Religious sadists just want to see women suffer
Thom Hartmann
February 27, 2023

Photo by Russell Ferrer on Unsplash

Mifepristone, the abortion and miscarriage drug that is used in over half of all US abortions and routinely given to women having miscarriages to prevent complications, may well be functionally outlawed this week by a federal judge in Texas who’s been a Christian activist his entire life.

Michael Kacsmaryk, 45, was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump. A Republican activist and religious fundamentalist, he’s said that “so-called marriage equality” has put America “on a road to potential tyranny” and reflects a “complete abuse of rule of law principles.”

As The Washington Post noted this weekend, Kacsmaryk has argued that:
“The sexual revolution ushered in a world where an individual is ‘an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology’ and where ‘marriage, sexuality, gender identity and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.’”

Now an advocacy group that, according to Ms Magazine, includes the attorney/wife of Senator Josh Hawley, has brought a lawsuit to outlaw Mifepristone in the one specific Texas federal judicial district where Kacsmaryk — and Kacsmaryk alone — sits in judgement.

As a federal judge, however, his ruling will affect the entire United States.

This part of the anti-abortion crusade is clearly not about whether Mifepristone is a dangerous drug that needs more aggressive regulation.

The drug has been used millions of times in the US and around the world and is literally safer than Tylenol. It’s been approved for use in the US for over 20 years, first for helping women struggling with incomplete miscarriages and later combined with a second drug to safely, quickly induce early-stage abortion.

And outlawing Mifepristone is not just to reduce the number of abortions, as much as the people bringing this lawsuit proclaim that’s their goal.

If reducing the number of abortions was their singular and primary goal, they’d be putting much of their time, effort, and money into sex education, birth control, universal healthcare (particularly for fertility-age women), and government support for low-income families with children. Instead, most in the forced birth movement oppose all of those things.

No, this is part of a much larger effort. Because their “beliefs” are grounded in their religion and they believe that women who get abortions are committing the ultimate sin: murder. Therefore, they want to actually see these sinning women suffer.

Like people who love the death penalty (and in two states now state legislators have called for the death penalty for women who get abortions), they want to be able to torture them and watch them suffer; they want them to experience humiliation, and feel mortification for their sin of rejecting a pregnancy initiated by a man and ordained by their god.

Torturing women for religious reasons is nothing new for American theological zealots.

Louise and I used to live just a short drive from Dover, New Hampshire, the fourth-largest city in the state, near the Maine border and the Atlantic seacoast. Generations ago, rightwing politicians and preachers were enforcing social control, much like the forced birthers are trying to do today.

John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “How the Women Went from Dover” tells the tale of three young women who dared to challenge that day’s most powerful religious men, that early generation of the people driving the most extreme parts of what today has morphed into the forced birth movement.

Whittier’s poem begins:
The tossing spray of Cocheco’s fall
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!

The three women were Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, and their crime was adhering to and promoting female-tolerant Quaker beliefs in a rabidly rightwing town.

This so enraged the minister of Dover’s Congregational church, John Reyner, that he and church elder Reverend Hatevil Nutter (yes, that was his real name) lobbied the crown magistrate, Captain Richard Walderne, to have them punished for their challenge to Reyner’s and Nutter’s authority.

It was a bitter New England winter when Walderne complied, ordering the three women stripped naked and tied to the back of a horse-drawn cart by their wrists, then dragged through town while receiving ten lashes each.

As Whittier wrote:
Bared to the waist, for the north wind’s grip
And keener sting of the constable’s whip,
The blood that followed each hissing blow
Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.

A local man, George Bishop, wrote at the time:

“Deputy Waldron caused these women to be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart, and after a while cruelly whipped them, whilst the priest stood and looked and laughed at it.”

It was a start, from Reverend Reyner’s point of view, but hardly enough to scare the women of the entire region from which he drew his congregation. So, he got the young women’s punishment extended to 11 nearby towns over 80 miles of snow-covered roads, all following the same routine.

So into the forest they held their way,
By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,
Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat
Of the winter sea at their icy feet.

The next town was Hampton, where the constable decided that just baring them above the waist wasn’t enough. As Sewall’s History of the Quakers records:
“So he stripped them, and then stood trembling whip in hand, and so he did the execution. Then he carried them to Salisbury through the dirt and the snow half the leg deep; and here they were whipped again.”

Once more the torturing whip was swung,
Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.
“Oh, spare! they are bleeding!” a little maid cried,
And covered her face the sight to hide.

Whipping, beating, stoning, hanging, nailing, being pilloried (publicly clamped to a post through neck and wrist holes, often naked and sometimes for days at a time), dragging, burning, branding, and dozens of other techniques were employed by religious and government authorities in the early American colonies to enforce religious thought and behavior, particularly against women.

If her cry from the whipping-post and jail
Pierced sharp as the Kenite’s driven nail,
O woman, at ease in these happier days,
Forbear to judge of thy sister’s ways!

For the entirety of “civilized” human history — in country after country, culture after culture, religion after religion — crusaders for Zeus, Ra, Thor, Odin, Aphrodite, Venus, JHWH, Shiva, Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Quetzalcoatl, Mohamed, Ceridwen, Xpiacoc, Ishtar, and Amen (among hundreds of others) have, at various times, punished, tortured, and even killed women who refused to acknowledge their gods and the rules of their religions.

— Adherents to radical Islam from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan to The Philippines today require women to cover most all of their bodies, and delight in publicly whipping and even beheading females who won’t comply.

— Fundamentalist Hindus in India today burn women to death if they’ve defied religious authorities or the patriarchs of their families.

— For over 1000 years, Christian fundamentalists have — as Whittier documents — tortured, hung, impaled, and burned to death women who defied their ministers’ religious mandates.

What we’re seeing today in these attempts to regulate women’s behavior by the radical fringe of the forced birth movement is a simple extension of religious fundamentalism and patriarchy that goes back as far as ancient Samaria.

And the sadism associated with it is nothing new either.

“Sadism?” you may say. It’s a strong word. But consider the long game they’re playing here in this effort to outlaw Mifepristone.

If medication abortions — which can be done quietly and privately at home, as are the majority of those brought about by Mifepristone — are no longer available, women will be forced to show up in person at clinics where surgical abortions are performed.

They’ll find themselves in public, on display, directly exposed to religious fanatics just like in Whittier’s Women From Dover.

They’ll be forced to enter a public building, where these religious freaks can set up a gauntlet the women must run to get into and out of the clinic.

— The zealots can then scream at them, curse them, photograph them, video them, follow them home.

— They can then photograph the women’s license plates; publish their names, addresses, and telephone numbers; harass them.

— They can then use social media to invite hordes of fellow fundamentalists — along with random misogynists, incels, and militia members — to stalk and terrorize them.

— They can call them repeatedly, email them, stake out their homes, all to gleefully torment them.

That’s what’s really going on here. For the zealots in the most extreme parts of the forced birth movement — which has largely taken control of the GOP — it’s all about the punishment.

Far too many of these people appear to be religiously motivated sadists.

Some hate women who try to have the same agency over their own bodies that men claim. But the most aggressive are the ones who are offended when women reject their extreme religious belief that fully human life exists at conception rather than viability.

Many of these extremists leap at a chance to inflict pain on those who reject their religious mandates, just like Hatevil Nutter did back in the day. Particularly when it is women who are asserting their own authority and agency.

It’s estimated that between 5 and 20 percent of all Americans are sadists or have sadistic tendencies, depending on how tightly defined the term is. Even if forced-birth sadistic religious zealots represent only a small percentage of our nation, it would add up to millions of people.

This is not a male or female thing, at least with regard to the most zealous movement activists. It’s a religion and sadism thing.

Although most of the high-profile leaders, fundraisers, politicians, litigators, and power brokers in the forced birth movement have been and continue to be men, this lust for domination is more about wielding religious power than it is about the gender of the people running it.

Again, this is nothing new. It’s really an ancient story that keeps echoing through history.

There was no shortage of men or women to work in the concentration and death camps in Germany in the 1930s and ’40s. Many of those Christians volunteered to be part of Hitler’s elite corps just so they could destroy the Jews and homosexuals “who’d rejected Jesus.”

They loved being in the shadow of Hitler, the big man, the famous guy, doing his work, wearing his logos. Inflicting pain on their religious enemies. Owning the German libs after their Fuehrer had declared Christianity the official religion of Germany, declared homosexuality evil, and proclaimed Judaism the enemy of Christianity. And, ultimately, they delighted in sending nonbelievers and non-compliers to prison or their deaths.

Here in America today, it’s part of a larger war on “uppity women,” non-whites, non-fundamentalist-Christian people, and gender minorities.

It’s why Ron DeSantis just introduced legislation to ban Gender Studies in colleges across Florida.

Gender Studies examines the role women play in society, from the workplace to the home to power in every dimension of American life: this goes way beyond “Don’t Say Gay.”

Which is why it’s so clear that outlawing abortion pills, for many of today’s extremists, is not about the safety of women. It’s not even about reducing the number of abortions.

It’s about control, power, and their assertion that an angry Christian god has told them they are uniquely suited to interpret his scripture. They, and they alone, can choose to embrace the punitive parts of Christianity and ignore the empathetic and loving parts of it.

For example, in the Mississippi state legislature last week Republicans would not even allow a debate on a Democratic amendment to an anti-abortion bill that would provide help for poor women who are pregnant. They want to punish women who get an abortion, but literally blocked a discussion about offering medical or financial support to low-income women for the child’s first year.

This is not to say that all or even most of the men and women in the anti-abortion movement are sadists or religious fanatics. Many are even Democrats: there’s a pro-life group called Democrats for Life that is active in helping women avoid abortion and argues for medical and financial support during pregnancy.

I know several “pro-life” people who contribute to or volunteer for adoption programs, show up to help with births, or raise money to buy diapers and baby food for low-income women. Others work to fund birth control programs and push for legislation making both sex education and contraception more widely available.

Many who work to discourage women from getting abortions are simply following the dictates of their religious leaders, particularly the Catholics among them. They believe they’re “on the side of life,” and their belief is sincere.

But those people are not, by and large, the radicals funding efforts to outlaw a drug that is safer than Tylenol.

They’re not the ones who want to force women to walk a sidewalk lined with shouting, jeering, spitting crusaders.

Those are an entirely different type of cat.

Those sadists want to shame women who’ve rejected their religious beliefs and gone on to get abortions. Who have defied their religious authority.

They want to publicly humiliate them, harass them, and teach them a lesson.

And, if this or another effort to outlaw Mifepristone succeeds, they’ll be able to gleefully do it — like Reverend Nutter — under the sanction and protection of the law.

SPEAKING OF DE SADE AND RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION OF WOMEN ONE COULD READ HIS WORK JUSTINE

$100 million Jesus ads point to exploitable weakness in the religious right
Valerie Tarico
February 25, 2023

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

Christianity has a brand problem. If it were a corporation, brand managers would be scrambling to scrub public image—maybe by greenwashing or with corporate diversity trainings or by renaming their product, say natural gas instead of methane, or by coming up with a new catchy slogan. Or they might actually do something substantive, like ceasing to “gift” baby formula to poor moms or to use child labor in their factories. There are many ways to polish brand.

Christianity’s recently launched He Gets US campaign—millions of people got a dose during the Superbowl—tells us two things: 1. Conservative Evangelical Christians care about their brand problem. 2. Some major Christian donors have decided, to the tune of $100 million apparently, to go with the greenwashing strategy rather than substantive change. And that combination provides a possible avenue for fighting back against some of the ugly objectives and tactics of the Religious Right.

The people paying for this ad campaign are the same ones promoting homophobia, advocating against reproductive healthcare for women, and funding politicians to protect the good old pecking orders: rich over poor, men over women, white people over everyone with more melanin.

Losing customers

Back when the world and I were young, Evangelical Christians were a politically diverse group. But Republican strategists recognized them as a potential political voting block. Hierarchical social structures within churches meant the strategists had to recruit only Church leaders, and those leaders would bring along their congregations. It worked for the Republican party, but at an enormous cost to Christianity as an institution. That is because right wing operatives were spending down Christianity’s good name by merging its brand with their own. The more Christianity came to be associated with ugly political priorities—and then crass power grab-‘em-by-the-pussies—the more young people fled the Church. By the millions. (Tangentially, Islam faces a similar brand problem and deconversion pattern wherever the Mullahs wield political force. Almost half of Iranians say they used to be religious.)

Losing money

Losing customers by the millions would be a problem for any corporate body—especially one with a product that people realize they don’t need when they actually take a good look. When there are better options, in this case secularism, people rarely go back to the same-old-same-old. The financial impact of deconversion is potentially huge. The Mormon Church may coerce tithes with visits from elders who review a family’s finances, but most protestant and Catholic sects rely on more subtle social and emotional pressures. Either way, market share requires mindshare. You have to get people in the door before you can pass the basket.

Losing prospects

But this isn’t merely a financial calculus. At some point, brand damage becomes a threat to identity. Evangelicals are evangelical. It’s part of the ideology. Go into all the world and make disciples of every creature. Unlike Judaism or Hinduism, Christianity is a proselytizing religion. Proselytizing (ok, coupled with colonization and holy wars) has been the strategy that allowed Christianity to spread across the planet. Missionaries may not explicitly recognize that they are recruiting paying customers who will trade cash for club benefits and afterlife services, but they do recognize that “harvesting souls” is a central commandment of their faith. For many, this mandate—called the Great Commission—is their version of praying five times facing Mecca. For some, it becomes an underlying feature in virtually every relationship: All non-Christians are potential converts; friendliness becomes friendship missions; feeding the poor becomes first-and-foremost a path to winning their souls. Evangelicals are a sales force, and as their brand becomes more and more soiled, it gets harder to do their job.

In need of a savior

Having spent down Christianity’s brand, the patriarchs of the religious right are uncomfortable with how far that has gone—the image, that is, not the substance. Most Americans used to think of the Bible as The Good Book, but not anymore. Most Americans used to think of Christianity (and religion more broadly) as benign, but not anymore. Jesus, though—the image of Jesus is relatively untainted. Even those who don’t buy into the idea of him being the perfect human sacrifice who saves our souls (Are you washed in the blood?) tend to believe that he was a good, wise, loving man. They think we know a lot more about him than we do, and what they think we know is positive. So, it totally makes sense that a $100 million rebranding and recruiting effort would center on the person of Jesus. Much of Christian theology is nasty, and the Iron Age texts in the Bible contradict what we now know about science, anthropology and—well, pretty much every other field of modern scholarship. This iconic personal Jesus is all they have left.

The fact that conservative Christians are spending $100 million on marketing Jesus means they are bad off and know it. It means they recognize the deterioration in their brand, and they feel desperate to turn it around. They have made the mistake of letting that desperation slip out, and those of us who would rather not return to the good old dark ages when the Church ruled the world can exploit that vulnerability. Their product sucks, and we need to keep saying so in every way possible. We need to make sure the general public keeps associating Christianity with what Christians are doing, not what they are saying: Those anti-abortion centers that dupe women into keeping pregnancies aren’t Crisis Pregnancy Centers, they are Church Pregnancy Centers. Fetal personhood isn’t a philosophical debate, it’s theology. Denying rights to queer folks and women isn’t conservative, it’s theocracy.

When people do ugly things that are motivated by religious dogma, we should name what’s going on. Conservative Christians are telling us that they can’t afford more brand damage. And maybe if their bad works keep getting exposed they will realize that the answer isn’t Jesus-washing; it’s substantive change.
________________________________

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including The Huffington Post, Salon, The Independent, Quillette, Free Inquiry, The Humanist, AlterNet, Raw Story, Grist, Jezebel, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

THAT'S WHAT THE RCMP TOLD BABA
Can eating poppy seeds affect drug test results? An addiction and pain medicine specialist explains
The Conversation
February 27, 2023

Poppy Seed Bagels (Shutterstock)

The U.S. Defense Department issued a memo on Feb. 17, 2023, warning service members to avoid eating poppy seeds because doing so may result in a positive urine test for the opiate codeine. Addiction and pain medicine specialist Gary Reisfield explains what affects the opiate content of poppy seeds and how they could influence drug tests.

What are poppy seeds?

Poppy seeds come from a species of poppy plant called Papaver somniferum. “Somniferum” is Latin for “sleep-bringing,” which hints that it might contain opiates – powerful compounds that depress the central nervous system and can induce drowsiness and sleep.

There are two main uses for the opium poppy. It is a source of the opiates used in painkillers, the most biologically active of which are morphine and codeine. Its seeds are also used for cooking and baking.

Poppy seeds themselves don’t contain opiates. But during harvesting, the seeds can become contaminated with opiates contained in the milky latex of the seed pod covering them.


The milky latex of poppy seed pods contains opiates. 

Daniel Prudek/iStock via Getty Images Plus

What affects opiate content in poppy seeds?

Many factors determine the opiate concentrations and ratios of poppies. As with wine grapes, the opiate profile of the poppy plant – and thus its seeds – is affected by its terroir: climate, soil, amount of sunshine, topography and time of harvest.

Another factor is the variety or cultivar of the plant. For example, there are genetically engineered opium poppies that produce no morphine or codeine and others that produce no opium latex at all.

Can you get high from eating poppy seeds?

Practically speaking, you cannot eat enough poppy seeds to get you high. Furthermore, processing dramatically decreases opiate content – for example, by washing or cooking or baking the seeds.
Do poppy seeds affect drug tests?

Poppy seeds don’t have nearly enough opiates to intoxicate you. But because drug tests are exquisitely sensitive, consuming certain poppy seed food products can lead to positive urine drug test results for opiates – specifically for morphine, codeine or both.

Under most circumstances, opiate concentrations in the urine are too low to produce a positive test result. But certain food products – and it’s generally impossible to know which ones, because opiate content does not appear on food labels – contain enough opiates to produce positive test results. Moreover, because of overlap in opiate concentrations and morphine-to-codeine ratios, it can sometimes be challenging to distinguish test results that are due to the consumption of poppy seeds from those that are due to the use of opiate drugs.


Processing poppy seeds decreases the opiate content that may be on the seed. 

Burcu Atalay Tankut/Moment via Getty Images

This is not a problem with most workplace drug testing. Test results are reviewed by a specially trained physician called a medical review officer. Unless the physician finds evidence of unauthorized opiate use, such as needle marks or signs of opiate intoxication or withdrawal, even relatively high concentrations of opiates in the urine that produce positive test results are generally ruled to be negative.

It turns out, though, that drug testing in the military is different, and poppy seeds pose potential problems. One such problem, as highlighted in recent news reports, concerns service members who test positive for codeine and assert a “poppy seed defense.” They are still regarded as having taken codeine, sometimes with serious consequences, such as a disciplinary action or discharge from the service.

Gary Reisfield, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

GOP's attacks on government workers draw fire from critics: 'Weaponization is their purpose'
Matthew Chapman
February 27, 2023

Jim Jordan speaks during CPAC Texas 2022 conference. (Shutterstock.com)

House Republicans are using their new majority to try to strip various civil service protections from government workers and target individual officials and employees in retribution for policies they don't like — and it's drawing increasing outrage from their fellow lawmakers, reported The Washington Post on Monday.

"In recent weeks, House Republicans have passed legislation requiring federal employees to return to the office, arguing that pandemic rules have bled into a permanent state that diminishes productivity," reported Lisa Rein and Jacqueline Alemany. "Lawmakers have voted to rescind $80 billion for the cash-starved IRS to hire 87,000 employees in customer service, technology and audit roles to increase tax compliance of those earning more than $400,000 — claiming the extra staff will unfairly target taxpayers. They’ve allowed House members to reduce or eliminate federal agency programs or slash the salaries of individual employees on a quick vote."

All of this comes as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who now chairs the Judiciary Committee, has sent a wave of subpoenas to agency heads without even asking for their voluntary cooperation first. President Joe Biden, for his part, is almost certain to veto all these bills, and his administration "has signaled that it won’t cooperate with GOP efforts to involve career employees in the hearings."

“Essentially, they want to wage war on the federal workforce — with the possible exception of certain parts of the military,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) to the Post. He added, that, despite thier formation of a new committee targeting what they claim to be "weaponization" of government, “Weaponization of the government is not their target — weaponization of the government is their purpose.”

Former President Donald Trump himself tried to radically restructure the civil service to make all workers serve at his pleasure, instituting a provision called "Schedule F" that would reclassify most government workers in a way that allows them to be fired at any time, including for political reasons. Biden rescinded this upon taking office, and Republicans in the House have so far not made any effort to force this provision to be reinstated.

What Norfolk Southern’s accident reports say about the company and industry

Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal
February 27, 2023

Norfolk Southern axed technician jobs that could have stopped toxic derailment: union

Last October in Sandusky, a Norfolk Southern train derailed 21 cars and spilled 10,000 gallons of paraffin wax.

In 2020, a Norfolk Southern conductor tried to pull out of a Rossville, Tennessee train yard while one car was still connected to an unloading tower. The accident released about 500 gallons of maelic anhydride — an irritant for the eyes and respiratory tract that’s useful in making resins.

And in 2018, Norfolk Southern had an accident in Loudonville, Ohio. Sixteen cars came off the tracks. One car spilled more than 30,000 gallons of liquified petroleum gas. The other, according to the accident report, “released 200 pounds of environmentally hazardous substances, solid.”

That last accident happened in February — five years to the day, in fact, before the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine.

Norfolk’s safety reputation

Derailments litter the past five years of Norfolk Southern’s accident reports. To be fair, most of those incidents are relatively benign: Nothing spills, nobody gets hurt.

Still the frequency of these incidents is hard to miss. Axios noted that in a recent earnings call executives acknowledged accidents are climbing. The Dispatch recently reported that Norfolk Southern is near the top of major rail companies when it comes to accidents per million miles.

According to a Federal Railroad Administration 10-year safety summary, Norfolk Southern saw 163.6 derailments and 2.9 hazardous material releases per year on average.

Speaking on background, one former conductor said Norfolk Southern doesn’t have great reputation when it comes to safety. A consultant with significant experience in the industry said among the big four railroads, Norfolk Southern isn’t as bad as Union Pacific, but it’s still pushing the bounds of safe operation.

On the other hand, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen vice president Vince Verna said the company isn’t an outlier among those major, or Class 1, railroads.

“NS doesn’t really stand out as better or worse than the other Class 1 railroads in America,” he explained. “I’m sure if you looked at any one metric, they may have a better or worse metric depending on what you might be looking at, but all the Class 1 railroads have their issues and their successes.”

Robert Lauby, the former chief safety officer with the Federal Railroad Administration argued Norfolk’s track record is actually pretty good.

“Norfolk Southern has historically been one of the safer railroads,” Lauby said. “They are a conservative railroad, I would say, in that they like to do things the way they’ve always done it, but they try to do it as good as possible.”

“Even safe companies have tragic accidents like this,” he added.

Pointing fingers over regulations

The disaster in East Palestine has put significant attention on the regulatory framework that governs rail safety. The often esoteric provisions have become political ammunition for those criticizing the Biden administration’s response or the Trump administration’s rollbacks.

There’s no doubt former President Donald Trump abandoned or rescinded rules related to rail safety. He regularly bragged about cutting red tape on Twitter. But experts caution against relying on a counterfactual argument.

Gov. Mike DeWine said it was “absurd” the train didn’t have a high hazard designation. That would’ve made no difference, the consultant explained. The Trump administration scrapped rules mandating at least two crew members per train. There were three crew members on the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine.

When it comes to electronic braking, however, rail experts offer a more nuanced response.

As NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy noted in a Twitter thread, the electronic braking rules that Trump rolled back wouldn’t have applied to the train in East Palestine. Still, had such a system been in place, it could’ve made a difference.

Train braking

Lauby compared trains to “a giant slinky”. With traditional pneumatic braking systems, cars at the front of the line stop before cars at the back. Electronically controlled pneumatic, or ECP brakes, apply down the line at the same time. Lauby doubts that ECP brakes would have prevented the East Palestine derailment, but he explained they do tend to reduce the size of accidents.

“They minimize the number of cars involved in the derailment and the speed at which they pile up,” he said. “It takes a lot of the energy out of a derailment when it does occur.”

More important, Lauby and the consultant explain, is what the electronic system can offer beyond braking. They describe it as a kind of backbone that can transmit information up and down the train in real time.

“So, if I’m going down the railroad as a locomotive engineer and I see an alert on the ECP display — car 23, hot bearing, I’m just going to bring my train to a stop,” the consultant explained.

Given the preliminary NTSB report citing an overheated bearing as the apparent cause of derailment, the consultant believes that kind of system could have prevented the accident in East Palestine.

“If the train in East Palestine had been equipped with ECP brakes and that suite of sensors on that car, there would not have been an likelihood of derailment,” the consultant said. “It’s not a matter of blaming anybody. It’s a matter of what potential do we have here moving forward to operate a safer and more efficient railroad.”

What should happen?

The NTSB’s initial findings describe how a bearing in the 23rd car went from 38°F to 103°F to 253°F above ambient temperature at three hot bearing detectors. The first two detectors were 10 miles apart; 20 miles separated the second from the third.

Citing a 2019 study, the consultant explained, even at 20 miles apart, that’s more frequent than average. But to Verna, from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, that patchwork is a problem. He argued regulators should establish standards for their use.

All three experts expressed concerns about the “financialization” of the rail system. With major operators prioritizing quarterly growth, they argued, investments in safety get short shrift.

“If I’m a CEO in the railroad industry and I can’t show more profits every year for five years,” Lauby said, “I’m not going to be the CEO anymore.”

Investments in safety, he said, require thinking further into the future than a given CEO will likely be around.

“And this is where the federal government comes in,” Lauby said. “Because where a railroad can’t do something because of their stockholders the federal government can say this is the new requirement and you have to put this in place, and it evens the field for everybody.”

Establishing an ECP braking system would likely require congressional action Lauby and the consultant noted. But Lauby is doubtful it will make the cut if and when Congress acts.

Verna doesn’t oppose upgrading to ECP brakes. But he argued that avoids the bigger problem of railroads attempting to maximize profits by running ever longer trains.

“It’s not just that the brake system needs to be updated, it’s the operating practices that are being engaged with this current brake system really aren’t what it was designed to do.”

The consultant agreed that railroads should pare back their train lengths. They also argued railroads need to sequence cars to better distribute their weight. Lauby added that railroads should consider a safety management system similar to the Federal Aviation Administration’s.

“The question we ask after an accident,” Verna said, “is did we do everything we could to prevent this from happening?”

“We want to be able to answer yes,” he went on. “Right now, at this point, we think there’s more that we can be doing.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and Twitter

Betsy DeVos spent big in Nebraska in 2022 — here's why

Aaron Sanderford, Nebraska Examiner
February 27, 2023

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)


LINCOLN — Much of the $710,000 that a national school choice group sent to Nebraska to spend on legislative races in 2022 came from the family of former President Donald Trump’s Education secretary and the owner of the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns.

Former Secretary Betsy DeVos, together with her husband, Richard, and Browns owner Jimmy Haslam donated $3.25 million of the $3.3 million Nebraska campaign finance forms list as being raised by the American Federation for Children. Both families have served on the group’s board.

The American Federation for Children advocates for charter schools, vouchers and tax credit scholarships for private schools.

So why did the group send $710,000 to a Nebraska affiliate during the 2022 election cycle? It did so to help Nebraska pass something like Legislative Bill 753, the Opportunity Scholarships Act.

State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha sponsored the bill, which the Revenue Committee has advanced to the floor. Opportunity Scholarships would cut the amount of state income taxes paid by donors to private school scholarship programs aimed at needy students at private schools.

Linehan’s bill has 31 co-sponsors, including two Democrats who have received donations from the school choice group: State Sens. Justin Wayne and Mike McDonnell, both of Omaha. They and Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha have said they want students to have choices.

Lauren Garcia, who directs the Nebraska Federation of Children, said her group and its national organization are pushing for more options for students in Nebraska. She said the federation fights teachers unions that want “to protect their education monopoly.”

Dunixi Guereca, executive director of Stand for Schools of Nebraska. (Courtesy of Stand for Schools)

She said the groups are grateful for the support of donors such as DeVos and for her “advocacy for a quality education for every child, no matter their ZIP code or family’s income.” Linehan’s daughter, Katie, is a spokeswoman for the national organization.

Said Garcia: “While thousands of Nebraskans support school choice, the political muscle of the teachers union has stripped too many lawmakers of the courage to do what is best for kids.”

The Nebraska State Education Association, the union that represents Nebraska’s public school teachers, had no immediate comment Friday. The union has testified that the bill risks sending money that would otherwise be in the public treasury to fund private schools.

Nationally, the American Federation for Children spent about $9 million in 2022 to help candidates who embrace its goals: charter schools, vouchers, tax credit scholarships and education savings accounts, the last of which Iowa adopted this year.

Nebraska is one of two states that hasn’t approved one of those four policies. The other is North Dakota, which is mulling a bill this session, too.

The Nebraska Federation for Children spent more than $800,000 on nine legislative races during the 2022 election cycle, including the $710,000 sent from the national group, according to Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission year-end reports.

The Nebraska group’s top local donors included Ken Stinson, chairman emeritus of the Kiewit Corp.; U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb.; and James Timmerman of Springfield, Neb., part of a well-known cattle ranching and feeding family.

Among the year’s highlights: The group spent $119,000 to help State Sen. Brad von Gillern of Omaha win his race against Cindy Maxwell-Ostdiek. It spent $57,000 to help State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha win and $115,000 against Kauth’s opponent, Tim Royers.

The group also spent $124,000 against State Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln and $64,000 to boost his opponent, Russ Barger. Dungan won anyway. And it spent $54,000 against legislative candidate Angie Lauritsen in Sarpy County, who lost to State Sen. Rick Holdcroft.

Lauritsen described the sinking feeling of seeing the outside money continue flowing into her race, including wave after wave of direct mail. She said she was targeted for wanting to protect the excellent public schools that power growth in Sarpy County.

“We’re just going to keep seeing the escalation by these outside groups, because the action is at the state level,” Lauritsen said.

Gavin Geis of Common Cause Nebraska said he has seen outside spending every year in Nebraska legislative races, “but not like this.” He said the increased spending by such groups drives up the costs for ordinary Nebraskans to run for public office.

“I have never seen an organization like this spend this much money and be almost exclusively funded by out-of-state interests,” Geis said. “This is the biggest cash dump I’ve seen in a long time.”

Katie Linehan said Nebraska is a priority for the American Federation for Children, because “we finally see an opportunity to give kids and families who want more educational options that chance.”

She said local donors and supporters organized first, then reached out to the national group.

Dunixi Guereca of Stand for Schools of Nebraska, which advocates to protect public schools and public school funding, said people should understand the costs of “out-of-state money being spent on “out-of-state solutions.”

LB 753 would cap the annual tax credits claimed at $25 million a year for the first three years. In the fourth year, the credit could increase by 25%, as long as 90% of the credit is claimed. The bill’s credit will hit $100 million a year, starting in 2033.

Supporters of the bill have said it would offer families of children who want but cannot afford a private education a chance to obtain one.

In other states that have passed similar measures, about 70% of the credits have gone to the families of students already attending private schools.

Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.

'A humiliating process': Former Club Q employees struggle to claim money raised in their names

Lindsey Toomer, Colorado Newsline
February 27, 2023

coloradonewsline.com

Former Club Q employees don’t want to return to the club when it reopens after they say they received “a small fraction” of the money raised specifically for club staff and victims of the deadly November mass shooting in Colorado Springs.

According to accounts of several staff members, Club Q owner Matthew Haynes has given most former employees less than $1,000 while others did not receive anything from a GoFundMe that raised more than $55,000 for staff and performers after the shooting.

Hysteria Brooks worked at Club Q as a show producer and drag performer for the past two years and arrived at Club Q as first responders were triaging victims. She said in the days following the shooting, Haynes gathered with his staff at a club manager’s house and told them he would take care of everyone.

“He was going to make sure that we were all OK financially, and we trusted him,” Brooks said. “For many Club Q employees, they entrusted that wholeheartedly and they were refusing help in the first month or two months.”

Tiara Latrice Kelley also worked as a producer and drag performer at Club Q and started her own GoFundMe for a benefit show she was hosting for victims and survivors shortly after the shooting. But because the GoFundMe had Club Q in the title, she said Haynes asked her to sign it over to him, which she did because he agreed to distribute the funds fairly.

Kelley noted, though, that prior to the shooting, most Club Q staff didn’t even know what Haynes looked like, as he lives full-time overseas in the United Kingdom.

“The fact that now he shows up and tries to act like he’s been on the forefront of this, he’s this community guy, and he’s not, he really isn’t,” Kelley said.

Right before the holidays hit at the end of 2022, though, Brooks said former staff started to wonder if they would get any funding before Christmas, as Haynes was “leaving everybody in the dark.” Through her role with the United Court of Pikes Peak Empire, the oldest LGBTQ organization in southern Colorado, Brooks said other members of the organization’s chapters throughout North America donated to support the local court following the tragedy, which led to staff members each getting $500 before Christmas.

After the holidays, Brooks said Haynes was still traveling around the country without communicating when the staff would receive help. She said people needed money as they were out of work and racking up new bills for therapy and doctor appointments.

Former staff soon learned from a Club Q Facebook post in mid-February that Haynes planned to distribute funding to employees based on their average earnings over a three month period. Brooks and Kelley both said the amount of money staff received under Haynes’ three-month average salary system is “laughable,” with most employees receiving less than $1,000. Kelley said the funding she got was closer to the amount she’d earn for three shows, not including tips.

“He genuinely thinks that this money is supposed to make up for the physical trauma, the emotional trauma, the mental trauma that followed the three months of the shooting, and it’s supposed to keep us going for months,” Brooks said.

Haynes did not respond to multiple requests from Newsline for an interview or comment on plans to reopen and distribute money raised for staff and victims.

‘A lot of disconnect’

Ashtin Gamblin was working the front door at Club Q the night of the shooting and was shot nine times in both her arms, resulting in broken bones on both sides. She said she isn’t healing, and that she isn’t in the mindset to work even if she could, with her continued inability to use one of her arms.

“The only reason I don’t have any bullet wounds in my torso is because Daniel (Aston) was in front of me,” Gamblin said. Aston was 1 of 5 people killed in the Nov. 19 shooting.

He genuinely thinks that this money is supposed to make up for the physical trauma, the emotional trauma, the mental trauma that followed the three months of the shooting, and it's supposed to keep us going for months. – Hysteria Brooks, former Club Q show producer and performer

Gamblin received $981 from Haynes’ GoFundMe based on his three-month salary estimate, and her only consistent income is the $183 she gets from workers compensation every two weeks. She doesn’t think total funds distributed from ownership across all employees is more than $10,000, she said. She also said Haynes hasn’t given any money from the GoFundMe to the families of the five people who died the night of the shooting.

“It wasn’t my owners that called my husband or my mother,” Gamblin said. “They didn’t come see me in the hospital. They didn’t try … There’s a lot of disconnect with how they sound like they want to look like they care, but there isn’t that full connection of them actually caring.”

Speaking out about the issues that victims are facing with accessing funds raised in their names is all that is making Gamblin feel better lately, she said.

Seeking help elsewhere

Soon enough, former Club Q staff members connected with Bread and Roses, a queer-led nonprofit legal center based in Denver. Brooks said the organization has helped “tremendously” with supporting staff and victims, particularly with accessing money from the Colorado Healing Fund.

“We have a pretty clear sense that when horrible things happen, there are people who are totally generous and who will do anything they can to help, and then there are also people who will use it as an opportunity to either make money or cause harm,” said Z Williams, co-founder and director of client support and operations at Bread and Roses.

The partnership between Club Q staff and Bread and Roses resulted in a joint letter asking Haynes to release 75% of the funds raised in a lump sum for staff to distribute according to the system they created. The letter says Haynes informed staff they were no longer employed at Club Q through a Facebook post announcing future plans to renovate and reopen.

“This is but one of many slaps in the face for his grieving employees and contractors as well as the community at large,” the letter reads. “Matthew chose to reopen Buddies — a bathhouse that shares the wall with Club Q — a mere 3 weeks after the shooting. Patrons have to step over the Club Q memorial to access the bathhouse.”

Brooks said Haynes has kept the reopening of Buddies out of the public eye because he “knows that he would receive backlash for it.” Kelley said Haynes directly told her that he needed to reopen to make revenue and that there was a community who wanted Buddies to reopen.

Since the attack on Club Q, Williams said working with victims and survivors has become the largest part of their job. Bread and Roses also started a mutual aid fund called Queers for Q that’s raised over $100,000 so far, which the organization uses to support victims with no strings attached.

“People ask for it and we provide it … We believe that survivors know what they need and it’s our job to make sure they get it,” Williams said. “Surviving a tragedy is very expensive, both in terms of the cost of health care and mental health care, but also in terms of, sometimes you don’t feel like cooking and you need to be able to DoorDash, or you need to get out of town and see your loved ones.”
The official Club Q GoFundMe, organized by owner Matthew Haynes, says it’s for “Employees, Performers,” as well as a memorial and the club itself. (Screenshot)

Kelley said the fact that other places were supporting former staff was another reason Haynes gave for not immediately distributing the money.

“We shouldn’t have had to go anywhere else to have people help us out. He had the means and the resources,” Kelley said about Haynes. “Second of all, it doesn’t matter who else helped us out — when people donated money to those causes, they donated it for the staff, the victims and the families, not for building, not for Matthew to stack his pockets. They donated it for us, so it’s just right that it should go to us.”

Brooks said that the GoFundMe from which Haynes continues to hold funding was advertised by Club Q as the official GoFundMe “to support staff, performers.” The GoFundMe’s description says it is managed by Club Q directly and will ensure staff “don’t suffer financial hardship due to this horrific act,” and that remaining funds would go toward an official memorial for Club Q victims and remodeling.

... When people donated money to those causes, they donated it for the staff, the victims and the families, not for building, not for Matthew to stack his pockets. They donated it for us, so it’s just right that it should go to us.

– Tiara Latrice Kelley, former Club Q show producer and performer

Williams said they’ve heard “pretty clearly” from families who lost loved ones in the shooting that they don’t want a memorial built at Club Q, especially without their input “and not in this way.”

“A memorial is for the loved ones of the people who died. It’s not public art for business or anything like that,” Williams said. “I’ve heard and I’ve seen really clearly a desire for the employees to also make sure that those who died are honored in the right way.”

All Club Q staff — with the exception of one who Brooks said is Haynes’ “right-hand person” — came to a unanimous agreement on how they would distribute the funding if they receive it, with a tiered system giving the most funds to those with the most severe injuries and medical bills. Brooks said all the staff are on the same page in wanting to make sure that those who need to be taken care of are taken care of.

“The people that gave money to that GoFundMe did it because they were under the impression that it was going to the staff and employees first, that we were going to be taken care of first and then whatever was left over for the building,” Brooks said. “Matthew has since switched that — the building will be taken care of first and then whatever is left over has gone to the staff and employees.”

Kelley said Haynes could have better handled the situation by directly speaking with his employees and finding out what they wanted and needed.

“It was obvious to us pretty quickly after the tragedy that Matthew didn’t really give a s*** about what we had to say,” Kelley said. “He could have really just listened to us.”

Accessing Colorado Healing Fund donations

Jordan Finegan, executive director of the Colorado Healing Fund nonprofit, said her organization doesn’t actively fundraise, but it exists for people to donate to victims of specific tragedies like the Club Q shooting.

The Healing Fund brought in over $50,000 within 24 hours of the Club Q shooting and over $200,000 within three days, Finegan said. Now, the healing fund has brought in around $2.2 million, with $1.9 million already distributed to 85 people including victims, family of victims and Club Q staff.

The money that has yet to be distributed, Finegan said, will be held for when survivors need continued long-term support. She said experts have typically found that the first, third and sixth years after a tragedy like the Club Q shooting are “extremely difficult times,” and if all the funds go out at once there won’t be any left for those who need it later on.

Finegan said the Healing Fund works with victim advocates and organizations with more “boots on the ground” like the nonprofit Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance to distribute funds. She said that ensuring victims only need to maintain contact with one person — the advocate they have already been in contact with — provides a sense of security and familiarity.

“The Healing Fund is not a direct service provider, and when it was created it was determined by the 20 plus experts that it will be faster and easier if the money goes to the direct service provider so the Healing Fund isn’t having to sort through every request, when we are a one person operation,” Finegan said in an email.

When Gamblin was being treated for her injuries, she said the hospital lost her wedding ring, which had been passed down from her great grandparents. She also had to buy additional supplies for her pets, who are all registered emotional support animals, as she wasn’t able to take care of them as she previously could without full mobility of her arms.

When she went through COVA to access the Healing Fund, Gamblin said she was denied reimbursement for the pet supplies and wedding ring. She said she had to argue with COVA over what is and isn’t covered after they had questions about what she was purchasing.

“One of the things that made me feel kind of normal again was to have a ring on my finger, and so I desperately wanted another ring, so I spent $700 on a band” Gamblin said. “They’ll tell the public that they can’t approve or deny an expense, but they do.”

Mari Dennis took over as executive director at COVA at the start of December. She said COVA doesn’t have its own victim advocates, but partners with advocates within local law enforcement departments and even at the state level when necessary.

She said advocates will bring her a form stating what kind of assistance a victim needs and how much, and then get a check either to the advocate or directly to the victim. For Club Q survivors, Dennis said she’s worked with advocates through the Colorado Springs Police Department, Bread and Roses, and the Colorado Health Partnership.

Dennis said the Healing Fund board wanted to know the kind of needs people wanted covered early on, and she kept them updated on monthly expense requests as they came in for their approval. She said if there’s a particularly unique request that comes in outside of a monthly expense, she goes to the Healing Fund for clearance. Dennis said she herself doesn’t have the authority to approve or deny any one expense.

Finegan said general requests are approved right away as long as there are funds to provide.

“Ninety-nine percent of requests have been and are fulfilled,” Finegan said. “But if they are out of the ordinary, we look at how it is connected to the incident and if there are other ways to pay for it initially if possible.”

Other ways could include payment by the hospital, workers compensation or victims compensation, Finegan said.

“We do not have unlimited funding, so requests that may not be granted for those various reasons ensures we’re able to provide as much support to as many victims as possible,” Finegan added. “But also this is why we issued this most recent large cash distribution so individuals can use it as they need.”

Sending the money to nonprofits is not sending the money to survivors — that is not synonymous. And what happens is that those nonprofits then become gatekeepers between survivors and their money.

– Z Williams, of Bread and Roses

Williams said the Healing Fund is a “failed model of response” to tragedies like the Club Q shooting, creating a “paternal relationship between survivors of violence and the resources they need to survive.” They said nobody knows better what survivors need than the survivors themselves, and holding back money to be used later is not in their best interest.

“Sending the money to nonprofits is not sending the money to survivors — that is not synonymous. And what happens is that those nonprofits then become gatekeepers between survivors and their money,” Williams said.

Part of their job at Bread and Roses is helping victims fill out the request forms so they can access these funds, and Williams said it’s “a humiliating process.” They said survivors are required to send financial documents so the Healing Fund can approve what the funds are being used for.

Finegan said if someone has additional needs recovering from the tragedy being fundraised for, “all they have to do is request the support through their advocate.”

Williams said there is no expert in any one person’s trauma, and having a panel of people deciding what to do with the funding is a disrespectful process that leads to retraumitization and revictimization. They also said the healing fund needs to be more transparent, as it hasn’t released any reports about what it does with the funding it receives and why.

“Their entire system is based off of ‘someone else knows better what people need,’ and I just fundamentally disagree with that and I’ve watched how much it changes people’s lives when you just give them the money,” Williams said. “One of the most important things that we can do is try and give (victims) as much a sense of autonomy back: You have the freedom to move, you have the freedom of safety, you have the freedom of choice.”

Building back the community

Club Q long held the title of the go-to spot for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. Since the shooting, though, the community has found support in new places.

“For the longest time, Club Q has been the safe space for the Springs for the LGBTQ community, and I think that in a lot of ways, Matthew depends on that being the case,” Kelley said. “But also, what I would like for our LGBTQ community to know is that there are other safe spaces and that we don’t have to be dependent upon Matthew and his mess.”

While Brooks hasn’t found a job, she’s continued performing shows, which she said has been difficult with her anxiety and PTSD. She’s also prioritized helping her friends and community make sure they have what they need to survive in the short-term.

“I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve grieved yet,” Brooks said. “I feel like I’ve just kind of been advocating for my community and advocating for my bar staff and contractors to ensure that they all have everything they need to grieve and to be able to make it to the next month. I feel personally like that’s my responsibility right now as a pillar in my community.”

Kelley said she’s also just been trying to keep her head above water, and that thankfully there are many other venues that have been booking shows for her and other former Club Q performers to make some more cash.

Brooks said the Luxe Daiquiri Lounge opened not long after the Club Q shooting and started making a name for itself as the new queer spot in town. She said many of the former Club Q producers and entertainers have found a new home there, along with some of Club Q’s regular customers.

“The owners of Luxe are incredible people,” Brooks said. “They have taught us what it’s like to actually care about people from an owner’s perspective, because they have implemented security measures that ensure everyone’s safety. They have made sure that the staff and employees have a say in what security measures would make us feel safe.”

Williams reiterated that a bar just being a gay bar doesn’t inherently make it special. It’s the people who bring in regulars and make sure patrons have a good experience who do.

“A gay bar is not in and of itself a precious place,” Williams said. “It becomes that when it’s filled with people, and the people who worked there, who were the bartenders, the other staff who produced the shows and entertained — those are the people that made Club Q such an incredible place, and many of them right now are struggling just to know how they’re going to pay rent or get by while they’re also trying to recover from serious injury, trauma and the loss of their families.”

I know a lot of us are ready to wash our hands of Matthew and Club Q as soon as we receive the funds that were donated in our name.

– Hysteria Brooks

Brooks said most of the former staff don’t want to return to work at Club Q if it does reopen.

“Without the staff, without the people, I don’t want to go back,” Gamblin said. “They’re the reason I started working there, the reason I wanted to keep working there.”

Kelley said she can’t wrap her head around the idea of reopening the club at all, and that if it does she couldn’t bring herself to go back.

“I know a lot of us are ready to wash our hands of Matthew and Club Q as soon as we receive the funds that were donated in our name,” Brooks said. “The only thing that we want to see from Matthew is him releasing the funds to us for us to distribute in a way that we’ve all decided.”

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

Trump's former Catholic priest adviser hit with sex misconduct accusations: Reports
Mary Papenfuss
February 26, 2023

Frank Pavone (Facebook)

Donald Trump's former Catholic priest religious adviser and head of anti-abortion group Priests for Life has been hit with multiple sexual misconduct accusations, according to reports by the Catholic media outlet The Pillar and the Daily Beast.

Vehement anti-abortionist Frank Pavone was ousted from the priesthood — defrocked — by the Vatican in December after he repeatedly disobeyed orders from his bishop to stop posting unspecified "blasphemous" messages on social media. He often posted incendiary political messages, and posted videos of an aborted fetus on an altar.

Now at least four women have reportedly accused Pavone of sexual misconduct.

The complaints concern "inappropriate workplace" behavior, dating from 1999 to 2018, and allegedly included non-consensual touching, lewd suggestions and unwanted sexual advance, according to The Pillar and the Beast. One of the women who accused Pavone of inappropriate behavior is a freelance writer for the Daily Beast who once worked for the priest when she was 22.

When contacted by The Pillar in January about the accusations, a spokesperson for Pavone said that “any complaints Father Frank was made aware of” were “resolved satisfactorily.”

At least two former prominent members of the advocacy group Priests for Life have condemned Pavone and called on him to resign from the organization.

Father Stephen Imbarrato, a pastoral team member at Priests for Life from 2015 to 2019, told the Daily Beast in an interview reported Sunday that a woman had complained to him about Pavone's alleged sexual harassment in the workplace in 2017. He said he counseled her until she quit her job.

Imbarrato also said he reported the accusation to the board of directors of Priests for Life. He told the Daily Beast that the group's sexual harassment committee was headed by Pavone — "so it was neither safe nor independent," he noted.

“I only had direct knowledge of one victim, the woman I counseled over a long period of time,” Imbarrato told the Beast via email. “That there were other victims over the years, were to me, suspicions that I could not verify. But I do believe these women who came forward and they are now proof of those suspicions.”

Andrew Smith, who served on the board of Priests for Life from 2014 to 2021, has also called for Pavone's resignation and for an independent investigation into the accusations.


“I have been very surprised to see the reaction from Priests for Life has been solely one of victimization and self-aggrandizement,” Smith told The Pillar.

Priests for Life said in a statement to the Daily Beast that the group was "enormously saddened by recent efforts of some to revisit old accusations that contain numerous inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and mistruths, that have already been addressed." Pavone's bishop "investigated these claims over a decade ago and subsequently confirmed him to be in good standing and fully suitable for ministry," the statement added.

Priests for Life called the allegations by Imbarrato “further falsehoods," according to the Daily Beast.


You can read more about the accusations against Pavone in the Daily Beast here, and in The Pillar here and here.

'I strongly disagree': Fox News host speaks out after company bans reporting on Dominion lawsuit

David Edwards
February 26, 2023

Fox News/screen grab

Fox News host Howard Kurtz revealed on Sunday that his employer had forbidden him from reporting on a lawsuit brought against the company by Dominion Voting Systems.

"Some of you have been asking why I'm not covering the Dominion voting machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020," Kurtz explained on his Media Buzz program.

"And it's absolutely a fair question. I believe I should be covering it," he continued. "It's a major media story given my role here at Fox, but the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can't talk about it or write about it, at least for now."

Kurtz added an objection: "I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it, and if that changes, I'll let you know."

Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6 billion after on-air talent pushed the false narrative that then-President Donald Trump lost the election due to hacked voting machines. But court filings have shown that Fox News employees privately doubted the claims they were airing.

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

Service changes have made it 'impossible' to track politicians' embarrassing and deleted tweets

ProPublica
February 26, 2023



Politicians haven’t stopped deleting some of their most cringeworthy tweets, but Politwoops, our project that has tracked and archived more than half a million deleted tweets from candidates and elected officials since 2012, is no longer able to track them.

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform has disabled the function we used to track deletions — and the new method that Twitter says should identify them appears to be broken. We have been unable to find anyone who can help us, and with Twitter surprising developers by announcing a move to a paid model for gathering tweet data, it’s no longer clear that Twitter is a stable platform on which to maintain this work. It seems fitting to give Politwoops a sendoff, a farewell to not exactly a friend but an odd part of our national political discourse for a decade.

Originally built by the Sunlight Foundation, Politwoops always had a tenuous existence. Born in 2012, it received its first eulogy just three years later after Twitter pulled the plug, only to come back just in time for the 2016 presidential election. (Now-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy welcomed it back, then deleted that tweet.) When Sunlight closed up shop, ProPublica took over the app, which is when I started to maintain it.

Politwoops was built on the idea that what elected officials and candidates said on Twitter mattered, at least a little. Like most users of Twitter, politicians usually tweet pretty mundane stuff: celebrations of victories mixed with jeers for opponents, some local flavor and attempts to jump into trending conversations. Most of the deletions are for mistakes any Twitter user could make: typos, forgotten or incorrect images, bad URLs. The occasional seems-like-a-toddler-grabbed-the-phone posts. Truly forgettable stuff.

But for those politicians who really embraced Twitter as a place where they could be themselves, the deletions sometimes spoke volumes. Some deleted posts are hard to forget, like one from then-President Donald Trump in the early evening of Jan. 6, 2021, not long after a mob invaded the U.S. Capitol and assaulted police officers in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election:

Trump had perhaps the most-watched Twitter account during my time running Politwoops. While he was in office, Trump’s tweets got a ton of attention, but they seldom were a departure from other things he said in public. I would often get emails from reporters asking whether he had, in fact, deleted some alleged tweet they had seen, and mostly he had not; other accounts would post images of fake tweets that never appeared on his timeline. Politwoops became an integral resource for checking whether viral (and often poorly photoshopped) tweets were fake.

All the while, other politicians were posting — and deleting — interesting, newsworthy and bizarre things on the platform. Running Politwoops for the past six years has, strangely enough, made many elected officials seem more human to me. They, and not Trump, are what I’ll remember most about the site.

Sometimes deleted messages appear to be offhand remarks that politicians have instantly thought better of: When political scientist Larry Sabato wrote, “You have to admit, Biden is on fire,” referring to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s debate performance against Republican Paul Ryan in October 2012, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn retweeted it. And then deleted it 11 seconds later.

Other examples of this genre include Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s deletion of this somewhat cryptic tweet about men and war a minute after posting it, while New York Democratic congressional candidate Nate McMurray did the same for this hot take about The Buffalo News in October 2020.

In other cases, it was harder to tell why a tweet was deleted. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, famous for his use of abbreviations and sparsely worded posts, is a known booster of the University of Northern Iowa, his alma mater. In November 2021 he posted that UNI was trying to recruit a local volleyball player. Fourteen hours later, he deleted the tweet. That athlete did, in fact, sign with UNI a year later.

As Twitter grew in popularity among politicians, its use became more professional, with staffers posting news and pictures. That led to some interesting conversations as staffers who had access to multiple accounts, including their own personal ones, sometimes clicked the wrong button. I’ve gotten more than one email or phone call asking if a tweet posted by mistake to the wrong account and then deleted could be removed entirely from Politiwoops. (Answer: We don’t do that.)

In December 2020, I got an email from someone who worked on the campaign of then-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. The congressman had posted and deleted a tweet that showed up on Politwoops, and would we consider removing it? It’s very rare that we would do that — that’s the whole point of the site — but when I brought up the deleted tweet I saw why he was asking: Maloney had mistakenly sent a public tweet that should have been a direct message, because it included his personal cell phone number. After some conversation, we decided to redact the number.

You can sometimes tell when it’s the actual politician and not a staffer who has posted a deleted tweet. If there’s swearing involved, it’s usually the politician. One of the basic conventions of politician Twitter is that swearing is usually a bad idea, but if you’re going to do it, don’t do it from your official government account, like Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., did last summer. (And probably don’t lash out at random users, either.)

After the 2016 election, when Twitter became an important part of fundraising for political campaigns, I started to notice a very strange pattern: some accounts, especially long-shot candidates running against high-profile incumbents, dramatically increased the number of their deletions. A good example of this was Kim Mangone, a California Democrat then running against McCarthy for a House seat. Mangone’s deletions consist mostly of her own retweets, which seems like a weird thing to do until you discover that Twitter prevents users from reposting identical tweets or retweets over and over in a short time span. The only way around that restriction is to delete the earlier post and then repost it.

Perhaps the most interesting political deleter is Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat active on the platform. Like many of his colleagues, Schatz deleted typos and some retweets of others’ posts. But he often posted an informal message — almost always without a link or mentioning other accounts — that gave you a glimpse into his actual thinking. Here’s an example where Schatz could have tagged some of the pundits he was criticizing, but didn’t. And another one in that vein. Or this one with early COVID advice on mask-wearing. Sometimes he’d even acknowledge the deletions, or provide an explanation for doing it. Most politicians do not do this.

Other senators are famous for their folksier tweets — Grassley excels at this — and there are some lawmakers who can be equally blunt on the platform. But I’d like to believe that I learned something about how Schatz thinks that would be hard for me to know otherwise, given that we’ve never met.

That’s one of the things I’ll miss most about running Politwoops: getting a glimpse behind the carefully crafted images that politicians present to the public. ProPublica would be happy to continue running this service, so if anyone at Twitter wants to help out, please get in touch. That includes you, Elon. 

politwoops@propublica.org