What are the standards for the Victoria Advocate?

This is a follow-up to my coverage of the shameful behavior of the Victoria Advocate’s relatively new owner, Carpenter Media Group, dealing with properties in Alaska.

There is more to the Alaska saga. Not only has the story of these brave journalists gone viral and international, but the Alaska Press Club has sided with the reporters and editors who stood for real journalism ethics. The press club’s Oct. 13, 2025 statement minced no words, calling out CMG for violating “ethical journalism standards.”

The statement, and some of the news coverage, noted that the CMG bosses rationalized their interference by claiming the story failed to meet its standards. And that brings us to our local CMG-owned newspaper. The lead story on the front page announced that DeTar Health System will have a new chief executive soon. The story left out why the previous CEO left, a tidbit that’s important for the context. Readers should have been reminded that Bernard Leger left to semi-retire in his home state of Louisiana. That would have made it clear Leger jumped and wasn’t pushed and no cloud of possible shame covered his departure.

So, with a bit of irony, let’s evaluate the Victoria Advocate’s standards. If you look at the third paragraph of the story, it’s lifted word-for-word from DeTar’s news release.

Same for the last paragraph of the Advocate’s story.

Reading those two paragraphs in the Advocate gives the clear impression that the reporter talked to Dr. Stevens and Brett Maxfield. But did she? The Advocate has shamelessly published content from others in the community and properly gave the authors a byline. So, why not just run in the news release that way as the paper has done for others? Or, what would have the shame been to publish the news release with the standard attribution of “staff report?”

I have to wonder why the cub reporter wasn’t given the guidance to call DeTar and/or Dr. Stevens to go a little deeper. Or to ask Maxfield if he’s led at a teaching hospital and what insights he might have to bring to Victoria. She could even have been guided to properly add to the attribution “in a news release,” which would have absolved her of appropriating the copy as her own; or, if a competent editor might have made the same modification while explaining the reason for doing so. Instead, I am left to wonder what the Advocate’s or CMG’s journalistic standards are now that not only accept as poor journalism, but also would put a cub reporter’s reputation at risk like this because this is plagiarism.

I’d like us all to keep in mind what the Alaska Press Club wrote in the penultimate paragraph of its statement, “We should not accept these actions by Carpenter Media as normal. They threaten the ability of journalists to serve as watchdogs for our communities.”

Victoria Advocate has lost its journalistic soul

A few weeks ago, I predicted that the Carpenter Media Group would let the I-am-a-Christian fundamentalist managing editor turn the Victoria Advocate into a right-wing Christian propaganda sheet. And, that the news content would be fluff and non-controversial content. I looks like that’s exactly what has happened.

The weekend edition has Mark Ward’s story about Jesus’ occupation — note, please the incorrect form of possesive for words ending is “s.” The lovely photo accompanying the column depicts Jesus as clearly a white man. Is that surprising? I guess not given the fundy-Christian view that white people are the only ones who count. Next we have Doug Stringer’s long-long story on the Holy Spirit. Then we have two local pastors providing us with musings in their regular columns: Andrew Schroer and Michael Graff of the Graff family’s business also known as Faith Family Church.

I want to remind y’all that the managing editor touted his membership Faith Family Church right out of the box last year. And, it’s the home of one of Michael Cloud, our congressman and the Freedom Caucus puppet who takes his orders from the oligarch machine. Here’s what’s important to understand now. CMG, based in Tuscaloosa, Ala., tipped its hand as Trumpers with the betrayal of journalistic ethics, standards and common courtesy by selling out to a right-wing, two-bit Alaska state legislator. I covered this in my Oct. 3 blog post, but the legislator’s problem was that its coverage of a memorial for the murdered Charlie Kirk wasn’t fawning enough. You see, the Alaska reporter accurately described Kirk as a “Christian Nationalist icon.” When CMG pulled the story, rewrote it without talking to the reporter and editors and then republished it, the ethical and brave journalists resigned in protest.

As for the other content, I’ll use this past Friday’s story on the League of Women Voters  to illustrate how the Advocate has given up any pretense of newswriting or evidence that an editor processes copy before publication. Or, maybe the editor did look at the copy but missed some basic issues. One example is the caption on the photograph with Friday’s story about the League of Women Voters guide. Here it is, “ Glenda Nickle and Sande Hafer, a member of the Victoria League of Women Voters, hand out voter guides at Texas A&M-Victoria on Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Glenda Nickle).” Can you see the mistake? Right, it’s the use of the singular noun when referring to two people. I don’t know who wrote the cutline (that’s journo-speak for a photo’s caption), but an editor should have caught it.

In the same story, the first reference to the League of Women Voters is fine — no quibble with the high school-level tone. The second and third references are correctly abbreviated while the reference to Ms. Nickle as president fully spells the organization’s name. Not only is the inconsistency but it’s also not writing tightly. I am not going to deconstruct the whole article, but I’ll point out that using The Associated Press style isn’t evident and I see no indication that the Advocate’s “style” is superior.

Finally, printing news releases verbatim and giving the author the byline is beyond the pale. Truly. The confirmation of Christian Hardigree as the new president for Texas A&M-Victoria is news, but the byline is Chris Bryan, vice chancellor of marketing and communications. Will the Advocate’s illustrious managing editor assign a reporter to interview Ms. Hardigree after she has settled in? Will the Advocate let other candidates post their announcements with bylines? 

We no longer have a newspaper in Victoria. We have a Christian-nationalist supporting propaganda rag and the community is all the poorer for it.

Ethical journalists leave Carpenter Media outlets over MAGAT editing

 Well, well, well. If there was any doubt that the second oldest newspaper in Texas has become a MAGA-supporting rag, we now have a New York Times article and two stories from Alaska Public Media to thank for confirming it. Victoria, we too, are part of the new corporate owners propaganda ecosystem. Harsh words to be sure. Bear with me on this.

The stories out of Alaska report that four journalist from three newspapers have resigned penning a joint letter to Mary Kemmis, a senior vice president and group publisher of — are y’all ready for this? — Carpenter Media Group. That’s right. It’s the same outfit that bought The Victoria Advocate. What happened was that the corporate bosses caved to a clearly right-wing know-nothing Alaska state representative over the content of an article covering a Sept. 17 memorial service for Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur murdered last month. What was Rep. Sarah Vance’s beef with the newspapers’ story about Kirk’s memorial?

Vance objected to the original story’s second paragraph correctly characterizing Kirk as a “Christian Nationalist icon” and accurately reporting that Kirk was a defender of racist views. Even worse, in my view, she did so on her official stationery and her official Facebook page, according to Eric Stone of APM. Further, Stone reported, “Vance accused the paper of bias and said she was ‘aware of’ a campaign to boycott Homer News advertising.”

On her official Facebook page (yes, I checked), she called the description of Kirk as “vile and slanderous.” Never mind, poor Sarah, but you can’t slander a dead person.

Clearly, this type of political meddling is unacceptable. Bowing to pressure such as that wielded by Vance and others of her ilk places the First Amendment at risk. In the current political climate, honest and accurate reporting are facing a clear and present danger.

Which, of course, brings us back to Victoria where we can mourn the death of a newspaper and start referring to it as a propaganda outlet. In this climate, it seems fitting to replace the editorial page quote of our First Amendment with a quote attributed to the Third Reich’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, stating, “It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.”

I doubt, with an installed a MAGA supporting managing editor, we’ll see this kind of upheaval here. After all, he has joined with the other MAGATs in canonizing Kirk as their martyred saint. Just see his column admiring Kirk as he joins the well-known chorus of repeating lies over and over and over until people start to believe them. Yes, the Advocate is now part of the Christo-fascist echo chamber purveying fêtes, fluff and political falsehoods.

I’ll do my own repetition: I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again, Victoria deserves better.

The retribution begins

 The New York Times is covering Donald Trump’s retribution tour fairly well. Tyler Pager’s analysis that Trump is weaponizing the Justice Department to exact revenge against his perceived enemies. At the top of that “enemies list” is James B. Comey, the former FBI director. Trump’s beef with Comey centers on the role of Russia’s infiltration of the 2016 presidential campaign. Comey isn’t the only potential target. He’s pushing the Justice Department to go after Sen. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif. and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, George Soros and others.

 The Sept. 27 story prompted me to reflect on my long-term concern that I don’t see a peaceful end to the oligarch take-over of our country. My post, once again, referenced “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. I’ve said for the past five years that this book has markedly changed my frame of reference about our politics but hasn’t gotten much traction in my world. However, in this case, it got some; my comment became one of the “Reader Picks.”

 

I wrote : “Let's face reality and stop debating the trivia. Every legal matter involving Trump will, at Trump's behest, go to SCOTUS. And with the six totally corrupt ‘justices’ on the bench, the court will rule in his favor. The oligarchs have outflanked our system and we are no longer a free people. See “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical  Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University  historian Nancy MacLean. Can anyone tell me how to stop this peacefully? 'Cause I can't see this without violence.”

 

Two other posters responding to my post gratified me. One, with the screen name “Wobbly Biped,” called MacLean’s book “a masterpiece.” As you can expect, I agree. But “Happy Rabbit” posted a scenario that I’ve wanted out in the open for discussion. It’s the proverbial elephant in the room. Here’s Happy Rabbit’s post: “In a post yesterday, one commenter pointed out the following (and I'm paraphrasing): there is only one question left in this entire nightmare - which side will the military take?”

 

The question is timely, isn’t it?

 

National media are reporting that Trump and Defense Secretary spoke to a gathering of the U.S. military’s top brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Tuesday, Sept. 30. According to reporters Emily Davies and Matt Viser in their Washington Post story, “President Donald Trump delivered a meandering address to an unprecedented gathering of the country’s top military leaders, railing against his predecessor, celebrating tariffs and floating the idea of using American cities as a training ground for the military as he painted a picture of the U.S. under attack ‘from within.’”

 

The story points out that Trump is trying to weaponize the military against his enemies, which is the modus operandi many of us predicted. Thankfully, the military leadership gathered there seemed not to be amused — or pleased, according to the story. Maybe this telegraphs what side the military will take. We can only hope.

 

Here are the links:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/politics/trump-comey-revenge.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/politics/trump-comey-revenge.html#commentsContainer

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/30/trump-quantico-military-generals/

Local newspaper looks complicit in supporting the MAGA movement

Now that I have escaped the almost two-week long rabbit hole of rebuilding my computer, I want to prompt discussion with my Victoria friends and journalist colleagues about the current state of local news. I’ve lived in Victoria slightly more than eight years and have seen our local newspaper, The Victoria Advocate, deteriorate to the point that it’s barely readable. The Advocate’s struggles certainly reflect the industry’s financial pain to some degree; but the real problem for this, the second-oldest newspaper in Texas, is its management’s incompetence and ideology.

After having gone through several editors, we now have some of the most pathetic content I’ve ever seen in a commercial product. Most of the staff-produced copy is either fluff or it’s proselytizing for Christianity. It’s the right-wing version of Christianity — the MAGA/Trump version in which the racism, misogyny, hate and cruelty are front and center. It’s clearly not the kind, gentle and loving Christianity of the inclusive denominations such as the United Church of Christ or the Episcopal Church in America.

One might ask what has triggered my need to discuss the Advocate at this juncture. Well, the answer lies in how, Managing Editor Shawn Akers responded to the death of the right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk. His column, posted September 12, starts with the asinine sentence, “I must admit, I was a fan of Charlie Kirk’s. I admire his high level of intelligence, and I admired his intentions when he visited college campuses to engage students about life and cultural subjects.”

That sentence shows the Akers’ blindness to reality and/or willful ignorance and/or lack of critical thinking skills. Read what Kirk spews: racism, misogyny and hate. It’s further in the article, however, that Akers finally drops his charade and gives lie to his claim that his religion doesn’t affect his role at the newsroom’s helm — a claim he has made since I critiqued his introductory column in September 2024. (I can’t find the column on line any more leading me to wonder if disappearing the content reflects a calculated move or incompetence.) More and more, the Advocate is becoming a propaganda outlet for the brand of fundamental Christianity that, in cherry picking Bible verse, misses all the good things that Jesus said.

To heap praise on a fascist and participate in the the right-wing game plan to turn Kirk into a martyred saint was the last straw; on the Advocate’s Facebook post of this column, I called for Akers to resign. And I sent an email to Justin Wilcox, the Advocate’s regional publisher for the Carpenter Media Group, asking him to tell me why I should spend $15/four weeks of my retiree fixed income to expose myself to such disgraceful journalism. I’ve posted the email to my blog as a supplement to this post. I’ve gotten no direct response from Wilcox, which would have been the professional thing to do. Instead, Akers wrote me to excoriate me for going over his head. That, I thought, was a strange turn of phrase considering I don't work for the Advocate. His email and my response are also on my blog so you can, if you wish, fully understand what, in part, this post is about.

Which leads me to another matter related to Kirk’s death. The Christo-fascists are weaponizing his killing to move us closer to the 19^th Century nation the billionaires crave. The attack on dissent and the media and other institutions not supporting the oligarchs’ agenda, using their Cheetos-colored front man Donald Trump, is a scary start to what comes next. The violence against Kirk is giving the excuse for the Christo-fascists to engage in the violence they so badly crave. This is right out of the German Nazi playbook of the 1930s. Look for language coming soon from the “conservatives” to justify more force than the already deployed ICE version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts offer. Count on it.

Responses to Kirk’s death fall clearly along ideological lines. The authoritarian attack on people like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert would make Joseph Goebbels proud. But that’s just part of the story. I keep telling people to read “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. In this book the reader will find the source of and inspiration for the MAGA movement. MacLean’s work also shows that the blueprint for Project 2025, with a clear plan for violence, began in the 1950s. All the turmoil we’re seeing this week — lionizing Kirk, using the large corporations to stifle dissent, perverting the media landscape to support the MAGA movement — all this is part of the plan to normalize the Christo-fascism being imposed on us.

The MAGA movement will push boundaries and norms. Trump and his minions will ignore court orders and dare people to push back. They will also continue to litigate everything fully knowing that they own the U.S. Supreme Court. And that brings me back to the Advocate’s and Akers’ complicity in pushing content that normalizes the alt-right agenda, openly supports Christo-fascism and ignores information that would reveal what’s really happening.

Kirk’s murder was wrong on every level. And so was the assassination of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat. Hypocrisy from MAGA is now in full view because we heard nothing but crickets about her death as well as the death of her husband and dog.

Violence has no place in the ideal of the United States. MAGA has already trashed that notion. We can have peaceful demonstrations, petitions and elections. But if the Christo-fascists and MAGA ignore the elections (remember January 6?) and the complicit media propagandizes instead of reporting the facts, then where do we go from here?

An email exchange

 The first, from me to Justin Wilcox on Sept. 16: Dear Mr. Wilcox,

I write to ask your help in justifying spending $15 every four weeks for access to the Victoria Advocate’s website. You see, as a retired journalist and an openly progressive Episcopalian, I am aghast that Shawn Akers, the current managing editor, will face no consequences for his column praising Charlie Kirk. That I believe that Kirk and the MAGA movement are a clear and present danger to this country is irrelevant.

What is relevant? Akers’ column is a paean to misogyny, racism and fascism, because those are the things Kirk stood for. Further, the Advocate has become a proselytizing Christian MAGA propaganda sheet. The current news content gives lie to Mr. Akers’ assertions that his personal views, as expressed in his introductory column, would influence what passes for news judgment. But it has. And the effect on credibility can’t be ignored.

And if that it isn’t enough, the Advocate carries a regular column by Jim Graff of Faith Family Church, where Mr. Akers makes his spiritual home. It looks unseemly to me but maybe I’m influenced by my 22 years as a journalist. I don’t suppose it’s worth mentioning that Graff’s columns suffer from a lack of fact checking. Add to that, regular columns by Andrew Schroer and from Mark Ward Sr. are more of the overkill. By the way, take note that Mr. Akers’ byline is on Mr. Ward’s Sept. 6 piece, a reflection of sloppiness or incompetence. Take your pick.

Which, of course, leads me to ask: Does anyone edit the locally produced copy? Is there a current copy of The Associated Press Stylebook in the newsroom? Lack of consistent AP style, mistakes in grammar, poorly crafted stories and, sometimes, outright incomprehensibility rule the day. This critique also holds for content from the PR offices of Victoria College, Texas A&M-Victoria and others whose copy is published as though the submitters were a staff member. Now, I admit, we can let some errors slide in the puff pieces that now populate the Advocate’s pages, but what about that rare article where an error is material? Consider the consequences.

I know that reading books is largely out of favor. However, some in-depth knowledge of the MAGA movement would go a long way to shaping people’s understanding of what’s going on now. Making Kirk into a martyr and then excoriating those who don’t agree is right out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook. And, it’s happening right before our very eyes. If you have any desire to understand where we are in the grand scheme of things, read “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. It’s a start and if you want more, let me know. I have a list of books that bring this Christo-fascism movement into proper focus.

The journalism mission statement for the Carpenter Media Group is high-sounding. But, where is this mission operatoinalized? How is it deployed in Victoria? Inquiring minds want to know. And, again, please tell what value I’m getting from my $15 per four weeks.

  From Shawn Akers, with the Subject line "I thought we were going to friends" (sic): But apparently you see fit to go over my head instead of talking to me about it. That's your prerogative for sure. I appreciate you reading the paper, and thanks for your comments.

Finally, from me to Akers and Wilcox: Shawn,

I assume your email is the result of Justin Wilcox forwarding my email to him to you. That said, first, I don’t know why you thought we were going to be friends. Our worldviews don’t differ over petty issues. We are judged by the company we keep and the values we articulate or endorse. Those are so far apart that a friendship is impossible. The closest word to label what existed before your piece on Kirk would be détente.

But your treating Kirk like a hero or distinguished citizen was too much. Like many on alt-right, your article tried to walk a fine line between how Kirk delivered his message and what his message actually was. And the statements accurately attributed to him show him to be a racist, misogynistic unchristian provocateur. The media labeling him as a conservative activist is akin to calling a hurricane a breeze. Further, and I hope you see the irony, those who have pointed out Kirk’s real positions are now being systematically attacked by those on the far right and those with the power to do so are supporting arrests, job loses and doxxing. Just look at Greg Abbott’s reactions to the Texas Tech situation. And, I might remind you that several years ago, Abbott condoned shooting journalists. No, you do agree with him and saying the issue is no more that style rather than substance — well, that dog don’t hunt.

As for going over your head, you do know I don’t work for you? Right? And you tell me what talking to you about it would accomplish.

You know, I recommended “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean to Mr. Wilcox. If you really want to understand what this divisiveness is about and why the leaders of this movement want it as a divide and conquer technique, MacLean’s work explains it. “Democracy in Chains” also makes clear that the violence is part of the plan. That’s being deployed by ICE’s sweeps and Homeland Security’s open attacks on journalists.

Then, read: “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer;  “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right” by Anne Nelson;  “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart;  and, “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.

If you read these books, you might open your mind to that fact that the billionaire class behind this has this country right where it wants it: on the ropes in a cold civil war, at least for now.. The endgame is a Convention of the States under Article V of the United States Constitution and rolling back our foundational document to the 1850s. It will leave only two functions for government — militarized law enforcement and national defense. And a preview of the reason for those two functions is now demonstrated as Trump violates posse comitatus in deploying troops as he has in Washington, Memphis  and, as a new test bed, Chicago.

As for my critique of the content of the Advocate, I stand behind it.

Barbarians run Tennessee death machine

At about 10 a.m. EDT, the state of Tennessee use an overdose of pentobarbital to kill Byron Black for murdering his girlfriend and her two daughters. But this state-ordered killing was far different than any other lethal injection in thee United States.

Black, who suffered from dementia, brain damage, kidney disease and allegedly intellectually disability, had another medical condition that was the nexus of this controversial execution — congestive heart failure. And because of that disease, Black also had an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator. The device would shock the heart when it detected cardiac problems and those shocks designed to restart the heart are known to be painful.

Several attempts to get a court to order the device be disabled ahead of the lethal injection ended with the Tennessee Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the killing could proceed with the device active. Bill Lee, the Tennessee governor, refused to intervene. As The Associate Press reported, “Byron Black was put to death despite uncertainty about whether the device would shock his heart when the lethal chemicals took effect.”

In my view, “uncertainty” was the wrong word. There was no doubt that the shocks would be painful and would be triggered as the pentobarbital took effect. After the execution, The Nahville Tennessean live streamed a press conference at which the every media witnesses reported Black said, “It's hurting so bad.” They also reported Black showed other signs of discomfort.

If you’ve read my blog and posts, you know I am against the death penalty on principle, as my rhetoric here reflects. That doesn’t mean I side with the perpetrator or convicted inmate. Black’s crime was heinous. But so was Tennessee’s ignoring the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

Deep in the Pockets

Is violence inevitable?

 As the Trump administration continues to roughshod over our nation, some people in the media continue to use the phraseology of “Trump did this …” or “Trump did that … .” thereby creating the illusion that Trump is fully in charge. We are, therefore, misdirected by failing to recognize the coordinated attack, the result of decades of planning.

Why is this important?

Because the so-called “flood the zone” tactics are overwhelming our ability to respond. And, because the plutocrats, oligarchs and corrupt Republicans are so secure in their positions that they are now defying any sanction or court order trying to rein them in. Some have noted a quote attributed to Andrew Jackson, though it may be someone else, when he was a similar dictatorial president. In responding to a Supreme Court ruling that would have thwarted his genocide of the Cherokee people, he said, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

The Trump administration is taking this approach, even in defiance of the GOP-owned Supreme Court. It’s already doing so in the mistaken deportation case. However, anticipate that this will be an outlier. SCOTUS will ultimately back this fascist regime.

It’s critical to understand this situation. Historically, the federal government’s Executive Branch has been tasked with enforcing a court ruling — often the U.S. Marshall’s service. Who runs the the Executive Branch? Yep. The oligarch-backed Trump administration that has already, as part of its tactics in place well before the 2024 election, appointed loyalists in key positions. In short, the administration can ignore court rulings without fear of enforcement.

In concert with this strategy, the Trump administration has employed other tactics. One is freezing or cutting off federal funds of the target entity. Another is lifting regulations and thus the guardrails protecting us from bad actors, such as removing rules of the Clean Air Act, for example. His minions and media friends have combined their efforts to attack the media by hassling those outlets that displease him. Further, as it rips government agencies out by their roots and purposely creating chaos to destroy them, the will of the oligarchy is fulfilled.

If things aren’t frightening enough, these right-wingers are anticipating, nay even spoiling, for violence. The administration and governor allies like Greg Abbott have lifted restrictions on gun ownership and freed members of hoc militias like the Proud Boys and other insurrectionists of the January 6 rehearsal. To thwart opposition in the 2026 mid-terms, there is continuing efforts to suppress voters.

This is bleak, made worse by the feckless leadership of the Democratic Party and its current failure to launch any meaningful opposition. All we see on social media is begging for more money from old guard Democratic organizations or individuals. The only legitimate fight now comes from the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders joined with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in holding rallies across the country. These two are walking the talk. David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, is also taking action. He was elected vice chair of the Democratic National Committee a few months ago and he and his allies are working to unseat old guard Democrats, calling them old, ineffective and out-of-touch. Some of the old guard fear that shifting the party to the left is an existential threat but their embrace of some perceived middle ground clearly isn’t working.

So, where does this catalog of angst leave us? I know no one, especially those on the left saying it out loud, but how can this nation stop a fascist dictatorship without violence?

Trump and Abbott, in particular among fascist governors, are preaching violence. Remember how Abbott brandished firearms and suggested shooting journalists? Do you really think that was only performative? No, it was an open invitation. So, one question is how far can the anti-GOP rallies go before the faux-militias are unleashed?

Or, consider, with the top positions in the military, the Justice Department and elsewhere, how far is a bridge too far for the remaining staffers to show loyalty to their oaths to the Constitution and stage a military coup?

Even worse, what if these traitors in the nation want and are willing to foment a civil war?

Ask yourselves this: How much of a voter turnout and resultant victories will it take for the nation’s democracy to be restored and the traitors bought to justice?

Think about this between now and the upcoming mid-terms.

Jounalists are the last bulwark against fascism

It’s early Sunday morning and in the shadow of the White House Correspondents Association’s cowardice and after an initial scan of the news, some thoughts came to mind. As we know, words can be powerful, have meaning and consequences. All the reporting on Trump from any media not already captured by the right-wing power structure needs to change the way we/they’re writing about Trump. Instead of writing "Trump did xxxx," the phrasing should change to some form of this: “Trump, following the orders of his overlords did .…”

The same construction should be used with any administration official, including Elon Musk, as needed. Before you jump on me for being subjective and inaccurate, take into account these realities:

The “flooding the zone” executive orders were queued up well in advance of the 2024 election as part of Project 2525. Whether Trump lied that he knew about Project 2525 is irrelevant because the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and ALEC had already done the heavy lifting.

The reason Trump won the 2016 election was not only the Democrats’ long-term fecklessness, but also because of the deals made to get Mike Pence on the ticket. This has been documented. Why wouldn’t a similar wash-rinse-repeat be far fetched?

It doesn’t matter if you believe Musk’s cybercrimed to steal the election. What we really need to know is how the Democratic Party leadership have failed the progressives of this country for 70 years.

While the WHCA fell over from a light verbal breeze from the White House, I know other journalists are working hard to protect the Fourth Estate — the one institution protected by the First Amendment. It’s no accident the Founders set up our Constitution this way. Looking at the political landscape now, the media and its brave practitioners are the last bulwark against a Fascist takeover of our country.unday morning and in the shadow of the White House Correspondents Association’s cowardice and after an initial scan of the news, some thoughts came to mind. As we know, words can be powerful, have meaning and consequences. All the reporting on Trump from any media not already captured by the right-wing power structure needs to change the way we/they’re writing about Trump. Instead of writing "Trump did xxxx," the phrasing should change to some form of this: “Trump, following the orders of his overlords did .…”

The same construction should be used with any administration official, including Elon Musk, as needed. Before you jump on me for being subjective and inaccurate, take into account these realities:

The “flooding the zone” executive orders were queued up well in advance of the 2024 election as part of Project 2525. Whether Trump lied that he knew about Project 2525 is irrelevant because the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and ALEC had already done the heavy lifting.

The reason Trump won the 2016 election was not only the Democrats’ long-term fecklessness, but also because of the deals made to get Mike Pence on the ticket. This has been documented. Why wouldn’t a similar wash-rinse-repeat be far fetched?

It doesn’t matter if you believe Musk’s cybercrimed to steal the election. What we really need to know is how the Democratic Party leadership have failed the progressives of this country for 70 years.

While the WHCA fell over from a light verbal breeze from the White House, I know other journalists are working hard to protect the Fourth Estate — the one institution protected by the First Amendment. It’s no accident the Founders set up our Constitution this way. Looking at the political landscape now, the media and its brave practitioners are the last bulwark against a Fascist takeover of our country.

How the Oligarchs Have Won

 I want my friends to understand some things about the Musk-Trump administration. If you’ve followed me or my blog, you’ll know my discussion here is based on monitoring the Trump activity since 2015 and from reading books and other materials, starting in 2020 with “Democracy in Chains.” I’ve posted this list so many times so I am not gong to repeat myself. What I’d like to do here is offer you some thoughts and reflections from having read these books.

First, please stop saying or stop agreeing with those who say Trump is stupid or an idiot or anything else to paint him as someone without mental faculties. He’s probably an idiot savant with his skills being grifting and cult-like persuasion. He is also a tool of the billionaire class — willingly or unwillingly or knowingly or unknowingly. It’s pretty clear he is also a Russian asset.

Second, he is not in this alone. An entire cabal of one-percenters support this destruction of our government. These libertarian oligarchs and plutocrats have fueled this government takeover with billions of dollars, much coming from but not limited to the fossil fuel industry. The network of this cabal is more widespread than most people know and includes billions of dollars, thousands of participants, thousands of meetings and hundreds of right-wing organizations.

Third, this is a 71-year effort starting with elite southern whites rebelling against Brown v Board of Education. The effort, supported by billions of dollars, has been sophisticated, stealthy and has allowed the right-wing libertarians to use the most up-to-date technology to further their goals. They’ve played the long game and every step toward their goals has been incremental enough to go unnoticed until it broke into the open fully with Trump’s election in 2016.

Fourth, the Democratic Party leadership and other progressives in the country not only failed to see what was happening but ignored the few who did see what was happening. In being so feckless, the party failed to muster its resources in order to expose and push back the stealth revolution. When Hillary Clinton said we are facing a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” the feckless party leadership blew off the warning as hyperbolic rhetoric. She was right and they were wrong. The Democratic Party has been a eunuch ever since.

Fifth, the Seven Mountain dominionists (one of the most visible being Ted Cruz) and Christian nationalists managed to infiltrate the evangelical, non-denomination Christian community. James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, (yes, even) Billy Graham and many more were manipulated or were manipulators to jump on the hot-button issues. The anti-LBGTQT, anti-abortion-pro-birth movement, purity culture and birth control were effective distractions for the real work at hand, although some of those in the so-called Jesus movement were sincere in their beliefs. Supported by the billionaire class behind this, a vast number of evangelical congregations and mega-churches violated the law by flat out endorsing right-wing candidates either from the pulpit or through other means. The goal is to grow a population of poor controllable masses.

Sixth, Texas and Florida have been the test beds for this radicalization. Along with the hot-button issues, the goal is to destroy the public education system, and in doing so, eliminate critical thinking skills for the masses. It will infuse curricula with revisionist history to eliminate the wall between church and state. And we know what church that will be and how Christian sharia law will unfold. The so-called parental choice is really a propaganda phrase for vouchers to build an elite educated base to undertake the real work of running industries and a country. It is also to further Christian-nationalist segregation and line the pockets of the education-industrial complex. Further, suppressing votes with obstacles and gerrymandering are part of this.

Seventh, the long-range effort to control the judiciary has largely succeeded. The U.S. Supreme Court is now fully corrupt and right-wing. So are many of the lower federal courts. While some of the ongoing lower court rulings are legitimate in overturning some of the Trump administrations activities, the concerns about the administration’s ignoring them will be moot. The guardrails are essentially gone with the oligarchs owning SCOTUS. The constitutional crisis won’t be the regime ignoring lower court orders nor in having no way to force compliance. The ongoing appeals will go to SCOTUS where the rulings will favor the oligarchs. One of the enablers of this takeover of the courts was Mitch McConnell when he was the Senate majority leader. Flying well below the radar, McConnell attended many of the Koch Industries right-wing briefings and benefited greatly from their contributions, as well as those from Russia.

Eighth, the right-wing oligarchs will also use violence to get what they want. The January 6, 2021 insurrection was a rehearsal. The Proud Boys and other right-wing militia are out there waiting for the call to arms, which is part explains the pardons for the insurrectionists. Just in the last few days I’ve heard rumblings that the Republicans who aren’t Trumpers are being intimidated. It’s more than the fear being primaried. Some are silent because of direct threats to them or their families in order to keep them in line. In short, the oligarchs own the United States Congress.

Ninth, following the Third Reich’s Joseph Goebbels, it’s chief propagandist, the attack on the First Amendment has ramped up. Of course, Trump himself has been beating on the press for years. But now, it’s in earnest. The White House Correspondents Association has traditionally controlled what media representatives attend briefings in the White House, but now the administration has ripped away that guardrail and is now favoring the right-wing echo chamber. Just this week, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos made clear where he stands and, along with spiking a presidential endorsement last year, he is making the Post’s opinion pages reflect the libertarian agenda. Real journalists are jumping ship. It’s probably the start of a campaign to shape the media to his will. And the BigMedia is also helping with its bread and circuses celebrity worship having been in place for years.

Tenth, there are actually two endgames. As we watch Elon Musk and the Trump administration dismantle other government departments, we have to realize that these libertarian oligarchs know some services are indispensable; e.g. air traffic control, NOAA and some public health functions. Don’t be fooled. These people are not stupid. Their plan will be to privatize these essential services so only those with wealth can afford them. The current moves are telegraphing this corruption with Musk already having billions in government contracts and reaching for more, such as the air traffic control program. Look for others to cash in. Musk and Bezos will benefit from space exploration and IT contracts. Koch Industries will benefit from mineral and fossil fuel extraction, And, so it goes. As for the regulatory programs to prevent pollution and other deleterious effects from industry, those will be destroyed.

The second end game is a Convention of the States under Article V of the United States Constitution to roll back our foundational document to the 1850s. It will leave only two functions for government — militarized law enforcement and national defense. Those priorities explain why police departments have been militarized over the past seven decades and why Trump is filling up the Pentagon and the military with loyalists. When enough people wake up and start resisting and rioting, the federal government and police forces are not only prepared but also will have aid from the right-wing militias.

Finally, I have yet to see or hear anyone proposing a way to resist and save our democracy.

Fundamentalist interpretaion of the Bible is Christo-fascist propaganda

 “The madman shouted in the marketplace and no one stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible,” Dag Hammarskjöld in 1957, “Markings” 1963.

Once again, Jim Graff, head honcho at Faith Family Church, plays loose and fast with some facts, this time about Charles Darwin and his work on evolution. Graff paints Darwin as a student for the Anglican ministry and that Darin later renounced his Christianity. But Darwin’s family were Unitarians and Darwin failed the entrance exam for the priest track at Christ College, Cambridge. Darwin never sought to be a clergyman. Graff is  launching an outright attack on Darwin, enlightenment, scientific thought and evolution.

“This man, Charles Darwin, later became the father of evolutionary thought and led many away from the faith he had once cherished," Graff asserts, making Darwin, science and intellect enemies of Christo-fascism.

It’s a common propaganda tactic to use literal interpretations of the Bible to misguide those who have healthy intellects. It is a purposeful lie about history and the Bible. If this fundamentalist outlook stays in its lane instead of trying to use the Bible to reject the scientific method and impose its views on others through our government, we’d be safe from the right-wing harm. But in his flock are some with influence and indoctrinating them with an anti-science world view is dangerous. So is pushing these beliefs into the public sphere. The managing editor of the local daily newspaper and our district’s representative in U.S. Congress are part of Graff’s flock. The managing editor has played coy on his politics, but he outed himself in his introductory column and has shaped the Victoria Advocate in his own image. Rep. Michael Cloud has made no secret of his political leanings. I have to wonder if these men are members of the Flat Earth Society.

Literalists believe that Christian faith and science are incompatible. They reject evolution and therefore believe God created the universe and Earth in six 24-hour days. In doing so, for example, the claim that Eve was made from Adam’s rib or the flood and Noah’s story are real events in history. These challenge the records of fossils, dendrochronology, carbon dating and other metrics. It’s a wonder that they even go to the doctor or use any of our modern conveniences.

However, there are ways to resolve this seeming conundrum. First is to recognize that there are various interpretations of the Bible. Second, that the Bible is more of an allegory than precise historical record. Third, explanations of natural phenomena were filtered through their era’s knowledge.

“Inherit the Wind,” the 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is important because it debunks the literalism of the Bible. It’s based on the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee. State law forbade teaching of “any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

Sound familiar? It should —- as the right-wing pushes fundamentalist Christianity into public schools here in Texas and throughout the nation. Can Graff, his flock and other fundamentalist churches deny their Christian Nationalism and their backing of a Christian curriculum?
 

“Inherit the Wind” rebuts biblical literalism using the Bible itself. In Genesis, the Bible states that God created light and darkness on the first day but the the sun and stars on the fourth day, but that meant the prior days could have millions of years in length. That clearly tells me the literalists are misguided. I doubt the Christian Nationalist curriculum will make the play or the two movies of “Inheret the Wind” part of the lesson plans. After all, critical thinking is dangerous to those who seek to control us and how we think.

It is some irony that I wrote this while watching a streamed service from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, my former parish in Amarillo. Bible literalism always brings to mind a prayer in our baptism liturgy asking God to grace our baptized “[With] ... an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”

And this is exactly what the play is about according to Jerome Lawrence. The play was not about science versus religion; it was to push back against McCarthyism. According to Lawrence, "we used the teaching of evolution as a parable, a metaphor for any kind of mind control [...] It's not about science versus religion. It's about the right to think,” as summarized in Wikipedia.

And thinking, critical or otherwise, is an anathema to the right-wing Christo-fascist oligarchy. Why? Because if the populace is educated and thinks critically, the lies and propaganda will be debunked and we have a chance for our to follow the teachings of Christ instead of perverting his message. We need to reject these lies and do that now.

Here we are

 I have been writing about the right-wing stealth takeover of our nation for five years — which was when I became aware of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award-winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. Dr. MacLean’s exposure of the far-reaching conspiracy should be required reading for every journalist in this country. That’s not to say others shouldn’t read. I point this out because a scan of the media ecosystem informs me the of Fourth Estate’s surprise and confusion at the Trump administration’s blitzkrieg on the federal government.

Co-president Elon Musk and Co-President Donald Trump are only the face of this right-wing libertarian movement. The radical attack on the progress in the Twentieth Century had its seeds planted with the white supremacy elites of the former Dixie states rebelling against the famous SCOTUS 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. It struck down school segregation by calling separate equal unconstitutionally unequal. God forbid that the children of the scions of former slave owners should rub shoulders with our Black brethren.

Fast forward to the 1970s, thanks to MacLean, we learn an obscure economist named James McGill Buchanan put forth “public choice theory,” a theory that essentially says “political decision-making and public economics. Traditional economic theory explains in great detail how consumers make decisions regarding purchase of goods, choice of work, product investments etc. In a series of studies, Buchanan has developed a corresponding theory of decision-making in the public sector. His best-known work is Calculus of Consent (1962), written in collaboration with Gordon Tullock,” according to www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1986/buchanan/facts/>.

The bottom-line was to change was to make governments smaller and to change the rules of the governing game, particularly the U.S. Constitution. And while Buchanan, who died in 2013, eventually was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986, he got the attention of Charles and David Koch in the 1970s. While plenty of right-wing movement occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, the real push came when Charles Koch and Buchanan teamed up.

MacLean’s book as a key paragraph that describes how Koch saw the world:

“That sense of intellectual and even ethical superiority to others may help explain why Charles Koch bypassed Milton Friedman to make common cause with the more uncompromising James Buchanan. Koch referred to Friedman and the rest of the post–Hayek Chicago school of economics he led, as well as to Alan Greenspan, as ‘sellouts to the system.’ Why? Because they sought ‘to make government work more efficiently when the true libertarian should be tearing it out at the root.’ They actually tried to help government deliver better results, which could only prolong the disease. Koch believed that only in its ‘radical, pure form,' without compromise, would the ideas ‘appeal to the brightest, most enthusiastic, most capable people.’ (Is it any wonder, then, that his allies would now rather bring down the government than improve it?)”

That paragraph explains what we’re seeing now. Yes, the radical right wants to destroy government and Trump and Musk are pawns of the billionaire class — willing pawns, of course — but only the tip of the iceberg. You can flesh out the story with these other books:

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer; 

“Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right” by Anne Nelson; 

“The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart; 

“Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez; and, 

“Hiding in Plain Sight” and “They Knew” by Sarah Kendzior.

There is no way I can summarize these six books into a cohesive whole. I can only lay out the information and emphasize that the media and Democratic Party have failed us. This long-term strategy needed strong pushback and full exposure in the 1960s. Instead, the juggernaut rolled on. And here we are. There will be no compromises from these fascists. The billionaire class has this country right where it wants it: on the ropes in a cold civil war. The endgame is a Convention of the States under Article V of the United States Constitution and rolling back our foundational document to the 1850s. It will leave only two functions for government — militarized law enforcement and national defense. 

An Important Sermon

 

While visiting YouTube, I stumbled across Washington the National Cathedral Feb. 9, 2025 Holy Eucharist. The sermon by The Very Rev. Randolph “Randy” Marshall Hollerith is brilliant. Please take the few minutes to listen to it as he subtlety and accurately condemns the fundamentalist-evangelical version of Christianity.

Can this country escape from Trump 2.0?

 As we sit on the cusp of something our nation has never seen — the inauguration of a convicted felon as president — a dear friend called my attention to the following final paragraph of an article in the Economist entitled“The Trump Doctrine” in the  January 18-24, 2025 issue:

“When the use of power is untethered by values, the result can be chaos on a global scale. If ultra-loyal, out-of-their-depth would-be disrupters like Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard are confirmed to head the Pentagon and intelligence, the chaos will spread on the inside, too. Mr. Trump is ill-suited to separate his own interests from his country’s, especially if his and his associates’ money is at stake, particularly as Elon Musk’s will be in China. By turning away from the values that made postwar America, Mr. Trump will be surrendering the single greatest strength that his despotic opponents do not possess.”

Every time I see something like this in the media I despair. These kinds of statements focusing on Donald Trump are either purposely distracting from what’s really going on or the major media are blissfully unaware of the nature of this time in our nation. Has no one read “Democracy in Chains?”

Or read a list of books that together and in sequence document how this right-wing stealth coup came to be and has taken over our country. I suspect many in my orbit are tired of me discussing these books and how the media really just doesn’t know WTF these books expose. Shall I go on?

Here we are now, with Trump the face of and puppet for the billionaire oligarchy. The founders of this conspiracy are James McGill Buchanan as the intellectual base and the Koch brothers implementing Buchanan’s vision. And if you understand the oligarchs’ strategy, including successfully co-opting the evangelicals to impose a Christian-nationalist theocracy on us, you’ll see that Texas and Florida have been the test beds for their plan, now known as Project 2025. With the triple win of the oligarch-captured Republican Party, Project 2025 will be implemented, but it’s only part of the endgame. The full fruit of our failure to stop this decades ago will be an Article V Constitutional Convention to massively roll back our our legal framework to the 1850s. This plan has flown under the radar for decades but is now in the open. This movement has its own website.

I am at a loss to see a peaceful way out of this — nor do I see how any violence can prevail when the right-wing reduces government to militarized law enforcement and “national defense.” Don’t look for anyone honoring Posse Comitatus. Don’t be surprised to see any protest shut down by force. Can you imagine A-10 Warthogs swooping down on our own people? Or tanks rolling through our cities spewing .50 caliber shots at protesters?

Oh, yes. We’ll have some waging a guerrilla war, picking off oligarchs and their proxies around the edges. Think about how much schadenfreude and folk heroism Luigi Mangione’s killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO exposed. You can be assured that sphincters were tightening and security procedures reviewed in corporate America but you can also be assured this won’t the only such act.

Yes, it’s a pessimistic and dystopian view. If you can see another scenario, I’d love to hear it.

Meanwhile, to refresh your memories, here is the list of books:

“Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America,” by award winning Duke University historian Nancy MacLean;
“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer;
“Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right” by Anne Nelson;
“The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” by Katherine Stewart;
“Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez; and,
“Hiding in Plain Sight” and “They Knew” by Sarah Kendzior.