.”

UK PM QP

The Prime Minister was back to his old tricks behind the House of Commons despatch box for the first time in 2022, reports Adam Bienkov

Boris Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions

Boris Johnson again made a series of false claims during his exchanges with Labour’s Angela Rayner during Prime Minister’s Questions.

The Prime Minister rattled off the following series of false claims during the brief exchanges with Labour’s Deputy Leader in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon.

Inflation Fears

The Prime Minister categorically denied having said back in October that inflation fears in the UK were “unfounded”, telling Angela Rayner that “I said no such thing”.

However, Johnson did say exactly this back in October, telling Sky News that “people have been worrying about inflation for a long time and those fears have been unfounded”.

You can watch the video of him saying this here. He later declined a request by Angela Rayner to correct the record.

Labour Plans to Rejoin the EU

Johnson also claimed that Labour has committed to take the UK “back into the EU”.

However, far from announcing such a plan, Labour Leader Keir Starmer has repeatedly ruled this out, saying that there is “no case” for rejoining the EU and that there will be “no rejoining” of the EU under Labour.

Addicted to Lying – But Now the Truthis Finally Catching Up with Him
Adam Bienkov

Labour’s Plan to Nationalise the Energy Sector

In response to questions about spiralling energy costs, the Prime Minister claimed that the Labour Party plans to nationalise the energy sector.

While Starmer did promise “common ownership” of the sector during his campaign to become Labour leader, he has since abandoned this idea and has ruled out nationalisation of energy firms in the UK.

Inequality Is Down

The Prime Minister also claimed that income inequality in the UK is down, saying that “if you look at this… inequality, economic inequality, is down in this country. Income inequality is down, Mr. Speaker, and poverty is down”.

In fact, income inequality has “steadily increased” in the UK, according to the most recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics.

The proportion of children in relative poverty has also increased, according to House of Commons Library analysis.

Johnson fumbles and flails under pressure from Rayner

At the first PMQs of the year, faced with tough questioning by Labour’s deputy leader, the prime minister threw truth to the winds

The Labour party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

John Crace
Wed 5 Jan 2022 

It’s an ill wind and all that. With Keir Starmer testing positive for Covid for the second time in a matter of months, it was the deputy leader, Angela Rayner, who got to take on Boris Johnson at the first prime minister’s questions of the new year. Which was just the news that Johnson didn’t want to hear, because Rayner is his worst nightmare.

First off, she’s a woman and Boris has a major problem relating to women without mansplaining. More importantly, though, she’s a working-class woman who is very comfortable speaking her mind. Where Starmer may back off and err on the side of caution and politesse, Rayner is never happier than when going toe to toe. Especially when she’s up against someone who is struggling in the polls and whom she doesn’t much respect.

Rayner began with a flick at the ongoing investigation into parties at No 10 – it never hurts to remind your opponent of nasties coming down the road – before homing in on the here and now. In October he had said that fears of inflation were unfounded. Given that inflation was now running at 6%, how had he managed to get it all so wrong?

“Um, er,” said Johnson. For a moment – the trademark hesitations and incoherence aside – it looked as though Johnson might actually try to answer the question directly. He even began a half-formed sentence to that end. Then half way through he gave up and decided to do what he always does. When under pressure or not. He started lying. How could he have forgotten to do something so natural to him? Maybe it was the Rayner effect. “I said no such thing,” he continued. It was a pure invention that just happened to have been captured in an interview he had given to Sky.

From that point on, Johnson was pretty much lost, careering from one car crash to the next. In between wittering on about cold weather payments and the warm home discount – he claimed it was worth £140 a week: it isn’t, it’s £140 a year, though this was probably less a lie and more total ignorance – he just bounced from one lie to the next causing ever greater self-harm.

First he tried to claim that the country would be in lockdown if Labour had got its way. Where he got this idea from is anyone’s guess. Most likely it was his own wish fulfilment; what he would have liked to do had he not been too weak to face down the rightwing libertarians in the Tory party. All Labour had ever done was back plan B and said it would be guided by the scientific data.

Then he smashed into the next lie. Labour was committed to nationalising the gas industry. It isn’t: Starmer has specifically ruled that out. Then, when Rayner wondered why the government was so keen to rule out cutting VAT on fuel bills – something Johnson had promised as a Brexit dividend – Boris exploded into faux outrage. How dare people who had voted to stay in the EU demand that he keep his promises? He was fully entitled to break as many as he liked to remainers. And, in any case, Labour wanted to rejoin the EU. Pure fantasy. Even the Lib Dems have given up on that one.

When Starmer is faced with so many lies in a matter of minutes, he tends to have a mini-meltdown himself. As if the idea of a prime minister being unable to tell the truth does not compute with his version of reality. And you can sort of see his point. It’s a sign of how low we’ve sunk into the shit that we’ve grown used to the idea of Johnson as a serial liar. We don’t expect anything else from him. But where Keir, frets, Rayner runs with it. Sensing Boris was badly losing the plot – if you can lose something you never really had – she paused to ask if he was feeling OK?

And he really wasn’t. He was having one of his worst days. He knew that all of his lies would unravel long before the end of PMQs but was unable to prevent himself from telling them. He was so busted. So exposed. He knew it and his own benches knew it.

Some Tories tried to offer some encouragement – their jobs are hanging by the same thread as Boris’s and, like it or not, they are symbiotically entwined with him – but it was all a bit half-hearted. Not least because all the red wall MPs care about their constituents’ cost of living. The session ended with Edward Leigh moaning about foreigners. Boris couldn’t bring himself to tell him Vote Leave had promised Indians they could come to the UK post Brexit.

Things didn’t much improve for Johnson when he came to give the Covid statement right after PMQs. There again, it’s never the easiest lie to spin that you’ve made all the right calls for the right reasons, when everyone knows that you only did what your party would allow. Or more specifically what the Coronavirus Recovery Group would allow. Donkeys led by yet more donkeys.

Rayner pointed out some of the more obvious dangers of hospitals being overwhelmed, operations cancelled and people with heart attacks expected to take a bus to A&E but it was the SNP’s Ian Blackford who got to the heart of the matter. Riding out the pandemic had consequences. More people would die. Which probably wouldn’t affect Boris or many Tory MPs that much, but would certainly be one hell of a bummer for those who died. And for their friends and families. So maybe now was the time for a bit more caution. A bit of humility.

Only Johnson doesn’t do caution or humility. He just ducks and dives, doing what he needs to do to get through to the end of the day more or less intact. The consequences left to pile up for tomorrow. Steve Baker and Mark Harper, two hardline members of the CRG, invited Boris to end all restrictions now. In their world, it is their bravery in standing up to Omicron that had forced it into being weaker than Delta. Had the government imposed another lockdown, Omicron would have been inspired to be a much stronger variant. Or something. Whatever drugs they are on, count me out.

Boris hummed and hahed, before saying the plan B restrictions ended in three weeks anyway and he would see how things had panned out by then. Hopefully all those who were going die would hurry up and get their dying in during the next weeks so he would then be able to wing it again. It’s come to something that surviving this episode of the pandemic will come down to luck rather than scientific judgement. Then Boris will be Boris.