Southern Baptists To Wimmenfolk: You Ain’t Welcome Here:
Two summers ago, an insurgent group of ultraconservative Southern Baptists branded themselves as pirates, vowing to “take the ship” of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and steer it farther to the right on issues like sexuality and race.
They were determined to halt what they saw as rising liberalism and drift from biblical truth. Many were outraged that one of their most prominent churches had ordained three women. Opponents pushed back, arguing that a spirit of welcome could help stem declining membership.
Now, the ultraconservatives are seizing power, and the ship is beginning to turn.
The dramatic fight that played out this week in New Orleans at the Southern Baptists’ annual convention, where delegates moved to purge women from church leadership, provides an early look into the psyche of much of evangelical America and the cultural direction of a key Republican voting bloc ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The crackdown on women is, on its face, about biblical interpretation. But it also stems from growing anxieties many evangelicals have about what they see as swiftly changing norms around gender and sexuality in America.
Can you say ‘planned obsolescence’? Keep on doing what you’re doing.
Grad Student Uncovers Largest Known Slave Auction In American History. 600 human beings, all auctioned at the same time:
““This day, the 24th instant, and the day following, at the North Side of the Custom-House, at 11 o’clock, will be sold, a very valuable GANG OF NEGROES, accustomed to the culture of rice; consisting of SIX HUNDRED.”
Until Davila’s discovery, the largest known slave auction in the U.S. was one that was held over two days in 1859 just outside Savannah, Georgia, roughly 100 miles down the Atlantic coast from Davila’s home. At a racetrack just outside the city, an indebted plantation heir sold hundreds of enslaved people. The horrors of that auction have been chronicled in books and articles, including The New York Times’ 1619 Project and “The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History.” Davila grabbed her copy of the latter to double-check the number of people auctioned then.
She fired off an email to a mentor, Bernard Powers, the city’s premier Black history expert. Now professor emeritus of history at the College of Charleston, he is founding director of its Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and board member of the International African American Museum, which will open in Charleston on June 27.
If anyone would know about this sale, she figured, it was Powers.
Yet he too was shocked. He had never heard of it. He knew of no newspaper accounts, no letters written about it between the city’s white denizens.
“The silence of the archives is deafening on this,” he said. “What does that silence tell you? It reinforces how routine this was.”
Native Americans Win In Key Supreme Court Case. Only Thomas and Alito voted against them:
Native Americans, tribal leaders and top Democrats hailed the US supreme court’s decision on Thursday to uphold federal protections for Native American children against removal from their tribal communities for fostering or adoption.
Following the announcement of the court’s 7-2 decision, several tribal leaders commended the supreme court’s ruling, calling it a “major victory for Native tribes, children, and the future of our culture and heritage”.
Too early to tell, but I’m beginning to wonder if the relentless extremism of Thomas and Alito, along with Thomas’ ethical toxicity, is driving the Trump justices more towards the (all things are relative) center.
What Do Biden, Pat Benatar And Satan Have In Common? They’re all targets in the latest bizarre rant from Ted Cruz:
“I don’t think Senate Democrats, if you had video of Joe Biden murdering children dressed as the devil under a full moon while singing Pat Benatar, they still wouldn’t vote to convict.”
Cruz may have been referring to Benatar’s 1980 track “Hell Is For Children,” which caused the song’s title to trend on Twitter.
But the lyrics aren’t about the devil claiming children, as Cruz seems to think.
It’s a song against child abuse.
Idiot From Delaware Building Trades Opposes Electric Vehicles. I know, I know, ‘idiot’ and ‘Delaware Building Trades’ is a redundancy:
Delaware’s extreme proposal to blindly follow California’s ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles in 2035 could change the way Delawareans travel in the future. According to a recent poll, banning traditional vehicles is unacceptable to a majority of Delawareans who recognize they are unable to afford electric vehicles (EVs) and charging stations, and that the state lacks supporting infrastructure. They also know thousands of union jobs supporting working families will be lost while bolstering foreign adversaries that control EV parts and production.
Speaking Of Idiots–Philly Dem. Party Boss Threatens To Kick Ward Leaders Out–if they back Working Families Party candidates in November:
Philadelphia’s Democratic City Committee is bracing for another round of recriminations as party chair Bob Brady warns against supporting third-party candidates in November’s general election.
Brady, in a stern letter this week to ward leaders and committee members, said the party’s bylaws call for their ejection from those posts if they back anyone but a Democrat in November.
The letter didn’t mention the Working Families Party, a progressive group gaining local momentum, but it’s clear that drives Brady’s warning.
Democrats can be ejected, Brady wrote, for helping third-party candidates get on the ballot, giving them money, electioneering, or helping to turn out the vote to support them.
The letter caused a stir in the party ranks, though Brady told Clout the feedback he received was all positive.“We can’t have people cutting Democrats,” Brady said, adding that the Working Families Party “can win on their own instead of winning with Democratic votes.”
The progressives are aiming for two of the seven Council at-large seats that are reserved in the city’s Home Rule Charter for members not in the majority party. Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-1 in Philly.
In other words, there’s no ‘Democrats cutting Democrats’ here. It’s about a weakened Party strongman trying to dictate to his dwindling zombified supporters. Have I mentioned the phrase ‘planned obsolescence’ lately?
What do you want to talk about?